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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Grammar of Freethought, by Chapman Cohen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Grammar of Freethought
+
+Author: Chapman Cohen
+
+Release Date: July 28, 2011 [EBook #36882]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GRAMMAR OF FREETHOUGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, S.D., and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
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+
+
+
+               A Grammar of
+               Freethought.
+
+                    BY
+              CHAPMAN COHEN.
+
+  (_Issued by the Secular Society, Ltd._)
+
+                  LONDON:
+            THE PIONEER PRESS,
+        61 FARRINGDON STREET, E.C. 4.
+
+                   1921.
+
+
+_The Publishers wish to express their obligation to Mr. H. Cutner for
+the very tasteful design which adorns the cover of this book._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                 PAGE
+
+      I.--OUTGROWING THE GODS                9
+
+     II.--LIFE AND MIND                     18
+
+    III.--WHAT IS FREETHOUGHT?              37
+
+     IV.--REBELLION AND REFORM              51
+
+      V.--THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHILD        61
+
+     VI.--THE NATURE OF RELIGION            72
+
+    VII.--THE UTILITY OF RELIGION           88
+
+   VIII.--FREETHOUGHT AND GOD              101
+
+     IX.--FREETHOUGHT AND DEATH            111
+
+      X.--THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT          123
+
+     XI.--EVOLUTION                        134
+
+    XII.--DARWINISM AND DESIGN             146
+
+   XIII.--ANCIENT AND MODERN               162
+
+    XIV.--MORALITY WITHOUT GOD.--I.        172
+
+     XV.--MORALITY WITHOUT GOD.--II.       182
+
+    XVI.--CHRISTIANITY AND MORALITY        193
+
+   XVII.--RELIGION AND PERSECUTION         204
+
+  XVIII.--WHAT IS TO FOLLOW RELIGION?      223
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It must be left for those who read the following pages to decide how far
+this book lives up to its title. That it leaves many aspects of life
+untouched is quite clear, but there must be a limit to everything, even
+to the size and scope of a book; moreover, the work does not aim at
+being an encyclopaedia, but only an outline of what may fairly be
+regarded as the Freethought position. Freethought, again, is too fluid a
+term to permit its teachings being summarized in a set creed, but it
+does stand for a certain definite attitude of mind in relation to those
+problems of life with which thoughtful men and women concern themselves.
+It is that mental attitude which I aim at depicting.
+
+To those who are not directly concerned with the attack on
+supernaturalism it may also be a matter of regret that so much of this
+work is concerned with a criticism of religious beliefs. But that is an
+accident of the situation. We have not yet reached that stage in affairs
+when we can afford to let religion alone, and one may readily be excused
+the suspicion that those who, without believing in it, profess to do so,
+are more concerned with avoiding a difficult, if not dangerous, subject,
+than they are with the problem of developing sane and sound methods of
+thinking. And while some who stand forward as leaders of popular thought
+fail to do their part in the work of attacking supernaturalistic
+beliefs, others are perforce compelled to devote more time than they
+would otherwise to the task. That, in brief, is my apology for
+concerning myself so largely with religious topics, and leaving almost
+untouched other fields where the Freethought attitude would prove
+equally fruitful of results.
+
+After all, it is the mental attitude with which one approaches a problem
+that really matters. The man or woman who has not learned to set mere
+authority on one side in dealing with any question will never be more
+than a mere echo, and what the world needs, now as ever, is not echoes
+but voices. Information, knowledge, is essential to the helpful
+consideration of any subject; but all the knowledge in the world will be
+of very little real help if it is not under the control of a right
+method. What is called scientific knowledge is, to-day, the commonest of
+acquisitions, and what most people appear to understand by that is the
+accumulation of a large number of positive facts which do, indeed, form
+the raw material of science. But the getting of mere facts is like the
+getting of money. The value of its accumulation depends upon the use
+made thereof. It is the power of generalization, the perception and
+application of principles that is all-important, and to this the grasp
+of a right method of investigation, the existence of a right mental
+attitude, is essential.
+
+The world needs knowledge, but still more imperatively it needs the
+right use of the knowledge that is at its disposal. For this reason I
+have been mainly concerned in these pages with indicating what I
+consider to be the right mental attitude with which to approach certain
+fundamental questions. For, in a world so distracted by conflicting
+teachings as is ours, the value of a right method is almost
+incalculable. Scepticism, said Buckle, is not the result, but the
+condition of progress, and the same may be said of Freethought. The
+condition of social development is the realization that no institution
+and no teaching is beyond criticism. Criticism, rejection and
+modification are the means by which social progress is achieved. It is
+by criticism of existing ideas and institutions, by the rejection of
+what is incapable of improvement, and by the modification of what
+permits of betterment, that we show ourselves worthy of the better
+traditions of the past, and profitable servants of the present and the
+future.
+
+  C. C.
+
+
+
+
+A GRAMMAR OF FREETHOUGHT.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+OUTGROWING THE GODS.
+
+
+One of the largest facts in the history of man is religion. If it were
+otherwise the justification for writing the following pages, and for
+attempting the proof that, so far as man's history is concerned with
+religion, it is little better than a colossal blunder, would not be
+nearly so complete. Moreover, it is a generalization upon which
+religionists of all classes love to dwell, or even to parade as one of
+the strongest evidences in their favour; and it is always pleasant to be
+able to give your opponent all for which he asks--feeling, meanwhile,
+that you lose nothing in the giving. Universality of belief in religion
+really proves no more than the universality of telling lies. "All men
+are liars" is as true, or as false, as "All men are religious." For some
+men are not liars, and some men are not religious. All the
+generalization means is that some of both are found in every age and in
+every country, and that is true whether we are dealing with the liar or
+with the religious person.
+
+What is ignored is the consideration that while at one stage of culture
+religious belief is the widest and most embracing of all beliefs it
+subsequently weakens, not quite in direct proportion to the advance of
+culture, but yet in such a way that one can say there is an actual
+relation between a preponderance of the one and a weakening of the
+other. In very primitive communities gods are born and flourish with all
+the rank exuberance of a tropical vegetation. In less primitive times
+their number diminishes, and their sphere of influence becomes more and
+more sharply defined. The gods are still credited with the ability to do
+certain things, but there are other things which do somehow get done
+without them. How that discovery and that division are made need not
+detain us for the moment, but the fact is patent. Advancing civilization
+sees the process continued and quickened, nay, that is civilization; for
+until nature is rid of her "haughty lords" and man realizes that there
+are at least some natural forces that come within the control of his
+intelligence, civilization cannot really be said to have commenced.
+Continued advance sees the gods so diminished in power and so weakened
+in numbers that their very impotency is apt to breed for them the kind
+of pity that one feels for a millionaire who becomes a pauper, or for an
+autocratic monarch reduced to the level of a voteless citizen.
+
+The truth is that all the gods, like their human creators, have in their
+birth the promise of death. The nature of their birth gives them life,
+but cannot promise them immortality. However much man commences by
+worshipping gods, he sooner or later turns his back upon them. Like the
+biblical deity he may look at his creation and declare it good, but he
+also resembles this deity in presently feeling the impulse to destroy
+what he has made. To the products of his mind man can no more give
+immortality than he can to the work of his hands. In many cases the work
+of his hands actually outlives that of his mind, for we have to-day the
+remains of structures that were built in the honour of gods whose very
+names are forgotten. And to bury his gods is, after all, the only real
+apology that man can offer for having created them.
+
+This outgrowing of religion is no new thing in human history. Thoughtful
+observers have always been struck by the mortality among the gods,
+although their demise has usually been chronicled in terms of exultation
+by rival worshippers. But here and there a keener observer has brought
+to bear on the matter a breadth of thought which robbed the phenomenon
+of its local character and gave it a universal application. Thus, in one
+of his wonderfully modern dialogues Lucian depicts the Olympian deities
+discussing, much in the spirit of a modern Church Congress, the
+prevalence of unbelief among men. The gods are disturbed at finding that
+men are reaching the stage of either not believing, or not troubling
+about them. There is a great deal of talk, and finally one of the minor
+deities treats them to a little plain truth--which appears to be as
+rare, and as unwelcome in heaven as on earth. He says--I quote from
+Froude's translation:--
+
+     What other conclusion could they arrive at when they saw the
+     confusion around them? Good men neglected, perishing in penury and
+     slavery, and profligate wretches wealthy, honoured and powerful.
+     Sacrilegious temple robbers undiscovered and unpunished; devotees
+     and saints beaten and crucified. With such phenomena before them,
+     of course men have doubted our existence.... We affect surprise
+     that men who are not fools decline to put their faith in us. We
+     ought rather to be pleased that there is a man left to say his
+     prayers. We are among ourselves with no strangers present. Tell us,
+     then, Zeus, have you ever really taken pains to distinguish between
+     good men and bad? Theseus, not you, destroyed the robbers in
+     Attica. As far as Providence was concerned, Sciron and
+     Pity-O-Campus might have murdered and plundered to the end of time.
+     If Eurystheus had not looked into matters, and sent Hercules upon
+     his labours little would you have troubled yourself with the Hydras
+     and Centaurs. Let us be candid. All that we have really cared for
+     has been a steady altar service. Everything else has been left to
+     chance. And now men are opening their eyes. They perceive that
+     whether they pray or don't pray, go to church or don't go to
+     church, makes no difference to them. And we are receiving our
+     deserts.
+
+The case could hardly be put more effectively. It is the appeal to
+experience with a vengeance, a form of argument of which religionists in
+general are very fond. Of course, the argument does not touch the
+question of the mere existence of a god, but it does set forth the
+revolt of awakened common sense against the worship of a "moral governor
+of the universe." We can say of our day, as Lucian said of his, that men
+are opening their eyes, and as a consequence the gods are receiving
+their deserts.
+
+Generally speaking, it is not difficult to see the various steps by
+which man outgrew the conception of the government of the world by
+intelligent forces. From what we know of primitive thought we may say
+that at first the gods dominated all. From the fall of a rain-drop to
+the movement of a planet all was the work of gods. Merely to question
+their power was the wildest of errors and the gravest of crimes. Bit by
+bit this vast territory was reclaimed--a task at the side of which the
+conquest of the fever-stricken tropics or the frozen north is mere
+child's play. It is quite needless to enter into an elaborate
+speculation as to the exact steps by which this process of
+deanthropomorphization--to use a word of the late John Fiske's--was
+accomplished, but one can picture the main line by what we see taking
+place at later stages of development. And there is no exception to the
+rule that so soon as any group of phenomena is brought within the
+conception of law the notion of deity in connection with those phenomena
+tends to die out. And the sum of the process is seen in the work of the
+great law givers of science, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton,
+Laplace, Lyell, Dalton, Darwin, etc., who between them have presented us
+with a universe in which the conception of deity simply has no place.
+Apologies apart, the idea of deity is foreign to the spirit and method
+of modern science.
+
+In the region of the purely physical sciences this process may be
+regarded as complete. In morals and sociology, purely on account of the
+greater complexity of the subjects, mystical and semi-supernatural
+conceptions still linger, but it is only a question of time for these
+branches of knowledge to follow the same course as the physical
+sciences. In morals we are able to trace, more or less completely, the
+development of the moral sense from its first beginnings in the animal
+world to its highest developments in man. What is called the "mystery of
+morality" simply has no existence to anyone who is not a mystery-monger
+by profession or inclination. And here, too, the gods have been
+receiving their deserts. For it is now clear that instead of being a
+help to morals there has been no greater obstacle to a healthy morality
+than the play of religious ideas. In the name of God vices have been
+declared virtues and virtues branded as vices. Belief in God has been an
+unending source of moral perversion, and it lies upon the face of
+historical development that an intelligent morality, one that is capable
+of adapting itself to the changing circumstances of human nature, has
+only become possible with the breaking down of religious authority.
+
+Exactly the same phenomenon faces us in connection with social life. We
+have to go back but a little way in human history to come to a time
+when the existence of a State without a religion would have seemed to
+people impossible. Much as Christians have quarrelled about other
+things, they have been in agreement on this point. The historic fight
+between the established Church and the Nonconformists has never really
+been for the disestablishment of all religion, and the confining of the
+State to the discharge of purely secular functions, but mainly as to
+_which_ religion the State shall uphold. To-day, the central issue is
+whether the State shall teach any religion, whether that does not lie
+right outside its legitimate functions. And this marks an enormous
+advance. It is a plain recognition of the truth that the gods have
+nothing to contribute of any value to the development of our social
+life. It marks the beginning of the end, and registers the truth that
+man must be his own saviour here as elsewhere. As in Lucian's day we are
+beginning to realize that whether we pray or don't pray, go to church or
+don't go to church, believe in the gods or don't believe in them, makes
+no real or substantial difference to natural happenings. Now as then we
+see good men punished and bad ones rewarded, and they who are not fools
+and have the courage to look facts in the face, decline to put their
+faith in a deity who is incapable of doing all things right or too
+careless to exert his power.
+
+It is not that the fight is over, or that there is to-day little need to
+fight the forces of superstition. If that were so, there would be no
+need to write what is here written. Much as has been done, there is much
+yet to do. The revolt against specific beliefs only serves to illustrate
+a fight that is of much greater importance. For there is little real
+social gain if one merely exchanges one superstition for another. And,
+unfortunately, the gentleman who declared that he had given up the
+errors of the Church of Rome in order to embrace those of the Church of
+England represents a fairly common type. It is the prevalence of a
+particular type of mind in society that constitutes a danger, and it is
+against this that our aim is ultimately directed. Great as is the amount
+of organized superstition that exists, the amount of unorganized
+superstition is still greater, and probably more dangerous. One of the
+revelations of the late war was the evidence it presented of the
+tremendous amount of raw credulity, of the low type of intelligence that
+was still current, and the small amount of critical ability the mass of
+people bring to bear upon life. The legends that gained currency--the
+army of Russians crossing England, the number of mutilated Belgian
+babies that were seen, the story of the Germans boiling down their dead
+to extract the fat, a story that for obscene stupidity beats everything
+else, the Mons angels, the craze for mascots--all bore witness to the
+prevalence of a frame of mind that bodes ill for progress.
+
+The truth is, as Sir James Frazer reminds us, that modern society is
+honeycombed with superstitions that are not in themselves a whit more
+intellectually respectable than those which dominate the minds of
+savages. "The smooth surface of cultured society is sapped and mined by
+superstition." Now and again these hidden mines explode noisily, but the
+superstition is always there, to be exploited by those who have the wit
+to use it. From this point of view Christianity is no more than a
+symptom of a source of great social weakness, a manifestation of a
+weakness that may find expression in strange and unexpected but always
+more or less dangerous ways. It is against the prevalence of this type
+of mind that the Freethinker is really fighting. Freethinkers
+realize--apparently they are the only ones that do realize--that the
+creation of a better type of society is finally dependent upon the
+existence of a sanely educated intelligence, and that will never exist
+while there are large bodies of people who can persuade themselves that
+human welfare is in some way dependent upon, or furthered by, practices
+and beliefs that are not a bit more intellectually respectable than
+those of the cave men. If Christianity, as a mere system of beliefs,
+were destroyed, we should only have cleared the way for the final fight.
+Thousands of generations of superstitious beliefs and practices that
+have embodied themselves in our laws, our customs, our language, and our
+institutions, are not to be easily destroyed. It is comparatively simple
+to destroy a particular manifestation of this disastrous heritage, but
+the type of mind to which it has given birth is not so easily removed.
+
+The fight is not over, but it is being fought from a new vantage ground,
+and with better weapons than have ever before been employed. History,
+anthropology, and psychology have combined to place in the hands of the
+modern Freethinker more deadly weapons than those of previous
+generations were able to employ. Before these weapons the defences of
+the faith crumble like wooden forts before modern artillery. It is no
+longer a question of debating whether religious beliefs are true. So
+long as we give a straightforward and honest meaning to those beliefs we
+know that they are not true. It is, to-day, mainly a question of making
+plain the nature of the forces which led men and women to regard them as
+being true. We know that the history of religion is the history of a
+delusion, and the task of the student is to recover those conditions
+which gave to this delusion an appearance of truth and reality. That is
+becoming more and more evident to all serious and informed students of
+the subject.
+
+The challenge of Freethought to religion constitutes one of the oldest
+struggles in human history. It must have had its beginning in the first
+glimmer of doubt concerning a tribal deity which crossed the mind of
+some more than usually thoughtful savage. Under various forms and in
+many ways it has gone on ever since. It has had many variations of
+fortune, often apparently completely crushed, only to rise again
+stronger and more daring than ever. To-day, Freethought is the accepted
+mental attitude of a growing number of men and women whose intelligence
+admits of no question. It has taken a recognized place in the
+intellectual world, and its hold on the educated intelligence is rapidly
+increasing. It may well be that in one form or another the antagonism
+between critical Freethought and accepted teaching, whether secular or
+religious, will continue as one of the permanent aspects of social
+conflict. But so far as supernaturalism is concerned the final issue can
+be no longer in doubt. It is not by one voice or by one movement that
+supernaturalism is condemned. Its condemnation is written in the best
+forms of art, science and literature. And that is only another way of
+saying that it is condemned by life. Freethought holds the future in
+fee, and nothing but an entire reversal of the order of civilization can
+force it to forego its claims.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LIFE AND MIND.
+
+
+The outstanding feature of what may be called the natural history of
+associated life is the way in which biologic processes are gradually
+dominated by psychologic ones. Whatever be the nature of mind, a
+question that in no way concerns us here, there is no denying the
+importance of the phenomena that come within that category. To speak of
+the first beginnings of mind is, in this connection, idle language. In
+science there are no real beginnings. Things do not begin to be, they
+simply emerge, and their emergence is as imperceptible as the
+displacement of night by day, or the development of the chicken from the
+egg. But whatever the nature of the beginning of mind, its appearance in
+the evolutionary series marked an event of profound and revolutionary
+importance. Life received a new impetus, and the struggle for existence
+a new significance, the importance of which is not, even to-day,
+generally recognized. The old formulae might still be used, but they had
+given to them a new significance. The race was still to the swift and
+the battle to the strong, but swiftness and strength were manifested in
+new ways and by new means. Cunning and intelligence began to do what was
+formerly done without their co-operation. A new force had appeared,
+arising out of the older forces as chemistry develops from physics and
+biology from both. And, as we should expect from analogy, we find the
+new force dominating the older ones, and even bending them to its
+needs.
+
+Associated life meets us very early in the story of animal existence,
+and we may assume that it ranks as a genuine "survival quality." It
+enables some animals to survive the attacks of others that are
+individually stronger, and it may even be, as has been suggested, that
+associated life is the normal form, and that solitary animals represent
+a variation from the normal, or perhaps a case of degeneration. But one
+result of associated life is that it paves the way for the emergence of
+mind as an active force in social evolution. In his suggestive and
+important work on _Mutual Aid_, Kropotkin has well shown how in the
+animal world the purely biologic form of the struggle for existence is
+checked and transformed by the factors of mutual aid, association and
+protection. His illustrations cover a very wide field; they include a
+great variety of animal forms, and he may fairly claim to have
+established the proposition that "an instinct has been slowly developed
+among animals and men in the course of an extremely long evolution ...
+which has taught animals and men alike the force they can borrow from
+mutual aid and support, and the joys they can find in social life."
+
+But there is, on the whole, a very sharp limit set to the development of
+mind in the animal world. One cause of this is the absence of a true
+"social medium," to use the admirable phrase of that versatile thinker,
+George Henry Lewes. In the case of man, speech and writing enable him to
+give to his advances and discoveries a cumulative force such as can
+never exist in their absence. On that subject more will be said later.
+At present we may note another very important consequence of the
+development of mind in evolution. In pre-human, or sub-human society,
+perfection in the struggle for existence takes the form of the creation
+or the perfecting of an organic tool. Teeth or claws become stronger or
+larger, a limb is modified, sight becomes keener, or there is a new
+effect in coloration. The changes here, it will be observed, are all of
+an organic kind, they are a part of the animal and are inseparable from
+it, and they are only transmissible by biologic heredity. And the rate
+of development is, of necessity, slow.
+
+When we turn to man and note the way in which he overcomes the
+difficulties of his environment, we find them to be mainly of a
+different order. His instruments are not personal, in the sense of being
+a part of his organic structure. We may say they do not belong to him so
+much as they do to the race; while they are certainly transmitted from
+generation to generation irrespective of individuals. Instead of
+achieving conquest of his environment by developing an organic
+structure, man creates an inorganic tool. In a sense he subdues and
+moulds the environment to his needs, rather than modifies his structure
+in order to cope with the environment. Against extremes of temperature
+he fashions clothing and builds habitations. He discovers fire, probably
+the most important discovery ever made by mankind. He adds to his
+strength in defence and attack by inventing weapons. He guards himself
+from starvation by planting seeds, and so harnesses the productive
+forces of nature to his needs. He tames animals and so secures living
+engines of labour. Later, he compensates for his bodily weaknesses by
+inventing instruments which aid sight, hearing, etc. Inventions are
+multiplied, methods of locomotion and transportation are discovered, and
+the difficulties of space and time are steadily minimized. The net
+result of all this is that as a mere biologic phenomenon man's evolution
+is checked. The biologic modifications that still go on are of
+comparatively small importance, except, probably, in the case of
+evolution against disease. The developments that take place are mainly
+mental in form and are social in their incidence.
+
+Now if the substantial truth of what has been said be admitted, and I do
+not see how it can be successfully challenged, there arise one or two
+considerations of supreme importance. The first of these is that social
+history becomes more and more a history of social psychology. In social
+life we are watching the play of social mind expressed through the
+medium of the individual. The story of civilization is the record of the
+piling of idea on idea, and the transforming power of the whole on the
+environment. For tools, from the flint chip of primitive man, down to
+the finished instrument of the modern mechanic, are all so many products
+of human mentality. From the primitive dug-out to the Atlantic liner,
+from the stone spear-head to the modern rifle, in all the inventions of
+civilized life we are observing the application of mind to the conquest
+of time, space, and material conditions. Our art, our inventions, our
+institutions, are all so many illustrations of the power of mind in
+transforming the environment. A history of civilization, as
+distinguished from a mere record of biologic growth, is necessarily a
+history of the growing power of mind. It is the cumulative ideas of the
+past expressed in inventions and institutions that form the driving
+power behind the man of to-day. These ideas form the most valuable part
+of man's heritage, make him what he is, and contain the promise of all
+that he may become.
+
+So long as we confine ourselves to biologic evolution, the way in which
+qualities are transmitted is plain. There is no need to go beyond the
+organism itself. But this heritage of ideas, peculiarly human as it is,
+requires a "carrier" of an equally unique kind. It is at this point that
+the significance of what we have called the "social medium" emerges.
+The full significance of this was first seen by G. H. Lewes.[1] Writing
+so far back as 1879 he said:--
+
+     The distinguishing character of human psychology is that to the
+     three great factors, organism, external medium, and heredity; it
+     adds a fourth, namely, the relation to a social medium, with its
+     product, the general mind.... While the mental functions are
+     products of the individual organism, the product, mind, is more
+     than an individual product. Like its great instrument language, it
+     is at once individual and social. Each man speaks in virtue of the
+     functions of vocal expression, but also in virtue of the social
+     need of communication. The words spoken are not his creation, yet
+     he, too, must appropriate them by what may be called a creative
+     process before he can understand them. What his tribe speaks he
+     repeats; but he does not simply echo their words, he rethinks them.
+     In the same way he adopts their experiences when he assimilates
+     them to his own.... Further, the experiences come and go; they
+     correct, enlarge, and destroy one another, leaving behind them a
+     certain residual store, which condensed in intuitions and
+     formulated in principles, direct and modify all future
+     experiences.... Men living in groups co-operate like the organs in
+     an organism. Their actions have a common impulse to a common end.
+     Their desires and opinions bear the common stamp of an impersonal
+     direction. Much of their life is common to all. The roads,
+     market-places and temples are for each and all. Customs arise and
+     are formulated in laws, the restraint of all.... Each generation is
+     born in this social medium, and has to adapt itself to the
+     established forms.... A nation, a tribe, a sect is the medium of
+     the individual mind, as a sea, a river, or a pond, is the medium of
+     a fish.[2]
+
+[1] It will ease my feelings if I am permitted to here make a protest
+against the shameless way in which this suggestive writer has been
+pillaged by others without the slightest acknowledgement. They have
+found him, as Lamb said of some other writers, "damned good to steal
+from." His series of volumes, _Problems of Life and Mind_, have been
+borrowed from wholesale without the slightest thanks or recognition.
+
+[2] _Study of Psychology_, pp. 139, 161-5. So again, a more recent
+writer says: "It is not man himself who thinks but his social community;
+the source of his thoughts is in the social medium in which he lives,
+the social atmosphere which he breathes.... The influence of environment
+upon the human mind has always been recognized by psychologists and
+philosophers, but it has been considered a secondary factor. On the
+contrary, the social medium which the child enters at birth, in which he
+lives, moves and has his being, is fundamental. Toward this environment
+the individual from childhood to ripest old age is more or less
+receptive; rarely can the maturest minds so far succeed in emancipating
+themselves from this medium so far as to undertake independent
+reflection, while complete emancipation is impossible, for all the
+organs and modes of thought, all the organs for constructing thoughts
+have been moulded or at least thoroughly imbued by it" (L. Gumplowicz,
+_Outlines of Sociology_, p. 157).
+
+Biologically, what man inherits is capacity for acquisition. But what he
+shall acquire, the direction in which his native capacity shall express
+itself, is a matter over which biologic forces have no control. This is
+determined by society and social life. Given quite equal capacity in two
+individuals, the output will be very different if one is brought up in a
+remote Spanish village and the other in Paris or London. Whether a man
+shouts long live King George or long live the Kaiser is mainly a
+question of social surroundings, and but very little one of difference
+in native capacity. The child of parents living in the highest civilized
+society, if taken away while very young and brought up amid a people in
+a very primitive state of culture, would, on reaching maturity, differ
+but little from the people around him. He would think the thoughts that
+were common to the society in which he was living as he would speak
+their language and wear their dress. Had Shakespeare been born among
+savages he could never have written _Hamlet_. For the work of the
+genius, as for that of the average man, society must provide the
+materials in the shape of language, ideas, institutions, and the
+thousand and one other things that go to make up the life of a group,
+and which may be seen reflected in the life of the individual. Suppose,
+says Dr. McDougall:--
+
+     that throughout the period of half a century every child born to
+     English parents was at once exchanged (by the power of a magician's
+     wand) for an infant of the French, or other, European nation. Soon
+     after the close of this period the English nation would be composed
+     of individuals of French extraction, and the French of individuals
+     of English extraction. It is, I think, clear that, in spite of this
+     complete exchange of innate characters between the two nations,
+     there would be but little immediate change of national
+     characteristics. The French people would still speak French, and
+     the English would speak English, with all the local diversities to
+     which we are accustomed and without perceptible change of
+     pronunciation. The religion of the French would still be
+     predominantly Roman Catholic, and the English people would still
+     present the same diversity of Protestant creeds. The course of
+     political institutions would have suffered no profound change, the
+     customs and habits of the two peoples would exhibit only such
+     changes as might be attributed to the lapse of time, though an
+     acute observer might notice an appreciable approximation of the two
+     peoples towards one another in all these respects. The inhabitant
+     of France would still be a Frenchman and the inhabitant of England
+     an Englishman to all outward seeming, save that the physical
+     appearance of the two peoples would be transposed. And we may go
+     even further and assert that the same would hold good if a similar
+     exchange of infants were effected between the English and any other
+     less closely allied nation, say the Turks or the Japanese.[3]
+
+[3] _Social Psychology_, pp. 330-1.
+
+The products of human capacity are the material of which civilization is
+built; these products constitute the inheritance which one generation
+receives from another. Whether this inheritance be large or small,
+simple or complex, it is the chief determinant which shapes the
+personality of each individual. What each has by biological heredity is
+a given structure, that is, capacity. But the direction of that
+capacity, the command it enables one to acquire over his environment, is
+in turn determined by the society into which he happens to be born.
+
+It has already been said that the materials of civilization, whether
+they be tools, or institutions, or inventions, or discoveries, or
+religious or ethical teachings, are facts that can be directly described
+as psychological. An institution--the Church, the Crown, the
+Magistracy--is not transmitted as a building or as so many sheets of
+paper, but as an idea or as a set of ideas. A piece of machinery is, in
+the same way, a mental fact, and is a physical one in only a subordinate
+sense. And if this be admitted, we reach the further truth that the
+environment to which man has to adapt himself is essentially, so far as
+it is a social environment, psychological. Not alone are the outward
+marks of social life--the houses in which man lives, the machines he
+uses to do his bidding--products of his mental activity, but the more
+important features of his environment, to which he must adapt himself,
+and which so largely shape his character and determine his conduct, are
+of a wholly psychological character. In any society that is at all
+distinct from the animal, there exist a number of beliefs, ideas and
+institutions, traditions, and, in a later stage, a literature which play
+a very important part in determining the direction of man's mind. With
+increasing civilization, and the development of better means of
+intercourse, any single society finds itself brought into touch and
+under the influence of other social groups. The whole of these
+influences constitute a force which, surrounding an individual at birth,
+inevitably shapes character in this or that direction. They dominate the
+physical aspect of life, and represent the determining forces of social
+growth. Eliminate the psychological forces of life and you eliminate all
+that can be properly called civilization. It is wholly the transforming
+power of mind on the environment that creates civilization, and it is
+only by a steady grasp of this fact that civilization can be properly
+understood.
+
+I have pointed out a distinction between biological and social, or
+psychological, heredity. But there is one instance in which the two
+agree. This is that we can only understand a thing by its history. We
+may catalogue the existing peculiarities of an animal form with no other
+material than that of the organism before us, but thoroughly to
+understand it we must know its history. Similarly, existing institutions
+may have their justification in the present, but the causes of their
+existence lie buried in the past. A king may to-day be honoured on
+account of his personal worth, but the reason why there is a king to be
+honoured carries us back to that state of culture in which the primitive
+priest and magic worker inspires fear and awe. When we ring bells to
+call people to church we perpetuate the fact that our ancestors rang
+them to drive away evil spirits. We wear black at a funeral because our
+primitive ancestors wished to hide themselves from the dead man's
+ghost. We strew flowers on a grave because food and other things were
+once buried with the dead so that their spirits might accompany the dead
+to the next world. In short, with all human customs we are forced, if we
+wish to know the reason for their present existence, to seek it in the
+ideas that have dominated the minds of previous generations.[4]
+
+[4] "The tyranny exercised unconsciously on men's minds is the only real
+tyranny, because it cannot be fought against. Tiberius, Ghengis Khan,
+and Napoleon were assuredly redoubtable tyrants, but from the depths of
+their graves Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet exerted on the human soul
+a far profounder tyranny. A conspiracy may overthrow a tyrant, but what
+can it avail against a firmly established belief? In its violent
+struggle with Roman Catholicism it is the French Revolution that has
+been vanquished, and this in spite of the fact that the sympathy of the
+crowd was apparently on its side, and in spite of recourse to
+destructive measures as pitiless as those of the Inquisition. The only
+real tyrants that humanity has known have always been the memories of
+its dead, or the illusions it has forged for itself" (Gustave Le Bon,
+_The Crowd_, p. 153).
+
+No one who has studied, in even a cursory manner, the development of our
+social institutions can avoid recognition of the profound influence
+exerted by the primitive conceptions of life, death, and of the
+character of natural forces. Every one of our social institutions was
+born in the shadow of superstition, and superstition acts as a powerful
+force in determining the form they assume. Sir Henry Maine has shown to
+what a large extent the laws of inheritance are bound up with ancestor
+worship.[5] Spencer has done the same service for nearly all our
+institutions,[6] and Mr. Elton says that "the oldest customs of
+inheritance in England and Germany were, in their beginnings, connected
+with a domestic religion, and based upon a worship of ancestral spirits
+of which the hearthplace was essentially the altar."[7] The same truth
+meets us in the study of almost any institution. In fact, it is not long
+before one who _thinks_ evolution, instead of merely knowing its
+formulae, begins to realize the truth of the saying by a German
+sociologist that in dealing with social institutions we are concerned
+with the "mental creations of aggregates." They are dependent upon the
+persistence of a set of ideas, and so long as these ideas are unshaken
+they are substantially indestructible. To remove them the ideas upon
+which they rest must be shaken and robbed of their authority. That is
+the reason why at all times the fight for reform so largely resolves
+itself into a contest of ideas. Motives of self-interest may enter into
+the defence of an institution, and in some case may be responsible for
+the attempt to plant an institution where it does not already exist, but
+in the main institutions persist because of their harmony with a frame
+of mind that is favourable to their being.
+
+[5] See _Early History of Institutions_, and _Early Law and Custom_.
+
+[6] _Principles of Sociology_, Vol. I.
+
+[7] _Origins of English History_, p. 261.
+
+A great deal of criticism has been directed against the conclusion of
+Buckle that improvement in the state of mankind has chiefly resulted
+from an improvement in the intellectual outlook. And yet when stated
+with the necessary qualifications the generalization is as sound as it
+can well be. Certainly, the belief held in some quarters, and stated
+with an air of scientific precision, that the material environment is
+the active force which is ever urging to new mental development will not
+fit the facts; for, as we have seen, the environment to which human
+nature must adapt itself is mainly mental in character, that is, it is
+made up in an increasing measure of the products of man's own mental
+activity. The theory of the sentimental religionist that the evil in the
+world results from the wickedness of man, or, as he is fond of putting
+it, from the hardness of man's heart, is grotesque in its
+ineffectiveness. Soft heads have far more to do with the evil in the
+world than have hard hearts. Indeed, one of the standing difficulties of
+the orthodox moralist is, not to explain the deeds of evil men, which
+explain themselves, but to account for the harm done by "good" men, and
+often as a consequence of their goodness. The moral monster is a rarity,
+and evil is rarely the outcome of a clear perception of its nature and a
+deliberate resolve to pursue it. Paradoxical as it may sound, it demands
+a measure of moral strength to do wrong, consciously and deliberately,
+which the average man or woman does not possess. And the world has never
+found it a matter of great difficulty to deal with its "bad" characters;
+it is the "good" ones that present it with a constant problem.
+
+The point is worth stressing, and we may do it from more than one point
+of view. We may take, first of all, the familiar illustration of
+religious persecution, as exemplified in the quarrels of Catholics and
+Protestants. On the ground of moral distinction no line could be drawn
+between the two parties. Each shuddered at the persecution inflicted by
+the other, and each regarded the teachings of the other with the same
+degree of moral aversion. And it has often been noted that the men who
+administered so infamous an institution as the Inquisition were not, in
+even the majority of cases, bad men.[8] A few may have had interested
+motives, but it would have been impossible to have maintained so brutal
+an institution in the absence of a general conviction of its rightness.
+In private life those who could deliver men, women, and even children
+over to torture were not worse husbands or parents than others. Such
+differences as existed cannot be attributed to a lack of moral
+endeavour, or to a difference of "moral temperament." It was a
+difference of intellectual outlook, and given certain religious
+convictions persecution became a religious necessity. The moral output
+was poor because the intellectual standpoint was a wrong one.
+
+[8] Speaking of the Inquisition, Mr. H. C. Lea, in his classic _History
+of the Inquisition_, says, "There is no doubt that the people were as
+eager as their pastors to send the heretic to the stake. There is no
+doubt that men of the kindliest tempers, the profoundest aspirations,
+the purest zeal for righteousness, professing a religion founded on love
+and charity, were ruthless where heresy was concerned, and were ready to
+trample it out at any cost. Dominic and Francis, Bonaventure and Thomas
+Aquinas, Innocent III. and St. Louis, were types, in their several ways,
+of which humanity, in any age, might feel proud, and yet they were as
+unsparing of the heretic as Ezzelin di Romano was of his enemies. With
+such men it was not hope of gain or lust of blood or pride of opinion or
+wanton exercise of power, but sense of duty, and they but represented
+what was universal public opinion from the thirteenth to the seventeenth
+century." Vol. I., p. 234.
+
+If we could once get over the delusion of thinking of human nature as
+being fundamentally different five hundred years ago from what it is
+to-day, we should escape a great many fallacies that are prevalent. The
+changes that have taken place in human nature during the historic period
+are so slight as to be practically negligible. The motives that animate
+men and women to-day are the motives that animated men and women a
+thousand or two thousand years ago. The change is in the direction and
+form of their manifestation only, and it is in the light of the human
+nature around us that we must study and interpret the human nature that
+has gone before us. From that point of view we may safely conclude that
+bad institutions were kept in being in the past for the same reason
+that they are kept alive to-day. The majority must be blind to their
+badness; and in any case it is a general perception of their badness
+which leads to their destruction.
+
+The subject of crime illustrates the same point. Against crime as such,
+society is as set as ever. But our attitude toward the causation and
+cure of crime, and, above all, to the treatment of the criminal, has
+undergone a profound alteration. And the change that has taken place
+here has been away from the Christian conception which brutalized the
+world for so long, towards the point of view taken up by the ancient
+Greeks, that wrong doing is the outcome of ignorance. Expressed in the
+modern manner we should say that crime is the result of an undeveloped
+nature, or of a pathological one, or of a reversion to an earlier
+predatory type, or the result of any or all of these factors in
+combination with defective social conditions. But this is only another
+way of saying that we have exchanged the old, brutal, and ineffective
+methods for more humane and effective ones because we look at the
+problem of crime from a different intellectual angle. A more exact
+knowledge of the causation of crime has led us to a more sensible and a
+more humane treatment of the criminal. And this, not alone in his own
+behalf, but in the interests of the society in which he lives. We may
+put it broadly that improvement comes from an enlightened way of looking
+at things. Common observation shows that people will go on tolerating
+forms of brutality, year after year, without the least sense of their
+wrongness. Familiarity, and the absence of any impetus to examine
+current practice from a new point of view seem to account for this. In
+the seventeenth century the same people who could watch, without any
+apparent hostility, the torture of an old woman on the fantastic charge
+of intercourse with Satan, had their feelings outraged by hearing a
+secular song on Sunday. Imprisonment for "blasphemy," once regarded as a
+duty, has now become ridiculous to all reasonable people. At one and the
+same time, a little more than a hundred years ago in this country, the
+same people who could denounce cock-fighting on account of its
+brutality, could watch unmoved the murdering of little children in the
+factories of Lancashire. Not so long ago men in this country fought
+duels under a sense of moral compulsion, and the practice was only
+abandoned when a changed point of view made people realize the absurdity
+of trying to settle the justice of a cause by determining which of two
+people were the most proficient with sword or pistol. We have a
+continuation of the same absurdity in those larger duels fought by
+nations where the old verbal absurdities still retain their full force,
+and where we actually add another absurdity by retaining a number of
+professional duellists who must be ready to embark on a duel whether
+they have any personal feeling in the matter or not. And it seems fairly
+safe to say that when it is realized that the duel between nations as a
+means of settling differences is not a bit more intellectually
+respectable than was the ancient duello we shall not be far removed from
+seeing the end of one of the greatest dangers to which modern society is
+exposed.
+
+Examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but enough has been said to
+show what small reason there is for assuming that changes in
+institutions are brought about by the operation of some occult moral
+sense. It is the enlightenment of the moral sense by the growth of new
+ideas, by the impact of new knowledge leading to a revaluation of things
+that is mainly responsible for the change. The question of whether a man
+should or should not be burned for a difference in religious belief was
+never one that could be settled by weighing up the moral qualities of
+the two parties in the dispute. All the moral judgment that has ever
+existed, even if combined in the person of a single individual could
+never decide that issue. It was entirely a question of acquiring a new
+point of view from which to examine the subject. Until that was done the
+whole force of the moral sense was on the side of the persecutor. To put
+the matter paradoxically, the better the man the worse persecutor he
+became. It was mental enlightenment that was needed, not moral
+enthusiasm.
+
+The question of progress thus becomes, in all directions, one of the
+impact of new ideas, in an environment suitable to their reception and
+growth. A society shut in on itself is always comparatively
+unprogressive, and but for the movement of classes within it would be
+completely so. The more closely the history of civilization is studied
+the more clearly does that fact emerge. Civilization is a synthetic
+movement, and there can be no synthesis in the absence of dissolution
+and resolution.
+
+A fight of old ideas against new ones, a contest of clashing culture
+levels, a struggle to get old things looked at from a new point of view,
+these are the features that characterize all efforts after reform. It
+was said by some of the eighteenth century philosophers that society was
+held together by agreement in a bond. That is not quite correct. The
+truth is that society is held together, as is any phase of social life,
+by a bond of agreement. The agreement is not of the conscious,
+documentary order, but it is there, and it consists in sharing a common
+life created and maintained by having a common tradition, and a common
+stock of ideas and ideals. It is this that makes a man a member of one
+social group rather than of another--Chinese, American, French, German,
+or Choctaw. There is no discriminating feature in what is called the
+economic needs of people. The economic needs of human beings--food,
+clothing, and shelter, are of the same order the world over. And
+certainly the fact of a Chinaman sharing in the economic life of
+Britain, or an Englishman sharing in the economic life of China, would
+not entitle either to be called genuine members of the group in which he
+happened to be living. Membership only begins to be when those belonging
+to a group share in a common mental outfit. Even within a society, and
+in relation to certain social groups, one can see illustrations of the
+same principle. A man is not really a member of a society of artists,
+lawyers, or doctors merely by payment of an annual subscription. He is
+that only when he becomes a participant in the mental life of the
+group.[9] It is this common stock of mental facts which lies at the
+root of all collective ideas--an army, a Church, or a nation. And ever
+the fight is by way of attack and defence of the psychologic fact.[10]
+
+[9] This seems to me to give the real significance of Nationality. It
+has been argued by some that nationality is a pure myth, as unreal as
+the divinity of a king. The principal ground for this denial of
+nationality appears to be that so-called national characteristics are
+seen to undergo drastic transformation when their possessors are subject
+to a new set of influences. This may be quite true, but if nationality,
+in the sense of being a product of biological heredity, is ruled out, it
+does not follow that nationality is thereby destroyed. The fact may
+remain but it demands a different interpretation. And if what has been
+said above be true, it follows that nationality is not a personal fact,
+but an extra or super-personal one. It belongs to the group rather than
+to the individual, and is created by the possession of a common speech,
+a common literature, and a common group life. And quite naturally, when
+the individual is lifted out of this special social influence its power
+may well be weakened, and in the case of his children may be
+non-existent, or replaced by the special characteristics of the new
+group into which he is born. The discussion of nationality ought not,
+therefore, to move along the lines of acceptance or rejection of the
+conception of nationality, but of how far specific national
+characteristics admit of modification under the pressure of new
+conditions.
+
+[10] It would take too long to elaborate, but it may be here noted that
+in the human group the impelling force is not so much needs as desires,
+and that fact raises the whole issue from the level of biology to that
+of psychology. So long as life is at a certain level man shares with the
+animal the mere need for food. But at another level there arises not
+merely the need for food, but a desire for certain kind of food, cooked
+in a particular manner, and served in a special style. And provided that
+we do not by hunger reduce man to the level of the beast again, the
+desire will be paramount and will determine whether food shall be eaten
+or not. So, again, with the fact of sex and marriage. At the animal
+level we have the crude fact of sex, and this is, indeed, inescapable at
+any stage. But the growth of civilization brings about the fact that the
+need for the gratification of the sexual appetite is regulated by the
+secondary qualities of grace of form, or of disposition, which are the
+immediate determinants of whether a particular man shall marry a
+particular woman or not. Again, it is the _desire_ for power and
+distinction, not the _need_ for money that impels men to spend their
+lives in building up huge fortunes. And, finally, we have the fact that
+a great many of our present needs are transformed desires. The working
+man of to-day counts as needs, as do we all more or less, a number of
+things that began as pure desires. We say we need books, pictures,
+music, etc. But none of these things can be really brought under the
+category of things necessary to life. They are the creation of man's
+mental cravings. Without them we say life would not be worth living, and
+it is well that we should all feel so. Professor Marshall rightly dwells
+upon this point by saying: "Although it is man's wants in the early
+stages of development that give rise to his activities, yet afterwards
+each new step is to be regarded as the development of new activities
+giving rise to new wants, rather than of new wants giving rise to new
+activities."--(_Principles of Economics_, Vol. I., p. 164.)
+
+To do the Churches and other vested interests justice, they have never
+lost sight of this truth, and it would have been better for the race
+had others been equally alive to its importance. The Churches have never
+ceased to fight for the control of those public organs that make for the
+formation of opinion. Their struggle to control the press, the platform,
+and the school means just this. Whatever they may have taught,
+self-interest forced upon them recognition of the truth that it was what
+men thought about things that mattered. They have always opposed the
+introduction of new ideas, and have fought for the retention of old
+ones. It was a necessity of their existence. It was also an admission of
+the truth that in order for reform to become a fact the power of
+traditional ideas must be broken. Man is what he thinks, is far nearer
+the truth than the once famous saying, "Man is what he eats." As a
+member of a social group man is dominated by his ideas of things, and
+any movement of reform must take cognisance of that fact if it is to
+cherish reasonable hopes of success.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WHAT IS FREETHOUGHT?
+
+
+Freedom of thought and freedom of speech stand to each other as the two
+halves of a pair of scissors. Without freedom of speech freedom of
+thought is robbed of the better part of its utility, even if its
+existence is not threatened. The one reacts on the other. As thought
+provides the material for speech, so, in turn, it deteriorates when it
+is denied expression. Speech is, in fact, one of the great factors in
+human progress. It is that which enables one generation to hand on to
+another the discoveries made, the inventions produced, the thoughts
+achieved, and so gives a degree of fixity to the progress attained. For
+progress, while expressed through the individual, is achieved by the
+race. Individually, the man of to-day is not strikingly superior in form
+or capacity to the man of five or ten thousand years ago. But he knows
+more, can achieve more, and is in that sense stronger than was his
+ancestors. He is the heir of the ages, not as a figure of speech, but as
+the most sober of facts. He inherits what previous generations have
+acquired; the schoolboy of to-day starts with a capital of inherited
+knowledge that would have been an outfit for a philosopher a few
+thousand years ago.
+
+It is this that makes speech of so great importance to the fact of
+progress. Without speech, written or verbal, it would be impossible to
+conserve the products of human achievement. Each generation would have
+to start where its predecessor commenced, and it would finish at about
+the same point. It would be the fable of Sisyphus illustrated in the
+passing of each generation of human beings.
+
+But speech implies communication. There is not very much pleasure in
+speaking to oneself. Even the man who apologised for the practice on the
+ground that he liked to address a sensible assembly would soon grow
+tired of so restricted an audience. The function of speech is to
+transmit ideas, and it follows, therefore, that every embargo on the
+free exchange of ideas, every obstacle to complete freedom of speech, is
+a direct threat to the well-being of civilisation. As Milton could say
+that a good book "is the precious life-blood of a master spirit,
+embalmed and treasured up to a life beyond life," and that "he who
+destroys a good book kills reason itself," so we may say that he who
+strikes at freedom of thought and speech is aiming a blow at the very
+heart of human betterment.
+
+In theory, the truth of what has been said would be readily admitted,
+but in practice it has met, and still meets, with a vigorous opposition.
+Governments have exhausted their powers to prevent freedom of
+intercourse between peoples, and every Church and chapel has used its
+best endeavours to the same end. Even to-day, when all are ready to pay
+lip-homage to freedom of thought, the obstacles in the way of a genuine
+freedom are still very great. Under the best possible conditions there
+will probably always be some coercion of opinion, if only of that
+unconscious kind which society as a whole exerts upon its individual
+members. But to this we have to add the coercion that is consciously
+exerted to secure the formation of particular opinions, and which has
+the dual effect of inducing dissimulation in some and impotency in
+others. Quite ignorantly parents commence the work when they force upon
+children their own views of religion and inculcate an exaggerated
+respect for authority. They create an initial bias that is in only too
+many cases fatal to real independence of thought. Social pressure
+continues what a mistaken early training has commenced. When opinions
+are made the test of "good form," and one's social standing partly
+determined by the kind of opinions that one holds, there is developed on
+the one side hypocrisy, and on the other, because certain opinions are
+banned, thought in general is unhealthily freed from the sobering
+influence of enlightened criticism.[11]
+
+[11] It is a curious thing, as Philip Gilbert Hamerton points out in one
+of his essays, that in England religious freedom appears to exist in
+inverse proportion to rank. The king has no freedom whatever in a choice
+of religion. His religion is part of the position. An English nobleman,
+speaking generally, has two religions from which to choose. He may be
+either a member of the established Church or of the Roman Catholic. In
+the middle classes there is the choice of all sorts of religious sects,
+so long as they are Christian. Religious dissent is permitted so long as
+it does not travel beyond the limits of the chapel. And when we come to
+the better class working man, he has the greatest freedom of all. His
+social position does not depend upon his belonging to this or that
+Church, and he may, to borrow a phrase from Heine, go to hell in his own
+fashion.
+
+To-day the legal prohibition of religious dissent is practically
+ineffective, and is certainly far less demoralizing than the pressure
+that is exerted socially and unofficially. In all probability this has
+always been the case. For legal persecution must be open. Part of its
+purpose is publicity, and that in itself is apt to rouse hostility.
+Against open, legal persecution a man will make a stand, or if he gives
+way to the force arrayed against him may do so with no feeling of
+personal degradation. But the conformity that is secured by a threat of
+social boycott, the freedom of speech that is prevented by choking the
+avenues of intellectual intercourse, is far more deadly in its
+consequences, and far more demoralizing in its influence on character.
+To give way, as thousands do, not to the open application of force,
+which carries no greater personal reflection than does the soldier's
+surrender to superior numbers, but to the dread of financial loss, to
+the fear of losing a social status, that one may inwardly despise even
+while in the act of securing it, or from fear of offending those whom we
+may feel are not worthy of our respect, these are the things that cannot
+be done without eating into one's sense of self-respect, and inflicting
+upon one's character an irreparable injury.
+
+On this matter more will be said later. For the present I am concerned
+with the sense in which we are using the word "Freethought."
+Fortunately, little time need be wasted in discussing the once popular
+retort to the Freethinker that if the principle of determinism be
+accepted "free" thought is impossible. It is surprising that such an
+argument should ever have secured a vogue, and is only now interesting
+as an indication of the mentality of the defender of orthodox religion.
+Certainly no one who properly understands the meaning of the word would
+use such an argument. At best it is taking a word from sociology, a
+sphere in which the meaning is quite clear and intelligible, and
+applying it in the region of physical science where it has not, and is
+not intended to have, any meaning at all. In physical science a thing is
+what it does, and the business of science is to note the doings of
+forces and masses, their actions and reactions, and express them in
+terms of natural "law." From the point of view of physical science a
+thing is neither free nor unfree, and to discuss natural happenings in
+terms of freedom or bondage is equal to discussing smell in terms of
+sight or colour in terms of smell. But applied in a legitimate way the
+word "free" is not only justifiable, it is indispensible. The confusion
+arises when we take a word from a department in which its meaning is
+quite clear and apply it in a region where it has no application
+whatever.
+
+Applied to opinion "Free" has the same origin and the same application
+as the expressions "a free man," or a "free State," or "a free people."
+Taking either of these expressions it is plain that they could have
+originated only in a state of affairs where some people are "free," and
+some are living in a state of bondage or restraint. There is no need to
+trace the history of this since so much is implied in the word itself. A
+free State is one in which those belonging to it determine their own
+laws without being coerced by an outside power. A free man is one who is
+permitted to act as his own nature prompts. The word "free" implies
+nothing as to the nature of moral or mental causation, that is a
+question of a wholly different order. The free man exists over against
+the one who is not free, the free State over against one that is held in
+some degree of subjection to another State. There is no other meaning to
+the word, and that meaning is quite clear and definite.
+
+Now Freethought has a precisely similar significance. It says nothing as
+to the nature of thought, the origin of thought, or the laws of thought.
+With none of these questions is it vitally concerned. It simply asserts
+that there are conditions under which thought is not "free," that is,
+where it is coerced to a foregone conclusion, and that these conditions
+are fatal to thought in its higher and more valuable aspects.
+Freethought is that form of thinking that proceeds along lines of its
+own determining, rather than along lines that are laid down by
+authority. In actual practice it is immediately concerned with the
+expression of opinion rather than with its formation, since no authority
+can prevent the formation of opinion in any mind that is at all
+independent in its movements and forms opinions on the basis of observed
+facts and adequate reasoning. But its chief and primary significance
+lies in its repudiation of the right of authority to say what form the
+expression of opinion shall take. And it is also clear that such a term
+as "Freethought" could only have come into general use and prominence in
+a society in which the free circulation of opinion was more or less
+impeded.
+
+It thus becomes specially significant that, merely as a matter of
+history, the first active manifestation of Freethought should have
+occurred in connection with a revolt against religious teaching and
+authority. This was no accident, but was rather a case of necessity.
+For, in the first place, there is no other subject in which pure
+authority plays so large a part as it does in religion. All churches and
+all priesthoods, ancient and modern, fall back upon the principle of
+pure authority as a final method of enforcing their hold upon the
+people. That, it may be noted in passing, is one of the chief reasons
+why in all ages governments have found religion one of the most
+serviceable agencies in maintaining their sway. Secondly, there seems to
+have been from the very earliest times a radically different frame of
+mind in the approach to secular and religious matters. So far as one can
+see there appears to be, even in primitive societies, no very strong
+opposition to the free discussion of matters that are of a purely
+secular nature. Questions of ways and means concerning these are freely
+debated among savage tribes, and in all discussion differences of
+opinion must be taken for granted. It is when we approach religious
+subjects that a difference is seen. Here the main concern is to
+determine the will of the gods, and all reasoning is thus out of place,
+if not a positive danger. The only thing is to discover "God's will,"
+and when we have his, or his will given in "sacred" books the embargo on
+free thinking is complete. This feature continues to the end. We do not
+even to-day discuss religious matters in the same open spirit in which
+secular matters are debated. There is a bated breath, a timidity of
+criticism in discussing religious subjects that does not appear when we
+are discussing secular topics. With the thoroughly religious man it is
+solely a question of what God wishes him to do. In religion this affords
+the only latitude for discussion, and even that disappears largely when
+the will of God is placed before the people in the shape of "revealed"
+writings. Fortunately for the world "inspired" writings have never been
+so clearly penned as to leave no room for doubt as to what they actually
+meant. Clarity of meaning has never been one of the qualities of divine
+authorship.
+
+In this connection it is significant that the first form of democratic
+government of which we have any clear record should have been in
+freethinking, sceptical Greece. Equally notable is it that in both Rome
+and Greece the measure of mental toleration was greater than it has ever
+been in other countries before or since. In Rome to the very end of the
+Pagan domination there existed no legislation against opinions, as such.
+The holders of certain opinions might find themselves in uncomfortable
+positions now and then, but action against them had to rest on some
+ground other than that which was afterwards known as heresy. There
+existed no law in the Roman Empire against freedom of opinion, and those
+who are familiar with Mr. H. C. Lea's classic, _History of the
+Inquisition_, will recall his account of the various tactics adopted by
+the Christian Church to introduce measures that would accustom the
+public mind to legislation which should establish the principle of
+persecution for opinion.[12] In the end the Church succeeded in
+effecting this, and its success was registered in the almost
+unbelievable degradation of the human intellect which was exhibited in
+the Christian world for centuries. So complete was this demoralization
+that more than a thousand years later we find men announcing as a most
+daring principle a demand for freedom of discussion which in old Greece
+and Rome was never officially questioned. Christianity not merely killed
+freedom wherever it established itself, but it came very near killing
+even the memory of it.
+
+[12] See specially Vol. I., chapters 6, 7, and 8. One is sorely tempted
+to engage in what would be a rather lengthy aside on the mental freedom
+enjoyed by the people of ancient Greece, but considerations of cogency
+advise a shorter comment in this form. In the first place we have to
+note that neither the Greeks nor the Romans possessed anything in the
+shape of "sacred" books. That, as the history of Mohammedanism and
+Christianity shows, is one of the most disastrous things that can happen
+to any people. But apart from this there were several circumstances
+connected with the development of the Greek peoples that made for
+freedom of opinion. There was no uniform theology to commence with, and
+the configuration of the country, while enough to maintain local
+independence, was not enough to prevent a certain amount of intercourse.
+And it would certainly seem that no people were ever so devoid of
+intolerance as were the ancient Greeks. It is true that the history of
+Greece was not without its examples of intolerance, but these were
+comparatively few, and, as Professor Bury says, persecution was never
+organized. The gods were criticized in both speeches and plays. Theories
+of Materialism and Atheism were openly taught and were made the topic of
+public discussion. There was, indeed, a passion for the discussion of
+all sorts of subjects, and to discussion nothing is sacred. The best
+thought of Rome owed its impetus to Greece, and at a later date it was
+the recovered thought of Greece which gave the impetus to Mohammedan
+Spain in its cultivation of science and philosophy, and so led to the
+partial recovery of Europe from the disastrous control of the Christian
+Church. Nor need it be assumed that the work of Greece was due to the
+possession of a superior brain power. Of that there is not the slightest
+vestige of proof. It is simply that the ancient Greek lived in a freer
+mental atmosphere. The mind had less to hamper it in its operations; it
+had no organized and powerful Church that from the cradle to the grave
+pursued its work of preventing free criticism and the play of
+enlightened opinion. For several centuries the world has been seeking to
+recover some of its lost liberties with only a very moderate success.
+But if one thinks of what the Greeks were, and if one adds to what they
+had achieved a possible two thousand years of development, he will then
+have some notion of what the triumph of the Christian Church meant to
+the world.
+
+It was, therefore, inevitable that in the western world Freethought
+should come into prominence in relation to the Christian religion and
+its claims. In the Christian Church there existed an organization which
+not alone worked with the avowed intention of determining what men
+should think, but finally proceeded to what was, perhaps, the logical
+conclusion, to say what they should not think. No greater tyranny than
+the Christian Church has ever existed. And this applies, not to the
+Roman Church alone, but to every Church within the limit of its
+opportunities. In the name and in the interests of religion the
+Christian Church took some of the worst passions of men and consecrated
+them. The killing of heretics became one of the most solemn duties and
+it was urged upon secular rulers as such. The greatest instrument of
+oppression ever formed, the Inquisition, was fashioned for no other
+purpose than to root out opinions that were obnoxious to the Church. It
+would have been bad enough had the attempts of the Church to control
+opinion been limited to religion. But that was not the case. It aimed at
+taking under its control all sorts of teaching on all sorts of
+subjects. Nothing would have surprised an inhabitant of ancient Rome
+more, could he have revisited the earth some dozen centuries after the
+establishment of Christianity, than to have found men being punished for
+criticising doctrines that were in his day openly laughed at. And
+nothing could have given an ancient Athenian greater cause for wonder
+than to have found men being imprisoned and burned for teaching cosmical
+theories that were being debated in the schools of Athens two thousand
+years before. Well might they have wondered what had happened to the
+world, and well might they have come to the conclusion that it had been
+overtaken by an attack of universal insanity. And the explanation would
+not have been so very wide of the truth.
+
+In this matter of suppression of freedom of thinking there was little to
+choose between the Churches. Each aimed at controlling the thought of
+mankind, each was equally intolerant of any variation from the set line,
+and each employed the same weapon of coercion so far as circumstances
+permitted. At most the Protestant Churches substituted a dead book for a
+living Church, and in the end it may be questioned, when all allowance
+is made for the changed circumstances in which Protestantism operated,
+whether the rule of the new Church was not more disastrous than the
+older one. It had certainly less excuse for its intolerance. The Roman
+Catholic Church might urge that it never claimed to stand for freedom of
+opinion, and whatever its sins it was so far free from the offence of
+hypocrisy. But the Protestant Churches could set up no such plea; they
+professed to stand on freedom of conscience. And they thus added the
+quality of inconsistency and hypocrisy to an offence that was already
+grave enough in itself.
+
+But whatever opinion one may have on that point, it is certain that in
+practice the Protestant leaders were as opposed to freedom of thought as
+were the Roman Catholics. And Protestant bigotry left a mark on European
+history that deserves special recognition. For the first time it made
+the profession of Christianity a definite part of the law of the secular
+State.[13] Hitherto there had been no law in any of the European States
+which made a profession of Christianity necessary. There had been plenty
+of persecutions of non-Christians, and the consequences of a rejection
+of Christianity, if one lived in a Christian State, were serious enough.
+But when the secular State punished the heretic it was a manifestation
+of good will towards the Church and not the expression of a legal
+enactment. It was the direct influence of the Church on the State.
+Church and State were legally distinct during the mediaeval period,
+however closely they may have been allied in practice. With the arrival
+of Protestantism and the backing of the reformed religion given by
+certain of the Princes, the machinery of intolerance, so to speak, was
+taken over by the State and became one of its functions. It became as
+much the duty of the secular officials to extirpate heresy, to secure
+uniformity of religious belief as it was to the interest of the Church
+to see that it was destroyed. Up to that time it was the aim of the
+Church to make the State one of its departments. It had never legally
+succeeded in doing this, but it was not for the Roman Church to sink to
+the subordinate position of becoming a department of the State. It was
+left for Protestantism to make the Church a branch of the State and to
+give religious bigotry the full sanction of secular law.
+
+[13] See on this point Heeren's _Historical Treatises_, 1836, pp.
+61-70.
+
+Neither with Catholic nor Protestant could there be, therefore, any
+relaxation in the opposition offered to independent thinking. That still
+remained the cardinal offence to the religious mind. In the name of
+religion Protestants opposed the physics of Newton as bitterly as
+Catholics opposed the physics of Galileo. The geology of Hutton and
+Lyell, the chemistry of Boyle and Dalton, the biology of Von Baer,
+Lamarck and Darwin, with almost any other branch of science that one
+cares to select, tell the same tale. And when the desire for reform took
+a social turn there was the same influence to be fought. For while the
+Roman Catholic laid the chief insistence on obedience to the Church, the
+Protestant laid as strong insistence on obedience to the State, and made
+disobedience to its orders a matter of almost religious revolt. The
+whole force of religion was thus used to induce contentment with the
+existing order, instead of to the creation of an intelligent discontent
+which would lead to continuous improvement. In view of these
+circumstances it is not surprising that the word "Freethought" should
+have lost in actual use its more general significance of a denial of the
+place of mere authority in matters of opinion, and have acquired a more
+definite and precise connotation. It could not, of course, lose its
+general meaning, but it gained a special application and became properly
+associated with a definitely anti-theological attitude. The growth in
+this direction was gradual but inevitable. When the term first came into
+general use, about the end of the seventeenth century, it was mainly
+used with reference to those deists who were then attacking
+Christianity. In that sense it continued to be used for some time. But
+as Deism lost ground, thanks partly to the Christian attack, the clear
+and logical issue between Theism and Atheism became apparent, with the
+result that the definite anti-religious character of "Freethought"
+became firmly established. And to-day it is mere affectation or timidity
+to pretend that the word has any other vital significance. To say that a
+man is a Freethinker is to give, to ninety-nine people out of a hundred,
+the impression that he is anti-religious. And in this direction the
+popular sense of the word discloses what has been its important historic
+function. Historically, the chief stronghold of mere authority has been
+religion. In science and in sociology, as well as in connection with
+supernaturalism proper, every movement in the direction of the free
+exercise of the intellect has met with the unceasing opposition of
+religion. That has always been at once the symbol and the instrument of
+oppression. To attack religion has been to attack the enemy in his
+capital. All else has been matter of outpost skirmishing.
+
+I have apparently gone a long way round to get at the meaning of the
+word "Freethought," but it was necessary. For it is of very little use,
+in the case of an important word that has stood and stands for the name
+of a movement, to go to a dictionary, or to appeal to etymology. The
+latter has often a mere antiquarian interest, and the former merely
+registers current meanings, it does not make them. The use of a word
+must ultimately be determined by the ideas it conveys to those who hear
+it. And from what has been said the meaning of this particular word
+should be fairly clear. While standing historically for a reasoned
+protest against the imposition of opinion by authority, and, negatively,
+against such artificial conditions as prevent the free circulation of
+opinion, it to-day stands actually for a definitely anti-religious
+mental attitude. And this is what one would naturally expect. Protests,
+after all, are protests against something in the concrete, even though
+they may embody the affirmation of an abstract principle. And nowadays
+the principle of pure authority has so few defenders that it would be
+sheer waste of time, unless the protest embodied a definite attitude
+with regard to specific questions. We may, then, put it that to us
+"Freethought" stands for a reasoned and definite opposition to all forms
+of supernaturalism, it claims the right to subject all religious beliefs
+to the test of reason, and further claims that when so tested they break
+down hopelessly. It is from this point of view that these pages are
+written, and the warranty for so defining it should be apparent from
+what has been said in this and the preceding chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+REBELLION AND REFORM.
+
+
+Rebellion and reform are not exactly twins, but they are very closely
+related. For while all rebellion is not reform, yet in the widest sense
+of the word, there is no reform without rebellion. To fight for reform
+is to rebel against the existing order and is part of the eternal and
+fundamentally healthful struggle of the new against the old, and of the
+living present against the dead past. The rebel is thus at once a public
+danger and a benefactor. He threatens the existing order, but it is in
+the name of a larger and better social life. And because of this it is
+his usual lot to be crucified when living and deified when dead. So it
+has always been, so in its main features will it always be. If
+contemporaries were to recognize the reformer as such, they would
+destroy his essential function by making it useless. Improvement would
+become an automatic process that would perfect itself without
+opposition. As it is, the function of the rebel is to act as an
+explosive force, and no society of average human beings likes
+explosions. They are noisy, and they are dangerous. For the reformer to
+complain at not being hailed as a deliverer is for him to mistake his
+part and place in social evolution.
+
+The rebel and the reformer is, again, always in minority. That follows
+from what has already been said. It follows, too, from what we know of
+development in general. Darwinism rests on the supreme importance of the
+minority. It is an odd variation here and there that acts as the
+starting point for a new species--and it has against it the swamping
+influence of the rest of its kind that treads the old biological line.
+Nature's choicest variations are of necessity with the few, and when
+that variation has established itself and become normal another has to
+appear before a new start can be made.
+
+Whether we take biology or psychology the same condition appears. A new
+idea occurs to an individual and it is as strictly a variation from the
+normal as anything that occurs in the animal world. The idea may form
+the starting point of a new theory, or perhaps of a new social order.
+But to establish itself, to become the characteristic property of the
+group, it must run the gamut of persecution and the risk of suppression.
+And suppressed it often is--for a time. It is an idle maxim which
+teaches that truth always conquers, if by that is implied that it does
+so at once. That is not the truth. Lies have been victorious over and
+over again. The Roman Catholic Church, one of the greatest lies in the
+history of the human race, stood the conqueror for many centuries. The
+teaching of the rotundity of the earth and its revolution round the sun
+was suppressed for hundreds of years until it was revived in the 16th
+century. In the long run truth does emerge, but a lie may have a
+terribly lengthy innings. For the lie is accepted by the many, while the
+truth is seen only by the few. But it is the few to whom we turn when we
+look over the names of those who have made the world what is it. All the
+benefits to society come from the few, and society crucifies them to
+show its gratitude. One may put it that society lives on the usual, but
+flourishes on account of the exception.
+
+Now there is something extremely significant in the Christian religion
+tracing all the disasters of mankind to a primal act of disobedience. It
+is a fact which discloses in a flash the chief social function of
+religion in general and of Christianity in particular. Man's duty is
+summed up in the one word obedience, and the function of the
+(religiously) good man is to obey the commands of God, as that of the
+good citizen is to obey the commands of government. The two commands
+meet and supplement each other with the mutual advantage which results
+from the adjustment of the upper and lower jaws of a hyena. And it
+explains why the powers that be have always favoured the claims of
+religion. It enabled them to rally to their aid the tremendous and
+stupefying aid of religion and to place rebellion to their orders on the
+same level as rebellion against God. In Christian theology Satan is the
+arch-rebel; hell is full of rebellious angels and disobedient men and
+women. Heaven is reserved for the timid, the tame, the obedient, the
+sheep-like. When the Christ of the Gospels divides the people into goats
+and sheep, it is the former that go to hell, and the latter to heaven.
+The Church has not a rebel in its calendar, although it has not a few
+rogues and many fools. To the Church rebellion is always a sin, save on
+those rare occasions when revolt is ordered in the interests of the
+Church itself. In Greek mythology Prometheus steals fire from heaven for
+the benefit of man and suffers in consequence. The myth symbolizes the
+fact. Always the man has had to win knowledge and happiness in the teeth
+of opposition from the gods. Always the race has owed its progress to
+the daring of the rebel or of the rebellious few.
+
+Often the Freethinker is denounced because he is destructive or
+dangerous. What other is he expected to be? And would he be of much use
+if he were otherwise?? I would go further and say that he is the most
+destructive of all agencies because he is so intimately concerned with
+the handling of the most destructive of weapons--ideas. We waste a good
+deal of time in denouncing certain people as dangerous when they are in
+reality comparatively harmless. A man throws a bomb, or breaks into a
+house, or robs one of a purse, and a judge solemnly denounces him as a
+most "dangerous member of society." It is all wrong. These are
+comparatively harmless individuals. One man throws a bomb, kills a few
+people, damages some property, and there the matter ends. Another man
+comes along and drops instead of a bomb a few ideas, and the whole
+country is in a state of eruption. Charles Peace pursues a career of
+piety and crime, gets himself comfortably and religiously hanged, and
+society congratulates itself on having got rid of a dangerous person,
+and then forgets all about it. Karl Marx visits England, prowls round
+London studying the life of rich and poor, and drops _Das Kapital_ on
+us. A quiet and outwardly inoffensive individual, one who never gave the
+police a moment's anxiety, spends years studying earthworms, and
+flowers, and horses and cats, and all sorts of moving things and
+presents society with _The Origin of Species_. Organized society found
+itself able to easily guard itself against the attacks of men such as
+Charles Peace, it may with impunity extend its hospitality to the
+thrower of bombs, or robber of houses, but by what means can it protect
+itself against the "peaceful" Marx or the "harmless" Darwin? No society
+can afford to ignore in its midst a score of original or independent
+thinkers, or if society does ignore them they will not for long ignore
+society. The thinker is really destructive. He destroys because he
+creates; he creates because he destroys. The one is the obverse of the
+other.
+
+I am not making idle play with the word "destruction." It is literally
+true that in human society the most destructive and the most coercive
+forces at work are ideas. They strike at established institutions and
+demand either their modification or their removal. That is why the
+emergence of a new idea is always an event of social significance.
+Whether it be a good idea or a bad one will not affect the truth of this
+statement. For over four years our political mediocrities and muddle
+headed militarists were acting as though the real problem before them
+was to establish the superiority of one armed group of men over another
+group. That was really a simple matter. The important issue which
+society had to face was the ideas that the shock of the war must give
+rise to. Thinkers saw this; but thinkers do not get the public ear
+either as politicians or militarists. And now events are driving home
+the lesson. The ideas of Bolshevism and Sinn Feinism proved far more
+"dangerous" than the German armies. The Allied forces could handle the
+one, but they were powerless before the other. It is not a question of
+whether these particular ideas are good or bad, or whether we approve or
+disapprove of them, but entirely one that, being ideas, they represent a
+far more "destructive" power than either bomb or gun. They are at once
+the forces that act as the cement of society and those that may hurl it
+into chaotic fragments.
+
+Whether an idea will survive or not must, in the end, be determined by
+circumstances, but in itself a new idea may be taken as the mental
+analogue of the variation which takes place in physical structures, and
+which forms the raw material of natural selection. And if that is so, it
+is evident that any attempt to prevent the play of new ideas on old
+institutions is striking at the very fact of progress. For if we are to
+encourage variation we must permit it in all directions, up as well as
+down, for evil as well as for good. You cannot check variation in one
+direction without checking it in all. You cannot prevent the appearance
+of a new idea that you do not want without threatening the appearance of
+a number of ideas that you would eagerly welcome. It is, therefore,
+always better to encourage the appearance of a bad idea than it is to
+risk the suppression of a good one. Besides, it is not always that force
+applied to the suppression of ideas succeeds in its object. What it
+often does is to cause the persecuted idea to assume a more violent
+form, to ensure a more abrupt break with the past than would otherwise
+occur, with the risk of a period of reaction before orderly progress is
+resumed. The only way to silence an idea is to answer it. You cannot
+reply to a belief with bullets, or bayonet a theory into silence.
+History contains many lessons, but none that is plainer than this one,
+and none that religious and secular tyrannies learn with greater
+reluctance.
+
+The Churches admit by their practice the truth of what has been said.
+They have always understood that the right way to keep society in a
+stationary position is to prevent the introduction of new ideas. It is
+thought against which they have warred, the thinker against whom they
+have directed their deadliest weapons. The Christian Church has been
+tolerant towards the criminal, and has always been intolerant towards
+the heretic and the Freethinker. For the latter the naming _auto da fe_,
+for the former the moderate penance and the "go, and sin no more." The
+worst of its tortures were neither created for nor applied to the thief
+and the assassin, but were specially designed for the unbeliever. In
+this the Church acted with a sure instinct. The thief threatens no
+institution, not even that of private property. "Thou shalt not steal"
+is as much the law of a thieves' kitchen as it is of Mayfair. But
+Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Lyell, Darwin, these are the men who
+convey a threat in all they write, who destroy and create with a
+splendour that smacks of the power with which Christians have endowed
+their mythical deity. No aggregation of criminals has ever threatened
+the security of the Church, or even disturbed its serenity. On the
+contrary, the worse, morally, the time, the greater the influence of
+Christianity. It flourishes on human weakness and social vice as the
+bacilli of tuberculosis do in darkness and dirt. It is when weakness
+gives place to strength, and darkness to light that the Church finds its
+power weakening. The Church could forgive the men who instituted the
+black slave trade, she could forgive those who were responsible for the
+horrors of the English factory system, but she could never forgive the
+writer of the _Age of Reason_. She has always known how to distinguish
+her friends from her foes.
+
+Right or wrong, then, the heretic, the Freethinker, represents a figure
+of considerable social significance. His social value does not lie
+wholly in the fact of his opinions being sound or his judgment
+impeccable. Mere revolt or heresy can never carry that assurance with
+it. The important thing about the rebel is that he represents a spirit,
+a temper, in the absence of which society would stagnate. It is bad when
+people revolt without cause, but it is infinitely better that a people
+should revolt without cause than that they should have cause for
+rebellion without possessing the courage of a kick. That man should have
+the courage to revolt against the thing which he believes to be wrong is
+of infinitely greater consequence than that he should be right in
+condemning the thing against which he revolts. Whether the rebel is
+right or wrong time and consequence alone can tell, but nothing can make
+good the evil of a community reduced to sheep-like acquiescence in
+whatever may be imposed upon them. The "Their's not to reason why"
+attitude, however admirable in an army, is intolerable and dangerous in
+social life. Replying to those who shrieked about the "horrors" of the
+French Revolution, and who preached the virtue of patriotic obedience to
+established authority, Carlyle, with an eye on Ireland, sarcastically
+admitted that the "horrors" were very bad indeed, but he added:--
+
+     What if history somewhere on this planet were to hear of a nation,
+     the third soul of whom had not for thirty weeks of each year as
+     many third-rate potatoes as would sustain him? History in that
+     case, feels bound to consider that starvation is starvation; that
+     starvation presupposes much; history ventures to assert that the
+     French Sansculotte of Nine-three, who roused from a long death
+     sleep, could rush at once to the frontiers and die fighting for an
+     immortal hope and faith of deliverance for him and his, was but the
+     second miserablest of men.
+
+And that same history, looking back through the ages, is bound to
+confess that it is to the great rebels, from Satan onward, that the
+world mainly owes whatever of greatness or happiness it has achieved.
+
+One other quality of the rebel remains to be noted. In his revolt
+against established authority, in his determination to wreck cherished
+institutions for the realization of an ideal, the rebel is not the
+representative of an anti-social idea or of an anti-social force. He is
+the true representative of the strongest of social influences. The very
+revolt against the social institutions that exist is in the name and for
+the realization of a larger and a better social order that he hopes to
+create. A man who is ready to sacrifice his life in the pursuit of an
+ideal cannot, whatever else he may be accused of, be reasonably accused
+of selfishness or of a want of "social consciousness." He is a vital
+expression of the centuries of social life which have gone before and
+which have made us all what we are. Were his social sense weaker he
+would risk less. Were he selfish he would not trouble about the
+conversion of his fellows. The spirit of revolt represents an important
+factor in the process of social development, and they who are most
+strenuous in their denunciation of social control, are often, even
+though unconsciously, the strongest evidence of its overpowering
+influence.
+
+Fed as we are with the mental food prepared by our Churches and
+governments, to whose interests it is that the rebel and the Freethinker
+should be decried and denounced, we are all too apt to overlook the
+significance of the rebel. Yet he is invariably the one who voices what
+the many are afraid or unable to express. The masses suffer dumbly, and
+the persistence of their suffering breeds a sense of its inevitability.
+It is only when these dumb masses find a voice that they threaten the
+established order, and for this the man of ideas is essential. That is
+why all vested interests, religious and social, hate him so heartily.
+They recognize that of all the forces with which they deal an idea is
+the greatest and the most untamable. Once in being it is the most
+difficult to suppress. It is more explosive than dynamite and more
+shattering in its effects. Physical force may destroy a monarch, but it
+is only the force of an idea that can destroy a monarchy. You may
+destroy a church with cannon, but cannon are powerless against Church
+doctrines. An idea comes as near realizing the quality of
+indestructibility as anything we know. You may quiet anything in the
+world with greater ease than you may reduce a strong thinker to silence,
+or subdue anything with greater facility than you may subdue the idea
+that is born of strenuous thought. Fire may be extinguished and strife
+made to cease, ambition may be killed and the lust for power grow faint.
+The one thing that defies all and that finally conquers is the truth
+which strong men see and for which brave men fight.
+
+It is thus left for the philosophy of Freethought, comprehensive here as
+elsewhere, to find a place for the rebel and to recognize the part he
+plays in the evolution of the race. For rebellion roots itself
+ultimately in the spirit of mental independence. And that whether a
+particular act of revolt may be justifiable or not. It is bred of the
+past, but it looks forward hopefully and fearlessly to the future, and
+it sees in the present the material out of which that better future may
+be carved. That the mass of people find in the rebel someone whom it is
+moved to suppress is in no wise surprising. New things are not at first
+always pleasant, even though they may be necessary. But the temper of
+mind from which rebellion springs is one that society can only suppress
+at its peril.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHILD.
+
+
+If the truth of what has been said above be admitted, it follows that
+civilization has two fundamental aspects. On the one side there is the
+environment, made up--so far as civilized humanity is concerned--of the
+ideas, the beliefs, the customs, and the stored up knowledge of
+preceding generations, and on the other side we have an organism which
+in virtue of its education responds to the environmental stimuli in a
+given manner. Between the man of to-day and the man of an earlier
+generation the vital distinction is not that the present day one is, as
+an organism, better, that he has keener sight, or stronger muscles, or a
+brain of greater capacity, but that he has a truer perception of things,
+and in virtue of his enlarged knowledge is able to mould natural forces,
+including the impulses of his own nature, in a more desirable manner.
+And he can do this because, as I have already said, he inherits what
+previous generations have acquired, and so reaps the benefits of what
+they have done.
+
+We may illustrate this in a very simple manner. One of the most striking
+differences between the man of to-day and the man of the past is the
+attitude of the two in relation to natural phenomena. To the people of
+not so many generations ago an eclipse was a very serious thing, fraught
+with the promise of disaster to mankind. The appearance of a comet was
+no less ominous. John Knox saw in comets an indication of the wrath of
+heaven, and in all countries the Churches fought with all their might
+against the growth of the scientific view. Away back in antiquity we
+meet with the same view. There is, for example, the classic case of the
+Greek general Nikias, who, when about to extricate his army from a
+dangerous position before Syracuse, was told that an eclipse of the sun
+indicated that the gods wished him to stay where he was for three times
+nine days. Nikias obeyed the oracles with the result that his army was
+captured. Now it is certain that no general to-day would act in that
+manner, and if he did it is equally certain that he would be
+court-martialled. Equally clear is it that comets and eclipses have
+ceased to infect the modern mind with terror, and are now only objects
+of study to the learned, and of curiosity to the unlearned. But the
+difference here is entirely one of knowledge. Our ancestors reacted to
+the appearance of a comet or an eclipse in a particular manner because
+their knowledge of these things was of a certain kind. It was not at all
+a case of feeling, or of degree of feeling, or of having a better brain,
+but simply a matter of reacting to an environmental influence in terms
+of an understanding of certain things. Had we the same conception of
+these things that our ancestors had we should react in the same manner.
+We act differently because our understanding of things is different. We
+may put it briefly that the kind of reaction which we make to the things
+around us is mainly determined by our knowledge concerning their nature.
+
+There is one other fact that brings into prominence the importance of
+the kind of reaction which we make to environmental stimuli. Put
+briefly, we may say that an important distinction between the animal and
+man is that the animal passes its existence in a comparatively simple
+environment where the experiences are few in kind and often repeated,
+whereas with man the environment is very complex, the experiences are
+varied in character, and may be only repeated after long intervals. The
+consequence is that in order to get through life an animal needs a few
+simple instincts which automatically respond to frequently repeated
+experiences, while on the other hand there must be with man opportunity
+for the kind of response which goes under the name of intelligent
+action. It is this which gives us the reason, or the explanation, why of
+all animals the human being is born the most helpless, and why he
+remains helpless for a longer period than does any other. The prolonged
+infancy is the opportunity given to the human being to acquire the
+benefits of education and so to reap the full advantage of that social
+heritage which, as we have shown, raises him so far above the level of
+past generations. Or we may express the matter with the late Professor
+Fiske, who was the first, I think, to dwell at length upon this
+phenomenon, that the distinction between man and the animal world is
+that in the one case we have developed instincts with small capacity for
+education, in the other few instincts with great capacity for education.
+
+It is often said that the Churches have failed to pay attention to
+education, or have not taken it seriously. That is quite wrong. It may,
+indeed, be said that they have never failed to attend to education, and
+have always taken it seriously--with disastrous results to education and
+to social life. Ever since the birth of the modern movement for
+education the Church has fought hard to maintain its control of schools,
+and there is every reason why this should be so. Survival in the animal
+world may be secured in two ways. On the one side we may have a
+continuance of a special sort of environment to which a given structure
+is properly adapted; on the other there may be a modification of the
+animal to meet the demands of a changing environment.
+
+Applying this principle to the question of the Churches and education
+the moral is clear. The human environment changes more than that of any
+other animal. The mere amassing of experience and its expression in the
+form of new institutions or in the modification of already existing
+ones, is enough to effect a change in the environment of successive
+generations. The Christian Church, or for the matter of that, any form
+of religion, has before it two possible courses. Either it must maintain
+an environment that is as little as possible unchanged, or it must
+modify its body of teaching to meet the changed surroundings. As a mere
+matter of fact both processes go on side by side, but consciously the
+Churches have usually followed the course of trying to maintain an
+unchanged environment. This is the real significance of the attempt of
+the more orthodox to boycott new, or heretical literature, or lectures,
+or to produce a "religious atmosphere" round the child. It is an attempt
+to create an environment to which the child's mind will respond in a
+manner that is favourable to the claims and teachings of the Christian
+Church. The Church dare not openly and plainly throw overboard its body
+of doctrines to meet the needs of the modern mind; and the only thing
+remaining is to keep the modern mind as backward as possible in order
+that it may rest content with a teaching that is reminiscent of a past
+stage of civilization.
+
+In this connection it is interesting to note that the struggle for the
+child is essentially a modern phrase. So long as the teaching of
+religion is in, at least, a working harmony with current knowledge and
+the general body of the social forces the question of religious
+instruction does not emerge. Life itself--social life that is--to a very
+considerable extent enforces religious teaching. At all events it does
+not violently contradict it. But as, owing to the accumulation of
+knowledge, views of the world and of man develop that are not in harmony
+with accepted religious teaching, the Churches are forced to attempt the
+maintenance of an environment of a special religious kind to which their
+teaching is adapted. Hence the growing prominence of the division of
+secular and sacred as things that have to do with religion and things
+that have not. Hence, too, the importance to the Churches of acquiring
+power over the child's mind before it is brought completely under the
+influence of an environment in which orthodox teachings can only present
+themselves as a gross anachronism.
+
+Thus, one may say with absolute confidence that if in a modern
+environment a child was left free with regard to modern influences there
+is nothing that would lead to an acceptance of religion. Our ancestors
+grew up familiar with the idea of the miraculous and the supernatural
+generally because there was nothing in the existing knowledge of the
+world that contradicted it. But what part is there in the general
+education of the child in modern society that would lead to that end? So
+far as it is taught anything about the world it learns to regard it in
+terms of causation and of positive knowledge. It finds itself surrounded
+with machinery, and inventions, and with a thousand and one mechanical
+and other inventions which do not in the very remotest degree suggest
+the supernatural. In other words, the response of a modern child in a
+modern environment is of a strictly non-religious kind. Left alone it
+would no more become religious in the sense of believing in the
+religious teachings of any of the Churches than it would pass through
+life looking for miracles or accepting fairy tales as sober statements
+of historic fact. It would no more express itself in terms of religion
+than it would describe an eclipse in the language of our ancestors of
+five hundred years ago.
+
+In self defence the Churches are thus bound to make a fight for the
+possession of the child. They cannot wait, because that means allowing
+the child to grow to maturity and then dealing with it when it is able
+to examine religion with some regard to its historic evolution, and with
+a due appreciation of the hopelessly unscientific character of the
+conception of the supernatural. They must, so far as they can, protect
+the growing child from the influence of all those environmental forces
+that make for the disintegration of religious beliefs. The only way in
+which the Churches can at all make sure of a supply of recruits is by
+impressing them before they are old enough to resist. As the Germany of
+the Kaiser is said to have militarized the nation by commencing with the
+schools, so the Churches hope to keep the nations religious by
+commencing with the children. Apart from these considerations there is
+no reason why religion could not wait, as other subjects wait, till the
+child is old enough to understand and appreciate it. But with the
+Churches it is literally the child or nothing.
+
+From the point of view of citizenship the retention of religion in State
+schools is a manifest injustice. If ever religious instruction could be
+justified in any circumstances it is when the religion taught represents
+at least the professed beliefs of the whole of the people. But that is
+clearly not the case to-day. Only a section of the people can be called,
+even formally, Christian. Large numbers are quite opposed to
+Christianity, and large numbers deliberately reject all religion. How,
+then, can the State undertake the teaching of a religion without at the
+same time rousing resentment in and inflicting an injustice on a large
+number of its members? It cannot be done, and the crowning absurdity is
+that the State acknowledges the non-essential character of religion by
+permitting all who will to go without. In secular subjects it permits no
+such option. It says that all children shall receive certain tuition in
+certain subjects for a given period. It makes instruction in these
+subjects compulsory on the definite and intelligible ground that the
+education given is necessary to the intelligent discharge of the duties
+of citizenship. It does not do that in the case of religion, and it dare
+not do that. No government to-day would have the impudence to say that
+discharge of the duties of citizenship is dependent upon acceptance of
+the Athanasian Creed, or upon the belief in the Bible, or in an after
+life. And not being able to say this it is driven to the absurd position
+of, on the one hand saying to the people, that religion shall be taught
+in the State schools, and on the other, if one doesn't care to have it
+he may leave it alone without suffering the slightest disqualification.
+
+Indeed, it is impossible for instruction in religion to be genuinely
+called education at all. If I may be allowed to repeat what I have said
+elsewhere on this subject, one may well ask:--
+
+     What is it that the genuine educationalist aims at? The imparting
+     of knowledge is, of course, essential. But, in the main, education
+     consists in a wholesome training of mind and body, in forming
+     habits of cleanliness, truthfulness, honesty, kindness, the
+     development of a sense of duty and of justice. Can it be said in
+     truth that what is called religious instruction does these things,
+     or that instruction in them is actually inseparable from religion?
+     Does the creation of a religious "atmosphere," the telling of
+     stories of God or Jesus or angels or devils--I omit hell--have any
+     influence in the direction of cultivating a sound mind in a sound
+     body? Will anyone contend that the child has even a passing
+     understanding of subjects over which all adults are more or less
+     mystified? To confuse is not to instruct, to mystify is not to
+     enlighten, the repetition of meaningless phrases can leave behind
+     no healthy residuum in the mind. It is the development of capacity
+     along right lines that is important, not the mere cramming of
+     verbal formulae. Above all, it is the function of the true teacher
+     to make his pupil independent of him. The aim of the priest is to
+     keep one eternally dependent upon his ministrations. The final and
+     fatal criticism upon religious instruction is that it is not
+     education at all.
+
+     It may be argued that a policy of creating sentiments in favour of
+     certain things not wholly understood by the child is followed in
+     connection with matters other than religion. We do not wait until a
+     child is old enough to appreciate the intellectual justification of
+     ethics to train it in morals. And in many directions we seek to
+     develop some tendencies and to suppress others in accordance with
+     an accepted standard. All this may be admitted as quite true, but
+     it may be said in reply that these are things for which an adequate
+     reason _can_ be given, and we are sure of the child's approbation
+     when it is old enough to appreciate what has been done. But in the
+     case of religion the situation is altogether different. We are here
+     forcing upon the child as true, as of the same admitted value as
+     ordinary ethical teaching, certain religious doctrines about which
+     adults themselves dispute with the greatest acrimony. And there is
+     clearly a wide and vital distinction between cultivating in a child
+     sentiments the validity of which may at any time be demonstrated,
+     or teachings upon the truth of which practically all adults are
+     agreed, and impressing upon it teachings which all agree may be
+     false. We are exploiting the child in the interests of a Church.
+     Parents are allowing themselves to be made the catspaws of priests;
+     and it is not the least formidable of the counts against the
+     Church's influence that it converts into active enemies of children
+     those who should stand as their chief protectors. It is religion
+     which makes it true that "a _child's_ foes shall be those of his
+     own household."[14]
+
+[14] _Religion and the Child_, Pioneer Press.
+
+Where the claim to force religion upon the child breaks down on such
+grounds as those outlined above it is quite certain that it cannot be
+made good upon any other ground. Historically, it is also clear that we
+do not find that conduct was better in those ages when the Christian
+religion was held most unquestioningly, but rather the reverse. The
+moralization of the world has, as a matter of historic fact, kept pace
+with the secularizing of life. This is true both as regards theory and
+fact. The application of scientific methods to ethical problems has
+taught us more of the nature of morality in the short space of three or
+four generations than Christian teaching did in a thousand years. And it
+is not with an expansion of the power and influence of religion that
+conduct has undergone an improvement, but with the bringing of people
+together in terms of secular relationships and reducing their religious
+beliefs to the level of speculative ideas which men may hold or reject
+as they think fit, so long as they do not allow them to influence their
+relations to one another.
+
+On all grounds it is urgent that the child should be rescued from the
+clutches of the priest. It is unfair to the child to so take advantage
+of its trust, its innocence, and its ignorance, and to force upon it as
+true teachings that which we must all admit may be false, and which, in
+a growing number of cases, the child when it grows up either rejects
+absolutely or considerably modifies. It is unjust to the principle upon
+which the modern State rests, because it is teaching the speculative
+beliefs of a few with money raised from the taxation of all. The whole
+tendency of life in the modern State is in the direction of
+secularization--confining the duties and activities of the State to
+those actions which have their meaning and application to this life.
+Every argument that is valid against the State forcing religion upon the
+adult is valid also against the State forcing religion upon the child.
+And, on the other hand, it is really absurd to say that religion must be
+forced upon the child, but we are outraging the rights of the individual
+and perpetuating an intolerable wrong if we force it upon the adult.
+Surely the dawning and developing individuality of the child has claims
+on the community that are not less urgent than those of the adult.
+
+Finally, the resolve to rescue the child from the clutches of the priest
+is in the interest of civilization itself. All human experience shows
+that a civilization that is under the control of a priesthood is doomed.
+From the days of ancient Egypt there is no exception to this rule. And
+sooner or later a people, if they are to progress, are compelled to
+attempt to limit the control of the priest over life. The whole of the
+struggle of the Reformation was fundamentally for the control of the
+secular power--whether life should or should not be under the control of
+the Church. In that contest, over a large part of Europe, the Roman
+Church lost. But the victory was only a very partial one. It was never
+complete. The old priest was driven out, but the new Presbyter remained,
+and he was but the old tyrant in another form. Ever since then the fight
+has gone on, and ever since, the Protestant minister, equally with the
+Catholic priest, has striven for the control of education and so to
+dominate the mind of the rising generation. The fight for the liberation
+of the child is thus a fight for the control or the directing of
+civilization. It is a question of whether we are to permit the priest to
+hold the future to ransom by permitting this control of the child, or
+whether we are to leave religious beliefs, as we leave other beliefs of
+a speculative character, to such a time as the child is old enough to
+understand them. It is a fight for the future of civilization.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE NATURE OF RELIGION.
+
+
+It is no mere paradox to say that religion is most interesting to those
+who have ceased to believe in it. The reason for this is not far to
+seek. Religious beliefs play so large a part in the early history of
+society, and are so influential in social history generally, that it is
+impossible to leave religion alone without forfeiting an adequate
+comprehension of a large part of social evolution. Human development
+forms a continuous record; our institutions, whatever be their nature,
+have their roots in the far past, and often, even when modified in form,
+retain their essential characteristics. No student of social history can
+travel far or dig deeply without finding himself in contact with
+religion in some form. And the mass of mankind are not yet so far
+removed from "primitive" humanity as to give to the study of religion an
+exclusively archaeological interest.
+
+Where so much is discord it is well, if it be possible, to start with a
+basis of agreement. And on one point, at least, there is substantial
+unity among critics. There is a general agreement among students of folk
+lore, comparative mythology, and anthropology, that religious ideas rest
+ultimately upon an interpretation of nature that is now generally
+discarded. Differing as they do on details, there is consent upon this
+point. It is the world of the savage that originates the religion of the
+savage, and upon that rests the religions of civilized man as surely as
+his physical structure goes back to the animal world for its beginning.
+And in giving birth to a religious explanation of his world the savage
+was only pursuing the normal path of human development. Mankind
+progresses through trial and error; doubtful and erroneous theories are
+framed before more reliable ones are established, and while truth may
+crown our endeavours it seldom meets us at the outset. Religious beliefs
+thus form man's earliest interpretation of nature. On this there is, as
+I have said, general agreement, and it is as well not to permit
+ourselves to lose sight of that in the discussion of the various
+theories that are put forward as to the exact nature of the stages of
+religious development.
+
+In many directions the less accurate theories of things are replaced
+gradually and smoothly by more reliable explanations. But in religion
+this is not so. For many reasons, with which we are not now immediately
+concerned, religious beliefs are not outgrown without considerable
+"growing pains." And a long time after the point of view from which
+religious beliefs sprang has been given up, the conclusions that were
+based on that point of view are held to most tenaciously. And yet if one
+accepts the scientific story of the origins of religious ideas there
+seems no justification whatever for this. Religion cannot transcend its
+origin. Multiply nothing to infinity and the result is still nothing.
+Illusion can beget nothing but illusion, even though in its pursuit we
+may stumble on reality. And no amount of ingenuity can extract truth
+from falsehood.
+
+One's surprise at the perpetuation of this particular delusion is
+diminished by the reflection that the period during which we have
+possessed anything like an exact knowledge of the character and
+operations of natural forces is, after all, but an infinitesimal
+portion of the time the race has been in existence. Three or four
+centuries at most cover the period during which such knowledge has been
+at our command, and small as this is in relation to the thousands of
+generations wherein superstition has reigned unchallenged, a knowledge
+of the laws of mental life belongs only to the latter portion. And even
+then the knowledge available has been till recently the possession of a
+class, while to-day, large masses of the population are under the
+domination of the crudest of superstitions. The belief that thirteen is
+an unlucky number, that a horse-shoe brings luck, the extent to which
+palmistry and astrology flourishes, the cases of witchcraft that crop up
+every now and again, all bear testimony to the vast mass of superstition
+that is still with us. The primitive mind is still alive and active,
+disguised though it may be by a veneer of civilization and a terribly
+superficial education. And when one reflects upon all the facts there is
+cause for astonishment that in the face of so great a dead weight of
+custom and tradition against a rational interpretation of the universe
+so much has been done and in so short a time.
+
+In discussing religion very much turns upon the meaning of the word, and
+unfortunately "religion" is to-day used in so many differing and
+conflicting senses that without the most careful definition no one is
+quite sure what is meant by it. The curious disinclination of so many to
+avow themselves as being without a religion must also be noted. To be
+without a religion, or rather to be known as one who is without a
+religion, would seem to mark one off as apart from the rest of one's
+kind, and to infringe all the tribal taboos at one sweep. And very few
+seem to have the courage to stand alone. Mr. Augustine Birrell once
+said, in introducing to the House of Commons an Education Bill, that
+children would rather be wicked than singular. That is quite true, and
+it is almost as true of adults as it is of children. There is no great
+objection to having a religion different from that of other people,
+because the religions of the world are already of so varied a character
+that there is always companionship in difference. But to be without a
+religion altogether is a degree of isolation that few can stand. The
+consequence is that although vast numbers have given up everything that
+is really religious they still cling to the name. They have left the
+service, but they show a curious attachment to the uniform. Thus it
+happens that we have a religion of Socialism, a religion of Ethics,
+etc., and I should not be surprised to find one day a religion of
+Atheism--if that has not already appeared.
+
+But all this is a mistake, and a very serious mistake. The Freethinker,
+or Socialist, who calls his theory of life a religion is not causing the
+religionist to think more highly of him, he is making his opponent think
+more highly of his own opinions. Imitation becomes in such a case not
+alone flattery, but confirmation. The Goddite does not think more highly
+of Freethought because it is labelled religion, he merely becomes the
+more convinced of the supreme value of his own faith, and still hopes
+for the Freethinker's return to the fold. If Freethinkers are to command
+the respect of the religious world they must show not only that they can
+get along without religion, but that they can dispense with the name
+also. If strength does not command respect weakness will certainly fail
+to secure it. And those of us who are genuinely anxious that the world
+should be done with false ideas and mischievous frames of mind ought to
+at least take care that our own speech and thought are as free from
+ambiguity as is possible.
+
+There is another and deeper aspect of the matter. As I have already
+said, language not alone expresses thought, it also governs and directs
+it. Locke expressed this truth when he said, "It is impossible that men
+should ever truly seek, or certainly discover, the disagreement of ideas
+themselves whilst their thoughts flutter about, or stick only on sounds
+of doubtful and uncertain significance." Quite a number of theological
+and metaphysical conundrums would lose their significance if it were
+only realized that the words used are not alone of doubtful and
+uncertain significance, but often of no possible significance whatever.
+They are like counterfeit coins, which retain their value only so long
+as they are not tested by a proper standard. And the evil of these
+counterfeits is that they deceive both those who tender and those who
+accept them. For even though slovenliness of speech is not always the
+product of slovenly thought, in the long run it tends to induce it, and
+those who realize this need to be specially on their guard against using
+language which can only further confuse an already sufficiently confused
+public opinion, and strengthen superstitions that are already
+sufficiently strong without our clandestine or unintended assistance.[15]
+
+[15] Of the evil of an incautious use of current words we have an
+example in the case of Darwin. Neither his expressions of regret at
+having "truckled to public opinion" at having used the term "creator,"
+nor his explicit declaration that the word was to him only a synonym of
+ignorance, prevented religious apologists from citing him as a believer
+in deity on the strength of his having used the word.
+
+Unfortunately, it remains a favourite policy with many writers to use
+and define the word religion, not in accordance with a comprehensive
+survey of facts, but in a way that will harmonize with existing
+pre-possessions. To this class belongs Matthew Arnold's famous
+definition of religion as "Morality touched with emotion," Professor
+Seeley's statement that we are entitled to call religion "any habitual
+and permanent admiration," or the common description of religion as
+consisting in devotion to an ideal. All such definitions may be set on
+one side as historically worthless, and as not harmonizing with the
+facts. Arnold's definition is in the highest degree superficial, since
+there exists no morality that is not touched with emotion, and on the
+other hand there exist phases of religion that have not any connection
+with morality, however slight. Professor Leuba properly rules
+definitions of this class out of order in the comment that, as it is
+"the function of words to delimitate, one defeats the purpose of
+language by stretching the meaning of a word until it has lost all
+precision and unity of meaning."[16] A definition that includes
+everything may as well, for all the use it is, not cover anything.
+
+[16] _The Psychological Origin and Nature of Religion_, p. 92.
+
+Equally faulty are those definitions that are based upon an assumed
+conscious effort to explain the mysteries of existence. No stranger
+lapse ever overtook a great thinker than occurred to Herbert Spencer
+when he described religion as consisting in a worship of the unknowable,
+and as due to the desire to explain a mystery ever pressing for
+interpretation. Granting the existence of an Unknowable, the sense of
+its presence belongs to the later stages of mental evolution, not to the
+earlier ones. Metaphysical and mystical theories of religion are
+indications of its disintegration, not of its beginnings. Primitive man
+began to believe in ghosts and gods for the same reasons that he
+believed in other things; he worshipped his gods for very concrete
+considerations. Even the distinction between "spiritual" and material
+existence is quite foreign to his mind. Such distinctions arise
+gradually with the progress of knowledge and its disintegrating
+influence on inherited beliefs. If primitive man may be credited with a
+philosophy, and if one may use the word in a purely convenient sense,
+then one may say that he is neither a dualist, nor a pluralist, but a
+monist. The soul or double he believes in is similar to the body he
+sees; the unseen forces he credits with various activities are of the
+same kind as those with which he is acquainted. To read our conceptions
+into the mind of primitive man because we use our words to explain his
+thoughts is a procedure that is bound to end in confusion. Man's
+earliest conception of things is vague and indefinite. Later, he
+distinguishes differences, qualitative and quantitative, his conception
+of things becomes more definite, and distinctions are set up that lay
+the foundations of science and philosophy, and which mark their
+separation from religion.
+
+So far as one can see there are only two causes why people should
+continue to use the word religion after giving up all for which it
+properly stands. One is sheer conservatism. When, for instance, Thomas
+Paine said, "To do good is my religion," he had at least the
+justification of believing in a deity, but apart from this the only
+cause for his calling the desire to do good a religion is that there had
+grown up the fashion of calling one's rule of life a religion. The other
+cause is the ill-repute that has been attached to those who avow
+themselves as being without religion. Orthodoxy saw to it that they were
+treated as pariahs without social status, and, in many cases, legal
+rights. Once upon a time it was useless unless one believed in the
+_right_ religion. Nowadays, any religion will do, or anything that one
+cares to call a religion. But not to have any religion at all still puts
+one outside the pale of respectability, and there seem to be few who
+can stand that. And supernatural religion--the only genuine
+article--being impossible with many, these may still, if they care to,
+save their face by professing to use the name, even if they have not the
+thing. Orthodoxy is very accommodating nowadays.
+
+Leaving for a time the question of how religion actually does arise, we
+may turn to those writers who define religion in terms of ethics. It may
+be admitted that so far as the later stages of religion are concerned
+considerable emphasis is laid upon ethics. But we can only make religion
+a part of ethics by expanding the term morality so as to include
+everything, or by contracting it so as to exclude all the lower forms of
+religious belief. And any definition of religion that does not embrace
+all its forms is obviously inaccurate. It is not at all a question of
+defining the higher in terms of the lower, or the lower in terms of the
+higher, it is simply the need of so defining religion that our
+definition will cover all religions, high and low, and thus deal with
+their essential characteristics.
+
+The only sense in which ethics may be said to be included in religion
+lies in the fact that in primitive times religion includes everything.
+The fear of unseen intelligences is one of the most powerful factors of
+which early humanity is conscious, and the necessity for conciliating
+them is always present. The religious ceremonies connected with eating
+and drinking, with lying down and rising up, with sowing and reaping,
+with disease, hunting, and almost every circumstance of primitive life
+prove this. Differentiation and discrimination arise very slowly, but
+one after another the various departments of life do shake off the
+controlling influence of religion. Ethics may, therefore, be said to
+originate in the shadow of religion--as do most other things--but in no
+sense can morality be said to owe its origin to religion. Its origin is
+deeper and more fundamental than religion. As a matter of practice
+morality is independent of religious belief and moral theory, and as a
+matter of theory the formulation of definite moral rules is
+substantially independent of religion and is an assertion of its
+independence. Indeed, the conflict between a growing moral sense and
+religion is almost as large a fact in the social sphere as the conflict
+between religion and science is in the intellectual one.
+
+In all its earlier stages religion is at best non-moral. It becomes
+otherwise later only because of the reaction of a socialized morality on
+religious beliefs. Early religion is never concerned with the morality
+of its teaching, nor are the worshippers concerned with the morality of
+their gods. The sole question is what the gods desire and how best to
+satisfy them. We cannot even conceive man ascribing ethical qualities to
+his gods until he has first of all conceived them in regard to his
+fellow men. The savage has no _moral_ reverence for his gods; they are
+magnified men, but not perfect ones. He worships not because he admires,
+but because he fears. Fear is, indeed, one of the root causes of
+religious belief. Professor Leuba quite admits the origin of religion is
+fear, but he reserves the possibility of man being occasionally placed
+under such favourable conditions that fear may be absent. We admit the
+possibility, but at present it remains a possibility only. At present
+all the evidence goes to prove the words of Ribot that, "The religious
+sentiment is composed first of all of the emotion of fear in its
+different degrees, from profound terror to vague uneasiness, due to
+faith in an unknown mysterious and impalpable power." And if that be
+admitted, we can scarcely find here the origin of morality.
+
+What is here overlooked is the important fact that while religion, as
+such, commences in a reasoned process, morality is firmly established
+before mankind is even aware of its existence. A formulated religion is
+essentially of the nature of a theory set forth to explain or to deal
+with certain experiences. Morality, on the other hand, takes its rise in
+those feelings and instincts that are developed in animal and human
+societies under the pressure of natural selection. The affection of the
+animal for its young, of the human mother for its child, the attraction
+of male and female, the sympathetic feelings that bind members of the
+same species together, these do not depend upon theory, or even upon an
+intellectual perception of their value. Theory tries to account for
+their existence, and reason justifies their being, but they are
+fundamentally the product of associated life. And it is precisely
+because morality is the inevitable condition of associated life that it
+has upon religion the effect of modifying it until it is at least not
+too great an outrage upon the conditions of social well-being. All along
+we can, if we will, see how the developing moral sense forces a change
+in religious teaching. At one time there is nothing revolting in the
+Christian doctrine of election which dooms one to heaven and another to
+hell without the slightest regard to personal merit. At another the
+doctrine of eternal damnation is rejected as a matter of course. Heresy
+hunting and heretic burning, practised as a matter of course by one
+generation become highly repulsive to another. In every direction we see
+religious beliefs undergoing a modification under the influence of moral
+and social growth. It is always man who moralizes his gods; never by any
+chance is it the gods who moralize man.
+
+If we are to arrive at a proper understanding of religion we can,
+therefore, no more assume morals to be an integral part of religion
+than we can assume medicine or any of the special arts, all of which may
+be associated with religion. It will not even do to define religion with
+Mr. W. H. Mallock[17] as a belief that the world "has been made and is
+sustained by an intelligence external to and essentially independent of
+it." That may pass as a definition of Theism, but Theism is only one of
+the phases of religion, and the idea of a creator independent of the
+universe is one that is quite alien to the earlier stages of religion.
+And to deny the name of religion to primitive beliefs is to put oneself
+on the level of the type of Christian who declines to call any
+superstition but his own religion. It is for this reason impossible to
+agree with Professor Leuba when he says that "the idea of a creator must
+take precedence of ghosts and nature beings in the making of a
+religion." If by precedence the order of importance, from the standpoint
+of later and comparatively modern forms of religion, is intended, the
+statement may pass. But if the precedence claimed is a time order, the
+reply is that, instead of the idea of a creator taking precedence of
+ghosts and nature beings, it is from these that the idea of a creator is
+evolved. It is quite true Professor Leuba holds that "belief in the
+existence of unseen anthropopathic beings is not religion. It is only
+when man enters into relation with them that religion comes into
+existence," but so soon as man believes in the existence of them he
+believes himself to be in relation with them, and a large part of his
+efforts is expended in making these relations of an amicable and
+profitable character.
+
+[17] _Religion as a Credible Doctrine_, p. 11.
+
+A further definition of religion, first given, I think, by the late
+Professor Fiske, but since widely used, as a craving for "fulness of
+life," must be dismissed as equally faulty. For if by fulness of life
+is meant the desire to make it morally and intellectually richer, the
+answer is that this desire is plainly the product of a progressive
+social life, of which much that now passes for religion is the
+adulterated expression. Apologetically, it is an attempt so to state
+religion that it may evade criticism of its essential character. From
+one point of view this may be gratifying enough, but it is no help to an
+understanding of the nature of religion. And how little religion does
+help to a fuller life will be seen by anyone who knows the part played
+by organized religion in mental development and how blindly obstructive
+it is to new ideas in all departments of life. All these attempts to
+define religion in terms of ethics, of metaphysics, or as the craving
+after an ideal are wholly misleading. It is reading history backwards,
+and attributing to primitive human nature feelings and conceptions which
+it does not and cannot possess.
+
+In another work[18] I have traced the origin of the belief in God to the
+mental state of primitive mankind, and there is no need to go over the
+same ground here at any length. Commencing with the indisputable fact
+that religion is something that is acquired, an examination of the state
+of mind in which primitive mankind faced, and still faces, the world,
+led to the conclusion that the idea of god begins in the personification
+of natural forces by the savage. The growth of the idea of God was there
+traced back to the ghost, not to the exclusion of other methods of god
+making, but certainly as one of its prominent causes. I must refer
+readers to that work who desire a more extended treatment of the
+god-idea.
+
+[18] _Theism or Atheism_, Chapter 2.
+
+What remains to be traced here, in order to understand the other factor
+that is common to religions, is the belief in a continued state of
+existence after death, or at least of a soul.
+
+It has been shown to the point of demonstration by writers such as
+Spencer, Tylor, and Frazer, that the idea of a double is suggested to
+man by his experience of dreams, swoons, and allied normal and abnormal
+experiences. Even in the absence of evidence coming to us from the
+beliefs of existing tribes of savages, the fact that the ghost is always
+depicted as identical in appearance with the living person would be
+enough to suggest its dream origin. But there are other considerations
+that carry the proof further. The savage sees in his dreams the figures
+of dead men and assumes that there is a double that can get out of the
+body during sleep. But he also dreams of dead men, and this is also
+proof that the dead man still exists. Death does not, then, involve the
+death of the ghost, but only its removal to some other sphere of
+existence. Further, the likeness of sleep itself to death is so obvious
+and so striking that it has formed one of the most insistent features of
+human thought and speech. With primitive man it is far more than a
+figure of speech. The Melanesians put this point of view when they say,
+"the soul goes out of the body in some dreams, and if for some reason it
+does not come back the man is found dead in the morning." Death and
+dreaming have, therefore, this in common, they are both due to the
+withdrawal of the double. Hence we find a whole series of ceremonies
+designed to avert death or to facilitate the return of the double. The
+lingering of this practice is well illustrated by Sir Frederick Treves
+in his book, _The Other Side of the Lantern_. He there tells how he saw
+a Chinese mother, with the tears streaming down her face, waving at the
+door of the house the clothing of a recently deceased child in order to
+bring back the departed spirit.
+
+Death is thus the separation of the double from the body; but if it may
+return, its return is not always a matter of rejoicing, for we find
+customs that are plainly intended to prevent the ghost recognizing the
+living or to find its way back to its old haunts. Thus Frazer has shown
+that the wearing of black is really a form of disguise. It is a method
+taken to disguise the living from the attentions of the dead. It is in
+order to avoid recognition by spirits who wish to injure them that the
+Tongans change their war costume at every battle. The Chinese call their
+best beloved children by worthless names in order to delude evil
+spirits. In Egypt, too, the children who were most thought of were the
+worst clad. In some places the corpse is never carried out through the
+door, but by a hole in the side of the hut, which is afterwards closed
+so that the ghost may not find its way back.
+
+The ghost being conceived as at all points identical with living beings,
+it demands attention after death. It needs food, weapons, servants,
+wives. In this way there originates a whole group of burial customs,
+performed partly from fear of what the ghost may do if its wants are
+neglected. The custom of burying food and weapons with the dead thus
+receives a simple explanation. These things are buried with the dead man
+in order that their spirit may accompany his to the next world and serve
+the same uses there that they did here. The modern custom of scattering
+flowers over a grave is unquestionably a survival of this primitive
+belief. The killing of a wife on the husband's grave has the same
+origin. Her spirit goes to attend the husband in the ghost-land. In the
+case of a chief we have the killing of servants for the same reason.
+When Leonidas says, "Bury me on my shield, I will enter even Hades as a
+Lacedaemonian," he was exhibiting the persistence of this belief in
+classical times. The Chinese offer a further example by making little
+paper houses, filling them with paper models of the things used by the
+dead person, and burning them on the grave. All over the world we have
+the same class of customs developing from the same beliefs, and the same
+beliefs projected by the human mind when brought face to face with the
+same class of phenomena.
+
+As the ghost is pictured as like the physical man, so the next world is
+more or less a replica of this. The chief distinction is that there is a
+greater abundance of desirable things. Hunting tribes have elysiums
+where there is an abundance of game. The old Norse heaven was a place
+where there was unlimited fighting. The gold and diamonds and rubies of
+the Christian heaven represent a stage of civilization where these
+things had acquired a special value. Social distinctions, too, are often
+maintained. The Caribs believe that every time they secure an enemy's
+head they have gained a servant in the next world. And all know the
+story of the French aristocrat who, when threatened with hell, replied,
+"God will think twice before damning a person of my quality."
+
+Several other consequences of this service paid to the dead may be
+noted. The ghost being drawn to the place where the body is buried, the
+desire to preserve the corpse probably led to the practice of embalming.
+The grave becomes a place of sanctity, of pilgrimage, and of religious
+observance, and it has been maintained by many writers, notably by Mr.
+W. Simpson in his _Worship of Death_, that the service round the grave
+gives us the beginning of all temple worship.
+
+But from this brief view of the beginnings of religion we are able to
+see how completely fallacious are all those efforts to derive religion
+from an attempt to achieve an ideal, from a desire to solve certain
+philosophical problems, or from any of the other sources that are
+paraded by modern apologists. The origin and nature of religion is
+comparatively simple to understand, once we have cleared our minds of
+all these fallacies and carefully examine the facts. Religion is no more
+than the explanation which the primitive mind gives of the experiences
+which it has of the world. And, therefore, the only definition that
+covers all the facts, and which stresses the essence of all religions,
+high and low, savage and civilized, is that given by Tylor, namely, the
+belief in supernatural beings. It is the one definition that expresses
+the feature common to all religions, and with that definition before us
+we are able to use language with a precision that is impossible so long
+as we attempt to read into religion something that is absent from all
+its earlier forms, and which is only introduced when advanced thought
+makes the belief in the supernatural more and more difficult to retain
+its hold over the human mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE UTILITY OF RELIGION.
+
+
+The real nature of religion being as stated, it having originated in an
+utterly erroneous view of things, it would seem that nothing more can be
+needed to justify its rejection. But the conclusion would not be
+correct, at least so far as the mass of believers or quasi-believers are
+concerned. Here the conviction still obtains that religion, no matter
+what its origin, still wields an enormous influence for good. The
+curious thing is that when one enquires "what religion is it that has
+exerted this beneficent influence?" the replies effectually cancel one
+another. Each means by religion his own religion, and each accuses the
+religion of the other man of all the faults with which the Freethinker
+accuses the whole. The avowed object of our widespread missionary
+activity is to save the "heathen" from the evil effects of their
+religion; and there is not the least doubt that if the heathen had the
+brute force at their command, and the impudence that we have, they would
+cordially reciprocate. And the efforts of the various Christian sects to
+convert each other is too well known to need mention. So that the only
+logical inference from all this is that, while all religions are, when
+taken singly, injurious, taken in the bulk they are sources of profound
+benefit.
+
+It is not alone the common or garden order of religionist who takes up
+this curious position, nor is it even the better educated believer; it
+is not uncommon to find those who have rejected all the formal
+religions of the world yet seeking to discover some good that religion
+has done or is doing. As an illustration of this we may cite an example
+from Sir James Frazer, than whom no one has done more to bring home to
+students a knowledge of the real nature of religious beliefs. It is the
+more surprising to find him putting in a plea for the good done by
+religion, not in the present, but in the past. And such an instance, if
+it does nothing else, may at least serve to mitigate our ferocity
+towards the common type of religionist.
+
+In an address delivered in 1909, entitled "Psyche's Task: A discourse
+concerning the influence of superstition on the growth of Institutions,"
+he puts in a plea for the consideration of superstition (religion) at
+various stages of culture. Of its effects generally, he says:--
+
+     That it has done much harm in the world cannot be denied. It has
+     sacrificed countless lives, wasted untold treasures, embroiled
+     nations, severed friends, parted husbands and wives, parents and
+     children, putting swords and worse than swords between them; it has
+     filled gaols and madhouses with its deluded victims; it has broken
+     many hearts, embittered the whole of many a life, and not content
+     with persecuting the living it has pursued the dead into the grave
+     and beyond it, gloating over the horrors which its foul imagination
+     has conjured up to appal and torture the survivors. It has done all
+     this and more.
+
+Now this is a severe indictment, and one is a little surprised to find
+following that a plea on behalf of this same superstition to the effect
+that it has "among certain races and at certain times strengthened the
+respect for government, property, marriage, and human life." In support
+of this proposition he cites a large number of instances from various
+races of people, all of which prove, not what Sir James sets out to
+prove, but only that religious observances and beliefs have been
+connected with certain institutions that are in themselves admirable
+enough. And on this point there is not, nor can there be, any serious
+dispute. One can find many similar instances among ourselves to-day. But
+the real question at issue is a deeper one than that. It is not enough
+for the religionist to show that religion has often been associated with
+good things and has given them its sanction. The reply to this would be
+that if it had been otherwise religion would long since have
+disappeared. The essential question here is, Have the institutions named
+a basis in secular and social life, and would they have developed in the
+absence of superstition as they have developed with superstition in the
+field?
+
+Now I do not see that Sir James Frazer proves either that these
+institutions have not a sufficient basis in secular life--he would, I
+imagine, admit that they have; or that they would not have developed as
+well in the absence of superstition as they have done with it. In fact,
+the whole plea that good has been done by superstition seems to be
+destroyed in the statements that although certain institutions "have
+been based partly on superstitions, it by no means follows that even
+among these races they have never been based on anything else," and that
+whenever institutions have proved themselves stable and permanent "there
+is a strong presumption that they rest on something more solid than
+superstition." So that, after all, it may well be that superstition is
+all the time taking credit for the working of forces that are not of its
+kind or nature.
+
+Let us take the example given of the respect for human life as a crucial
+test. Admitting that religions have taught that to take life was a
+sinful act, one might well interpose with the query as to whether it
+was ever necessary to teach man that homicide within certain limits was
+a wrong thing. Pre-evolutionary sociology, which sometimes taught that
+man originally led an existence in which his hand was against every
+other man, and who, therefore, fought the battle of life strictly off
+his own bat, may have favoured that assumption. But that we now know is
+quite wrong. We know that man slowly emerged from a pre-human gregarious
+stage, and that in all group life there is an organic restraint on
+mutual slaughter. The essential condition of group life is that the
+nature of the individual shall be normally devoid of the desire for the
+indiscriminate slaughter of his fellows. And if that is true of animals,
+it is certainly true of man. Primitive human society does not and cannot
+represent a group of beings each of whom must be restrained by direct
+coercion from murdering the other.
+
+In this case, therefore, we have to reckon with both biological and
+sociological forces, and I do not see that it needs more than this to
+explain all there is to explain. Human life is always associated life,
+and this means not alone a basis of mutual forbearance and co-operation,
+but a development of the sympathetic feelings which tends to increase as
+society develops, they being, as a matter of fact, the conditions of its
+growth. And whatever competition existed between tribes would still
+further emphasize the value of those feelings that led to effective
+co-operation.
+
+The question, then, whether the anti-homicidal feeling is at all
+dependent upon religion is answered in the negative by the fact that it
+ante-dates what we may term the era of conscious social organization.
+That of whether religion strengthens this feeling still remains,
+although even that has been answered by implication. And the first thing
+to be noted here is that whatever may be the value of the superstitious
+safeguard against homicide it certainly has no value as against people
+outside the tribe. In fact, when a savage desires to kill an enemy he
+finds in superstition a fancied source of strength, and often of
+encouragement. Westermarck points out that "savages carefully
+distinguish between an act of homicide committed in their own community
+and one where the victim is a stranger. Whilst the former is under
+ordinary circumstances disapproved of, the latter is in most cases
+allowed and often regarded as praiseworthy." And Frazer himself points
+out that the belief in immortality plays no small part in encouraging
+war among primitive peoples,[19] while if we add the facts of the killing
+of children, of old men and women, and wives, together with the practice
+of human sacrifice, we shall see little cause to attribute the
+development of the feeling against homicide to religious beliefs.
+
+[19] The state of war which normally exists between many, if not most,
+neighbouring savage tribes, springs in large measure directly from their
+belief in immortality; since one of the commonest motives to hostility
+is a desire to appease the angry ghosts of friends who are supposed to
+have perished by baleful arts of sorcerers in another tribe, and who, if
+vengeance is not inflicted on their real or imaginary murderers, will
+wreak their fury on their undutiful fellow-tribesmen.--_The Belief in
+Immortality_, Vol. I., p. 468.
+
+In one passage in his address Sir James does show himself quite alive to
+the evil influence of the belief in immortality. He says:--
+
+     It might with some show of reason be maintained that no belief has
+     done so much to retard the economic and thereby the social progress
+     of mankind as the belief in the immortality of the soul; for this
+     belief has led race after race, generation after generation, to
+     sacrifice the real wants of the living to the imaginary wants of
+     the dead. The waste and destruction of life and property which
+     this faith has entailed has been enormous and incalculable. But I
+     am not here concerned with the disastrous and deplorable
+     consequences, the unspeakable follies and crimes and miseries which
+     have flowed in practice from the theory of a future life. My
+     business at present is with the more cheerful side of a gloomy
+     subject.
+
+Every author has, of course, the fullest right to select whichever
+aspect of a subject he thinks deserves treatment, but all the same one
+may point out that it is this dwelling on the "cheerful side" of these
+beliefs that encourages the religionist to put forward claims on behalf
+of present day religion that Sir James himself would be the first to
+challenge. There is surely greater need to emphasize the darker side of
+a creed that has thousands of paid advocates presenting an imaginary
+bright side to the public gaze.
+
+But what has been said of the relation of the feeling against homicide
+applies with no more than a variation of terms to the other instances
+given by Sir James Frazer. Either these institutions have a basis in
+utility or they have not. If they have not, then religion can claim no
+social credit for their preservation. If they have a basis in utility,
+then the reason for their preservation is to be found in social
+selection, although the precise local form in which an institution
+appears may be determined by other circumstances. And when Sir James
+says that the task of government has been facilitated by the
+superstition that the governors belonged to a superior class of beings,
+one may safely assume that the statement holds good only of individual
+governors, or of particular forms of government. It may well be that
+when a people are led to believe that a certain individual possesses
+supernatural powers, or that a particular government enjoys the favour
+of supernatural beings, there will be less inclination to resentment
+against orders than there would be otherwise. But government and
+governors, in other words, a general body of rules for the government of
+the tribe, and the admitted leadership of certain favoured individuals,
+would remain natural facts in the absence of superstition, and their
+development or suppression would remain subject to the operation of
+social or natural selection. So, again, with the desire for private
+property. The desire to retain certain things as belonging to oneself is
+not altogether unnoticeable among animals. A dog will fight for its
+bone, monkeys secrete things which they desire to retain for their own
+use, etc., and so far as the custom possesses advantages, we may
+certainly credit savages with enough common-sense to be aware of the
+fact. But the curious thing is that the institution of private property
+is not nearly so powerful among primitive peoples as it is among those
+more advanced. So that we are faced with this curious comment upon Sir
+James's thesis. Granting that the institution of private property has
+been strengthened by superstition we have the strange circumstance that
+that institution is weakest where superstition is strongest and
+strongest where superstition is weakest.
+
+The truth is that Sir James Frazer seems here to have fallen into the
+same error as the late Walter Bagehot, and to have formed the belief
+that primitive man required breaking in to the "social yoke." The truth
+is that the great need of primitive mankind is not to be broken in but
+to acquire the courage and determination to break out. This error may
+have originated in the disinclination of the savage to obey _our_ rules,
+or it may have been a heritage from the eighteenth century philosophy of
+the existence of an idyllic primitive social state. The truth is,
+however, that there is no one so fettered by custom as is the savage.
+The restrictions set by a savage society on its members would be
+positively intolerable to civilized beings. And if it be said that these
+customs required formation, the reply is that inheriting the imitability
+of the pre-human gregarious animal, this would form the basis on which
+the tyrannizing custom of primitive life is built.
+
+There was, however, another generalization of Bagehot's that was
+unquestionably sound. Assuming that the first step necessary to
+primitive mankind was to frame a custom as the means of his being
+"broken in," the next step in progress was to break it, and that was a
+far more difficult matter. Progress was impossible until this was done,
+and how difficult it is to get this step taken observation of the people
+living in civilized countries will show. But it is in relation to this
+second and all important step that one can clearly trace the influence
+of religion. And its influence is completely the reverse of being
+helpful. For of all the hindrances to a change of custom there is none
+that act with such force as does religion. This is the case with those
+customs with which vested interest has no direct connection, but it
+operates with tenfold force where this exists. Once a custom is
+established in a primitive community the conditions of social life
+surround it with religious beliefs, and thereafter to break it means a
+breach in the wall of religious observances with which the savage is
+surrounded. And so soon as we reach the stage of the establishment of a
+regular priesthood, we have to reckon with the operation of a vested
+interest that has always been keenly alive to anything which affected
+its profit or prestige.
+
+It would not be right to dismiss the discussion of a subject connected
+with so well-respected a name as that of Sir James Frazer and leave the
+reader with the impression that he is putting in a plea for current
+religion. He is not. He hints pretty plainly that his argument that
+religion has been of some use to the race applies to savage times only.
+We see this in such sentences as the following: "More and more, as time
+goes on, morality shifts its grounds from the sands of superstition to
+the rock of reason, from the imaginary to the real, from the
+supernatural to the natural.... The State has found a better reason than
+these old wives' fables for guarding with the flaming sword of justice
+the approach to the tree of life," and also in saying that, "If it can
+be proved that in certain races and at certain times the institutions in
+question have been based partly on superstition, it by no means follows
+that even among these races they have never been based on anything else.
+On the contrary ... there is a strong presumption that they rest mainly
+on something much more solid than superstition." In modern times no such
+argument as the one I have been discussing has the least claim to
+logical force. But that, as we all know, does not prevent its being used
+by full-blown religionists, and by those whose minds are only partly
+liberated from a great historic superstition.
+
+It will be observed that the plea of Frazer's we have been examining
+argues that the function of religion in social life is of a conservative
+character. And so far he is correct, he is only wrong in assuming it to
+have been of a beneficial nature. The main function of religion in
+sociology is conservative, not the wise conservatism which supports an
+institution or a custom because of its approved value, but of the kind
+that sees in an established custom a reason for its continuance. Urged,
+in the first instance, by the belief that innumerable spirits are
+forever on the watch, punishing the slightest infraction of their
+wishes, opposition to reform or to new ideas receives definite shape and
+increased strength by the rise of a priesthood. Henceforth economic
+interest goes hand in hand with superstitious fears. Whichever way man
+turns he finds artificial obstacles erected. Every deviation from the
+prescribed path is threatened with penalties in this world and the next.
+The history of every race and of every science tells the same story, and
+the amount of time and energy that mankind has spent in fighting these
+ghosts of its own savage past is the measure of the degree to which
+religion has kept the race in a state of relative barbarism.
+
+This function of unreasoning conservatism is not, it must be remembered,
+accidental. It belongs to the very nature of religion. Dependent upon
+the maintenance of certain primitive conceptions of the world and of
+man, religion dare not encourage new ideas lest it sap its own
+foundations. Spencer has reminded us that religion is, under the
+conditions of its origin, perfectly rational. That is quite true.[20]
+Religion meets science, when the stage of conflict arises, as an
+opposing interpretation of certain classes of facts. The one
+interpretation can only grow at the expense of the other. While
+religion is committed to the explanation of the world in terms of vital
+force, science is committed to that of non-conscious mechanism.
+Opposition is thus present at the outset, and it must continue to the
+end. The old cannot be maintained without anathematizing the new; the
+new cannot be established without displacing the old. The conflict is
+inevitable; the antagonism is irreconcilable.
+
+[20] It may with equal truth be said that all beliefs are with a similar
+qualification quite rational. The attempt to divide people into
+"Rationalists" and "Irrationalists" is quite fallacious and is
+philosophically absurd. Reason is used in the formation of religious as
+in the formation of non-religious beliefs. The distinction between the
+man who is religious and one who is not, or, if it be preferred, one who
+is superstitious and one who is not, is not that the one reasons and the
+other does not. Both reason. Indeed, the reasoning of the superstitionist
+is often of the most elaborate kind. The distinction is that of one
+having false premises, or drawing unwarrantable conclusions from sound
+premises. The only ultimate distinctions are those of religionist and
+non-religionist, supernaturalist and non-supernaturalist, Theist or
+Atheist. All else are mere matters of compromise, exhibitions of
+timidity, or illustrations of that confused thinking which itself gives
+rise to religion in all its forms.
+
+It lies, therefore, in the very nature of the case that religion, as
+religion, can give no real help to man in the understanding of himself
+and the world. Whatever good religion may appear to do is properly to be
+attributed to the non-religious forces with which it is associated. But
+religion, being properly concerned with the relations between man and
+mythical supernatural beings, can exert no real influence for good on
+human affairs. Far from that being the case, it can easily be shown to
+have had quite an opposite effect. There is not merely the waste of
+energy in the direction above indicated, but in many other ways. If we
+confine ourselves to Christianity some conception of the nature of its
+influence may be formed if we think what the state of the world might
+have been to-day had the work of enlightenment continued from the point
+it had reached under the old Greek and Roman civilizations. Bacon and
+Galileo in their prisons, Bruno and Vanini at the stake are
+illustrations of the disservice that Christianity has done the cause of
+civilization, and the obstruction it has offered to human well-being.
+
+Again, consider the incubus placed on human progress by the institution
+of a priesthood devoted to the service of supernatural beings. In the
+fullest and truest sense of the word a priesthood represents a parasitic
+growth on the social body. I am not referring to individual members of
+the priesthood in their capacity as private citizens, but as priests, as
+agents or representatives of the supernatural. And here the truth is
+that of all the inventions and discoveries that have helped to build up
+civilization not one of them is owing to the priesthood, as such. One
+may confidently say that if all the energies of all the priests in the
+whole world were concentrated on a single community, and all their
+prayers, formulae, and doctrines devoted to the one end, the well-being
+of that community would not be advanced thereby a single iota.
+
+Far and away, the priesthood is the greatest parasitic class the world
+has known. All over the world, in both savage and civilized times, we
+see the priesthoods of the world enthroned, we see them enjoying a
+subsistence wrung from toil through credulity, and from wealth through
+self-interest. From the savage medicine hut up to the modern cathedral
+we see the earth covered with useless edifices devoted to the foolish
+service of imaginary deities. We see the priesthood endowed with special
+privileges, their buildings relieved from the taxes which all citizens
+are compelled to pay, and even special taxes levied upon the public for
+their maintenance. The gods may no longer demand the sacrifice of the
+first born, but they still demand the sacrifice of time, energy, and
+money that might well be applied elsewhere. And the people in every
+country, out of their stupidity, continue to maintain a large body of
+men who, by their whole training and interest, are compelled to act as
+the enemies of liberty and progress.
+
+It is useless arguing that the evils that follow religion are not
+produced by it, that they are casual, and will disappear with a truer
+understanding of what religion is. It is not true, and the man who
+argues in that way shows that he does not yet understand what religion
+is. The evils that follow religion are deeply imbedded in the nature of
+religion itself. All religion takes its rise in error, and vested error
+threatened with destruction instinctively resorts to force, fraud, and
+imposture, in self defence. The universality of the evils that accompany
+religion would alone prove that there is more than a mere accident in
+the association. The whole history of religion is, on the purely
+intellectual side, the history of a delusion. Happily this delusion is
+losing its hold on the human mind. Year by year its intellectual and
+moral worthlessness is being more generally recognized. Religion
+explains nothing, and it does nothing that is useful. Yet in its name
+millions of pounds are annually squandered and many thousands of men
+withdrawn from useful labour, and saddled on the rest of the community
+for maintenance. But here, again, economic and intellectual forces are
+combining for the liberation of the race from its historic incubus.
+Complete emancipation will not come in a day, but it will come, and its
+arrival will mark the close of the greatest revolution that has taken
+place in the history of the race.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+FREETHOUGHT AND GOD.
+
+
+Why do people believe in God? If one turns to the pleas of professional
+theologians there is no lack of answers to the question. These answers
+are both numerous and elaborate, and if quantity and repetition were
+enough, the Freethinker would find himself hopelessly "snowed under."
+But on examination all these replies suffer from one defect. They should
+ante-date the belief, whereas they post-date it. They cannot be the
+cause of belief for the reason that the belief was here long before the
+arguments came into existence. Neither singly nor collectively do these
+so-called reasons correspond to the causes that have ever led a single
+person, at any time or at any place, to believe in a God. If they
+already believed, the arguments were enough to provide them with
+sufficient justification to go on believing. If they did not already
+believe, the arguments were powerless. And never, by any chance, do they
+describe the causes that led to the existence of the belief in God,
+either historically or individually. They are, in truth, no more than
+excuses for continuing to believe. They are never the causes of belief.
+
+The evidence for the truth of this is at hand in the person of all who
+believe. Let one consider, on the one hand, the various arguments for
+the existence of God--the argument from causation, from design, from
+necessary existence, etc., then put on the other side the age at which
+men and women began to believe in deity, and their grasp of arguments of
+the kind mentioned. There is clearly no relation between the two.
+Leaving on one side the question of culture, it is at once apparent that
+long before the individual is old enough to appreciate in the slightest
+degree the nature of the arguments advanced he is already a believer.
+And if he is not a believer in his early years, he is never one when he
+reaches maturity, certainly not in a civilized society. And when we turn
+from the individual Goddite to Goddites in the mass, the assumption that
+they owe their belief to the philosophical arguments advanced becomes
+grotesque in its absurdity. To assume that the average Theist, whose
+philosophy is taken from the daily newspaper and the weekly sermon,
+derives his conviction from a series of abstruse philosophical arguments
+is simply ridiculous. Those who are honest to themselves will admit that
+they were taught the belief long before they were old enough to bring
+any real criticism to bear upon it. It was the product of their early
+education, impressed upon them by their parents, and all the "reasons"
+that are afterwards alleged in justification are only pleas why they
+should not be disturbed in their belief.
+
+Are we in any better position if we turn from the individual to the
+race? Is the belief in God similar to, say, the belief in gravitation,
+which, discovered by a genius, and resting upon considerations which the
+ordinary person finds too abstruse to thoroughly understand, becomes a
+part of our education, and is accepted upon well established authority?
+Again, the facts are dead against such an assumption. It is with the
+race as with the individual. Science and philosophy do not precede the
+belief in God and provide the foundation for it, they succeed it and
+lead to its modification and rejection. We are, in this respect, upon
+very solid ground. In some form or another the belief in God, or gods,
+belongs to very early states of human society. Savages have it long
+before they have the slightest inkling of what we moderns would call a
+scientific conception of the world. And to assume that the savage, as we
+know him, began to believe in his gods because of a number of scientific
+reasons, such as the belief in universal causation, or any of the other
+profound speculations with which the modern theologian beclouds the
+issue, is as absurd as to attribute the belief of the Salvation Army
+preacher to philosophical speculations. Added to which we may note that
+the savage is a severely practical person. He is not at all interested
+in metaphysics, and his contributions to the discussions of a
+philosophical society would be of a very meagre character. His problem
+is to deal with the concrete difficulties of his everyday life, and when
+he is able to do this he is content.
+
+But, on the other hand, we know that our own belief in God is descended
+from his belief. We know that we can trace it back without a break
+through generations of social culture, until we reach the savage stage
+of social existence. It is he who, so to speak, discovers God, he
+establishes it as a part of the social institutions that govern the
+lives of every member of the group; we find it in our immaturity
+established as one of those many thought-forms which determine so
+powerfully our intellectual development. The belief in God meets each
+newcomer into the social arena. It is impressed upon each in a thousand
+and one different ways, and it is only when the belief is challenged by
+an opposing system of thought that philosophical theories are elaborated
+in its defence.
+
+The possibility of deriving the idea of God from scientific and
+philosophic thought being ruled out, what remains? The enquiry from
+being philosophical becomes historical. That is, instead of discussing
+whether there are sufficient reasons for justifying the belief in God,
+we are left with the question of determining the causes that led people
+to ever regard the belief as being solidly based upon fact. It is a
+question of history, or rather, one may say, of anthropology of the
+mental history of man. When we read of some poor old woman who has been
+persecuted for bewitching someone's cattle or children we no longer
+settle down to discuss whether witchcraft rests upon fact or not; we
+know it does not, and our sole concern is to discover the conditions,
+mental and social, which enabled so strange a belief to flourish. The
+examination of evidence--the legal aspect--thus gives place to the
+historical, and the historical finally resolves itself into the
+psychological. For what we are really concerned with in an examination
+of the idea of God is the discovery and reconstruction of those states
+of mind which gave the belief birth. And that search is far easier and
+the results far more conclusive than many imagine.
+
+In outlining this evidence it will only be necessary to present its
+general features. This for two reasons. First, because a multiplicity of
+detail is apt to hide from the general reader many of the essential
+features of the truth; secondly, the fact of a difference of opinion
+concerning the time order of certain stages in the history of the
+god-idea is likely to obscure the fact of the unanimity which exists
+among all those qualified to express an authoritative opinion as to the
+nature of the conditions that have given the idea birth. The various
+theories of the sequence of the different phases of the religious idea
+should no more blind us to the fact that there exists a substantial
+agreement that the belief in gods has its roots in the fear and
+ignorance of uncivilized mankind, than the circumstance that there is
+going on among biologists a discussion as to the machinery of evolution
+should overshadow the fact that evolution itself is a demonstrated
+truth which no competent observer questions.
+
+In an earlier chapter we have already indicated the essential conditions
+which lead to the origin of religious beliefs, and there is no need
+again to go over that ground. What is necessary at present is to sketch
+as briefly as is consistent with lucidity those frames of mind to which
+the belief in God owes its existence.
+
+To realize this no very recondite instrument of research is required. We
+need nothing more elaborate than the method by which we are hourly in
+the habit of estimating each other's thoughts, and of gauging one
+another's motives. When I see a man laugh I assume that he is pleased;
+when he frowns I assume that he is angry. There is here only an
+application of the generally accepted maxim that when we see identical
+results we are warranted in assuming identical causes. In this way we
+can either argue from causes to effects or from effects to causes. A
+further statement of the same principle is that when we are dealing with
+biological facts we may assume that identical structures imply identical
+functions. The structure of a dead animal will tell us what its
+functions were when living as certainly as though we had the living
+animal in front of us. We may relate function to structure or structure
+to function. And in this we are using nothing more uncommon than the
+accepted principle of universal causation.
+
+Now, in all thinking there are two factors. There is the animal or human
+brain, the organ of thought, and there is the material for thought as
+represented by the existing knowledge of the world. If we had an exact
+knowledge of the kind of brain that functioned, and the exact quantity
+and quality of the knowledge existing, the question as to the ideas
+which would result would be little more than a problem in mathematics.
+We could make the calculation with the same assurance that an
+astronomer can estimate the position of a planet a century hence. In the
+case of primitive mankind we do not possess anything like the exact
+knowledge one would wish, but we do know enough to say in rather more
+than a general way the kind of thinking of which our earliest ancestors
+were capable, and what were its products. We can get at the machinery of
+the primitive brain, and can estimate its actions, and that without
+going further than we do when we assume that primitive man was hungry
+and thirsty, was pleased and angry, loved and feared. And, indeed, it
+was because he experienced fear and pleasure and love and hate that the
+gods came into existence.
+
+Of the factors which determine the kind of thinking one does, we know
+enough to say that there were two things certain of early mankind. We
+know the kind of thinking of which he was capable, and we have a general
+notion of the material existing for thinking. Speaking of one of these
+early ancestors of ours, Professor Arthur Keith says, "Piltdown man saw,
+heard, felt, thought and dreamt much as we do," that is, there was the
+same _kind_ of brain at work that is at work now. And that much we could
+be sure of by going no farther back than the savages of to-day. But as
+size of brain is not everything, we are warranted in saying that the
+brain was of a relatively simple type, while the knowledge of the world
+which existed, and which gives us the material for thinking, was of a
+very imperfect and elementary character. There was great ignorance, and
+there was great fear. From these two conditions, ignorance and fear,
+sprang the gods. Of that there is no doubt whatever. There is scarcely a
+work which deals with the life of primitive peoples to-day that does not
+emphasize that fact. Consciously or unconsciously it cannot avoid doing
+so. Long ago a Latin writer hit on this truth in the well-known saying,
+"Fear made the gods," and Aristotle expressed the same thing in a more
+comprehensive form by saying that fear first set man philosophizing. The
+undeveloped mind troubles little about things so long as they are going
+smoothly and comfortably. It is when something painful happens that
+concern is awakened. And all the gods of primitive life bear this primal
+stamp of fear. That is why religion, with its persistent harking back to
+the primitive, with its response to the "Call of the Wild" still dwells
+upon the fear of the Lord as a means of arousing a due sense of piety.
+The gods fatten on fear as a usurer does upon the folly of his clients,
+and in both cases the interest demanded far outweighs the value of the
+services rendered. At a later stage man faces his gods in a different
+spirit; he loses his fear and examines them; and gods that are not
+feared are but poor things. They exist mainly as indisputable records of
+their own deterioration.
+
+Now to primitive man, struggling along in a world of which he was so
+completely ignorant, the one certain thing was that the world was alive.
+The wind that roared, the thunder that growled, the disease that left
+him so mysteriously stricken, were all so many living things. The
+division of these living forces into good and bad followed naturally
+from this first conception of their nature. And whatever be the stages
+of that process the main lines admit of no question, nor is there any
+question as to the nature of the conditions that brought the gods into
+existence. On any scientific theory of religion the gods represent no
+more than the personified ignorance and fear of primitive humanity.
+However much anthropologists may differ as to whether the god always
+originates from the ghost or not, whether animism is first and the
+worship of the ghost secondary or not, there is agreement on that
+point. Whichever theory we care to embrace, the broad fact is generally
+admitted that the gods are the products of ignorance and fear. Man fears
+the gods as children and even animals fear the unknown and the
+dangerous.
+
+And as the gods are born of conditions such as those outlined, as man
+reads his own feelings and passions and desires into nature, so we find
+that the early gods are frankly, obtrusively, man-like. The gods are
+copies of their worshippers, faithful reflections of those who fear
+them. This, indeed, remains true to the end. When the stage is reached
+that the idea of God as a physical counterpart of man becomes repulsive,
+it is still unable to shake off this anthropomorphic element. To the
+modern worshipper God must not possess a body, but he must have love,
+and intelligence--as though the mental qualities of man are less human
+than the bodily ones! They are as human as arms or legs. And every
+reason that will justify the rejection of the conception of the universe
+being ruled over by a being who is like man in his physical aspects is
+equally conclusive against believing the universe to be ruled over by a
+being who resembles man in his mental characteristics. The one belief is
+a survival of the other; and the one would not now be accepted had not
+the other been believed in beforehand.
+
+I have deliberately refrained from discussing the various arguments put
+forward to justify the belief in God in order that attention should not
+be diverted from the main point, which is that the belief in deity owes
+its existence to the ignorant interpretation of natural happenings by
+early or uncivilized mankind. Everything here turns logically on the
+question of origin. If the belief in God began in the way I have
+outlined, the question of veracity may be dismissed. The question is
+one of origin only. It is not a question of man first seeing a thing but
+dimly and then getting a clearer vision as his knowledge becomes more
+thorough. It is a question of a radical misunderstanding of certain
+experiences, the vogue of an altogether wrong interpretation, and its
+displacement by an interpretation of a quite different nature. The god
+of the savage was in the nature of an inference drawn from the world of
+the savage. There was the admitted premiss and there was the obvious
+conclusion. But with us the premiss no longer exists. We deliberately
+reject it as being altogether unwarrantable. And we cannot reject the
+premiss while retaining the conclusion. Logically, the god of the savage
+goes with the world of the savage; it should have no place in the mind
+of the really civilized human being.
+
+It is for this reason that I am leaving on one side all those
+semi-metaphysical and pseudo-philosophical arguments that are put
+forward to justify the belief in God. As I have already said, they are
+merely excuses for continuing a belief that has no real warranty in
+fact. No living man or woman believes in God because of any such
+argument. We have the belief in God with us to-day for the same reason
+that we have in our bodies a number of rudimentary structures. As the
+one is reminiscent of an earlier stage of existence so is the other. To
+use the expressive phrase of Winwood Reade's, we have tailed minds as
+well as tailed bodies. The belief in God meets each newcomer to the
+social sphere. It is forced upon them before they are old enough to
+offer effective resistance in the shape of acquired knowledge that would
+render its lodgement in the mind impossible. Afterwards, the dice of
+social power and prestige are loaded in its favour, while the mental
+inertia of some, and the self-interest of others, give force to the
+arguments which I have called mere mental subterfuges for perpetuating
+the belief in God.
+
+Only one other remark need be made. In the beginning the gods exist as
+the apotheosis of ignorance. The reason the savage had for believing in
+God was that he did not know the real causes of the phenomena around
+him. And that remains the reason why people believe in deity to-day.
+Under whatever guise the belief is presented, analysis brings it
+ultimately to that. The whole history of the human mind, in relation to
+the idea of God, shows that so soon as man discovers the natural causes
+of any phenomenon or group of phenomena the idea of God dies out in
+connection therewith. God is only conceived as a cause or as an
+explanation so long as no other cause or explanation is forthcoming. In
+common speech and in ordinary thought we only bring in the name of God
+where uncertainty exists, never where knowledge is obtainable. We pray
+to God to cure a fever, but never to put on again a severed limb. We
+associate God with the production of a good harvest, but not with a
+better coal output. We use "God only knows" as the equivalent of our own
+ignorance, and call on God for help only where our own helplessness is
+manifest. The idea remains true to itself throughout. Born in ignorance
+and cradled in fear, it makes its appeal to the same elements to the
+end. And if it apes the language of philosophy, it does so only as do
+those who purchase a ready-made pedigree in order to hide the obscurity
+of their origin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+FREETHOUGHT AND DEATH.
+
+
+In the early months of the European war a mortally wounded British
+soldier was picked up between the lines, after lying there unattended
+for two days. He died soon after he was brought in, and one of his last
+requests was that a copy of Ruskin's _Crown of Wild Olive_ should be
+buried with him. He said the book had been with him all the time he had
+been in France, it had given him great comfort, and he wished it to be
+buried with him. Needless to say, his wish was carried out, and
+"somewhere in France" there lies a soldier with a copy of the _Crown of
+Wild Olive_ clasped to his breast.
+
+There is another story, of a commoner character, which, although
+different in form, is wholly similar in substance. This tells of the
+soldier who in his last moments asks to see a priest, accepts his
+ministrations with thankfulness, and dies comforted with the repetition
+of familiar formulae and customary prayers. In the one case a Bible and
+a priest; in the other a volume of lectures by one of the masters of
+English prose. The difference is, at first, striking, but there is an
+underlying agreement, and they may be used together to illustrate a
+single psychological principle.
+
+Freethinker and Christian read the record of both cases, but it is the
+Freethinker alone whose philosophy of life is wide enough to explain
+both. The Freethinker knows that the feeling of comfort and the fact of
+truth are two distinct things. They may coalesce, but they may be as
+far asunder as the poles. A delusion may be as consoling as a reality
+provided it be accepted as genuine. The soldier with his copy of Ruskin
+does not prove the truth of the teachings of the _Crown of Wild Olive_,
+does not prove that Ruskin said the last word or even the truest word on
+the subjects dealt with therein. Neither does the consolation which
+religion gives some people prove the truth of its teachings. The comfort
+which religion brings is a product of the belief in religion. The
+consolation that comes from reading a volume of essays is a product of
+the conviction of the truth of the message delivered, or a sense of the
+beauty of the language in which the book is written. Both cases
+illustrate the power of belief, and that no Freethinker was ever stupid
+enough to question. The finest literature in the world would bring small
+comfort to a man who was convinced that he stood in deadly need of a
+priest, and the presence of a priest would be quite useless to a man who
+believed that all the religions of the world were so many geographical
+absurdities. Comfort does not produce conviction, it follows it. The
+truth and the social value of convictions are quite distinct questions.
+
+There is here a confusion of values, and for this we have to thank the
+influence of the Churches. Because the service of the priest is sought
+by some we are asked to believe that it is necessary to all. But the
+essential value of a thing is shown, not by the number of people who get
+on with it, but by the number that can get on without it. The canon of
+agreement and difference is applicable whether we are dealing with human
+nature or conducting an ordinary scientific experiment. Thus, the
+indispensability of meat-eating is not shown by the number of people who
+swear that they cannot work without it, but by noting how people fare in
+its absence. The drinker does not confound the abstainer; it is the
+other way about. In the same way there is nothing of evidential value in
+the protests of those who say that human nature cannot get along without
+religion. We have to test the statement by the cases where religion is
+absent. And here, it is not the Christian that confounds the
+Freethinker, it is the Freethinker who confounds the Christian. If the
+religious view of life is correct the Freethinker should be a very rare
+bird indeed; he should be clearly recognizable as a departure from the
+normal type, and, in fact, he was always so represented in religious
+literature until he disproved the legend by multiplying himself with
+confusing rapidity. Now it is the Freethinker who will not fit into the
+Christian scheme of things. It is puzzling to see what can be done with
+a man who repudiates the religious idea in theory and fact, root and
+branch, and yet appears to be getting on quite well in its absence. That
+is the awkward fact that will not fit in with the religious theory. And,
+other things equal, one man without religion is greater evidential value
+than five hundred with it. All the five hundred prove at the most is
+that human nature can get on with religion, but the one case proves that
+human nature can get on without it, and that challenges the whole
+religious position. And unless we take up the rather absurd position
+that the non-religious man is a sheer abnormality, this consideration at
+once reduces religion from a necessity to a luxury or a dissipation.
+
+The bearing of this on our attitude towards such a fact as death should
+be obvious. During the European war death from being an ever-present
+fact became an obtrusive one. Day after day we received news of the
+death of friend or relative, and those who escaped that degree of
+intimacy with the unpleasant visitor, met him in the columns of the
+daily press. And the Christian clergy would have been untrue to their
+traditions and to their interests--and there is no corporate body more
+alert in these directions--if they had not tried to exploit the
+situation to the utmost. There was nothing new in the tactics employed,
+it was the special circumstances that gave them a little more force than
+was usual. The following, for example, may be accepted as typical:--
+
+     The weight of our sorrow is immensely lightened if we can feel sure
+     that one whom we have loved and lost has but ascended to spheres of
+     further development, education, service, achievement, where, by and
+     by, we shall rejoin him.
+
+Quite a common statement, and one which by long usage has become almost
+immune from criticism. And yet it has about as much relation to fact as
+have the stories of death-bed conversions, or of people dying and
+shrieking for Jesus to save them. One may, indeed, apply a rough and
+ready test by an appeal to facts. How many cases has the reader of these
+lines come across in which religion has made people calmer and more
+resigned in the presence of death than others have been who were quite
+destitute of belief in religion? Of course, religious folk will repeat
+religious phrases, they will attend church, they will listen to the
+ministrations of their favourite clergyman, and they will say that their
+religion brings them comfort. But if one gets below the stereotyped
+phraseology and puts on one side also the sophisticated attitude in
+relation to religion, one quite fails to detect any respect in which the
+Freethinking parent differs from the Christian one. Does the religious
+parent grieve less? Does he bear the blow with greater fortitude? Is his
+grief of shorter duration? To anyone who will open his eyes the talk of
+the comfort of religion will appear to be largely cant. There are
+differences due to character, to temperament, to training; there is a
+use of traditional phrases in the one case that is absent in the other,
+but the incidence of a deep sorrow only serves to show how superficial
+are the vapourings of religion to a civilized mind, and how each one of
+us is thrown back upon those deeper feelings that are inseparable from a
+common humanity. The thought of an only son who is living with the
+angels brings no real solace to a parent's mind. Whatever genuine
+comfort is available must come from the thought of a life that has been
+well lived, from the sympathetic presence of friends, from the silent
+handclasp, which on such occasions is so often more eloquent than
+speech--in a word, from those healing currents that are part and parcel
+of the life of the race. A Freethinker can easily appreciate the
+readiness of a clergyman to help a mind that is suffering from a great
+sorrow, but it is the deliberate exploitation of human grief in the name
+and in the interests of religion, the manufacturing of cases of
+death-bed consolation and repentance, the citation of evidence to which
+the experience of all gives the lie, that fill one with a feeling akin
+to disgust.
+
+The writer from whom I have quoted says:--
+
+     It is, indeed, possible for people who are Agnostic or unbelieving
+     with regard to immortality to give themselves wholly to the pursuit
+     of truth and to the service of their fellowmen, in moral
+     earnestness and heroic endeavour; they may endure pain and sorrow
+     with calm resignation, and toil on in patience and perseverance.
+     The best of the ancient Stoics did so, and many a modern Agnostic
+     is doing so to-day.
+
+The significance of such a statement is in no wise diminished by the
+accompanying qualification that Freethinkers are "missing a joy which
+would have been to them a well-spring of courage and strength." That is
+a pure assumption. They who are without religious belief are conscious
+of no lack of courage, and they are oppressed by no feeling of despair.
+On this their own statement must be taken as final. Moreover, they are
+speaking as, in the main, those who are fully acquainted with the
+Christian position, having once occupied it. They are able to measure
+the relative value of the two positions. The Christian has no such
+experience to guide him. In the crises of life the behaviour of the
+Freethinker is at least as calm and as courageous as that of the
+Christian. And it may certainly be argued that a serene resignation in
+the presence of death is quite as valuable as the hectic emotionalism of
+cultivated religious belief.
+
+What, after all, is there in the fact of natural death that should breed
+irresolution, rob us of courage, or fill us with fear? Experience proves
+there are many things that people dread more than death, and will even
+seek death rather than face, or, again, there are a hundred and one
+things to obtain which men and women will face death without fear. And
+this readiness to face or seek death does not seem to be at all
+determined by religious belief. The millions of men who faced death
+during the war were not determined in their attitude by their faith in
+religious dogmas. If questioned they might, in the majority of cases,
+say that they believed in a future life, and also that they found it a
+source of strength, but it would need little reflection to assess the
+reply at its true value. And as a racial fact, the fear of death is a
+negative quality. The positive aspect is the will to live, and that may
+be seen in operation in the animal world as well as in the world of man.
+But this has no reference, not even the remotest, to a belief in a
+future life. There are no "Intimations of Immortality" here. There is
+simply one of the conditions of animal survival, developed in man to
+the point at which its further strengthening would become a threat to
+the welfare of the species. The desire to live is one of the conditions
+that secures the struggle to live, and a species of animals in which
+this did not exist would soon go under before a more virile type. And it
+is one of the peculiarities of religious reasoning that a will to live
+here should be taken as clear proof of a desire to live somewhere else.
+
+The fear of death could never be a powerful factor in life; existence
+would be next to impossible if it were. It would rob the organism of its
+daring, its tenacity, and ultimately divest life itself of value.
+Against that danger we have an efficient guard in the operation of
+natural selection. In the animal world there is no fear of death, there
+is, in fact, no reason to assume that there exists even a consciousness
+of death. And with man, when reflection and knowledge give birth to that
+consciousness, there arises a strong other regarding instinct which
+effectively prevents it assuming a too positive or a too dangerous form.
+Fear of death is, in brief, part of the jargon of priestcraft. The
+priest has taught it the people because it was to his interest to do so.
+And the jargon retains a certain currency because it is only the
+minority that rise above the parrot-like capacity to repeat current
+phrases, or who ever make an attempt to analyse their meaning and
+challenge their veracity.
+
+The positive fear of death is largely an acquired mental attitude. In
+its origin it is largely motived by religion. Generally speaking there
+is no very great fear of death among savages, and among the pagans of
+old Greece and Rome there was none of that abject fear of death that
+became so common with the establishment of Christianity. To the pagan,
+death was a natural fact, sad enough, but not of necessity terrible. Of
+the Greek sculptures representing death Professor Mahaffy says: "They
+are simple pictures of the grief of parting, of the recollection of
+pleasant days of love and friendship, of the gloom of an unknown future.
+But there is no exaggeration in the picture." Throughout Roman
+literature also there runs the conception of death as the necessary
+complement of life. Pliny puts this clearly in the following: "Unto all,
+the state of being after the last day is the same as it was before the
+first day of life; neither is there any more variation of it in either
+body or soul after death than there was before death." Among the
+uneducated there does appear to have been some fear of death, and one
+may assume that with some of even of the educated this was not
+altogether absent. It may also be assumed that it was to this type of
+mind that Christianity made its first appeal, and upon which it rested
+its nightmare-like conception of death and the after-life. On this
+matter the modern mind can well appreciate the attitude of Lucretius,
+who saw the great danger in front of the race and sought to guard men
+against it by pointing out the artificiality of the fear of death and
+the cleansing effect of genuine knowledge.
+
+    So shalt thou feed on Death who feeds on men,
+    And Death once dead there's no more dying then.
+
+The policy of Christianity was the belittling of this life and an
+exaggeration of the life after death, with a boundless exaggeration of
+the terrors that awaited the unwary and the unfaithful. The state of
+knowledge under Christian auspices made this task easy enough. Of the
+mediaeval period Mr. Lionel Cust, in his _History of Engraving during
+the Fifteenth Century_, says:--
+
+     The keys of knowledge, as of salvation, were entirely in the hands
+     of the Church, and the lay public, both high and low, were,
+     generally speaking, ignorant and illiterate. One of the secrets of
+     the great power exercised by the Church lay in its ability to
+     represent the life of man as environed from the outset by legions
+     of horrible and insidious demons, who beset his path throughout
+     life at every stage up to his very last breath, and are eminently
+     active and often triumphant when man's fortitude is undermined by
+     sickness, suffering, and the prospect of dissolution.
+
+F. Parkes Weber also points out that, "It was in mediaeval Europe, under
+the auspices of the Catholic Church, that descriptions of hell began to
+take on their most horrible aspects."[21] So, again, we have Sir James
+Frazer pointing out that the fear of death is not common to the lower
+races, and "Among the causes which thus tend to make us cowards may be
+numbered the spread of luxury and the doctrines of a gloomy theology,
+which by proclaiming the eternal damnation and excruciating torments of
+the vast majority of mankind has added incalculably to the dread and
+horror of death."[22]
+
+[21] _Aspects of Death in Art and Epigram_, p. 28.
+
+[22] _Golden Bough_, Vol. IV., p. 136.
+
+No religion has emphasized the terror of death as Christianity has done,
+and in the truest sense, no religion has so served to make men such
+cowards in its presence. Upon that fear a large part of the power of the
+Christian Church has been built, and men having become so obsessed with
+the fear of death and what lay beyond, it is not surprising that they
+should turn to the Church for some measure of relief. The poisoner thus
+did a lucrative trade by selling a doubtful remedy for his own toxic
+preparation. More than anything else the fear of death and hell laid the
+foundation of the wealth and power of the Christian Church. If it drew
+its authority from God, it derived its profit from the devil. The two
+truths that emerge from a sober and impartial study of Christian history
+are that the power of the Church was rooted in death and that it
+flourished in dishonour.
+
+It was Christianity, and Christianity alone that made death so abiding a
+terror to the European mind. And society once Christianized, the
+uneducated could find no adequate corrective from the more educated. The
+baser elements which existed in the Pagan world were eagerly seized upon
+by the Christian writers and developed to their fullest extent. Some of
+the Pagan writers had speculated, in a more or less fanciful spirit, on
+a hell of a thousand years. Christianity stretched it to eternity.
+Pre-Christianity had reserved the miseries of the after-life for adults.
+Christian writers paved the floor of hell with infants, "scarce a span
+long." Plutarch and other Pagan moralists had poured discredit upon the
+popular notions of a future life. Christianity reaffirmed them with all
+the exaggerations of a diseased imagination. The Pagans held that death
+was as normal and as natural as life. Christianity returned to the
+conception current among savages and depicted death as a penal
+infliction. The Pagan art of living was superseded by the Christian art
+of dying. Human ingenuity exhausted itself in depicting the terrors of
+the future life, and when one remembers the powers of the Church, and
+the murderous manner in which it exercised them, there is small wonder
+that under the auspices of the Church the fear of death gained a
+strength it had never before attained.
+
+Small wonder, then, that we still have with us the talk of the comfort
+that Christianity brings in the face of death. Where the belief in the
+Christian after-life really exists, the retention of a conviction of the
+saving power of Christianity is a condition of sanity. Where the belief
+does not really exist, we are fronted with nothing but a parrot-like
+repetition of familiar phrases. The Christian talk of comfort is thus,
+on either count, no more than a product of Christian education.
+Christianity does not make men brave in the presence of death, that is
+no more than a popular superstition. What it does is to cover a natural
+fact with supernatural terrors, and then exploit a frame of mind that it
+has created. The comfort is only necessary so long as the special belief
+is present. Remove that belief and death takes its place as one of the
+inevitable facts of existence, surrounded with all the sadness of a last
+farewell, but rid of all the terror that has been created by religion.
+
+Our dying soldier, asking for a copy of the _Crown of Wild Olive_ to be
+buried with him, and the other who calls for priestly ministrations,
+represent, ultimately, two different educational results. The one is a
+product of an educational process applied during the darkest periods of
+European history, and perpetuated by a training that has been mainly
+directed by the self-interest of a class. The other represents an
+educational product which stands as the triumph of the pressure of life
+over artificial dogmas. The Freethinker, because he is a Freethinker,
+needs none of those artificial stimulants for which the Christian
+craves. And he pays him the compliment--in spite of his protests--of
+believing that without his religion the Christian would display as much
+manliness in the face of death as he does himself. He believes there is
+plenty of healthy human nature in the average Christian, and the
+Freethinker merely begs him to give it a chance of finding expression.
+In this matter, it must be observed, the Freethinker makes no claim to
+superiority over the Christian; it is the Christian who forces that
+claim upon him. The Freethinker does not assume that the difference
+between himself and the Christian is nearly so great as the latter would
+have him believe. He believes that what is dispensable by the one,
+without loss, is dispensable by the other. If Freethinkers can devote
+themselves to "the pursuit of truth and the service of their fellow
+men," if they can "endure pain and sorrow with calm resignation," if
+they live with honour and face death without fear, I see no reason why
+the Christian should not be able to reach the same level of development.
+It is paying the Freethinker a "violent compliment," to use an
+expression of John Wesley's, to place him upon a level of excellence
+that is apparently so far above that of the average Christian. As a
+Freethinker, I decline to accept it. I believe that what the Freethinker
+is, the Christian may well become. He, too, may learn to do his duty
+without the fear of hell or the hope of heaven. All that is required is
+that he shall give his healthier instincts an opportunity for
+expression.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT.
+
+
+In the preceding chapter I have only discussed the fact of death in
+relation to a certain attitude of mind. The question of the survival of
+the human personality after death is a distinct question and calls for
+separate treatment. Nor is the present work one in which that topic can
+be treated at adequate length. The most that can now be attempted is a
+bird's eye view of a large field of controversy, although it may be
+possible in the course of that survey to say something on the more
+important aspects of the subject.
+
+And first we may notice the curious assumption that the man who argues
+for immortality is taking a lofty view of human nature, while he who
+argues against it is taking a low one. In sober truth it is the other
+way about. Consider the position. It is tacitly admitted that if human
+motive, considered with reference to this world alone, is adequate as an
+incentive to action, and the consequences of actions, again considered
+with reference to this world, are an adequate reward for endeavour, then
+it is agreed that the main argument for the belief in immortality breaks
+down. To support or to establish the argument it is necessary to show
+that life divorced from the conception of a future life can never reach
+the highest possible level. Natural human society is powerless in itself
+to realize its highest possibilities. It remains barren of what it might
+be, a thing that may frame ideals, but can never realize them.
+
+Now that is quite an intelligible, and, therefore, an arguable
+proposition. But whether true or not, there should be no question that
+it involves a lower view of human nature than the one taken by the
+Freethinker. He does at least pay human nature the compliment of
+believing it capable, not alone of framing high ideals, but also of
+realizing them. He says that by itself it is capable of realizing all
+that may be legitimately demanded from it. He does not believe that
+supernatural hopes or fears are necessary to induce man to live cleanly,
+or die serenely, or to carry out properly his duties to his fellows. The
+religionist denies this, and asserts that some form of supernaturalism
+is essential to the moral health of men and women. If the Freethinker is
+wrong, it is plain that his fault consists in taking a too optimistic
+view of human nature. His mistake consists in taking not a low view of
+human nature, but a lofty one. Substantially, the difference between the
+two positions is the difference between the man who is honest from a
+conviction of the value of honesty, and the one who refrains from
+stealing because he feels certain of detection, or because he is afraid
+of losing something that he might otherwise gain. Thus, we are told by
+one writer that:--
+
+     If human life is but a by-product of the unconscious play of
+     physical force, like a candle flame soon to be blown out or burnt
+     out, what a paltry thing it is!
+
+But the questions of where human life came from, or where it will end,
+are quite apart from the question of the value and capabilities of human
+life now. That there are immense possibilities in this life none but a
+fool will deny. The world is full of strange and curious things, and its
+pleasures undoubtedly outweigh its pains in the experience of normal man
+or woman. But the relations between ourselves and others remain
+completely unaffected by the termination of existence at the grave, or
+its continuation beyond. It is quite a defensible proposition that life
+is not worth living. So is the reverse of the proposition. But it is
+nonsense to say that life is a "paltry thing" merely because it ends at
+the grave. It is unrestricted egotism manifesting itself in the form of
+religious conviction. One might as well argue that a sunset ceases to be
+beautiful because it does not continue all night.
+
+If I cannot live for ever, then is the universe a failure! That is
+really all that the religious argument amounts to. And so to state it,
+to reduce it to plain terms, and divest it of its disguising verbiage,
+almost removes the need for further refutation. But it is seldom stated
+in so plain and so unequivocal a manner. It is accompanied with much
+talk of growth, of an evolutionary purpose, of ruined lives made good,
+thus:
+
+     Seeing that man is the goal towards which everything has tended
+     from the beginning, seeing that the same eternal and infinite
+     Energy has laboured through the ages at the production of man, and
+     man is the heir of the ages, nothing conceivable seems too great or
+     glorious to believe concerning his destiny.... If there is no limit
+     to human growth in knowledge and wisdom, in love and constructive
+     power, in beauty and joy, we are invested with a magnificent worth
+     and dignity.
+
+So fallacy and folly run on. What, for example, does anyone mean by man
+as the goal towards which everything has tended since the beginning?
+Whatever truth there is in the statement applies to all things without
+exception. It is as true of the microbe as it is of man. If the
+"infinite and eternal Energy" laboured to produce man, it laboured also
+to produce the microbe which destroys him. The one is here as well as
+the other; and one can conceive a religious microbe thanking an almighty
+one for having created it, and declaring that unless it is to live for
+ever in some microbic heaven, with a proper supply of human beings for
+its nourishment, the whole scheme of creation is a failure. It is quite
+a question of the point of view. As a matter of fact there are no "ends"
+in nature. There are only results, and each result becomes a factor in
+some further result. It is human folly and ignorance which makes an end
+of a consequence.
+
+After all, what reason is there for anyone assuming that the survival of
+man beyond the grave is even probably true? We do not know man as a
+"soul" first and a body afterwards. Neither do we know him as a detached
+"mind" which afterwards takes possession of a body. Our knowledge of man
+commences with him, as does our knowledge of any animal, as a body
+possessing certain definite functions of which we call one group mental.
+And the two things are so indissolubly linked that we cannot even think
+of them as separate. If anyone doubts this let him try and picture to
+himself what a man is like in the absence of a body. He will find the
+thing simply inconceivable. In the absence of the material organism, to
+which the mind unquestionably stands in the relation of function to
+organ, what remains is a mere blank. To the informed mind, that is. To
+the intelligence of the savage, who is led, owing to his erroneous
+conception of things, to think of something inside the body which leaves
+it during sleep, wanders about, and then returns on awakening, and who
+because of this affiliates sleep to death, the case may be different.
+But to a modern mind, one which is acquainted with something of what
+science has to say on the subject, the conception of a mind existing
+apart from organization is simply unthinkable. All our knowledge is
+against it. The development of mind side by side with the development of
+the brain and the nervous system is one of the commonplaces of
+scientific knowledge. The treatment of states of mind as functions of
+the brain and the nervous system is a common-place of medical practice.
+And the fact that diet, temperature, health and disease, accidents and
+old age, all have their effects on mental manifestations is matter of
+everyday observation. The whole range of positive science may safely be
+challenged to produce a single indisputable fact in favour of the
+assumption that there exists anything about man independent of the
+material organism.
+
+All that can be urged in favour of such a belief is that there are still
+many obscure facts which we are not altogether able to explain on a
+purely mechanistic theory. But that is a confession of ignorance, not an
+affirmation of knowledge. At any rate, there does not exist a single
+fact against the functional theory of mind. All we _know_ is decidedly
+in its favour, and a theory must be tested by what we know and by what
+it explains, not by what we do not know or by what it cannot explain.
+And there is here the additional truth that the only ground upon which
+the theory can be opposed is upon certain metaphysical assumptions which
+are made in order to bolster up an already existing belief. If the
+belief in survival had not been already in existence these assumptions
+would never have been made. They are not suggested by the facts, they
+are invented to support an already established theory, which can no
+longer appeal to the circumstances which gave it birth.
+
+And about those circumstance there is no longer the slightest reason for
+justifiable doubt. We can trace the belief in survival after death
+until we see it commencing in the savage belief in a double that takes
+its origin in the phenomena of dreaming and unusual mental states. It is
+from that starting point that the belief in survival takes its place as
+an invariable element in the religions of the world. And as we trace the
+evolution of knowledge we see every fact upon which was built the belief
+in a double that survived death gradually losing its hold on the human
+intelligence, owing to the fact that the experiences that gave it birth
+are interpreted in a manner which allows no room for the religious
+theory. The fatal fact about the belief in survival is its history. That
+history shows us how it began, as surely as the course of its evolution
+indicates the way in which it will end.
+
+So, as with the idea of God, what we have left in modern times are not
+the reasons why such a belief is held, but only excuses why those who
+hold it should not be disturbed. That and a number of arguments which
+only present an air of plausibility because they succeed in jumbling
+together things that have no connection with each other. As an example
+of this we may take the favourite modern plea that a future life is
+required to permit the growth and development of the individual. We find
+this expressed in the quotation above given in the sentence "if there is
+no limit to human growth, etc.," the inference being that unless there
+is a future life there is a very sharp limit set to human growth, and
+one that makes this life a mockery. This plea is presented in so many
+forms that it is worth while analysing it a little, if only to bring out
+more clearly the distinction between the religious and the Freethought
+view of life.
+
+What now is meant by there being no limit to human growth? If by it is
+meant individual growth, the reply is that there is actually a very
+sharp limit set to growth, much sharper than the average person seems
+to be aware of. It is quite clear that the individual is not capable of
+unlimited growth in this world. There are degrees of capacity in
+different individuals which will determine what amount of development
+each is capable of. Capacity is not an acquired thing, it is an
+endowment, and the child born with the brain capacity of a fool will
+remain a fool to the end, however much his folly may be disguised or
+lost amid the folly of others. And with each one, whether he be fool or
+genius, acquisitions are made more easily and more rapidly in youth, the
+power of mental adaptation is much greater in early than in later life,
+while in old age the capacities of adaptation and acquisition become
+negligible quantities. And provided one lives long enough, the last
+stage sees, not a promise of further progress if life were continued,
+but a process of degradation. The old saying that one can't put a quart
+into a pint pot is strictly applicable here. Growth assumes acquisition;
+acquisition is determined by capacity, and this while an indefinite
+quantity (indefinite here is strictly referable to our ignorance, not to
+the actual fact) is certainly not an unlimited one. Life, then, so far
+as the individual is concerned, does not point to unlimited growth. It
+indicates, so far as it indicates anything at all, that there is a limit
+to growth as to all other things.
+
+Well, but suppose we say that man is capable of indefinite growth, what
+do we mean? Let us also bear in mind at this point that we are strictly
+concerned with the individual. For if man survives death he must do it
+as an individual. To merely survive as a part of the chemical and other
+elements of the world, or, to follow some mystical theologians, as an
+indistinguishable part of a "world-soul," is not what people mean when
+they talk of living beyond the grave. Here, again, it will be found
+that we have confused two quite distinct things, even though the one
+thing borrows its meaning from the other.
+
+When we compare the individual, as such, with the individual of three or
+four thousand years ago, can we say with truth that the man of to-day is
+actually superior to the man of the earlier date? To test the question
+let us put it in this way. Does the man of to-day do anything or think
+anything that is beyond the capacity of an ancient Egyptian or an
+ancient Greek, if it were possible to suddenly revive one and to enable
+him to pass through the same education that each one of us passes
+through? I do not think that anyone will answer that question in the
+affirmative. Reverse the process. Suppose that a modern man, with
+exactly the same capacity that he now has had lived in the days of the
+ancient Egyptians or the ancient Greeks, can we say that his capacity is
+so much greater than theirs, that he would have done better than they
+did? I do not think that anyone will answer that question in the
+affirmative either. Is the soldier of to-day a better soldier, or the
+sailor a better sailor than those who lived three thousand years ago?
+Once more the answer will not be in the affirmative. And yet there are
+certain things that are obvious. It is plain that we all know more than
+did the people of long ago, we can do more, we understand the past
+better, and we can see farther into the future. A schoolboy to-day
+carries in his head what would have been a philosopher's outfit once
+upon a time. Our soldiers and sailors utilize, single-handed, forces
+greater than a whole army or navy wielded in the far-off days of the
+Ptolemies. We call ourselves greater, we think ourselves greater, and in
+a sense we are greater than the people of old. What, then, is the
+explanation of the apparent paradox?
+
+The explanation lies in the simple fact that progress is not a
+phenomenon of individual life at all. It is a phenomenon of social
+existence. If each generation had to commence at the exact point at
+which its predecessors started it would get no farther than they got. It
+would be an eternal round, with each generation starting from and
+reaching the same point, and progress would be an inconceivable thing.
+But that we know is not the case. Instead of each generation starting
+from precisely the same point, one inherits at least something of the
+labours and discoveries of its predecessors. A thing discovered by the
+individual is discovered for the race. A thought struck out by the
+individual is a thought for the race. By language, by tradition, and by
+institutions the advances of each generation are conserved, handed on,
+and made part of our racial possessions. The strength, the knowledge, of
+the modern is thus due not to any innate superiority over the ancient,
+but because one is modern and the other ancient. If we could have
+surrounded the ancient Assyrians with all the inventions, and given them
+all the knowledge that we possess, they would have used that knowledge
+and those inventions as wisely, or as unwisely as we use them. Progress
+is thus not a fact of individual but of racial life. The individual
+inherits more than he creates, and it is in virtue of this racial
+inheritance that he is what he is.
+
+It is a mere trick of the imagination that converts this fact of social
+growth into an essential characteristic of individual life. We speak of
+"man" without clearly distinguishing between man as a biological unit
+and man as a member of a social group developing in correspondence with
+a true social medium. But if that is so, it follows that this capacity
+for growth is, so to speak, a function of the social medium. It is
+conditioned by it, it has relevance only in relation to it. Our
+feelings, our sentiments, even our desires, have reference to this life,
+and in a far deeper sense than is usually imagined. And removed from its
+relation to this life human nature would be without meaning or value.
+
+There is nothing in any of the functions of man, in any of his
+capacities, or in any of his properly understood desires that has the
+slightest reference to any life but this. It is unthinkable that there
+should be. An organ or an organism develops in relation to a special
+medium, not in relation to one that--even though it exists--is not also
+in relation with it. This is quite an obvious truth in regard to
+structures, but it is not always so clearly recognized, or so carefully
+borne in mind, that it is equally true of every feeling and desire. For
+these are developed in relation to their special medium, in this case,
+the existence of fellow beings with their actions and reactions on each
+other. And man is not only a member of a social group, that much is an
+obvious fact; but he is a product of the group in the sense that all his
+characteristic human qualities have resulted from the interactions of
+group life. Take man out of relation to that fact, and he is an enigma,
+presenting fit opportunities for the wild theorizing of religious
+philosophers. Take him in connection with it, and his whole nature
+becomes susceptible of understanding in relation to the only existence
+he knows and desires.
+
+The twin facts of growth and progress, upon which so much of the
+argument for a future life turns nowadays, have not the slightest
+possible reference to a life beyond the grave. They are fundamentally
+not even personal, but social. It is the race that grows, not the
+individual, he becomes more powerful precisely because the products of
+racial acquisition are inherited by him. Remove, if only in thought, the
+individual from all association with his fellows, strip him of all that
+he inherits from association with them, and he loses all the qualities
+we indicate when we speak of him as a civilized being. Remove him, in
+fact, from that association, as when a man is marooned on a desert
+island, and the more civilized qualities of his character begin to
+weaken and in time disappear. Man, as an individual, becomes more
+powerful with the passing of each generation, precisely because he is
+thus dependent upon the life of the race. The secret of his weakness is
+at the same time the source of his strength. We are what we are because
+of the generations of men and women who lived and toiled and died before
+we were born. We inherit the fruits of their labours, as those who come
+after us will inherit the fruits of our struggles and conquests. It is
+thus in the life of the race that man achieves immortality. None other
+is possible, or conceivable. And to those whose minds are not distorted
+by religious teaching, and who have taken the trouble to analyse and
+understand their own mental states, it may be said that none other is
+even desirable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+EVOLUTION.
+
+
+Language, we have said above, is one of the prime conditions of human
+greatness and progress. It is the principal means by which man conserves
+his victories over the forces of his environment, and transmits them to
+his descendants. But it is, nevertheless, not without its dangers, and
+may exert an influence fatal to exact thought. There is a sense in which
+language necessarily lags behind thought. For words are coined to
+express the ideas of those who fashion them; and as the knowledge of the
+next generation alters, and some modification of existing conceptions is
+found necessary, there is nothing but the existing array of words in
+which to express them. The consequence is that there are nearly always
+subtle shades of meaning in the words used differing from the exact
+meaning which the new thought is trying to express. Thought drives us to
+seek new or improved verbal tools, but until we get them we must go on
+using the old ones, with all their old implications. And by the time the
+new words arrive thought has made a still further advance, and the
+general position remains. It is an eternal chase in which the pursued is
+always being captured, but is never caught.
+
+Another way in which language holds a danger is that with many words,
+especially when they assume the character of a formula, they tend to
+usurp the place of thinking. The old lady who found so much consolation
+in the "blessed" word Mesopotamia, is not alone in using that method of
+consolation. It does not meet us only in connection with religion, it
+is encountered over the whole field of sociology, and even of science.
+A conception in science or sociology is established after a hard fight.
+It is accepted generally, and thereafter takes its place as one of the
+many established truths. And then the danger shows itself. It is
+repeated as though it had some magical virtue in itself; it means
+nothing to very many of those who use it, they simply hand over their
+mental difficulties to its care, much as the penitent in the
+confessional hands over his moral troubles to the priest, and there the
+matter ends. But in such cases the words used do not express thought,
+they simply blind people to its absence. And not only that, but in the
+name of these sacred words, any number of foolish inferences are drawn
+and receive general assent.
+
+A striking illustration of this is to be found in such a word as
+"Evolution." One may say of it that while it began as a formula, it
+continues as a fiat. Some invoke it with all the expectancy of a
+mediaeval magician commanding the attendance of his favourite spirits.
+Others approach it with a hushed reverence that is reminiscent of a
+Catholic devotee before his favourite shrine. In a little more than half
+a century it has acquired the characteristics of the Kismet of the
+Mohammedan, the Beelzebub of the pious Christian, and the power of a
+phrase that gives inspiration to a born soldier. It is used as often to
+dispel doubt as it is to awaken curiosity. It may express comprehension
+or merely indicate vacuity. Decisions are pronounced in its name with
+all the solemnity of a "Thus saith the Lord." We are not sure that even
+to talk about evolution in this way may not be considered wrong. For
+there are crowds of folk who cannot distinguish profundity from
+solemnity, and who mistake a long face for the sure indication of a
+well-stored brain. The truth here is that what a man understands
+thoroughly he can deal with easily; and that he laughs at a difficulty
+is not necessarily a sign that he fails to appreciate it, he may laugh
+because he has taken its measure. And why people do not laugh at such a
+thing as religion is partly because they have not taken its measure,
+partly from a perception that religion cannot stand it. Everywhere the
+priest maintains his hold as a consequence of the narcotizing influence
+of ill-understood phrases, and in this he is matched by the
+pseudo-philosopher whose pompous use of imperfectly appreciated formulae
+disguises from the crowd the mistiness of his understanding.
+
+A glance over the various uses to which the word "Evolution" is put will
+well illustrate the truth of what has been said. These make one wonder
+what, in the opinion of some people, evolution stands for. One of these
+uses of evolution is to give it a certain moral implication to which it
+has not the slightest claim. A certain school of Non-Theists are, in
+this matter, if not the greatest offenders, certainly those with the
+least excuse for committing the blunder. By these evolution is
+identified with progress, or advancement, or a gradual "levelling up" of
+society, and is even acclaimed as presenting a more "moral" view of the
+Universe than is the Theistic conception. Now, primarily, this
+ascription of what one may call a moral element to evolution is no more
+than a carrying over into science of a frame of mind that properly
+belongs to Theism. Quite naturally the Theist was driven to try and find
+some moral purpose in the Universe, and to prove that its working did
+not grate on our moral sense. That was quite understandable, and even
+legitimate. The world, from the point of view of the Goddite, was God's
+world, he made it; and we are ultimately compelled to judge the
+character of God from his workmanship. An attack on the moral character
+of the world is, therefore, an attack on the character of its maker. And
+the Theist proceeded to find a moral justification for all that God had
+done.
+
+So far all is clear. But now comes a certain kind of Non-Theist. And he,
+always rejecting a formal Theism and substituting evolution, proceeds to
+claim for his formula all that the Theist claimed for his. He also
+strives to show that the idea of cosmic evolution involves conceptions
+of nobility, justice, morality, etc. There is no wonder that some
+Christians round on him, and tell him that he still believes in a god.
+Substantially he does. That is, he carries over into his new camp the
+same anthropomorphic conception of the workings of nature, and uses the
+same pseudo-scientific reasoning that is characteristic of the Theist.
+He has formally given up God, but he goes about uncomfortably burdened
+with his ghost.
+
+Now, evolution is not a fiat, but a formula. It has nothing whatever to
+do with progress, as such, nor with morality, as such, nor with a
+levelling up, nor a levelling down. It is really no more than a special
+application of the principle of causation, and whether the working out
+of that principle has a good effect or a bad one, a moralizing, or a
+demoralizing, a progressive, or a retrogressive consequence is not
+"given" in the principle itself. Fundamentally, all cosmic phenomena
+present us with two aspects--difference and change--and that is so
+because it is the fundamental condition of our knowing anything at all.
+But the law of evolution is no more, is nothing more serious or more
+profound than an attempt to express those movements of change and
+difference in a more or less precise formula. It aims at doing for
+phenomena in general exactly what a particular scientific law aims at
+doing for some special department. But it has no more a moral
+implication, or a progressive implication than has the law of
+gravitation or of chemical affinity. The sum of those changes that are
+expressed in the law of evolution may result in one or the other; it has
+resulted in one or the other. At one time we call its consequences moral
+or progressive, at another time we call them immoral or retrogressive,
+but these are some of the distinctions which the human mind creates for
+its own convenience, they have no validity in any other sense. And when
+we mistake these quite legitimate distinctions, made for our own
+convenience, and argue as though they had an actual independent
+existence, we are reproducing exactly the same mental confusion that
+keeps Theism alive.
+
+The two aspects that difference and change resolve themselves into when
+expressed in an evolutionary formula are, in the inorganic world,
+equilibrium, and, in the organic world, adaptation. Of course,
+equilibrium also applies to the organic world, I merely put it this way
+for the purpose of clarity. Now, if we confine our attention to the
+world of animal forms, what we have expressed, primarily, is the fact of
+adaptation. If an animal is to live it must be adapted to its
+surroundings to at least the extent of being able to overcome or to
+neutralize the forces that threaten its existence. That is quite a
+common-place, since all it says is that to live an animal must be fit to
+live, but all great truths are common-places--when one sees them. Still,
+if there were only adaptations to consider, and if the environment to
+which adaptation is to be secured, remained constant, all we should have
+would be the deaths of those not able to live, with the survival of
+those more fortunately endowed. There would be nothing that we could
+call, even to please ourselves, either progress or its reverse. Movement
+up or down (both human landmarks) occurs because the environment itself
+undergoes a change. Either the material conditions change, or the
+pressure of numbers initiates a contest for survival, although more
+commonly one may imagine both causes in operation at the same time. But
+the consequence is the introduction of a new quality into the struggle
+for existence. It becomes a question of a greater endowment of the
+qualities that spell survival. And that paves the way to progress--or
+the reverse. But one must bear in mind that, whether the movement be in
+one direction or the other, it is still the same process that is at
+work. Evolution levels neither "up" nor "down." Up and down is as
+relative in biology as it is in astronomy. In nature there is neither
+better nor worse, neither high nor low, neither good nor bad, there are
+only differences, and if that had been properly appreciated by all, very
+few of the apologies for Theism would ever have seen the light.
+
+There is not the slightest warranty for speaking of evolution as being a
+"progressive force," it is, indeed, not a force at all, but only a
+descriptive term on all fours with any other descriptive term as
+expressed in a natural law. It neither, of necessity, levels up nor
+levels down. In the animal world it illustrates adaptation only, but
+whether that adaptation involves what we choose to call progression or
+retrogression is a matter of indifference. On the one hand we have
+aquatic life giving rise to mammalian life, and on the other hand, we
+have mammalian life reverting to an aquatic form of existence. In one
+place we have a "lower" form of life giving place to a "higher" form. In
+another place we can see the reverse process taking place. And the
+"lower" forms are often more persistent than the "higher" ones, while,
+as the course of epidemical and other diseases shows certain lowly forms
+of life may make the existence of the higher forms impossible. The
+Theistic attempt to disprove the mechanistic conception of nature by
+insisting that evolution is a law of progress, that it implies an end,
+and indicates a goal, is wholly fallacious. From a scientific point of
+view it is meaningless chatter. Science knows nothing of a plan, or an
+end in nature, or even progress. All these are conceptions which we
+humans create for our own convenience. They are so many standards of
+measurement, of exactly the same nature as our agreement that a certain
+length of space shall be called a yard, or a certain quantity of liquid
+shall be called a pint. To think otherwise is pure anthropomorphism. It
+is the ghost of God imported into science.
+
+So far, then, it is clear that the universal fact in nature is change.
+The most general aspect of nature which meets us is that expressed in
+the law of evolution. And proceeding from the more general to the less
+general, in the world of living beings this change meets us in the form
+of adaptation to environment. But what constitutes adaptation must be
+determined by the nature of the environment. That will determine what
+qualities are of value in the struggle for existence, which is not
+necessarily a struggle against other animals, but may be no more than
+the animal's own endeavours to persist in being. It is, however, in
+relation to the environment that we must measure the value of qualities.
+Whatever be the nature of the environment that principle remains true.
+Ideally, one quality may be more desirable than another, but if it does
+not secure a greater degree of adaptation to the environment it brings
+no advantage to its possessor. It may even bring a positive
+disadvantage. In a thieves' kitchen the honest man is handicapped. In a
+circle of upright men the dishonest man is at a discount. In the
+existing political world a perfectly truthful man would be a
+parliamentary failure. In the pulpit a preacher who knew the truth about
+Christianity and preached it would soon be out of the Church.
+Adaptation is not, as such, a question of moral goodness or badness, it
+is simply adaptation.
+
+A precautionary word needs be said on the matter of environment. If we
+conceive the environment as made up only of the material surroundings we
+shall not be long before we find ourselves falling into gross error. For
+that conception of environment will only hold of the very lowest
+organisms. A little higher, and the nature of the organism begins to
+have a modifying effect on the material environment, and when we come to
+animals living in groups the environment of the individual animal
+becomes partly the habits and instincts of the other animals with which
+it lives. Finally, when we reach man this transformation of the nature
+of the environment becomes greatest. Here it is not merely the existence
+of other members of the same species, with all their developed feelings
+and ideas to which each must become adapted to live, but in virtue of
+what we have described above as the social medium, certain "thought
+forms" such as institutions, conceptions of right and wrong, ideals of
+duty, loyalty, the relation of one human group to other human groups,
+not merely those that are now living, but also those that are dead, are
+all part of the environment to which adjustment must be made. And in the
+higher stages of social life these aspects of the environment become of
+even greater consequence than the facts of a climatic, geographic, or
+geologic nature. In other words, the environment which exerts a
+predominating influence on civilized mankind is an environment that has
+been very largely created by social life and growth.
+
+If we keep these two considerations firmly in mind we shall be well
+guarded against a whole host of fallacies and false analogies that are
+placed before us as though they were unquestioned and unquestionable
+truths. There is, for instance, the misreading of evolution which
+asserts that inasmuch as what is called moral progress takes place,
+therefore evolution involves a moral purpose. We find this view put
+forward not only by avowed Theists, but by those who, while formally
+disavowing Theism, appear to have imported into ethics all the false
+sentiment and fallacious reasoning that formerly did duty in bolstering
+up the idea of God. Evolution, as such, is no more concerned with an
+ideal morality than it is concerned with the development of an ideal
+apple dumpling. In the universal process morality is no more than a
+special illustration of the principle of adaptation. The morality of man
+is a summary of the relations between human beings that must be
+maintained if the two-fold end of racial preservation and individual
+development are to be secured. Fundamentally morality is the formulation
+in either theory or practice of rules or actions that make group-life
+possible. And the man who sees in the existence or growth of morality
+proof of a "plan" or an "end" is on all fours with the mentality of the
+curate who saw the hand of Providence in the fact that death came at the
+end of life instead of in the middle of it. What we are dealing with
+here is the fact of adaptation, although in the case of the human group
+the traditions and customs and ideals of the group form a very important
+part of the environment to which adaptation must be made and have,
+therefore, a distinct survival value. The moral mystery-monger is only a
+shade less objectionable than the religious mystery-monger, of whom he
+is the ethical equivalent.
+
+A right conception of the nature of environment and the meaning of
+evolution will also protect us against a fallacy that is met with in
+connection with social growth. Human nature, we are often told, is
+always the same. To secure a desired reform, we are assured, you must
+first of all change human nature, and the assumption is that as human
+nature cannot be changed the proposed reform is quite impossible.
+
+Now there is a sense in which human nature is the same, generation after
+generation. But there is another sense in which human nature is
+undergoing constant alteration, and, indeed, it is one of the
+outstanding features of social life that it should be so. So far as can
+be seen there exists no difference between the fundamental capacities
+possessed by man during at least the historic period. There are
+differences in people between the relative strengths of the various
+capacities, but that is all. An ancient Assyrian possessed all the
+capacities of a modern Englishman, and in the main one would feel
+inclined to say the same of them in their quantitative aspect as well as
+in their qualitative one. For when one looks at the matter closely it is
+seen that the main difference between the ancient and the modern man is
+in expression. Civilization does not so much change the man so much as
+it gives a new direction to the existing qualities. Whether particular
+qualities are expressed in an ideally good direction or the reverse
+depends upon the environment to which they react.
+
+To take an example. The fundamental evil of war in a modern state is
+that it expends energy in a harmful direction. But war itself, the
+expression of the war-like character, is the outcome of pugnacity and
+the love of adventure without which human nature would be decidedly the
+poorer, and would be comparatively ineffective. It is fundamentally an
+expression of these qualities that lead to the quite healthy taste for
+exploration, discovery, and in intellectual pursuits to that contest of
+ideas which lies at the root of most of our progress. And what war means
+in the modern State is that the love of competition and adventure, the
+pugnacity which leads a man to fight in defence of a right or to redress
+a wrong, and without which human nature would be a poor thing, are
+expended in the way of sheer destruction instead of through channels of
+adventure and healthy intellectual contest. Sympathies are narrowed
+instead of widened, and hatred of the stranger and the outsider, of
+which a growing number of people in a civilized country are becoming
+ashamed, assumes the rank of a virtue. In other words, a state of war
+creates an environment--fortunately for only a brief period--which gives
+a survival value to such expressions of human capacity as indicate a
+reversion to a lower state of culture.
+
+We may put the matter thus. While conduct is a function of the organism,
+and while the _kind_ of reaction is determined by structure, the _form_
+taken by the reaction is a matter of response to environmental
+influences. It is this fact which explains why the capacities of man
+remain fairly constant, while there is a continuous redirecting of these
+capacities into new channels suitable to a developing social life.
+
+We are only outlining here a view of evolution that would require a
+volume to discuss and illustrate adequately, but enough has been said to
+indicate the enormous importance of the educative power of the
+environment. We cannot alter the capacities of the individual for they
+are a natural endowment. But we can, in virtue of an increased emphasis,
+determine whether they shall be expressed in this or that direction. The
+love of adventure may, for example, be exhausted in the pursuit of some
+piratical enterprise, or it may be guided into channels of some useful
+form of social effort. It lies with society itself to see that the
+environment is such as to exercise a determining influence with regard
+to expressions of activity that are beneficial to the whole of the
+group.
+
+To sum up. Evolution is no more than a formula that expresses the way in
+which a moving balance of forces is brought about by purely mechanical
+means. So far as animal life is concerned this balance is expressed by
+the phrase "adaptation to environment." But in human society the
+environment is in a growing measure made up of ideas, customs,
+traditions, ideals, and beliefs; in a word, of factors which are
+themselves products of human activities. And it is for this reason that
+the game of civilization is very largely in our own hands. If we
+maintain an environment in which it is either costly or dangerous to be
+honest and fearless in the expression of opinion, we shall be doing our
+best to develop mental cowardice and hypocrisy. If we bring up the young
+with the successful soldier or money-maker before them as examples,
+while we continue to treat the scientist as a crank, and the reformer as
+a dangerous criminal, we shall be continuing the policy of forcing the
+expression of human capacity on a lower level than would otherwise be
+the case. If we encourage the dominance of a religion which while making
+a profession of disinterested loftiness continues to irradiate a narrow
+egotism and a pessimistic view of life, we are doing our best to
+perpetuate an environment which emphasizes only the poorer aspects of
+human motive. Two centuries of ceaseless scientific activity have taught
+us something of the rules of the game which we are all playing with
+nature whether we will or no. To-day we have a good many of the winning
+cards in our hands, if we will only learn to play them wisely. It is not
+correct to say that evolution necessarily involves progress, but it does
+indicate that wisdom and foresight may so control the social forces as
+to turn that ceaseless change which is indicated by the law of evolution
+into channels that make for happiness and prosperity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DARWINISM AND DESIGN.
+
+
+The influence of the hypothesis of evolution on religion was not long in
+making itself felt. Professor Huxley explained the rapid success of
+Darwinism by saying that the scientific world was ready for it. And much
+the same thing may be said of the better representatives of the
+intellectual world with regard to the bearing of evolution on religion.
+In many directions the cultivated mind had for more than half a century
+been getting familiar with the general conception of growth in human
+life and thought. Where earlier generations had seen no more than a
+pattern to unravel there had developed a conviction that there was a
+history to trace and to understand. Distant parts of the world had been
+brought together during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries,
+readers and students were getting familiarized with the mass of customs
+and religious ideas that were possessed by these peoples, and it was
+perceived that beneath the bewildering variety of man's mental output
+there were certain features which they had in common, and which might
+hold in solution some common principle or principles.
+
+This common principle was found in the conception of evolution. It was
+the one thing which, if true, and apart from the impossible idea of a
+revelation, nicely graduated to the capacities of different races,
+offered an explanation of the religions of the world in terms more
+satisfactory than those of deliberate invention or imposture. Once it
+was accepted, if only as an instrument of investigation, its use was
+soon justified. And the thorough-going nature of the conquest achieved
+is in no wise more clearly manifested than in the fact that the
+conception of growth is, to-day, not merely an accepted principle with
+scientific investigators, it has sunk deeply into all our literature and
+forms an unconscious part of popular thought.
+
+One aspect of the influence of evolution on religious ideas has already
+been noted. It made the religious idea but one of the many forms that
+were assumed by man's attempt to reduce his experience of the world to
+something like an orderly theory. But that carried with it, for
+religion, the danger of reducing it to no more than one of the many
+theories of things which man forms, with the prospect of its rejection
+as a better knowledge of the world develops. Evolution certainly
+divested religion of any authority save such as it might contain in
+itself, and that is a position a religious mind can never contemplate
+with equanimity.
+
+But so far as the theory of Darwinism is concerned it exerted a marked
+and rapid influence on the popular religious theory of design in nature.
+This is one of the oldest arguments in favour of a reasoned belief in
+God, and it is the one which was, and is still in one form or another,
+held in the greatest popular esteem. To the popular mind--and religion
+in a civilized country is not seriously concerned about its failing grip
+on the cultured intelligence so long as it keeps control of the ordinary
+man and woman--to the popular mind the argument from design appealed
+with peculiar force. Anyone is capable of admiring the wonders of
+nature, and in the earlier developments of popular science the marvels
+of plant and animal structures served only to deepen the Theist's
+admiration of the "divine wisdom." The examples of complexity of
+structure, of the interdependence of parts, and of the thousand and one
+cunning devices by which animal life maintains itself in the face of a
+hostile environment were there for all to see and admire. And when man
+compared these with his own conscious attempts to adapt means to ends,
+there seemed as strong proof here as anywhere of some scheming
+intelligence behind the natural process.
+
+But the strength of the case was more apparent than real. It was weakest
+at the very point where it should have been strongest. In the case of a
+human product we know the purpose and can measure the extent of its
+realization in the nature of the result. In the case of a natural
+product we have no means of knowing what the purpose was, or even if any
+purpose at all lies behind the product. The important element in the
+argument from design--that of purpose--is thus pure assumption. In the
+case of human productions we argue from purpose to production. In the
+case of a natural object we are arguing from production to an assumed
+purpose. The analogy breaks down just where it should be strongest and
+clearest.
+
+Now it is undeniable that to a very large number of the more thoughtful
+the old form of the argument from design received its death blow from
+the Darwinian doctrine of natural selection. In the light of this theory
+there was no greater need to argue that intelligence was necessary to
+produce animal adaptations than there was to assume intelligence for the
+sifting of sand by the wind. As the lighter grains are carried farthest
+because they are lightest, so natural selection, operating upon organic
+variations, favoured the better adapted specimens by killing off the
+less favoured ones. The fittest is not created, it survives. The world
+is not what it is because the animal is what it is, the animal is what
+it is because the world is as it is. It cannot be any different and
+live--a truth demonstrated by the destruction of myriads of animal
+forms, and by the disappearance of whole species. The case was so plain,
+the evidence so conclusive, that the clearer headed religionists dropped
+the old form of the argument from design as no longer tenable.
+
+But the gentleman who exchanged the errors of the Church of Rome for
+those of the Church of England is always with us. And the believer in
+deity having dropped the argument from design in one form immediately
+proceeded to revive it in another. This was, perhaps, inevitable. After
+all, man lives in this world, and if proof of the existence of deity is
+to be gathered from his works, it must be derived from the world we
+know. So design _must_ be found somewhere, and it must be found here.
+Only one chance was left. The general hypothesis of evolution--either
+Darwinism alone, or Darwinism plus other factors--explained the
+development of animal life. But that was _within_ the natural process.
+What, then, of the process as a whole? If the hand of God could not be
+seen in the particular adaptations of animal life, might it not be that
+the whole of the process, in virtue of which these particular
+adaptations occurred, might be the expression of the divine
+intelligence? God did not create the particular parts directly, but may
+he not have created the whole, leaving it for the forces he had set in
+motion to work out his "plan." The suggestion was attractive. It
+relieved religion from resting its case in a region where proof and
+disproof are possible, and removed it to a region where they are
+difficult, if not impossible. So, as it was not possible to uphold the
+old teleology, one began to hear a great deal of the "wider teleology,"
+which meant that the Theist was thinking vaguely when he imagined he was
+thinking comprehensively, and that, because he had reached a region
+where the laws of logic could not be applied, he concluded that he had
+achieved demonstration. And, indeed, when one gets outside the region of
+verification there is nothing to stop one theorizing--save a dose of
+common-sense and a gracious gift of humour.
+
+In another work (_Theism or Atheism_) I have dealt at length with the
+argument from design. At present my aim is to take the presentation of
+this "wider teleology" as given by a well-known writer on philosophical
+subjects, Mr. F. C. S. Schiller, in a volume published a few years ago
+entitled _Humanism: Philosophical Essays_. And in doing so, it is
+certain that the theologian will lose nothing by leaving himself in the
+hands of so able a representative.
+
+Mr. Schiller naturally accepts Darwinism as at least an important factor
+in organic evolution, but he does not believe that it excludes design,
+and he does believe that "our attitude towards life will be very
+different, according as we believe it to be inspired and guided by
+intelligence or hold it to be the fortuitous product of blind
+mechanisms, whose working our helpless human intelligence can observe,
+but cannot control."
+
+Now within its scope Darwinism certainly does exclude design, and even
+though the forces represented by natural selection may be directed
+towards the end produced, yet so far as the play of these forces is
+concerned they are really self-directing, or self-contained. The
+argument really seems to be just mere theology masquerading as
+philosophy. Theories do play some part in the determination of the
+individual attitude towards life, but they do not play the important
+part that Mr. Schiller assumes they play. It is easily observable that
+the same theory of life held by a Christian in England and by another
+Christian in Asia Minor has, so far as it affects conduct, different
+results. And if it be said that even though the results be different
+they are still there, the reply is that they differ because the facts of
+life compel an adjustment in terms of the general environment. Mr.
+Schiller admits that the "prevalent conduct and that adapted to the
+conditions of life must coincide," and the admission is fatal to his
+position. The truth of the matter is that the conditions of life being
+what they are, and the consequences of conduct being also what they are,
+speculative theories of life cannot, in the nature of the case, affect
+life beyond a certain point; that is, if life is to continue. That is
+why in the history of belief religious teachings have sooner or later to
+accommodate themselves to persistent facts.
+
+Mr. Schiller brings forward two arguments in favour of reconciling
+Darwinism and Design, both of them ingenious, but neither of them
+conclusive. With both of these I will deal later; but it is first
+necessary to notice one or two of his arguments against a non-Theistic
+Darwinism. The denial of the argument from design, he says, leads
+farther than most people imagine:--
+
+     A complete denial of design in nature must deny the efficacy of all
+     intelligence as such. A consistently mechanical view has to regard
+     all intelligence as otiose, as an "epi-phenomenal by-product" or
+     fifth wheel to the cart, in the absence of which the given results
+     would no less have occurred. And so, if this view were the truth,
+     we should have to renounce all effort to direct our fated and
+     ill-fated course down the stream of time. Our consciousness would
+     be an unmeaning accident.
+
+A complete reply to this would involve an examination of the meaning
+that is and ought to be attached to "intelligence," and that is too
+lengthy an enquiry to be attempted here. It is, perhaps, enough to
+point out that Mr. Schiller's argument clearly moves on the assumption
+that intelligence is a _thing_ or a quality which exists, so to speak,
+in its own right and which interferes with the course of events as
+something from without. It is quite probable that he would repudiate
+this construction being placed on his words, but if he does not mean
+that, then I fail to see what he does mean, or what force there is in
+his argument. And it is enough for my purpose to point out that
+"intelligence" or mind is not a thing, but a relation. It asserts of a
+certain class of actions exactly what "gravitation" asserts of a certain
+class of motion, and "thingness" is no more asserted in the one case
+than it is in the other.
+
+Intelligence, as a name given to a special class of facts or actions,
+remains, whatever view we take of its nature, and it is puzzling to see
+why the denial of extra natural intelligence--that is, intelligence
+separated from all the conditions under which we know the phenomenon of
+intelligence--should be taken as involving the denial of the existence
+of intelligence as we know it. Intelligence as connoting purposive
+action remains as much a fact as gravity or chemical attraction, and
+continues valid concerning the phenomena it is intended to cover. All
+that the evolutionist is committed to is the statement that it is as
+much a product of evolution as is the shape or colouring of animals. It
+is not at all a question of self-dependence. Every force in nature must
+be taken for what it is worth, intelligence among them. Why, then, does
+the view that intelligence is both a product of evolution and a cause of
+another phase of evolution land us in self-contradiction, or make the
+existence of itself meaningless? The truth is that intelligence
+determines results exactly as every other force in nature determines
+results, by acting as a link in an unending sequential chain. And the
+question as to what intelligence is _per se_ is as meaningless as what
+gravitation is _per se_. These are names which we give to groups of
+phenomena displaying particular and differential characteristics, and
+their purpose is served when they enable us to cognize and recognize
+these phenomena and to give them their place and describe their function
+in the series of changes that make up our world.
+
+Mr. Schiller's reply to this line of criticism is the familiar one that
+it reduces human beings to automata. He says:--
+
+     The ease with which the Darwinian argument dispenses with
+     intelligence as a factor in survival excites suspicion. It is
+     proving too much to show that adaptation might equally well have
+     arisen in automata. For we ourselves are strongly persuaded that we
+     are not automata and strive hard to adapt ourselves. In us at
+     least, therefore, intelligence _is_ a source of adaptation....
+     Intelligence therefore is a _vera causa_ as a source of adaptations
+     at least co-ordinate with Natural Selection, and this can be denied
+     only if it is declared inefficacious _everywhere_; if all living
+     beings, including ourselves, are declared to be automata.
+
+One is compelled again to point out that Darwinism does not dispense
+with intelligence as a factor in survival, except so far as the
+intelligence which determines survival is declared to be operating apart
+from the organisms which survive. The conduct of one of the lower
+animals which reacts only to the immediate promptings of its environment
+is of one order, but the response of another animal not merely to the
+immediate promptings of the environment, but to remote conditions, as
+in the selection of food or the building of a home of some sort, or to
+the fashioning of a tool, does obviously give to the intelligence
+displayed a distinct survival value. And that effectively replies to the
+triumphant conclusion, "If intelligence has no efficacy in promoting
+adaptations, _i.e._, if it has no survival value, how comes it to be
+developed at all?"
+
+Darwinism would never have been able to dispense with intelligence in
+the way it did but for the fact that the opposite theory never stood for
+more than a mere collection of words. That species are or were produced
+by the operations of "Divine Intelligence" is merely a grandiloquent way
+of saying nothing at all. It is absurd to pretend that such a formula
+ever had any scientific value. It explains nothing. And it is quite
+obvious that some adaptations do, so far as we know, arise without
+intelligence, and are, therefore, to use Mr. Schiller's expression,
+automata. (I do not like the word, since it conveys too much the notion
+of someone behind the scenes pulling strings.) And it is on his theory
+that animals actually are automata. For if there be a "Divine mind"
+which stands as the active cause of the adaptations that meet us in the
+animal world, and who arranges forces so that they shall work to their
+pre-destined end, what is that but converting the whole of the animal
+world into so many automata. One does not escape determinism in this
+way; it is only getting rid of it in one direction in order to
+reintroduce it in another.
+
+And one would like to know what our conviction that we are not automata
+has to do with it. Whether the most rigid determinism is true or not is
+a matter to be settled by an examination of the facts and a careful
+reflection as to their real significance. No one questions that there is
+a persuasion to the contrary; if there were not there would be nothing
+around which controversy could gather. But it is the conviction that is
+challenged, and it is idle to reply to the challenge by asserting a
+conviction to the contrary. The whole history of human thought is the
+record of a challenge and a reversal of such convictions. There never
+was a conviction which was held more strenuously than that the earth was
+flat. The experience of all men in every hour of their lives seemed to
+prove it. And yet to-day no one believes it. The affirmation that we are
+"free" rests, as Spinoza said, ultimately on the fact that all men know
+their actions and but few know the causes thereof. A feather endowed
+with consciousness, falling to the ground in a zigzag manner, might be
+equally convinced that it determined the exact spot on which it would
+rest, yet its persuasion would be of no more value than the "vulgar"
+conviction that we independently adapt ourselves to our environment.
+
+Mr. Schiller's positive arguments in favour of reconciling Darwinism
+with design--one of them is really negative;--are concerned with (1) the
+question of variation, and (2) with the existence of progress. On the
+first question it is pointed out that while Natural Selection operates
+by way of favouring certain variations, the origin or cause of these
+variations remains unknown. And although Mr. Schiller does not say so in
+as many words, there is the implication, if I rightly discern his drift,
+that there is room here for a directing intelligence, inasmuch as
+science is at present quite unable to fully explain the causes of
+variations. We are told that Darwin assumed for the purpose of his
+theory that variations were indefinite both as to character and extent,
+and it is upon these variations that Natural Selection depends. This
+indefinite variation Mr. Schiller asserts to be a methodological device,
+that is, it is something assumed as the groundwork of a theory, but
+without any subsequent verification, and it is in virtue of this
+assumption that intelligence is ruled out of evolution. And inasmuch as
+Mr. Schiller sees no reason for believing that variations are of this
+indefinite character, he asserts that there is in evolution room for a
+teleological factor, in other words, "a purposive direction of
+variations."
+
+Now it hardly needs pointing out to students of Darwinism that
+indefinite variation is the equivalent of "a variation to which no exact
+limits can be placed," and in this sense the assumption is a perfectly
+sound one. From one point of view the variations must be definite, that
+is, they can only occur within certain limits. An elephant will not vary
+in the direction of wings, nor will a bird in the direction of a rose
+bush. But so long as we cannot fix the exact limits of variation we are
+quite warranted in speaking of them as indefinite. That this is a
+methodological device no one denies, but so are most of the other
+distinctions that we frame. Scientific generalizations consist of
+abstractions, and Mr. Schiller himself of necessity employs the same
+device.
+
+Mr. Schiller argues, quite properly, that while Natural Selection states
+the conditions under which animal life evolves, it does not state any
+reason why it should evolve. Selection may keep a species stationary or
+it may even cause it to degenerate. Both are fairly common phenomena in
+the animal and plant world. Moreover, if there are an indefinite number
+of variations, and if they tend in an indefinite number of directions,
+then the variation in any one direction can never be more than an
+infinitesimal portion of the whole, and that this one should persist
+supplies a still further reason for belief in "a purposive direction of
+variations." Mr. Schiller overlooks an important point here, but a very
+simple one. It is true that any one variation is small in relation to
+the whole of the possible or actual number of variations. But it is not
+in relation to quantity but quality that survival takes place, and in
+proportion to the keenness of the struggle the variation that gives its
+possessor an advantage need only be of the smaller kind. In a struggle
+of endurance between two athletes it is the one capable of holding out
+for an extra minute who carries off the prize.
+
+Further, as Mr. Schiller afterwards admits, the very smallness of the
+number of successful variations makes against intelligence rather than
+for it, and he practically surrenders his position in the statement,
+"the teleological and anti-teleological interpretation of events will
+ever decide their conflict by appealing to the facts; for in the facts
+each finds what it wills and comes prepared to see." After this lame
+conclusion it is difficult to see what value there is in Mr. Schiller's
+own examination of the "facts." Not that it is strictly correct to say
+that the facts bear each view out equally. They do not, and Mr. Schiller
+only justifies his statement by converting the Darwinian position, which
+is teleologically negative, into an affirmative. The Darwinian, he says,
+denies intelligence as a cause of evolution. What the Darwinian does is
+to deny the validity of the evidence which the teleologist brings to
+prove his case. The Theist asserts mind as a cause of evolution. The
+Darwinian simply points out that the facts may be explained in quite
+another way and without the appeal to a quite unknown factor.
+
+And here one might reasonably ask, why, if there is a directive mind at
+work, are there variations at all? Why should the "directive
+intelligence" not get earlier to work, and instead of waiting until a
+large number of specimens have been produced and then looking them over
+with a view to "directing" the preservation of the better specimens, why
+should it not set to work at the beginning and see that only the
+desirable ones make their appearance? Certainly that is what a mere
+human intelligence would do if it could. But it is characteristic of the
+"Divine Intelligence" of the Theist that it never seems to operate with
+a tenth part of the intelligence of an ordinary human being.
+
+Moreover, Mr. Schiller writes quite ignoring the fact that the
+"directive intelligence" does not direct the preservation of the better
+specimens. What it does, if it does anything at all, is to kill off the
+less favoured ones. Natural Selection--the point is generally overlooked
+by the Theistic sentimentality of most of our writers--does not preserve
+anything. Its positive action is not to keep alive but to kill. It does
+not take the better ones in hand and help them. It seizes on all it can
+and kills them. It is the difference between a local council that tried
+to raise the standard of health by a general improvement of the
+conditions of life, and one that aimed at the same end by killing off
+all children that failed to come up to a certain standard. The actual
+preservation of a better type is, so far as Natural Selection is
+concerned, quite accidental. So far as Natural Selection operates it
+does so by elimination, not by preservation.
+
+Mr. Schiller's other plea in favour of Design is concerned with the
+conception of progress. He points out that while degeneration and
+stagnation both occur in nature, yet--
+
+     life has been on the whole progressive; but progress and
+     retrogression have both been effected under the same law of Natural
+     Selection. How, then, can the credit of that result be ascribed to
+     Natural Selection? Natural Selection is equally ready to bring
+     about degeneration or to leave things unchanged. How, then, can it
+     be that which determines which of the three possible (and actual)
+     cases shall be realized?... It cannot be Natural Selection that
+     causes one species to remain stationary, another to degenerate, a
+     third to develop into a higher form.... Some variable factor must
+     be added to Natural Selection.
+
+But why? Evolution, as we have pointed out in a previous chapter, makes
+for adaptation in terms of animal preservation. If the adaptation of an
+animal to its environment is secured by "degenerating" or "developing"
+or by remaining stationary, it will do one of the three. That is the
+normal consequence of Natural Selection, and it is surprising that Mr.
+Schiller does not see this. He is actually accusing Natural Selection of
+not being able to do what it does on his own showing. The proof he
+himself gives of this operation of Natural Selection in the examples he
+cites of its ineffectiveness. If Natural Selection could not make for
+degeneration or development, in what way would it be able to establish
+an equilibrium between an animal and its surroundings? Really, there is
+nothing that so strengthens one's conviction of the truth of the
+Freethought position so much as a study of the arguments that are
+brought against it.
+
+Mr. Schiller is really misled, and so misleads his readers by an
+unjustifiable use of the word "progress." He says that evolution has
+been, on the whole, progressive, and appeals to "progress" as though it
+were some objective fact. But that is not the case. There is no
+"progress" in the animal world, there is only change. We have dealt with
+this in a previous chapter, and there is no need to again labour the
+point. "Progress" is a conception which we ourselves frame, and we
+measure a movement towards or away from this arbitrary standard of ours
+in terms of better or worse, higher or lower. But nature knows nothing
+of a higher or a lower, it knows only of changing forms more or less
+fitted to live in the existing environment. Scientifically, life has
+not progressed, it has persisted, and a _sine qua non_ of its
+persistence has been adaptation to environment.
+
+Progress, then, is not a "natural" fact, but a methodological one. It is
+a useful word and a valuable ideal. I am not protesting against its use,
+only against its misuse. It is one of the many abstractions created by
+thinkers, and then worshipped as a reality by those who forget the
+origin and purpose of its existence. And in this we can see one of the
+fatal legacies we have inherited from Theistic methods of thinking. The
+belief that things are designed to be as they are comes to us from those
+primitive methods of thinking which personify and vitalize all natural
+phenomena. We have outgrown the crude frame of mind which saw direct
+volitional action in a storm or in the movements of natural forces. The
+development of civilized and scientific thinking has removed these
+conceptions from the minds of educated men and women, but it has left
+behind it as a residuum the habit of looking for purpose where none
+exists, and of reading into nature as objective facts our own
+generalizations and abstractions. And so long as we have not outgrown
+that habit we are retaining a fatal bar to exact scientific thinking.
+
+Finally, and this consideration is fatal to any theory of design such as
+Mr. Schiller champions, adaptation is not a special quality of one form
+of existence, but a universal quality of all. There is not a greater
+degree of adaptation here and a less degree there, but the same degree
+in every case. There is no other meaning to adaptation except that of
+adjustment to surroundings. But whether an animal lives or dies, whether
+it is higher or lower, deformed or perfect, the adjustment is the same.
+That is, every form of existence represents the product of forces that
+have made it what it is, and the same forces could not have produced
+anything different. Every body in existence, organic or inorganic,
+constitutes in ultimate analysis a balance of the forces represented by
+it. It is not possible, therefore, for the Theist to say that design is
+evidenced by adaptation in one case and its absence in another. There is
+adaptation in every case, even though it may not be the adaptation we
+should like to see. It is not possible for the Theist to say that the
+_degree_ of adaptation is greater in the one case than in the other, for
+_that_ is the same in every case. What needs to be done if design is to
+be established is to prove that the forces we see at work could not have
+produced the results that emerge without the introduction of a factor
+not already given in our experience. Anything else is mere waste of
+time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+ANCIENT AND MODERN.
+
+
+In the preceding chapters we have, without saying it in so many words,
+been emphasizing the modern as against the ancient point of view. The
+distinction may not at first glance appear to be of great moment, and
+yet reflection will prove it to be of vital significance. It expresses,
+in a sentence, the essence of the distinction between the Freethinker
+and the religionist. Objectively, the world in which we are living is
+the same as that in which our ancestors lived. The same stars that
+looked down upon them look down upon us. Natural forces affected them as
+they affect us. Even the play of human passion and desire was the same
+with them as with us. Hunger and thirst, love and hatred, cowardice and
+courage, generosity and greed operate now as always. The world remains
+the same in all its essential features; what alters is our conception of
+it--in other words, the point of view.
+
+The question thus resolves itself into one of interpretation.
+Freethinker and religionist are each living in the same world, they are
+each fed with the same foods and killed with the same poisons. The same
+feelings move both and the same problems face both. Their differences
+are constituted by the canon of interpretation applied. It is on this
+issue that the conflict between religion and science arises. For
+religion is not, as some have argued, something that is supplementary or
+complementary to science, nor does it deal with matters on which
+science is incompetent to express an opinion. Religion and science face
+each other as rival interpretations of the same set of facts, precisely
+as the Copernican and the Ptolemaic systems once faced each other as
+rival interpretations of astronomical phenomena. If the one is true the
+other is false. You may reject the religious or the scientific
+explanation of phenomena, but you cannot logically accept both. As Dr.
+Johnson said, "Two contradictory ideas may inhere in the same mind, but
+they cannot both be correct."
+
+Now while it is true that in order to understand the present we must
+know the past, and that because the present is a product of the past, it
+is also true that a condition of understanding is to interpret the past
+by the present. In ordinary affairs this is not questioned. When
+geologists set out to explain the causes of changes in the earth's
+surface, they utilize the present-day knowledge of existing forces, and
+by prolonging their action backward explain the features of the period
+they are studying. When historians seek to explain the conduct of, say
+Henry the Eighth, they take their knowledge of the motives animating
+existing human nature, and by placing that in a sixteenth century
+setting manage to present us with a picture of the period. So, again,
+when the thirteenth century monkish historian gravely informs us that a
+particular epidemic was due to the anger of God against the wickedness
+of the people, we put that interpretation on one side and use our own
+knowledge to find in defective social and sanitary conditions the cause
+of what occurred. Illustrations to the same end may be found in every
+direction. It is, indeed, not something that one may accept or reject as
+one may take or leave a political theory, it is an indispensible
+condition of rational thinking on any subject whatsoever.
+
+Accepted everywhere else, it is in connection with religion that one
+finds this principle, not openly challenged, for there are degrees of
+absurdity to which even the most ardent religionist dare not go, but it
+is quietly set on one side and a method adopted which is its practical
+negation. Either the procedure is inverted and the present is
+interpreted by the past, as when it is assumed that because God did
+certain things in the past therefore he will continue to do the same
+things in the present, or it is assumed that the past was unlike the
+present, and, therefore, the same method of interpretation cannot be
+applied to both cases. Both plans have the effect of landing us, if not
+in lunacy, at least well on the way to it.
+
+It is indispensible to the religionist to ignore the principle above
+laid down. For if it is admitted that human nature is always and
+everywhere the same, and that natural forces always and everywhere act
+in the same manner, religious beliefs are brought to the test of their
+conformity with present day knowledge of things and all claim to
+objective validity must be abandoned. Yet the principle is quite clear.
+The claim of the prophets of old to be inspired must be tested by what
+we know of the conditions of "inspiration" to-day, and not by what
+unenlightened people thought of its nature centuries ago. Whether the
+story of the Virgin Birth is credible or not must be settled by an
+appeal to what we know of the nature of animal procreation, and not by
+whether our faith urges us to accept the statement as true. To act
+otherwise is to raise an altogether false issue, the question of
+evidence is argued when what is really at issue is that of credibility.
+It is not at all a matter of whether there is evidence enough to
+establish the reality of a particular recorded event, but whether our
+actual knowledge of natural happenings is not enough for us to rule it
+out as objectively untrue, and to describe the conditions which led to
+its being accepted as true.
+
+Let us take as an illustration of this the general question of miracles.
+The _Oxford Dictionary_ defines a miracle as "A marvellous event
+occurring within human experience which cannot have been brought about
+by human power or by the operation of any natural agency, and must,
+therefore, be ascribed to the special intervention of the deity or some
+supernatural being." That is a good enough definition, and is certainly
+what people have had in mind when they have professed a belief in
+miracles. A miracle must be something marvellous, that is, it must be
+unusual, and it must not be even conceivably explainable in terms of the
+operation of natural forces. If it is admitted that what is claimed as a
+miracle might be explained as the result of natural forces provided our
+knowledge was extensive enough and exact enough, it is confessed that
+miracle and ignorance are convertible terms. And while that may be true
+enough as a matter of fact, it would never suit the religious case to
+admit it in so many words.
+
+Nor would it make the case any better to argue that the alleged miracle
+has been brought about by some superior being with a much greater
+knowledge of nature than man possesses, but which the latter may one day
+acquire. That is placing a miracle on the same level as a performance
+given by a clever conjuror, which puzzles the onlooker because he lacks
+the technical knowledge requisite to understand the methods employed. A
+miracle to be a miracle must not be in accordance with natural laws,
+known or unknown, it must contravene them or suspend their operation.
+
+On the other hand, the demand made by some critics of the miraculous,
+namely, that the alleged miracle shall be performed under test
+conditions, is absurd, and shows that they have not grasped the
+essential point at issue. The believer's reply to such a demand is plain
+and obvious. He says, a miracle is by its nature a rare event, it is
+performed under special circumstances to serve a special purpose. Where,
+then, is the reason in asking that this miracle shall be re-performed in
+order to convince certain people that it has already occurred? To
+arrange for the performance of a miracle is an absurdity. For it to
+become common is to destroy both its character as a miracle and the
+justification for its existence. A miracle must carry its own evidence
+or it fails of its purpose and ceases to be a miracle at all. Discussion
+on these lines ends, at best, in a stalemate.
+
+It is just as wide of the mark to discuss miracles as though it were a
+question of evidence. What possible evidence could there be, for
+example, that Jesus fed five thousand people with a few loaves and
+fishes, and had basketfuls left at the end of the repast? Suppose it
+were possible to produce the sworn testimony of the five thousand
+themselves that they had been so fed. Would that produce conviction?
+Would it do any more than prove that they believed the food had been so
+expanded or multiplied that it was enough for them all? It would be
+convincing, perhaps, as proof of an act of belief. But would it prove
+any more than that? Would it prove that these five thousand were not the
+victims of some act of deception or of some delusion? A belief in a
+miracle, whether the belief dates from two thousand years since or from
+last week, proves only--belief. And the testimony of a Salvation Army
+convert as to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is as good,
+as evidence, as though we had the sworn testimony of the twelve
+apostles, with that of the grave-diggers thrown in.
+
+The truth is that the question of belief in the miraculous has nothing
+whatever to do with evidence. Miracles are never established by
+evidence, nor are they disproved by evidence, that is, so long as we use
+the term evidence with any regard to its judicial significance. What
+amount or what kind of evidence did the early Christians require to
+prove the miracles of Christianity? Or what evidence did our ancestors
+require to prove to them that old women flew through the air on
+broomsticks, or bewitched cows, or raised storms? Testimony in volumes
+was forthcoming, and there is not the slightest reason for doubting its
+genuineness. But what amount or kind of evidence was required to
+establish the belief? Was it evidence to which anyone to-day would pay
+the slightest regard? The slightest study of the available records is
+enough to show that the question of evidence had nothing whatever to do
+with the production of the belief.
+
+And, on the other hand, how many people have given up the belief in
+miracles as a result of a careful study of the evidence against them? I
+have never heard of any such case, although once a man disbelieves in
+miracles he may be ready enough to produce reasons to justify his
+disbelief in them. The man who begins to weigh evidence for and against
+miracles has already begun to disbelieve them.
+
+The attitude of children in relation to the belief in fairies may well
+be taken to illustrate the attitude of the adult mind in face of the
+miraculous. No evidence is produced to induce the belief in fairies, and
+none is ever brought forward to induce them to give it up. At one stage
+of life it is there, at another it is gone. It is not reasoned out or
+evidenced out, it is simply outgrown. In infancy the child's conception
+of life is so inchoate that there is room for all kinds of fantastic
+beliefs. In more mature years certain beliefs are automatically ruled
+out by the growth of a conception of things which leaves no room for
+beliefs that during childhood seemed perfectly reasonable.
+
+Now this is quite on all-fours with the question of miracles. The issue
+is essentially one of psychology. Belief or disbelief is here mainly
+determined by the psychological medium in which one lives and moves.
+Given a psychological medium which is, scientifically, at its lowest,
+and the belief in the miraculous flourishes. At the other extreme
+miracles languish and decay. Tell a savage that the air is alive with
+good and bad spirits and he will readily believe you. Tell it to a man
+with a genuine scientific mind and he will laugh at you. Tell a peasant
+in some parts of the country that someone is a witch and he will at once
+believe it. Tell it to a city dweller and it will provide only occasion
+for ridicule. People who accept miracles believe them before they
+happen. The expressed belief merely registers the fact. Miracles never
+happen to those who do not believe in them; as has been said, they never
+occur to a critic. Those who reject miracles do so because their
+acceptance would conflict with their whole conception of nature. That is
+the sum and substance of the matter.
+
+A further illustration may be offered in the case of the once much
+debated question of the authenticity of the books of the New Testament
+and the historicity of the figure of Jesus. It appears to have been
+assumed that if it could be shown that the books of the New Testament
+were not contemporary records the case against the divinity of Jesus was
+strengthened. On the other hand it was assumed that if these writings
+represented the narratives of contemporaries the case for the truth of
+the narratives was practically proven. In reality this was not the vital
+issue at all. It would be, of course, interesting if it could be shown
+that there once existed an actual personage around whom these stories
+gathered, but it would make as little difference to the real question at
+issue as the demonstration of the Baconian authorship of _Hamlet_ would
+make in the psychological value of the play.
+
+Suppose then it were proven that a person named Jesus actually existed
+at a certain date in Judea, and that this person is the Jesus of the New
+Testament. Suppose it be further proven, or admitted, that the followers
+whom this person gathered around him believed that he was born of a
+virgin, performed a number of miracles, was crucified, and then rose
+from the dead, and that the New Testament represents their written
+memoirs. Suppose all this to be proven or granted, what has been
+established? Simply this. That a number of people believed these things
+of someone whom they had known. But no Freethinker need seriously
+concern himself to disprove this. He may, indeed, take it as the data of
+the problem which he sets out to solve. The scientific enquirer is not
+really concerned with the New Testament as a narrative of fact any more
+than he is concerned with Cotton Mather's _Invisible World Displayed_ as
+a narrative of actual fact. What he is concerned with is the frame of
+mind to which these stories seemed true, and the social medium which
+gave such a frame of mind a vogue. It is not at all a question of
+historical evidence, but of historical psychology. It is not a question
+of the honesty of the witnesses, but of their ability, not whether they
+wished to tell the truth, or intended to tell the truth, but whether
+they were in a position to know what the truth was. We have not to
+discuss whether these events occurred, such a proposition is an insult
+to a civilized intelligence, the matter for discussion is the
+conditions that bring such beliefs into existence and the conditions
+that perpetuate them.
+
+The development of social life and of education thus shifts the point of
+view from the past to the present. To understand the past we do not ask
+what was it that people believed concerning the events around them, but
+what do we know of the causes which produce beliefs of a certain kind.
+Thus, we do not really reject the story of Jesus turning water into wine
+because we are without legal evidence that he ever did anything of the
+kind, but because, knowing the chemical constituents of both water and
+wine we know that such a thing is impossible. It is only possible to an
+uninstructed mind to which water and wine differ only in taste or
+appearance. We do not reject the story of the demoniacs in the New
+Testament because we have no evidence that these men were possessed of
+devils, or that Jesus cast them out, but because we have exactly the
+same phenomena with us to-day and know that it comes within the province
+of the physician and not of the miracle worker. It is not a matter of
+evidence whether a man rose from the dead or not, or whether he was born
+of a virgin or not, but solely a question of examining these and similar
+stories in the light of present day knowledge. The "evidence" offered is
+proof only of belief, and no one ever questioned the existence of that.
+And if the proof of belief is required there is no need to go back a
+couple of thousand years or to consult ancient records. The testimony of
+a present day believer, and the account of a revival meeting such as one
+may find in any religious newspaper will serve equally well. As is so
+often the case, the evidence offered is not merely inadequate, it is
+absolutely irrelevant.
+
+Past events must be judged in the light of present knowledge. That is
+the golden rule of guidance in judging the world's religious legends.
+And that canon is fatal to their pretensions. On the one hand we see in
+the life of contemporary savages and in that of semi-civilized peoples
+all the conditions and the beliefs that meet us in the Bible and among
+the early Christians. And with our wider and more exact knowledge we are
+able to take exactly the same phenomena that impressed those of an
+earlier generation and explain them without the slightest reference to
+supernatural powers or beings. The modern mind is really not looking
+round for evidence to disprove the truth of Christian legends. It knows
+they are not true. There is no greater need to prove that the miracles
+of Christianity never occurred, than there is to prove that an old woman
+never raised a storm to wreck one of the kings of England. The issue has
+been changed from one of history to one of psychology. It is the present
+that of necessity sits in judgment on the past, and it is in the light
+of the knowledge of the present that the religions of the past stand
+condemned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+MORALITY WITHOUT GOD.
+
+
+The mystery-monger flourishes almost as well in ethics as he does in
+theology. Indeed, in some respects he seems to have forsaken one field
+of exercise only to find renewed scope in the other. He approaches the
+consideration of moral questions with the same hushed voice and
+"reverential" air that is so usual in theology, and talks of the mystery
+of morality with the same facility that he once talked about the mystery
+of godliness--and with about an equal amount of enlightenment to his
+hearers or readers.
+
+But the mystery of morality is nearly all of our own making. Essentially
+there is no more mystery in morality than there is in any other question
+that may engage the attention of mankind. There are, of course, problems
+in the moral world as there are in the physical one, and he would be a
+fool who pretended to the ability to satisfactorily solve them all. The
+nature of morality, the causes that led to the development of moral
+"laws," and still more to the development of a sense of morality, all
+these are questions upon which there is ample room for research and
+speculation. But the talk of a mystery is misleading and mystifying. It
+is the chatter of the charlatan, or of the theologian, or of the partly
+liberated mind that is still under the thraldom of theology. In ethics
+we have exactly the same kind of problem that meets us in any of the
+sciences. We have a fact, or a series of facts, and we seek some
+explanation of them. We may fail in our search, but that is not
+evidence of a "mystery," it is proof only of inadequate knowledge, of
+limitations that we may hope the future will enable us to overcome.
+
+For the sake of clarity it will be better to let the meaning of morality
+emerge from the discussion rather than to commence with it. And one of
+the first things to help to clear the mind of confusion is to get rid of
+the notion that there is any such thing as moral "laws" which correspond
+in their nature to law as the term is used in science. In one sense
+morality is not part of physical nature at all. It is characteristic of
+that part of nature which is covered by the human--at most by the higher
+animal--world. Nature can only, therefore, be said to be moral in the
+sense that the term "Nature" includes all that is. In any other sense
+nature is non-moral. The sense of values, which is, as we shall see, of
+the essence of the conception of morality, nature knows nothing of. To
+speak of nature punishing us for _bad_ actions or rewarding us for
+_good_ ones is absurd. Nature neither punishes nor rewards. She meets
+actions with consequences, and is quite indifferent to any moral
+consideration. If I am weakly, and go out on a cold, wet night to help
+someone in distress, nature does not act differently than it would if I
+had gone out to commit a murder. I stand exactly the same chances in
+either case of contracting a deadly chill. It is not the moral value of
+an action with which natural forces are concerned, but merely with the
+action, and in that respect nature never discriminates between the good
+man and the bad, between the sinner and the saint.
+
+There is another sense in which moral laws differ from natural laws. We
+can break the former but not the latter. The expression so often used,
+"He broke a law of nature," is absurd. You cannot break a law of
+nature. You do not break the law of gravitation when you prevent a stone
+falling to the ground; the force required to hold it in the air is an
+illustration of the law. It is, indeed, one of the proofs that our
+generalization does represent a law of nature that it cannot be
+"broken." For broken is here only another word for inoperative, and a
+law of nature that is inoperative is non-existent. But in the moral
+sphere we are in a different world. We not only can break moral laws, we
+do break them; that is one of the problems with which our teachers and
+moralisers have constantly to deal. Every time we steal we break the law
+"Thou shalt not steal." Every time we murder we break the law "Thou
+shalt not kill." We may keep moral laws, we ought to keep them, but we
+can, quite clearly, break them. Between a moral law and a law of nature
+there is plainly a very radical distinction. The discovery of that
+distinction will, I think, bring us to the heart of the subject.
+
+Considering man as merely a natural object, or as a mere animal, there
+is only one quality that nature demands of him. This is efficiency.
+Nature's sole law is here "Be Strong." How that strength and efficiency
+is secured and maintained is of no consequence whatever. The heat he
+requires, the food he needs may be stolen from others, but it will
+serve. The food will not nourish the less, the fire will not warm the
+less. So long as efficiency is acquired it is a matter of absolute
+indifference how it is secured. Considered as a mere animal object it is
+difficult to see that morality has any meaning at all for man. It is
+when we come to regard him in his relation to others that we begin to
+see the meaning and significance of morality emerge.
+
+Now one of the first things that strike us in connection with moral laws
+or rules is that they are all statements of relation. Such moral
+commands as "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not kill," the commands
+to be truthful, kind, dutiful, etc., all imply a relation to others.
+Apart from this relation moral rules have simply no meaning whatever. By
+himself a man could neither steal, nor lie, nor do any of the things
+that we habitually characterize as immoral. A man living by himself on
+some island would be absolved from all moral law; it would have no
+meaning whatever for him. He would be neither moral nor immoral, he
+would simply be without the conditions that make morality possible. But
+once bring him into relations with his kind and his behaviour begins to
+have a new and peculiar significance, not alone to these others, but
+also to himself. What he does affects them, and also affects himself so
+far as they determine the character of his relations to these others. He
+must, for example, either work with them or apart from them. He must
+either be on his guard against their securing their own efficiency at
+his expense, or rest content that a mutual forbearance and trust will
+govern their association. To ignore them is an impossibility. He must
+reckon with these others in a thousand and one different ways, and this
+reckoning will have its effect on the moulding of his nature and upon
+theirs.
+
+Morality, then, whatever else it may be, is primarily the expression of
+a relation. And the laws of morality are, consequently, a summary or
+description of those relations. From this point of view they stand upon
+exactly the same level as any of the arts or sciences. Moral actions are
+the subject matter of observation, and the determination of their
+essential quality or character is by the same methods as we determine
+the essential quality of the "facts" in chemistry or biology. The task
+before the scientific enquirer is, therefore, to determine the
+conditions which give to moral rules or "laws" their meaning and
+validity.
+
+One of the conditions of a moral action has already been pointed out.
+This is that all moral rules imply a relation to beings of a similar
+nature. A second feature is that conduct represents a form of
+efficiency, it is a special feature of the universal biological fact of
+adaptation. And the question of why man has a "moral sense" is really on
+all fours with, and presents no greater mystery than is involved in, the
+question of why man has digestive organs, and prefers some kinds of food
+to others. Substantially, the question of why man should prefer a diet
+of meat and potatoes to one of prussic acid is exactly the question of
+why society should discourage certain actions and encourage others, or
+why man's moral taste should prefer some forms of conduct to other
+forms. The answer to both questions, while differing in form, is the
+same in substance.
+
+Man as we know him is always found as a member of a group, and his
+capacities, his feelings, and tastes must always be considered in
+relation to that fact. But considering man merely as an animal, and his
+conduct as merely a form of adaptation to environment, the plain
+consideration which emerges is that even as an individual organism he is
+compelled, in order to live, to avoid certain actions and to perform
+others, to develop certain tastes and to form certain distastes. To take
+our previous illustration it would be impossible for man to develop a
+liking for life-destroying foods. It is one of the conditions of living
+that he shall eat only that food which sustains life, or that he shall
+abstain from eating substances which destroy it. But conduct at that
+stage is not of the kind which considers the reasons for acting; indeed,
+life cannot be based upon considered action, however much reason may
+justify the actions taken. Further, as all conscious action is prompted
+by the impulse to do what is pleasant and to avoid what is unpleasant,
+it follows, as Spencer pointed out, that the course of evolution sets up
+a close relation between actions that are pleasurable in the performance
+and actions that are life preserving. It is one of the conditions of the
+maintenance of life that the pleasurable and the beneficial shall in the
+long run coincide.
+
+When we take man as a member of a group we have the same principle in
+operation, even though the form of its expression undergoes alteration.
+To begin with, the mere fact of living in a group implies the growth of
+a certain restraint in one's relations to, and of reciprocity in dealing
+with, others. Men can no more live together without some amount of trust
+and confidence in each other, or without a crude sense of justice in
+their dealings with each other, than an individual man can maintain his
+life by eating deadly poisons. There must be a respect for the rights of
+others, of justice in dealing with others, and of confidence in
+associating with others, at least to the extent of not threatening the
+possibility of group life. There are rules in the game of social life
+that must be observed, and in its own defence society is bound to
+suppress those of its members who exhibit strong anti-social tendencies.
+No society can, for example, tolerate homicide as an admitted practice.
+There is, thus, from the earliest times, a certain form of elimination
+of the anti-social character which results in the gradual formation of
+an emotional and mental disposition that habitually and instinctively
+falls into line with the requirements of the social whole.
+
+To use an expression of Sir Leslie Stephen's, man as a member of the
+group becomes a cell in the social tissue, and his fitness to survive is
+dependent upon, positively, his readiness to perform such actions as the
+welfare of the group require, and, negatively, upon his refraining from
+doing those things that are inimical to social welfare.[23] Moreover,
+there is the additional fact that the group itself is, as a whole,
+brought into contact with other groups, and the survival of one group as
+against another is determined by the quality and the degree of cohesion
+of its units. From this point of view, participation in the life of the
+group means more than refraining from acts that are injurious to the
+group, it involves some degree of positive contribution to social
+welfare.
+
+[23] The question of what are the things that are essential to the
+welfare of the group, and the fact that individuals are often suppressed
+for doing what they believe is beneficial to the group, with the kindred
+fact that there may exist grave differences of opinion on the matter,
+does not alter the essential point, which is that there must exist
+sufficient conformity between conduct and group welfare to secure
+survival.
+
+But the main thing to note is that from the very dawn of animal life the
+organism is more or less under the pressure of a certain discipline that
+tends to establish an identity between actions which there is a tendency
+to perform and those that are beneficial to the organism. In the social
+state we simply have this principle expressed in another way, and it
+gives a degree of conscious adaptation that is absent from the
+pre-social or even the lower forms of the social state. It is in the
+truly social state also that we get the full influence of what may be
+called the characteristically human environment, that is, the operation
+of ideas and ideals. The importance of this psychological factor in the
+life of man has been stressed in an earlier chapter. It is enough now to
+point out that from the earliest moment the young human being is, by a
+process of training, imbued with certain ideals of truthfulness,
+loyalty, duty, etc., all of which play their part in the moulding of his
+character. However much these ideals may vary in different societies,
+the fact of the part played by them in moulding character is plain. They
+are the dominant forces in moulding the individual to the social state,
+even while the expressions of the social life may be in turn checked by
+the fact that social conduct cannot persist if it threatens those
+conditions upon which the persistence of life ultimately depends.
+
+There is one other consideration that must be noted. One very pregnant
+fact in life is that nature seldom creates a new organ. What it usually
+does is to refashion an old one, or to devote an old one to new uses.
+This principle may be seen clearly in operation in connection with moral
+evolution. On the one hand the various forces that play upon human
+nature drive the moral feelings deeper into it. On the other hand it
+develops them by their steady expansion over a wider area. Whether it is
+an actual fact or not--I do not stress it because the point is the
+subject of discussion--it is at least possible that the earliest human
+group is the family. And so long as that was the case such feelings of
+right and wrong as then existed will have been confined to the family.
+But when a group of families combine and form the tribe, all those
+feelings of confidence, justice, etc., which were formerly
+characteristic of the smaller group are expanded to cover the larger
+one. With the expansion of the tribe to the nation we have a further
+development of the same phenomenon. There is no new creation, there is
+nothing more than expansion and development.
+
+The process does not and cannot, obviously, stop here. From the tribe to
+the nation, from the nation to the collection of nations which we call
+an empire, and from the empire to the whole of humanity. That seems the
+inevitable direction of the process, and there does not require profound
+insight to see it already on the way. Development of national life
+involves a growing interdependence of the world of humankind. Of hardly
+any nation can it be said to-day that it is self-supporting or
+self-contained or independent. There is nothing national or sectarian in
+science, and it is to science that we have to look for our principal
+help. All over the world we utilize each other's discoveries and profit
+by each other's knowledge. Even economic interdependence carries with it
+the same lesson. The human environment gets gradually broader and wider,
+and the feelings that have hitherto been expanded over the narrower area
+have now to be expanded over the wider one. It is the gradual
+development of a human nature that is becoming adapted to a conception
+of mankind as an organic unit. Naturally, in the process of adaptation
+there is conflict between the narrower ideals, conserved in our
+educational influences, and the wider ones. There are still large
+numbers of those who, unable to picture the true nature of the
+evolutionary process owing to their own defective education, yet think
+of the world in terms of a few centuries ago, and still wave the flag of
+a political nationalism as though that were the end of social growth,
+instead of its being an early and transient expression of it. But this
+conflict is inevitable, and the persistence of that type can no more
+ensure its permanent domination than the persistence of the medicine man
+in the person of the existing clergyman can give permanence to the
+religious idea.
+
+There is, then, no mystery about the fact of morality. It is no more of
+a mystery than is the compilation of the multiplication table, and it
+has no greater need of a supernatural sanction than has the law of
+gravitation. Morality is a natural fact, and its enforcement and growth
+are brought about by natural means. In its lower form, morality is no
+more than an expression of those conditions under which social life is
+possible, and in its higher one, an expression of those ideal conditions
+under which corporate life is desirable. In studying morality we are
+really studying the physiology of associated life, and that study aims
+at the determination of the conditions under which the best form of
+living is possible. It is thus that here, as elsewhere, man is thrown
+back upon himself for enlightenment and help. And if the process is a
+slow one we may at least console ourselves with the reflection that the
+labours of each generation are making the weapons which we bring to the
+fight keener and better able to do their work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MORALITY WITHOUT GOD.
+
+(_Continued._)
+
+
+In the preceding chapter I have been concerned with providing the most
+meagre of skeleton outlines of the way in which our moral laws and our
+moral sense have come into existence. To make this as clear as possible
+the chapter was restricted to exposition. Controversial points were
+avoided. And as a matter of fact there are many religionists who might
+concede the truth of what has been said concerning the way in which
+morality has arisen, and the nature of the forces that have assisted in
+its development. But they would proceed to argue, as men like Mr.
+Balfour and Mr. Benjamin Kidd, with others of the like, have argued,
+that a natural morality lacks all coercive power. The Freethought
+explanation of morality, they say, is plausible enough, and may be
+correct, but in conduct we have to deal not merely with the correctness
+of things but with sanctions and motives that exercise a compulsive
+influence on men and women. The religionist, it is argued, has such a
+compulsive force in the belief in God and in the effect on our future
+life of our obedience or disobedience to his commands. But what kind of
+coercion can a purely naturalistic system of morals exert? If a man is
+content to obey the naturalistic command to practise certain virtues and
+to abstain from certain vices, well and good. But suppose he chooses to
+disregard it. What then? Above all, on what compulsion is a man to
+disregard his own inclinations to act as seems desirable to himself,
+and not in conformity with the general welfare? We disregard the
+religious appeal as pure sentimentalism, or worse, and we at once
+institute an ethical sentimentalism which is, in practice, foredoomed to
+failure.
+
+Or to put the same point in another way. Each individual, we say, should
+so act as to promote the general welfare. Freethinker and religionist
+are in agreement here. And so long as one's inclinations jump with the
+advice no difficulty presents itself. But suppose a man's inclinations
+do not run in the desired direction? You tell him that he must act so as
+to promote the general well-being, and he replies that he is not
+concerned with the promotion of the public welfare. You say that he
+_ought_ to act differently, and he replies, "My happiness must consist
+in what I regard as such, not in other people's conception of what it
+should be." You proceed to point out that by persisting in his present
+line of conduct he is laying up trouble for the future, and he retorts,
+"I am willing to take the risk." What is to be done with him? Can
+naturalism show that in acting in that way a man is behaving
+unreasonably, that is, in the sense that he can be shown to be really
+acting against his own interests, and that if he knew better he would
+act differently?
+
+Now before attempting a reply to this it is worth while pointing out
+that whatever strength there may be in this criticism when directed
+against naturalism, it is equally strong when directed against
+supernaturalism. We can see this at once if we merely vary the terms.
+You tell a man to act in this or that way "in the name of God." He
+replies, "I do not believe in God," and your injunction loses all force.
+Or, if he believes in God, and you threaten him with the pains and
+penalties of a future life, he may reply, "I am quite willing to risk a
+probable punishment hereafter for a certain pleasure here." And it is
+certain that many do take the risk, whether they express their
+determination to do so in as many words or not.
+
+What is a supernaturalist compelled to do in this case? His method of
+procedure is bound to be something like the following. First of all he
+will seek to create assent to a particular proposition such as "God
+exists, and also that a belief in his existence creates an obligation to
+act in this or that manner in accordance with what is believed to be his
+will." That proposition once established, his next business will be to
+bring the subject's inclinations into line with a prescribed course of
+action. He is thus acting in precisely the same manner as is the
+naturalist who starts from an altogether different set of premises. And
+both are resting their teaching of morals upon an intellectual
+proposition to which assent is either implied or expressed. And that
+lies at the basis of all ethical teaching--not ethical practice, be it
+observed, but teaching. The precise form in which this intellectual
+proposition is cast matters little. It may be the existence of God, or
+it may be a particular view of human nature or of human evolution, but
+it is there, and in either case the authoritative character of moral
+precepts exists for such as accept it, and for none other. Moral
+practice is rooted in life, but moral theory is a different matter.
+
+So far, then, it is clear that the complaint that Freethought ethics has
+nothing about it of a compulsive or authoritative character is either a
+begging of the question or it is absurd.
+
+Naturalistic ethics really assert three things. The first is that the
+continuance of life ensures the performance of a certain level of
+conduct, conduct being merely one of the means by which human beings
+react to the necessities of their environment. Second, it asserts that
+a proper understanding of the conditions of existence will in the
+normally constituted mind strengthen the development of a feeling of
+obligation to act in such and such a manner; and that while all
+non-reasonable conduct is not immoral, all immoral conduct is
+fundamentally irrational. Third, there is the further assumption that at
+bottom individual and general welfare are not contradictory, but two
+aspects of the same thing.
+
+Concerning the second point, Sir Leslie Stephen warns us (_Science of
+Ethics_, p. 437) that every attempt so to state the ethical principle
+that disobedience will be "unreasonable" is "doomed to failure in a
+world which is not made up of working syllogisms." And for the other two
+points Professor Sorley (_Ethics of Naturalism_, p. 42) tells us that
+"It is difficult ... to offer any consideration fitted to convince the
+individual that it is reasonable for him to seek the happiness of the
+community rather than his own"; while Mr. Benjamin Kidd asserts that
+"the interests of the individual and those of the social organism are
+not either identical or capable of being reconciled, as has been
+necessarily assumed in all those systems of ethics which have sought to
+establish a naturalistic basis of conduct. The two are fundamentally and
+inherently irreconcilable, and a large proportion of the existing
+individuals at any time have ... no personal interest whatever in the
+progress of the race, or in the social development we are undergoing."
+
+It has already been said that however difficult it may be to establish
+the precise relationship between reason and ethical commands, such a
+connection must be assumed, whether we base our ethics on naturalistic
+or supernaturalistic considerations. And it cannot be denied by anyone
+to-day that a causal relation must exist between actions and their
+consequences, whether those causal consequences be of the natural and
+non-moral kind, or of the more definitely moral order such as exists in
+the shape of social approval and disapproval. And if we once grant that,
+then it seems quite allowable to assume that provided a man perceives
+the reason underlying moral judgments, and also the justification for
+the sense of approval and disapproval expressed, we have as much reason
+for calling his conduct reasonable or unreasonable as we have for
+applying the same terms to a man's behaviour in dressing in view of the
+variations of the temperature.
+
+Consequently, while I agree that _in the present state of knowledge_ it
+is impossible in all cases to demonstrate that immoral conduct is
+irrational in the sense that it would be unreasonable to refuse assent
+to a mathematical proposition, there seems no justification for
+regarding such a state of things as of necessity permanent. If a
+scientific system of ethics consists in formulating rules for the
+profitable guidance of life, not only does their formulation presuppose
+a certain constancy in the laws of human nature and of the world in
+general, but the assumption is also involved that one day it may be
+possible to give to moral laws the same precision that now is attached
+to physiological laws and to label departure from them as "unreasonable"
+in a very real sense of the word.
+
+The other objection that it is impossible to establish a "reasonable"
+relation between individual and social well-being arises from a dual
+confusion as to what is the proper sphere of ethics, and of the mutual
+relation of the individual and society. To take an individual and ask,
+"Why should he act so as to promote the general welfare?" is to imply
+that ethical rules may have an application to man out of relation with
+his fellows. That, we have already seen, is quite wrong, since moral
+rules fail to be intelligible once we separate man from his fellows.
+Discussing ethics while leaving out social life is like discussing the
+functions of the lungs and leaving out of account the existence of an
+atmosphere.
+
+If, then, instead of treating the individual and society as two distinct
+things, either of which may profit at the expense of the other, we treat
+them as two sides of the same thing, each an abstraction when treated
+alone, the problem is simplified, and the solution becomes appreciably
+easier. For the essential truth here is that just as there is no such
+thing as a society in the absence of the individuals composing it, so
+the individual, as we know him, disappears when we strip him of all that
+he is in virtue of his being a part of the social structure. Every one
+of the characteristic human qualities has been developed in response to
+the requirements of the social medium. It is in virtue of this that
+morality has anything of an imperative nature connected with it, for if
+man is, to use Sir Leslie Stephen's phrase, a cell in the social tissue,
+receiving injury as the body social is injured, and benefitting as it is
+benefitted, then the refusal of a man to act so that he may promote the
+general welfare can be shown to be unreasonable, and also unprofitable
+to the individual himself. In other words, our efficiency as an
+individual must be measured in terms of our fitness to form part of the
+social structure, and consequently the antithesis between social and
+personal well-being is only on the surface. Deeper knowledge and a more
+exact understanding reveals them as two sides of the same fact.
+
+It may be granted to Mr. Kidd that "a large proportion of the existing
+individuals at any time" have no _conscious_ interest in "the progress
+of the race or in the development we are undergoing," and that is only
+what one would expect, but it would be absurd to therefore come to the
+conclusion that no such identity of interest exists. Moliere's
+character, who all his life had been talking prose without knowing it,
+is only a type of the majority of folk who all their lives are acting in
+accordance with principles of which they are ignorant, and which they
+may even repudiate when they are explained to them. From one point of
+view the whole object of a scientific morality is to awaken a conscious
+recognition of the principles underlying conduct, and by this means to
+strengthen the disposition to right action. We make explicit in language
+what has hitherto been implicit in action, and thus bring conscious
+effort to the aid of non-conscious or semi-conscious behaviour.
+
+In the light of the above consideration the long and wordy contest that
+has been waged between "Altruists" and "Egoists" is seen to be very
+largely a waste of time and a splutter of words. If it can be shown on
+the one hand that all men are not animated by the desire to benefit
+self, it is as easy to demonstrate that so long as human nature is human
+nature, all conduct must be an expression of individual character, and
+that even the morality of self-sacrifice is self-regarding viewed from
+the personal feelings of the agent. And it being clear that the position
+of Egoist and Altruist, while each expressing a truth, is neither
+expressing the whole truth, and that each does in fact embody a definite
+error, it seems probable that here, as in so many other cases, the truth
+lies between the two extremes, and that a reconciliation may be effected
+along these lines.
+
+Taking animal life as a whole it is at least clear that what are called
+the self-regarding feelings must come first in order of development.
+Even with the lower races of human beings there is less concern shown
+with the feelings and welfare of others than is the case with the
+higher races of men. Or, again, with children we have these feelings
+strongest in childhood and undergoing a gradual expansion as maturity is
+reached. This is brought about, as was shown in the last chapter, not by
+the destruction of existing feelings, but by their extension to an ever
+widening area. There is a transformation, or an elaboration of existing
+feelings under the pressure of social growth. One may say that ethical
+development does not proceed by the destruction of the feeling of
+self-interest, so much as by its extension to a wider field. Ethical
+growth is thus on all fours with biological growth. In biology we are
+all familiar with the truth that maintenance of life is dependent upon
+the existence of harmonious relations between an organism and its
+environment. Yet it is not always recognized that this principle is as
+true of the moral self as it is of the physical structure, nor that in
+human evolution the existence of others becomes of increasing importance
+and significance. For not only do I have to adapt myself, mentally and
+morally, to the society now existing, but also to societies that have
+long since passed away and have left their contribution to the building
+up of _my_ environment in the shape of institutions and beliefs and
+literature.
+
+We have in this one more illustration that while the environment of the
+animal is overwhelmingly physical in character, that of man tends to
+become overwhelmingly social or psychological. Desires are created that
+can only be gratified by the presence and the labour of others. Feelings
+arise that have direct reference to others, and in numerous ways a body
+of "altruistic" feeling is created. So by social growth first, and
+afterwards by reflection, man is taught that the only life that is
+enjoyable to himself is one that is lived in the companionship and by
+the co-operation of others. As Professor Ziegler well puts the
+process:--
+
+     Not only on the one hand does it concern the interests of the
+     general welfare that every individual should take care of himself
+     outwardly and inwardly; maintain his health; cultivate his
+     faculties and powers; sustain his position, honour, and worth, and
+     so his own welfare being secured, diffuse around him happiness and
+     comfort; but also, on the other hand, it concerns the personal,
+     well understood interests of the individual himself that he should
+     promote the interests of others, contribute to their happiness,
+     serve their interests, and even make sacrifices for them. Just as
+     one forgoes a momentary pleasure in order to secure a lasting and
+     greater enjoyment, so the individual willingly sacrifices his
+     personal welfare and comfort for the sake of society in order to
+     share in the welfare of this society; he buries his individual
+     well-being in order that he may see it rise in richer and fuller
+     abundance in the welfare and happiness of the whole community
+     (_Social Ethics_, pp. 59-60).
+
+These motives are not of necessity conscious ones. No one imagines that
+before performing a social action each one sits down and goes through a
+more or less elaborate calculation. All that has been written on this
+head concerning a "Utilitarian calculus" is poor fun and quite beside
+the mark. In this matter, as in so many others, it is the evolutionary
+process which demands consideration, and generations of social struggle,
+by weeding out individuals whose inclinations were of a pronounced
+anti-social kind, and tribes in which the cohesion between its members
+was weak, have resulted in bringing about more or less of an
+identification between individual desires and the general welfare. It is
+not a question of conscious evolution so much as of our becoming
+conscious of an evolution that is taking place, and in discussing the
+nature of morals one is bound to go beyond the expressed reasons for
+conduct--more often wrong than right--and discover the deeper and truer
+causes of instincts and actions. When this is done it will be found that
+while it is absolutely impossible to destroy the connection between
+conduct and self-regarding actions, there is proceeding a growing
+identity between the gratification of desire and the well-being of the
+whole. This will be, not because of some fantastical or ascetic teaching
+of self-sacrifice, but because man being an expression of social life is
+bound to find in activities that have a social reference the beginning
+and end of his conduct.
+
+The fears of a morality without God are, therefore, quite unfounded. If
+what has been said be granted, it follows that all ethical rules are
+primarily on the same level as a generalization in any of the sciences.
+Just as the "laws" of astronomy or of biology reduce to order the
+apparently chaotic phenomena of their respective departments, so ethical
+laws seek to reduce to an intelligible order the conditions of
+individual and social betterment. There can be no ultimate antithesis
+between individual reason and the highest form of social conduct,
+although there may exist an apparent conflict between the two, chiefly
+owing to the fact that we are often unable to trace the remote effects
+of conduct on self and society. Nor can there be an ultimate or
+permanent conflict between the true interests of the individual and of
+society at large. That such an opposition does exist in the minds of
+many is true, but it is here worthy of note that the clearest and most
+profound thinkers have always found in the field of social effort the
+best sphere for the gratification of their desires. And here again we
+may confidently hope that an increased and more accurate appreciation
+of the causes that determine human welfare will do much to diminish
+this antagonism. At any rate it is clear that human nature has been
+moulded in accordance with the reactions of self and society in such a
+way that even the self has become an expression of social life, and with
+this dual aspect before us there is no reason why emphasis should be
+laid on one factor rather than on the other.
+
+To sum up. Eliminating the form of coercion that is represented by a
+policeman, earthly or otherwise, we may safely say that a naturalistic
+ethics has all the coercive force that can be possessed by any system.
+And it has this advantage over the coercive force of the
+supernaturalist, that while the latter tends to weaken with the advance
+of intelligence, the former gains strength as men and women begin to
+more clearly appreciate the true conditions of social life and
+development. It is in this way that there is finally established a
+connection between what is "reasonable" and what is right. In this case
+it is the function of reason to discover the forces that have made for
+the moralization--really the socialization--of man, and so strengthen
+man's moral nature by demonstrating the fundamental identity between his
+own welfare and that of the group to which he belongs. That the coercion
+may in some cases be quite ineffective must be admitted. There will
+always, one fancies, be cases where the personal character refuses to
+adapt itself to the current social state. That is a form of
+mal-adaptation which society will always have to face, exactly as it has
+to face cases of atavism in other directions. But the socializing and
+moralizing process continues. And however much this may be, in its
+earlier stages, entangled with conceptions of the supernatural, it is
+certain that growth will involve the disappearance of that factor here
+as it has done elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+CHRISTIANITY AND MORALITY.
+
+
+The association of religion with morality is a very ancient one. This is
+not because the one is impossible without the other, we have already
+shown that this is not the case. The reason is that unless religious
+beliefs are associated with certain essential social activities their
+continuance is almost impossible. Thus it happens in the course of
+social evolution that just in proportion as man learns to rely upon the
+purely social activities to that extent religion is driven to dwell more
+upon them and to claim kinship with them.
+
+While this is true of religions in general, it applies with peculiar
+force to Christianity. And in the last two or three centuries we have
+seen the emphasis gradually shifted from a set of doctrines, upon the
+acceptance of which man's eternal salvation depends, to a number of
+ethical and social teachings with which Christianity, as such, has no
+vital concern. The present generation of Christian believers has had
+what is called the moral aspect of Christianity so constantly impressed
+upon them, and the essential and doctrinal aspect so slurred over, that
+many of them have come to accept the moral teaching associated with
+Christianity as its most important aspect. More than that, they have
+come to regard the immense superiority of Christianity as one of those
+statements the truth of which can be doubted by none but the most
+obtuse. To have this alleged superiority of Christian ethical teaching
+questioned appears to them proof of some lack of moral development on
+the part of the questioner.
+
+To this type of believer it will come with something of a shock to be
+told quite plainly and without either circumlocution or apology that his
+religion is of an intensely selfish and egoistic character, and that its
+ethical influence is of a kind that is far from admirable. It will shock
+him because he has for so long been told that his religion is the very
+quintessence of unselfishness, he has for so long been telling it to
+others, and he has been able for so many generations to make it
+uncomfortable for all those who took an opposite view, that he has
+camouflaged both the nature of his own motives and the tendency of his
+religion.
+
+From one point of view this is part of the general scheme in virtue of
+which the Christian Church has given currency to the legend that the
+doctrines taught by it represented a tremendous advance in the
+development of the race. In sober truth it represented nothing of the
+kind. That the elements of Christian religious teaching existed long
+before Christianity as a religious system was known to the world is now
+a commonplace with all students of comparative religions, and is
+admitted by most Christian writers of repute. Even in form the Christian
+doctrines represented but a small advance upon their pagan prototypes,
+but it is only when one bears in mind the fact that the best minds of
+antiquity were rapidly throwing off these superstitions and leading the
+world to a more enlightened view of things, we realize that in the main
+Christianity represented a step backward in the intellectual evolution
+of the race. What we then see is Christianity reaffirming and
+re-establishing most of the old superstitions in forms in which only the
+more ignorant classes of antiquity accepted them. We have an assertion
+of demonism in its crudest forms, an affirmation of the miraculous that
+the educated in the Roman world had learned to laugh at, and which is
+to-day found among the savage people of the earth, while every form of
+scientific thought was looked upon as an act of impiety. The scientific
+eclipse that overtook the old pagan civilization was one of the
+inevitable consequences of the triumph of Christianity. From the point
+of view of general culture the retrogressive nature of Christianity is
+unmistakable. It has yet to be recognized that the same statement holds
+good in relation even to religion. One day the world will appreciate the
+fact that no greater disaster ever overtook the world than the triumph
+of the Christian Church.
+
+For the moment, however, we are only concerned with the relation of
+Christianity to morality. And here my thesis is that Christianity is an
+essentially selfish creed masking its egoistic impulses under a cover of
+unselfishness and self-sacrifice. To that it will probably be said that
+the charge breaks down on the fact that Christian teaching is full of
+the exhortation that this world is of no moment, that we gain salvation
+by learning to ignore its temptations and to forgo its pleasures, and
+that it is, above all other faiths, the religion of personal sacrifice.
+And that this teaching is there it would be stupid to deny. But this
+does not disprove what has been said, indeed, analysis only serves to
+make the truth still plainer. That many Christians have given up the
+prizes of the world is too plain to be denied; that they have forsaken
+all that many struggle to possess is also plain. But when this has been
+admitted there still remains the truth that there is a vital distinction
+in the consideration of whether a man gives up the world in order to
+save his own soul, or whether he saves his soul as a consequence of
+losing the world. In this matter it is the aim that is important, not
+only to the outsider who may be passing judgment, but more importantly
+to the agent himself. It is the effect of the motive on character with
+its subsequent flowering in social life that must be considered.
+
+The first count in the indictment here is that the Christian appeal is
+essentially a selfish one. The aim is not the saving of others but of
+one's self. If other people must be saved it is because their salvation
+is believed to be essential to the saving of one's own soul. That this
+involves, or may involve, a surrender of one's worldly possessions or
+comfort, is of no moment. Men will forgo many pleasures and give up much
+when they have what they believe to be a greater purpose in view. We see
+this in directions quite unconnected with religion. Politics will show
+us examples of men who have forsaken many of what are to others the
+comforts of life in the hopes of gaining power and fame. Others will
+deny themselves many pleasures in the prospect of achieving some end
+which to them is of far greater value than the things they are
+renouncing. And it is the same principle that operates in the case of
+religious devotees. There is no reason to doubt but that when a young
+woman forsakes the world and goes into a cloister she is surrendering
+much that has considerable attractions for her. But what she gives is to
+her of small importance to what she gains in return. And if one believed
+in Christianity, in immortal damnation, with the intensity of the great
+Christian types of character, it would be foolish not to surrender
+things of so little value for others of so great and transcendent
+importance.
+
+To do Christians justice they have not usually made a secret of their
+aim. Right through Christian literature there runs the teaching that it
+is the desire of personal and immortal salvation that inspires them, and
+they have affirmed over and over again that but for the prospect of
+being paid back with tremendous interest in the next world they could
+see no reason for being good in this one. That is emphatically the
+teaching of the New Testament and of the greatest of Christian
+characters. You are to give in secret that you may be rewarded openly,
+to cast your bread upon the waters that it may be returned to you, and
+Paul's counsel is that if there be no resurrection from the dead then we
+may eat, drink, and be merry for death only is before us. Thus, what you
+do is in the nature of a deliberate and conscious investment on which
+you will receive a handsome dividend in the next world. And your
+readiness to invest will be exactly proportionate to your conviction of
+the soundness of the security. But there is in all this no perception of
+the truly ethical basis of conduct, no indication of the inevitable
+consequences of conduct on character. What is good is determined by what
+it is believed will save one's own soul and increase the dividend in the
+next world. What is bad is anything that will imperil the security. It
+is essentially an appeal to what is grasping and selfish in human
+nature, and while you may hide the true character of a thing by the
+lavish use of attractive phrases, you cannot hinder it working out its
+consequences in actual life. And the consequence of this has been that
+while Christian teaching has been lavish in the use of attractive
+phrases its actual result has been to create a type of character that
+has been not so much immoral as _a_moral. And with that type the good
+that has been done on the one side has been more than counterbalanced by
+the evil done on the other.
+
+What the typical Christian character had in mind in all that he did was
+neither the removal of suffering nor of injustice, but the salvation of
+his own soul. That justified everything so long as it was believed to
+contribute to that end. The social consequences of what was done simply
+did not count. And if, instead of taking mere phrases from the
+principal Christian writers, we carefully examine their meaning we shall
+see that they were strangely devoid of what is now understood by the
+expression "moral incentive." The more impressive the outbreak of
+Christian piety the clearer does this become. No one could have
+illustrated the Christian ideal of self-sacrifice better than did the
+saints and monks of the earlier Christian centuries. Such a character as
+the famous St. Simon Stylites, living for years on his pillar, filthy
+and verminous, and yet the admired of Christendom, with the lives of
+numerous other saints, whose sole claim to be remembered is that they
+lived the lives of worse than animals in the selfish endeavours to save
+their shrunken souls, will well illustrate this point. If it entered the
+diseased imagination of these men that the road to salvation lay through
+attending to the sick and the needy, they were quite ready to labour in
+that direction; but of any desire to remove the horrible social
+conditions that prevailed, or to remedy the injustice of which their
+clients were the victims, there is seldom a trace. And, on the other
+hand, if they believed that their salvation involved getting away from
+human society altogether and leading the life of a hermit, they were as
+ready to do that. If it meant the forsaking of husband or wife or parent
+or child, these were left without compunction, and their desertion was
+counted as proof of righteousness. The lives of the saints are full of
+illustrations of this. Professor William James well remarks, in his
+_Varieties of Religious Experience_, that "In gentle characters, where
+devoutness is intense and the intellect feeble, we have an imaginative
+absorption in the love of God to the exclusion of all practical human
+interests.... When the love of God takes possession of such a mind it
+expels all human loves and human uses." Of the Blessed St. Mary
+Alacoque, her biographer points out that as she became absorbed in the
+love of Christ she became increasingly useless to the practical life of
+the convent. Of St. Teresa, James remarks that although a woman of
+strong intellect his impression of her was a feeling of pity that so
+much vitality of soul should have found such poor employment. And of so
+famous a character as St. Augustine a Christian writer, Mr. A. C.
+Benson, remarks:--
+
+     I was much interested in reading St. Augustine's _Confessions_
+     lately to recognize how small a part, after his conversion, any
+     aspirations for the welfare of humanity seem to play in his mind
+     compared with the consciousness of his own personal relations with
+     God. It was this which gave him his exuberant sense of joy and
+     peace, and his impulse was rather the impulse of sharing a
+     wonderful and beautiful secret with others than an immediate desire
+     for their welfare, forced out of him, so to speak, by his own
+     exultation rather than drawn out of him by compassion for the needs
+     of others.
+
+That is one of the most constant features which emerges from a careful
+study of the character of Christian types. St. Francis commenced his
+career by leaving his parents. John Fox did the same. In that Puritan
+classic, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, one of the outstanding features is
+the striking absence of emphasis on the value of the social and domestic
+virtues, and the Rev. Principal Donaldson notes this as one of the
+features of early Christian literature in general. Christian preaching
+was for centuries full of contemptuous references to "filthy rags of
+righteousness," "mere morality," etc. The aim of the saints was a purely
+selfish and personal one. It was not even a refined or a metaphysical
+selfishness. It was a simple teaching that the one thing essential was
+to save one's own soul, and that the main reason for doing good in this
+world was to reap a benefit from it in the world to come. If it can
+properly be called morality, it was conduct placed out at the highest
+rate of interest. Christianity may often have used a naturally lofty
+character, it was next to impossible for it to create one.
+
+If one examines the attack made by Christians upon Freethought morality,
+it is surprising how often the truth of what has been said is implied.
+For the complaint here is, in the main, not that naturalism fails to
+give an adequate account of the nature and development of morality, but
+that it will not satisfy mankind, and so fails to act as an adequate
+motive to right conduct. When we enquire precisely what is meant by
+this, we learn that if there is no belief in God, and if there is no
+expectation of a future state in which rewards and punishments will be
+dispensed, there remains no inducement to the average man or woman to do
+right. It is the moral teaching of St. Paul over again. We are in the
+region of morality as a deliberate investment, and we have the threat
+that if the interest is not high enough or certain enough to satisfy the
+dividend hunting appetite of the true believer, then the investment will
+be withdrawn. Really this is a complaint, not that the morality which
+ignores Christianity is too low but that it is too high. It is doubted
+whether human nature, particularly Christian human nature, can rise to
+such a level, and whether, unless you can guarantee a Christian a
+suitable reward for not starving his family or for not robbing his
+neighbour, he will continue to place any value on decency or honesty.
+
+So to state the case makes the absurdity of the argument apparent, but
+unless that is what is meant it is difficult to make it intelligible. To
+reply that Christians do not require these inducements to behave with a
+tolerable amount of decency is not a statement that I should dispute; on
+the contrary, I would affirm it. It is the Christian defender who makes
+himself and his fellow believers worse than the Freethinker believes
+them to be. For it is part of the case of the Freethinker that the
+morality of the Christian has really no connection with his religion,
+and that the net influence of his creed is to confuse and distort his
+moral sense instead of developing it. It is the argument of the
+Christian that makes the Freethinker superior to the Christian; it is
+the Freethinker who declines the compliment and who asserts that the
+social forces are adequate to guarantee the continuance of morality in
+the complete absence of religious belief.
+
+How little the Christian religion appreciates the nature of morality is
+seen by the favourite expression of Christian apologists that the
+tendency of non-religion is to remove all moral "restraints." The use of
+the word is illuminating. To the Christian morality is no more than a
+system of restraints which aim at preventing a man gratifying his
+appetite in certain directions. It forbids him certain enjoyments here,
+and promises him as a reward for his abstention a greater benefit
+hereafter. And on that assumption he argues, quite naturally, that if
+there be no after life then there seems no reason why man should undergo
+the "restraints" which moral rules impose. On this scheme man is a born
+criminal and God an almighty policeman. That is the sum of orthodox
+Christian morality. To assume that this conception of conduct can have a
+really elevating effect on life is to misunderstand the nature of the
+whole of the ethical and social problem.
+
+What has been said may go some distance towards suggesting an answer to
+the question so often asked as to the reason for the moral failure of
+Christianity. For that it has been a moral failure no one can doubt.
+Nay, it is an assertion made very generally by Christians themselves.
+Right from New Testament times the complaint that the conduct of
+believers has fallen far short of what it should have been is constantly
+met with. And there is not a single direction in which Christians can
+claim a moral superiority over other and non-Christian peoples. They are
+neither kinder, more tolerant, more sober, more chaste, nor more
+truthful than are non-Christian people. Nor is it quite without
+significance that those nations that pride themselves most upon their
+Christianity are what they are. Their state reflects the ethical spirit
+I have been trying to describe. For when we wipe out the disguising
+phrases which we use to deceive ourselves--and it is almost impossible
+to continually deceive others unless we do manage to deceive
+ourselves--when we put on one side the "rationalizing" phrases about
+Imperial races, carrying civilization to the dark places of the earth,
+bearing the white man's burden, peopling the waste places of the earth,
+etc., we may well ask what for centuries have the Christian nations of
+the world been but so many gangs of freebooters engaged in world-wide
+piracy? All over the world they have gone, fighting, stealing, killing,
+lying, annexing, in a steadily rising crescendo. To be possessed of
+natural wealth, without the means of resisting aggression, has for four
+centuries been to invite the depredations of some one or more of the
+Christian powers. It is the Christian powers that have militarized the
+world in the name of the Prince of Peace, and made piracy a national
+occupation in the name of civilization. Everywhere they have done these
+things under the shelter of their religion and with the sanction of
+their creed. Christianity has offered no effective check to the
+cupidity of man, its chief work has been to find an outlet for it in a
+disguised form. To borrow a term from the psycho-analysts, the task of
+Christianity has been to "rationalize" certain ugly impulses, and so
+provide the opportunity for their continuous expression. The world of
+to-day is beginning to recognize the intellectual weakness of
+Christianity; what it has next to learn is that its moral bankruptcy is
+no less assured.
+
+One of the great obstacles in the way of this is the sentimentalism of
+many who have given up all intellectual adherence to the Christian
+creed. The power of the Christian Church has been so great, it has for
+so long had control of the machinery of public education and
+information, that many find it almost impossible to conclude that the
+ethical spirit of Christianity is as alien to real progress as are its
+cosmical teachings. The very hugeness of this century-old imposture
+blinds many to its inherent defects. And yet the continuous and
+world-wide moral failure of Christianity can only be accounted for on
+the ground that it had a fatal moral defect from the start. I have
+suggested above what is the nature of that defect. It has never regarded
+morality as a natural social growth, but only as something imposed upon
+man from without. It has had no other reason for its existence than the
+fear of punishment and the hope of reward. Christian morality is the
+morality of the stock exchange _plus_ the intellectual outlook of the
+savage. And with that in control of national destinies our surprise
+should be, not that things are as they are, but rather that with so
+great a handicap the world has contrived to reach its present moderate
+degree of development.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+RELIGION AND PERSECUTION.
+
+
+Intolerance is one of the most general of what we may call the mental
+vices. It is so general that few people seem to look upon it as a fault,
+and not a few are prepared to defend it as a virtue. When it assumes an
+extreme form, and its consequences are unpleasantly obvious, it may meet
+with condemnation, but usually its nature is disguised under a show of
+earnestness and sincere conviction. And, indeed, no one need feel called
+upon to dispute the sincerity and the earnestness of the bigot. As we
+have already pointed out, that may easily be seen and admitted. All that
+one need remark is that sincerity is no guarantee of accuracy, and
+earnestness naturally goes with a conviction strongly held, whether the
+conviction be grounded on fact or fancy. The essential question is not
+whether a man holds an opinion strongly, but whether he has taken
+sufficient trouble to say that he has a right to have that opinion. Has
+he taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the facts upon which the
+expressed opinion is professedly based? Has he made a due allowance for
+possible error, and for the possibility of others seeing the matter from
+another and a different point of view? If these questions were frankly
+and truthfully answered, it would be found that what we have to face in
+the world is not so much opinion as prejudice.
+
+Some advance in human affairs is indicated when it is found necessary to
+apologise for persecution, and a still greater one when men and women
+feel ashamed of it. It is some of these apologies at which we have now
+to glance, and also to determine, if possible, the probable causes of
+the change in opinion that has occurred in relation to the subject of
+persecution.
+
+A favourite argument with the modern religionist is that the element of
+persecution, which it is admitted, has hitherto been found in
+association with religion, is not due to religion as such, but results
+from its connection with the secular power. Often, it is argued, the
+State for its own purposes has seen fit to ally itself with the Church,
+and when that has taken place the representatives of the favoured Church
+have not been strong enough to withstand the temptation to use physical
+force in the maintenance of their position. Hence the generalization
+that a State Church is always a persecuting Church, with the corollary
+that a Church, as such, has nothing to do with so secular a thing as
+persecution.
+
+The generalization has all the attractiveness which appeals to those who
+are not in the habit of looking beneath the surface, and in particular
+to those whose minds are still in thraldom to religious beliefs. It is
+quite true that State Churches have always persecuted, and it is equally
+true that persecution on a general scale could not have been carried on
+without the assistance of the State. On the other hand, it is just as
+true that all Churches have persecuted within the limits of their
+opportunity. There is no exception to this rule in any age or country.
+On a wider survey it is also clear that all forms of religious belief
+carry with them a tendency to persecution more or less marked. A close
+examination of the facts will show that it is the tendency to toleration
+that is developed by the secular power, and the opposite tendency
+manifested by religion.
+
+It is also argued that intolerance is not a special quality of religion;
+it is rather a fault of human nature. There is more truth in this than
+in the previous plea, but it slurs over the indictment rather than meets
+it. At any rate, it is the same human nature that meets us in religion
+that fronts us in other matters, and there is no mistaking the fact that
+intolerance is far more pronounced in relation to religion than to any
+other subject. In secular matters--politics, science, literature, or
+art--opinions may differ, feelings run high, and a degree of intolerance
+be exhibited, but the right to differ remains unquestioned. Moreover,
+the settlement of opinion by discussion is recognized. In religion it is
+the very right of difference that is challenged, it is the right of
+discussion that is denied. And it is in connection with religion alone
+that intolerance is raised to the level of a virtue. Refusal to discuss
+the validity of a religious opinion will be taken as the sign of a
+highly developed spiritual nature, and a tolerance of diverging opinions
+as an indication of unbelief. If a political leader refused to stand
+upon the same platform with political opponents, on non-political
+questions, nearly everyone would say that such conduct was intolerable.
+But how many religious people are there who would see anything wrong in
+the Archbishop of Canterbury refusing to stand upon the same platform as
+a well-known Atheist?
+
+We are here approaching the very heart of the subject, and in what
+follows I hope to make clear the truth of the following propositions:
+(1) That the great culture ground of intolerance is religion; (2) That
+the natural tendency of secular affairs is to breed tolerance; (3) That
+the alliance of religion with the State has fostered persecution by the
+State, the restraining influences coming from the secular half of the
+partnership; (4) That the decline of persecution is due to causes that
+are quite unconnected with religious beliefs.
+
+The first three points can really be taken together. So far as can be
+seen there is no disinclination among primitive peoples to discuss the
+pros and cons of matters that are unconnected with religious beliefs. So
+soon as we get people at a culture stage where the course of events is
+seen to be decided by human action, there goes on a tolerance of
+conflicting opinions that is in striking contrast with what occurs with
+such matters as are believed to directly involve the action of deity.
+One could not expect things to be otherwise. In the carrying on of
+warfare, as with many other tribal activities, so many of the
+circumstances are of a determinable character, and are clearly to be
+settled by an appeal to judgment and experience, that very early in
+social history they must have presented themselves as a legitimate field
+for discussion, and to discussion, as Bagehot says, nothing is sacred.
+And as a matter of fact we have a survival of this to-day. However
+intolerant the character, so long as we are dealing with secular matters
+it is admitted that differences of opinion must be tolerated, and are,
+indeed, necessary if we are to arrive at the wisest conclusion. The most
+autocratic of monarchs will call upon his advisers and take their
+dissension from his own views as a matter of course. But when we get to
+the field of religion, it is no longer a question of the legitimacy of
+difference, but of its wrongness. For a religious man to admit a
+discussion as to whether his religious belief is founded on fact or not
+is to imply a doubt, and no thoroughly religious man ever encourages
+that. What we have is prayers to be saved from doubt, and deliberate
+efforts to keep away from such conditions and circumstances as may
+suggest the possibility of wrong. The ideal religious character is the
+one who never doubts.
+
+It may also be noted, in passing, that in connection with religion there
+is nothing to check intolerance at any stage. In relation to secular
+matters an opinion is avowedly based upon verifiable facts and has no
+value apart from those facts. The facts are common property, open to
+all, and may be examined by all. In religion facts of a common and
+verifiable kind are almost wanting. The facts of the religious life are
+mainly of an esoteric character--visions, intuitions, etc. And while on
+the secular side discussion is justified because of the agreement which
+results from it, on the religious side the value of discussion is
+discounted because it never does lead to agreement. The more people
+discuss religion the more pronounced the disagreement. That is one
+reason why the world over the only method by which people have been
+brought to a state of agreement in religious doctrines is by excluding
+all who disagreed. It is harmony in isolation.
+
+Now if we turn to religion we can see that from the very beginning the
+whole tendency here was to stifle difference of opinion, and so
+establish intolerance as a religious duty. The Biblical story of Jonah
+is a case that well illustrates the point. God was not angry with the
+rest of the ship's inhabitants, it was Jonah only who had given offence.
+But to punish Jonah a storm was sent and the whole crew was in danger of
+shipwreck. In their own defence the sailors were driven to throw Jonah
+overboard. Jonah's disobedience was not, therefore, his concern alone.
+All with him were involved; God was ready to punish the whole for the
+offence of one.
+
+Now if for the ship we take a primitive tribe, and for Jonah a primitive
+heretic, or one who for some reason or other has omitted a service to
+the gods, we have an exact picture of what actually takes place. In
+primitive societies rights are not so much individual as they are
+social. Every member of the tribe is responsible to the members of other
+tribes for any injury that may have been done. And as with the members
+of another tribe, so with the relation of the tribe to the gods. If an
+individual offends them the whole of the tribe may suffer. There is a
+splendid impartiality about the whole arrangement, although it lacks all
+that we moderns understand by Justice. But the point here is that it
+makes the heretic not merely a mistaken person, but a dangerous
+character. His heresy involves treason to the tribe, and in its own
+defence it is felt that the heretic must be suppressed. How this feeling
+lingers in relation to religion is well seen in the fact that there are
+still with us large numbers of very pious people who are ready to see in
+a bad harvest, a war, or an epidemic, a judgment of God on the whole of
+the people for the sins of a few. It is this element that has always
+given to religious persecutions the air of a solemn duty. To suppress
+the heretic is something that is done in the interests of the whole of
+the people. Persecution becomes both a religious and a social duty.
+
+The pedigree of religious persecution is thus clear. It is inherent in
+religious belief, and to whatever extent human nature is prone to
+intolerance, the tendency has been fostered and raised to the status of
+a virtue by religious teaching and practice. Religion has served to
+confuse man's sense of right here as elsewhere.
+
+We have thus two currents at work. On the one hand, there is the
+influence of the secular side of life, which makes normally for a
+greater tolerance of opinion, on the other side there is religion which
+can only tolerate a difference of opinion to the extent that religious
+doctrines assume a position of comparative unimportance. Instead of it
+being the case that the Church has been encouraged to persecute by the
+State, the truth is the other way about. I know all that may be said as
+to the persecutions that have been set on foot by vested interests and
+by governments, but putting on one side the consideration that this begs
+the question of how far it has been the consequence of the early
+influence of religion, there are obvious limits beyond which a secular
+persecution cannot go. A government cannot destroy its subjects, or if
+it does the government itself disappears. And the most thorough scheme
+of exploitation must leave its victims enough on which to live. There
+are numerous considerations which weigh with a secular government and
+which have little weight with a Church.
+
+It may safely be said, for example, that no government in the world, in
+the absence of religious considerations would have committed the
+suicidal act which drove the Moors and the Jews from Spain.[24] As a
+matter of fact, the landed aristocracy of Spain resisted suggestions for
+expulsions for nearly a century because of the financial ruin they saw
+would follow. It was the driving power of religious belief that finally
+brought about the expulsion. Religion alone could preach that it was
+better for the monarch to reign over a wilderness than over a nation of
+Jews and unbelievers. The same thing was repeated a century later in the
+case of the expulsion of the Huguenots from France. Here again the crown
+resisted the suggestions of the Church, and for the same reason. And it
+is significant that when governments have desired to persecute in their
+own interests they have nearly always found it advantageous to do so
+under the guise of religion. So far, and in these instances, it may be
+true that the State has used religion for its own purpose of
+persecution, but this does not touch the important fact that, given the
+sanction of religion, intolerance and persecution assume the status of
+virtues. And to the credit of the State it must be pointed out that it
+has over and over again had to exert a restraining influence in the
+quarrels of sects. It will be questioned by few that if the regulative
+influence of the State had not been exerted the quarrels of the sects
+would have made a settled and orderly life next to impossible.
+
+[24] For this, as well as for the general consequences of persecution on
+racial welfare, see my pamphlet _Creed and Character_.
+
+So far as Christianity is concerned it would puzzle the most zealous of
+its defenders to indicate a single direction in which it did anything to
+encourage the slightest modification of the spirit of intolerance.
+Mohammedans can at least point to a time when, while their religion was
+dominant, a considerable amount of religious freedom was allowed to
+those living under its control. In the palmy days of the Mohammedan rule
+in Spain both Jews and Christians were allowed to practise their
+religion with only trifling inconveniences, certainly without being
+exposed to the fiendish punishments that characterized Christianity all
+over the world. Moreover, it must never be overlooked that in Europe all
+laws against heresy are of Christian origin. In the old Roman Empire
+liberty of worship was universal. So long as the State religion was
+treated with a moderate amount of respect one might worship whatever god
+one pleased, and the number was sufficient to provide for the most
+varied tastes. When Christians were proceeded against it was under laws
+that did not aim primarily to shackle liberty of worship or of opinion.
+The procedure was in every case formal, the trial public, time was given
+for the preparation of the defence, and many of the judges showed their
+dislike to the prosecutions.[25] But with the Christians, instead of
+persecution being spasmodic it was persistent. It was not taken up by
+the authorities with reluctance, but with eagerness, and it was counted
+as the most sacred of duties. Nor was it directed against a sectarian
+movement that threatened the welfare of the State. The worst periods of
+Christian persecution were those when the State had the least to fear
+from internal dissension. The persecuted were not those who were guilty
+of neglect of social duty. On the contrary they were serving the State
+by the encouragement of literature, science, philosophy, and commerce.
+One of the Pagan Emperors, the great Trajan, had advised the magistrates
+not to search for Christians, and to treat anonymous accusations with
+contempt. Christians carried the search for heresy into a man's own
+household. It used the child to obtain evidence against its own parents,
+the wife to secure evidence against the husband; it tortured to provide
+dictated confessions, and placed boxes at church doors to receive
+anonymous accusations. It established an index of forbidden books, an
+institution absolutely unknown to the pagan world. The Roman trial was
+open, the accused could hear the charge and cite witnesses for the
+defence. The Christian trial was in secret; special forms were used and
+no witnesses for the defence were permitted. Persecution was raised to a
+fine art. Under Christian auspices it assumed the most damnable form
+known in the history of the world. "There are no wild beasts so
+ferocious as Christians" was the amazed comment of the Pagans on the
+behaviour of Christians towards each other, and the subsequent history
+of Christianity showed that the Pagans were but amateurs in the art of
+punishing for a difference of opinion.
+
+[25] I am taking the story of the persecutions of the early Christians
+for granted, although the whole question is surrounded with the greatest
+suspicion. As a matter of fact the accounts are grossly exaggerated, and
+some of the alleged persecutions never occurred. The story of the
+persecutions is so foreign to the temper of the Roman government as to
+throw doubt on the whole account. The story of there being ten
+persecutions is clearly false, the number being avowedly based upon the
+legend of the ten plagues of Egypt.
+
+Up to a comparatively recent time there existed a practically unanimous
+opinion among Christians as to the desirability of forcibly suppressing
+heretical opinions. Whatever the fortunes of Christianity, and whatever
+the differences of opinion that gradually developed among Christians
+there was complete unanimity on this point. Whatever changes the
+Protestant Reformation effected it left this matter untouched. In his
+_History of Rationalism_ Lecky has brought forward a mass of evidence in
+support of this, and I must refer to that work readers who are not
+already acquainted with the details. Luther, in the very act of pleading
+for toleration, excepted "such as deny the common principles of the
+Christian religion, and advised that the Jews should be confined as
+madmen, their synagogues burned and their books destroyed." The
+intolerance of Calvin has became a byword; his very apology for the
+burning of Servetus, entitled _A Defence of the Orthodox Faith_, bore
+upon its title page the significant sentence "In which it is proved that
+heretics may justly be coerced with the sword." His follower, Knox, was
+only carrying out the teaching of the master in declaring that
+"provoking the people to idolatry ought not to be exempt from the
+penalty of death," and that "magistrates and people are bound to do so
+(inflict the death penalty) unless they will provoke the wrath of God
+against themselves." In every Protestant country laws against heresy
+were enacted. In Switzerland, Geneva, Sweden, England, Germany,
+Scotland, nowhere could one differ from the established faith without
+running the risk of torture and death. Even in America, with the
+exception of Maryland,[26] the same state of things prevailed. In some
+States Catholic priests were subject to imprisonment for life, Quaker
+women were whipped through the streets at the cart's tail, old men of
+the same denomination were pressed to death between stones. At a later
+date (about 1770) laws against heresy were general. "Anyone," says
+Fiske,--
+
+     who should dare to speculate too freely about the nature of Christ,
+     or the philosophy of the plan of salvation, or to express a doubt
+     as to the plenary inspiration of every word between the two covers
+     of the Bible, was subject to fine and imprisonment. The tithing man
+     still arrested the Sabbath-breakers, and shut them up in the town
+     cage in the market-place; he stopped all unnecessary riding or
+     driving on Sunday, and haled people off to the meeting-house
+     whether they would or no.[27]
+
+[26] The case of Maryland is peculiar. But the reason for the toleration
+there seems to have been due to the desire to give Catholics a measure
+of freedom they could not have elsewhere in Protestant countries.
+
+[27] For a good sketch of the Puritan Sunday in New England see _The
+Sabbath in Puritan New England_, by Alice Morse Earle. For an account of
+religious intolerance see the account of the Blue Laws of Connecticut as
+contained in Hart's _American History told by Contemporaries_, Vol. I.
+
+And we have to remember that the intolerance shown in America was
+manifested by men who had left their own country on the ostensible
+ground of freedom of conscience. As a matter of fact, in Christian
+society genuine freedom of conscience was practically unknown. What was
+meant by the expression was the right to express one's own religious
+opinions, with the privilege of oppressing all with whom one happened to
+disagree. The majority of Christians would have as indignantly
+repudiated the assertion that they desired to tolerate non-Christian or
+anti-Christian opinions as they would the charge of themselves holding
+Atheistic ones.
+
+How deeply ingrained was the principle that the established religion was
+justified in suppressing all others may be seen from a reading of such
+works as Locke's _Letters on Toleration_, and Milton's _Areopagitica_,
+which stand in the forefront of the world's writings in favour of
+liberty of thought and speech. Yet Locke was of opinion that "Those are
+not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises,
+covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no
+hold upon an Atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in
+thought, dissolves all." And Milton, while holding that it was more
+prudent and wholesome that many be tolerated rather than all compelled,
+yet hastened to add "I mean not tolerated popery and open superstition,
+which as it extirpates all religious and civil supremacies so should
+itself be extirpated." In short, intolerance had become so established a
+part of a society saturated in religion that not even the most liberal
+could conceive a state of being in which all opinions should be placed
+upon an equal footing.
+
+Yet a change was all the time taking place in men's opinions on this
+matter, a change which has in recent years culminated in the affirmation
+of the principle that the coercion of opinion is of all things the least
+desirable and the least beneficial to society at large. And as in so
+many other cases, it was not the gradual maturing of that principle that
+attracted attention so much as its statement in something like a
+complete and logical form. The tracing of the conditions which have led
+to this tremendous revolution in public opinion will complete our survey
+of the subject.
+
+It has already been pointed out that in primitive societies a very
+important fact is that the relation of the individual to the community
+is of a different nature from that which exists in a later stage of
+culture. The whole is responsible for the part in a very literal sense,
+and especially so in regard to religious beliefs. Individual rights and
+responsibilities have but a precarious existence at best. The individual
+exists far more for the benefit of the tribe than the tribe can be said
+to exist for the benefit of the individual. The sense of corporate
+responsibility is strong, and even in secular affairs we see this
+constantly manifested. When a member of one tribe inflicts an injury
+upon a member of another tribe, retaliation on any one of the group to
+which the offending person belongs will suffice. We see the remnants of
+this primitive view of life in the feuds of schoolboys, and it is also
+manifested in the relations of nations, which move upon a lower ethical
+level than do individuals. Most wars are ostensibly waged because in
+some obscure way the nation is held responsible for the offences of one
+or more individuals. And an instance of the same feeling is seen in the
+now obsolete practice of punishing the members of a man's family when
+the parents happen to have committed certain offences.
+
+In religion, as we have already pointed out, the sense of corporate
+responsibility completely governs primitive man's sense of his relation
+to the tribal gods. In the development of the tribal chief into the
+tribal god the ghost is credited with much the same powers as the man,
+with the added terror of having more subtle and terrible ways of
+inflicting punishment. The man who offends the ghost or the god is a
+standing danger to the whole of the tribe. The whole of the tribe
+becomes responsible for the offence committed, and the tribe in self
+protection must not alone take measures to punish the offender, but must
+also guard itself against even the possibility of the offence being
+perpetrated. The consequence is that there is not a religion in which
+one can fail to trace the presence of this primitive conception of
+personal and social responsibility, and consequently, where we cannot
+find persecution, more or less severe, and also more or less organized,
+in the interest of what is believed to be social welfare. In the case of
+the failure of the Spanish Armada to effect the conquest of England, the
+Spanish monarch was convinced that its non-success was partly due to his
+not having weeded out the heretics from his own dominion before
+troubling about the heretics abroad. And right down to our own day there
+has not been a national calamity the cause of which has not been found
+by numbers of religious people to lie in the fact that some members of
+the suffering nation have offended God. The heretic becomes, as we have
+already said, a social danger of the gravest description. Society must
+be guarded against his presence just as we learn to-day to protect
+ourselves against the presence of a death-dealing germ. The suppression
+of heresy thus becomes a social duty, because it protects society from
+the anger of the gods. The destruction of the heretic is substantially
+an act of social sanitation. Given the primitive conception of religion,
+affiliated to the existing conception of corporate responsibility, and
+persecution becomes one of the most important of social duties.
+
+This, I believe, is not alone the root of persecution, but it serves to
+explain as nothing else can its persistence in social life and the fact
+of its having became almost a general mental characteristic. To realize
+this one need only bear in mind the overpowering part played by
+religious conceptions in early communities. There is nothing done that
+is not more or less under the assumed control of supernatural agencies.
+Fear is the dominant emotion in relation to the gods, and experience
+daily proves that there is nothing that can make men so brutal and so
+callous to the sufferings of others as can religious belief. And while
+there has all along been a growing liberation of the mind from the
+control of religion, the process has been so slow that this particular
+product of religious rule has had time to root itself very deeply in
+human nature. And it is in accordance with all that we know of the order
+of development that the special qualities engendered by a particular set
+of conditions should persist long after the conditions themselves have
+passed away.
+
+The conditions that co-operate in the final breaking down of the
+conviction of the morality of persecution are many and various.
+Primarily, there is the change from the social state in which the
+conception of corporate responsibility is dominant to one in which there
+is a more or less clearly marked line between what concerns the
+individual alone and what concerns society as a whole. This is
+illustrated in the growth from what Spencer called the military type of
+society to an industrial one. In the case of a militant type of society,
+to which the religious organization is so closely affiliated, a State is
+more self contained, and the governing principle is, to use a
+generalization of Sir Henry Maine's, status rather than contract. With
+the growth of commerce and industrialism there is developed a greater
+amount of individual initiative, a growing consideration for personal
+responsibility, and also the development of a sense of interdependence
+between societies. And the social developments that go on teach people,
+even though the lesson may be unconsciously learned, to value each
+other in terms of social utility rather than in terms of belief in
+expressed dogmas. They are brought daily into contact with men of widely
+differing forms of opinion; they find themselves working in the same
+movements, and participating in the same triumphs or sharing the same
+defeats. Insensibly the standard of judgment alters; the strength of the
+purely social feelings overpowers the consciousness of theological
+differences, and thus serves to weaken the frame of mind from which
+persecution springs.
+
+The growing complexity of life leads to the same end. Where the
+conditions of life are simple, and the experiences through which people
+pass are often repeated, and where, moreover, the amount of positive
+knowledge current is small, conclusions are reached rapidly, and the
+feeling of confidence in one's own opinions is not checked by seeing
+others draw different conclusions from the same premises. Under such
+conditions an opinion once formed is not easily or quickly changed.
+Experience which makes for wider knowledge makes also for greater
+caution in forming opinions and a greater readiness to tolerate
+conclusions of an opposite character at which others may have arrived.
+
+Finally, on the purely intellectual side one must reckon with the growth
+of new ideas, and of knowledge that is in itself quite inconsistent with
+the established creed. If the primary reason for killing the heretic is
+that he is a social danger, one who will draw down on the tribe the
+vengeance of the gods, the strength of that feeling against the heretic
+must be weakened by every change that lessens men's belief in the power
+of their deity. And one must assume that every time a fresh piece of
+definite knowledge was acquired towards the splendid structure that now
+meets us in the shape of modern science there was accomplished
+something that involved an ultimate weakening of the belief in the
+supremacy of the gods. The effect is cumulative, and in time it is bound
+to make itself felt. Religious opinion after religious opinion finds
+itself attacked and its power weakened. Things that were thought to be
+solely due to the action of the gods are found to occur without their
+being invoked, while invocation does not make the slightest difference
+to the production of given results. Scientific generalizations in
+astronomy, in physics, in biology, etc., follow one another, each
+helping to enforce the lesson that it really does not matter what
+opinions a man may hold about the gods provided his opinions about the
+world in which he is living and the forces with which he _must_ deal are
+sound and solidly based. In a world where opinion is in a healthy state
+of flux it is impossible for even religion to remain altogether
+unchanged. So we have first a change in the rigidity of religious
+conceptions, then a greater readiness to admit the possibility of error,
+and, finally, the impossibility of preventing the growth and expression
+of definitely non-religious and anti-religious opinions in a community
+where all sorts of opinions cannot but arise.
+
+With the social consequences of religious persecution, and particularly
+of Christian persecution, I have dealt elsewhere, and there is no need
+to repeat the story here. I have been here concerned with making plain
+the fact that persecution does not arise with a misunderstanding of
+religion, or with a decline of what is vaguely called "true religion,"
+nor does it originate in the alliance of some Church with the secular
+State. It lies imbedded in the very nature of religion itself. With
+polytheism there is a certain measure of toleration to gods outside the
+tribe, because here the admitted existence of a number of gods is part
+of the order of things. But this tendency to toleration disappears when
+we come to the monotheistic stage which inevitably treats the claim to
+existence of other gods in the same spirit as an ardent royalist treats
+the appearance of a pretender to the throne. To tolerate such is a crime
+against the legitimate ruler. And when we get the Christian doctrine of
+eternal damnation and salvation tacked on to the religious idea we have
+all the material necessary to give the persecutor the feeling of moral
+obligation, and to make him feel that he is playing the part of a real
+saviour to society.
+
+At bottom that is one of the chief injuries that a religion such as
+Christianity inflicts on the race; it throws human feeling into some of
+the most objectionable forms, and provides a religious and moral
+justification for their expression. The very desire to benefit one's
+fellows, normally and naturally healthy, thus becomes under Christian
+influences an instrument of oppression and racial degradation. The
+Christian persecutor does not see himself for what he is, he pictures
+himself as a saviour of men's souls by suppressing the unbeliever who
+would corrupt them. And if Christianity be true he is correct in
+thinking himself such. I have no hesitation in saying that if
+Christianity be true persecution becomes the most important of duties. A
+community that is thoroughly Christian is bound to persecute, and as a
+mere matter of historic fact every wholly Christian community has
+persecuted. The community which says that a man may take any religion he
+pleases, or go without one altogether if he so chooses, proclaims its
+disbelief in the importance of religion. The measure of religious
+freedom is also the measure of religious indifference.
+
+There are some experiences through which a human being may pass the
+effects of which he never completely outgrows. Usually he may appear to
+have put them quite out of his mind, but there are times when he is
+lifted a little out of the normal, and then the recollection of what he
+has passed through comes back with terrifying force. And acute observers
+may also be able to perceive that even in normal circumstances what he
+has passed through manifests itself for the worse in his everyday
+behaviour. So with religion and the life history of the race. For
+thousands of generations the race has been under the influence of a
+teaching that social welfare depended upon a right belief about the
+gods. The consequence of this has been that persecution became deeply
+ingrained in human nature and in the social traditions which play so
+large a part in the character building of each new generation. We have
+as yet hardly got beyond the tradition that lack of religion robs a man
+of social rights and dispenses with the necessity for courteous and
+considered treatment. And there is, therefore, small cause for wonder
+that the element of intolerance should still manifest itself in
+connection with non-religious aspects of life. But the certain thing is
+that throughout the whole of our social history it is religion that has
+been responsible for the maintenance of persecution as a social duty.
+Something has been done in more recent times to weaken its force, the
+growth of science, the rationalizing of one institution after
+another--in a word, the secularizing of life--is slowly creating more
+tolerant relations between people. But the poison is deep in the blood,
+and will not be eradicated in a generation. Religion is still here, and
+so long as it remains it will never cease--under the guise of an appeal
+to the higher sentiments of man--to make its most effective appeals to
+passions of which the best among us are most heartily ashamed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+WHAT IS TO FOLLOW RELIGION?
+
+
+Books on the future of religion are numerous, and to one blessed with a
+sense of humour, full of entertainment. They are also not without
+instruction of a psychological kind. Reliable information as to what the
+future will be like they certainly do not give, but they do unlock the
+innermost desires of the writers thereof. They express what the writers
+of the prophecies would like the future to be. And they create the
+future state on earth exactly as devout believers have built up the
+character of their heaven beyond the clouds. Every form of faith which
+they disagree with is rejected as not possessing the element of
+vitality, with the result that there is only their own form left. And
+that, they triumphantly proclaim, is the religion of the future.
+
+But the future has an old-fashioned and disconcerting habit of
+disappointing expectations. The factors that govern human nature are so
+many and so complex, their transmutations and combinations are so
+numerous, that it is as well to tread cautiously, and to a very
+considerable extent leave the future to take care of itself. At the
+utmost all that we can do with safety is to detect tendencies, and to
+hasten or retard their development as we think them good or bad. The
+factors that make up a science of human nature are not to-day so
+well-known and so well understood that we can depict the state of
+society a century hence with the same certainty that we can foretell the
+position of the planet Venus in the year 2000.
+
+My aim in this chapter is, therefore, not to describe precisely what
+will be the state of society when religious belief has ceased to exist.
+It is rather to offer a general reply to those gloomy individuals who
+declare that when the aims of the Freethinker are fully realized we
+shall find that in destroying religion we have destroyed pretty much all
+that makes human life worth living. We have managed to empty the baby
+out with the bath.
+
+The most general form of this fear is expressed in calling Freethought a
+creed of negation, or a policy of destruction, and assuring the world
+that mankind can never rest content with such things. That may be quite
+true, but we fail to see in what way it touches Freethought. A
+Freethought that is wholly destructive, that is a mere negation, is a
+creation of the pulpit, and belongs to the same class of imaginative
+efforts as the pietistic outbursts of famous unbelievers on their
+death-beds. That such things could have obtained so wide a currency, and
+be looked upon as quite natural occurrences, offers demonstrative
+evidence of the paralyzing power of Christian belief on the human mind.
+
+As a matter of fact, neither reformers in general nor Freethinkers in
+particular deserve the charge of being mere destructionists. They are
+both far more interested in building up than they are in pulling down,
+and it is sheer lack of understanding that fixes the eyes of so many on
+one aspect of the reformer's task and so steadily ignores the other one.
+Of course, the phenomenon is not an unusual one. In a revolution it is
+the noise, the street fighting, the breaking of old rules and the
+shattering of established institutions that attract the most attention.
+The deeper aims of the revolutionists, the hidden social forces of which
+the revolution is the expression, the work of reconstruction that is
+attempted, escape notice. The old order shrieks its loudest at the
+threat of dissolution, the new can hardly make its voice heard.
+Carlyle's division of the people into the shrieking thousands and the
+dumb millions is eternally true. And even the millions are impressed
+with the importance of the thousands because of the noise they are able
+to make.
+
+Actually the charge to which reformers in general are open is that of a
+too great zeal for reconstruction, a belittling of the difficulties that
+stand in the way of a radical change. They are apt to make too small an
+allowance for the occurrence of the unexpected and the incalculable,
+both of which are likely to interfere with the fruition of the most
+logical of schemes. And they are so obsessed with reconstruction that
+destruction seems no more than an incident by the way. A little less
+eagerness for reconstruction might easily result in a greater concern
+for what is being pulled down. The two greatest "destructive" movements
+of modern times--the French revolution of 1789 and the Russian
+revolution--both illustrate this point. In both movements the leading
+figures were men who were obsessed with the idea of building a new
+world. They saw this new world so clearly that the old one was almost
+ignored. And this is equally true of the literature that precedes and is
+the mouthpiece of such movements. The leading appeal is always to what
+is to be, what existed is only used as a means of enforcing the
+desirability of the new order. It is, in short, the mania for
+reconstruction that is chiefly responsible for the destruction which so
+horrifies those whose vision can never see anything but the world to
+which they have become accustomed.
+
+In parenthesis it may be remarked that it is a tactical blunder to make
+one's attack upon an existing institution or idea depend upon the
+attractiveness of the ideal state depicted. It enables critics to fix
+attention on the precise value of the proposed remedy instead of
+discussing whether the suggested reform is necessary. The attacker is
+thus placed in the position of the defender and the point at issue
+obscured. This is, that a certain institution or idea has outgrown its
+usefulness and its removal is necessary to healthy growth. And it may
+well be that its removal is all that is required to enable the social
+organism to function naturally and healthily. The outworn institution is
+often the grit in the machine that prevents it running smoothly.
+
+This by the way. The fact remains that some of our best teachers have
+shown themselves apt to stumble in the matter. Without belief in
+religion they have too often assumed that its removal would leave a
+serious gap in life, and so would necessitate the creation of a number
+of substitutes to "take the place of religion." Thus, no less profound a
+thinker than Herbert Spencer remarks in the preface to his _Data of
+Ethics_:--
+
+     Few things can happen more disastrous than the death and decay of a
+     regulative system no longer fit, before another and a better
+     regulative system has grown up to replace it. Most of those who
+     reject the current creed appear to assume that the controlling
+     agency furnished by it may safely be thrown aside, and the vacancy
+     left unfilled by any other controlling agency.
+
+Had Spencer first of all set himself to answer the question, "What is it
+that the Freethinker sets himself to remove?" or even the question,
+"What is the actual control exerted by religion?" one imagines that the
+passage above given would either never have been written or would have
+been differently worded. And when a man such as Spencer permits himself
+to put the matter in this form one need not be surprised at the ordinary
+believer assuming that he has put an unanswerable question to the
+Freethinker when he asks what it is that we propose to put in the place
+of religion, with the assumption that the question is on all fours with
+the enquiry as to what substitutes we have for soap and coal if we
+destroy all stocks of these articles.
+
+The question assumes more than any scientific Freethinker would ever
+grant. It takes for granted the statement that religion does at present
+perform some useful function in the State. And that is the very
+statement that is challenged. Nor does the Freethinker deny that some
+"controlling agency" is desirable. What he does say is that in the
+modern State, at least, religion exerts no control for good, that its
+activities make for stagnation or retrogression, that its removal will
+make for the healthier operation of other agencies, and that to these
+other and non-religious agencies belongs the credit which is at present
+given to religion.
+
+Moreover, Spencer should not have needed reminding that systems of
+thought while they have any vital relation to life will successfully
+defy all attempts at eradication. The main cause of the decay of
+religion is not the attack made upon it by the forces of reasoned
+unbelief. That attack is largely the conscious expression of a revolt
+against a system that has long lost all touch with reality, and so has
+ceased to derive support from current life and thought. From this point
+of view the reformer is what he is because he is alive to the drift of
+events, susceptible to those social influences which affect all more or
+less, and his strength is derived from the thousand and one subtle
+influences that extend from generation to generation and express
+themselves in what we are pleased to call the story of civilization.
+
+But the quotation given does represent a fairly common point of view,
+and it is put in a form that is most favourable to religious
+pretensions. For it assumes that religion does really in our modern
+lives perform a function so useful that it would be the height of folly
+to remove it before we had something equally useful to take its place.
+But something in the place of religion is a thing that no scientific
+Freethinker desires. It is not a new religion, or another religion that
+the world needs, but the removal of religion from the control of life,
+and a restatement of those social qualities that have hitherto been
+expressed in a religious form so that their real nature will be apparent
+to all. Then we shall at last begin to make progress with small chance
+of getting a serious set-back.
+
+This does not, of course, deny that there are many things associated
+with religion for the absence of which society would have cause for
+regret. It is part of the Freethought case that this is so. And it may
+also be admitted that large numbers of people honestly believe that
+their religious beliefs serve as motives to the expression of their
+better qualities. That, again, is part of the delusion we are fighting.
+We cannot agree that religion, as such, contains anything that is
+essentially useful to the race. It has maintained its power chiefly
+because of its association with serviceable social qualities, and it is
+part of the work of Freethought to distinguish between what properly
+belongs to religion and what has become associated with it during its
+long history. At present the confusion exists and the fact need cause no
+surprise. At best the instincts of man are deep-laid, the motives to
+conduct are mostly of an obscure kind, and it would be cause for
+surprise if, seeing how closely religion is associated with every phase
+of primitive life, and how persistent are primitive modes of thinking,
+there were not this confusion between the actual part played by religion
+in life and the part assigned it by tradition.
+
+At any rate, it is idle to argue as though human conduct was governed by
+a single idea--that of religion. At the most religious beliefs represent
+no more than a part of the vast mass of influences that determine human
+effort. And when we see how largely religious beliefs are dependent upon
+constant stimulation and protection for their existence, it seems
+extremely unlikely that they can hold a very vital relation to life. The
+impotency of religion in matters of conduct is, too, decisively shown in
+the fact that it is quite impossible to arrange men and women in a scale
+of values that shall correspond with the kind or the fervency of their
+religious beliefs. A religious person may be a useful member of society
+or he may be a quite useless one. A profound religious conviction may be
+accompanied by the loftiest of ideals or by the meanest of aims. The
+unbeliever may be, and often is, a better man than the believer. No
+business man would ever think of making a man's religion the condition
+of taking one into his service, or if he did the general opinion would
+be that it indicated bigotry and not shrewdness. We find it quite
+impossible to determine the nature of religious belief by watching the
+way people behave. In no stage of social life does religion provide us
+with anything in the nature of a differentiating factor.
+
+It was argued by the late Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, himself a
+Freethinker, that as men have for a long time been in the habit of
+associating moral feelings with the belief in God, a severance of the
+two may entail moral disaster. It is, of course, hard to say what may
+not happen in certain cases, but it is quite certain that such a
+consequence could not follow on any general scale. One has only to bring
+a statement of this kind down from the region of mere theory to that of
+definite fact to see how idle the fear is. If, instead of asserting in a
+vague way that the moral life is in some way bound up with religious
+beliefs we ask what moral action or moral disposition is so connected,
+we realize the absurdity of the statement. Professor Leuba well says:--
+
+     Our alleged essential dependence upon transcendental beliefs is
+     belied by the most common experiences of daily life. Who does not
+     feel the absurdity of the opinion that the lavish care for a sick
+     child by a mother is given because of a belief in God and
+     immortality? Are love of father and mother on the part of children,
+     affection and serviceableness between brothers and sisters,
+     straightforwardness and truthfulness between business men
+     essentially dependent upon these beliefs? What sort of person would
+     be the father who would announce divine punishment or reward in
+     order to obtain the love and respect of his children? And if there
+     are business men preserved from unrighteousness by the fear of
+     future punishment, they are far more numerous who are deterred by
+     the threat of human law. Most of them would take their chances with
+     heaven a hundred times before they would once with society, or
+     perchance with the imperative voice of humanity heard in the
+     conscience (_The Belief in God and Immortality_, p. 323).
+
+And in whatever degree the fear may be justified in special cases, it
+applies to any attempt whatever that may be made to disturb existing
+conventions. Luther complained that some of his own converts were
+behaving worse as Protestants than they behaved as Catholics, and even
+in the New Testament we have the same unfavourable comparison made of
+many of Christ's followers when compared with the Pagans around them. A
+transference of allegiance may easily result in certain ill-balanced
+minds kicking over the traces, but in the long run, and with the mass,
+the deeper social needs are paramount. There was the same fear expressed
+concerning man's political and social duties when the relations of
+Church and State were first challenged. Yet the connection between the
+two has been quite severed in some countries, and very much weakened in
+many more, without society in the least suffering from the change. On
+the contrary, one may say that man's duties towards the State have been
+more intelligently perceived and more efficiently discharged in
+proportion as those religious considerations that once ruled have been
+set on one side.
+
+The reply of the Freethinker to the question of "What is to follow
+religion?" may, therefore, easily be seen. In effect it is, "Nothing at
+all." In any study of social evolution the properly equipped student
+commences his task with the full conviction that whatever the future may
+be like its germs are already with us. If nature does not "abhor a
+vacuum" it has at least an intense dislike to absolute beginnings. The
+future will be an elaboration of the present as the present is an
+elaboration of the past. For good or evil that principle remains
+unimpeachable.
+
+The essential question is not, What is to follow religion? but rather
+what will the disappearance of religion affect that is of real value to
+the world. The moment the question is raised in this unambiguous manner
+the answer suggests itself. For assume that by some strange and
+unexpected happening there set in a raging epidemic of common sense.
+Assume that as a consequence of this the world was to awake with its
+mind completely cleared of all belief in religion. What would be the
+effect of the transformation? It is quite clear that it would not affect
+any of the fundamental processes of life. The tragi-comedy of life would
+still be performed, it would run through the same number of acts, and it
+would end in the same happy or unhappy manner. Human beings would still
+get born, they would grow up, they would fall in love, they would marry,
+they would beget their kind, and they would in turn pass away to make
+room for another generation. Birth and death, with all their
+accompanying feelings, would remain. Human society would continue, all
+the glories of art, the greatness of science, all the marvels and
+wonders of the universe would be there whether we believed in a God or
+not. The only difference would be that we should no longer associate
+these things with the existence of a God. And in that respect we should
+be following the same course of development that has been followed in
+many other departments of life. We do not nowadays associate the
+existence of spirits with a good or a bad harvest, the anger of God with
+an epidemic, or the good-will of deity with a spell of fine weather. Yet
+in each case there was once the same assumed association between these
+things, and the same fears of what would happen if that association was
+discarded. We are only carrying the process a step further; all that is
+required is a little courage to take the step. In short, there is not a
+single useful or worthy quality, intellectual or moral, that can
+possibly suffer from the disappearance of religion.
+
+On this point we may again quote from Professor Leuba:--
+
+     The heroism of religious martyrs is often flaunted as marvellous
+     instances of the unique sustaining strength derived from the belief
+     in a personal God and the anticipation of heaven. And yet for
+     every martyr of this sort there has been one or more heroes who has
+     risked his life for a noble cause, without the comfort which
+     transcendental beliefs may bring. The very present offers almost
+     countless instances of martyrs to the cause of humanity, who are
+     strangers to the idea of God and immortality. How many men and
+     women in the past decade gladly offered and not infrequently lost
+     their lives in the cause of freedom, or justice, or science? In the
+     monstrous war we are now witnessing, is there a less heroic defence
+     of home and nation, and less conscious self-renunciation among the
+     non-believers than among the professed Christians? Have modern
+     nations shown a more intense or a purer patriotism than ancient
+     Greece and Rome, where men did not pretend to derive inspiration
+     for their deeds of devotion in the thoughts of their gods.... The
+     fruitful deeds of heroism are at bottom inspired not by the thought
+     of God or a future life, but by innate tendencies or promptings
+     that have reference to humanity. Self sacrifice, generosity, is
+     rooted in nothing less superficial and accidental than social
+     instincts older than the human race, for they are already present
+     in a rudimentary form in the higher animals.
+
+These are quite familiar statements to all Freethinkers, but to a great
+many Christians they may come with all the force of a new revelation.
+
+In the earlier pages of this work I have given what I conceive solid
+reasons for believing that every one of the social and individual
+virtues is born of human intercourse and can never be seriously deranged
+for any length of time, so long as human society endures. The scale of
+values may well undergo a change with the decay of religion, but that is
+something which is taking place all the time, provided society is not in
+a state of absolute stagnation. There is not any change that takes
+place in society that does not affect our view of the relative value of
+particular qualities. The value we place upon personal loyalty to a king
+is not what it once was. At one stage a man is ready to place the whole
+of his fortune at the disposal of a monarch merely because he happens to
+be his "anointed" king. To-day, the man who had no better reason for
+doing that would be looked upon as an idiot. Unquestioning obedience to
+established authority, which once played so high a part in the education
+of children, is now ranked very low by all who understand what genuine
+education means. From generation to generation we go on revising our
+estimate of the value of particular qualities, and the world is the
+better for the revision. And that is what we may assume will occur with
+the decay of religious belief. We shall place a higher value upon
+certain qualities than we do at present and a lower value upon others.
+But there will be no discarding the old qualities and creation of new
+ones. Human nature will be the same then as now, as it has been for
+thousands of years. The nature of human qualities will be more directly
+conceived and more intelligently applied, and that will be an
+undesirable development only for those who live by exploiting the
+ignorance and the folly of mankind.
+
+Thus, if one may venture upon a prophecy with regard to the
+non-religious society of the future it may be said with confidence that
+what are known as the ascetic qualities are not likely to increase in
+value. The cant of Christianity has always placed an excessive value
+upon what is called self-sacrifice. But there is no value in
+self-sacrifice, as such. At best it is only of value in exceptional
+circumstances, as an end it is worse than useless, and it may easily
+degenerate from a virtue to a vice. It assumed high rank with Christian
+teachers for various reasons. First, it was an expression of that
+asceticism which lies at the root of Christianity, second, because
+Christianity pictured this world as no more than a preparation for
+another, and taught that the deprivations and sufferings of the present
+life would be placed to a credit account in the next one, and third,
+because it helped men and women to tolerate injustice in this world and
+so helped the political game that governments and the Christian Church
+have together played. A really enlightened society would rank
+comparatively low the virtue of asceticism. Its principle would be not
+self-sacrifice but self-development.
+
+What must result from this is an enlargement of our conception of
+justice and also of social reform. Both of these things occupy a very
+low place in the Christian scale of virtues. Social reform it has never
+bothered seriously about, and in its earlier years simply ignored. A
+people who were looking for the end of the world, whose teaching was
+that it was for man's spiritual good to suffer, and who looked for all
+help to supernatural intervention, could never have had seriously in
+their minds what we understand by social reform. And so with the
+conception of Justice. There is much of this in pre-Christian
+literature, and its entrance into the life and thought of modern Europe
+can be traced directly back to Greek and Roman sources. But the work of
+the Christian, while it may have been to heal wounds, was not to prevent
+their infliction. It was to minister to poverty, not to remove those
+conditions that made poverty inevitable.
+
+A Spanish writer has put this point so well that I cannot do better than
+quote him. He says:--
+
+     The notion of justice is as entirely foreign to the spirit of
+     Christianity as is that of intellectual honesty. It lies wholly
+     outside the field of its ethical vision. Christianity--I am not
+     referring to interpretations disclaimed as corruptions or
+     applications which may be set down to frailty and error, but to the
+     most idealized conceptions of its substance and the most exalted
+     manifestations of its spirit--Christianity has offered consolation
+     and comfort to men who suffered under injustice, but of that
+     injustice itself it has remained absolutely incognizant. It has
+     called upon the weary and heavy laden, upon the suffering and the
+     afflicted, it has proclaimed to them the law of love, the duty of
+     mercy and forgiveness, the Fatherhood of God; but in that torment
+     of religious and ethical emotion which has impressed men as the
+     summit of the sublime, and been held to transcend all other ethical
+     ideals, common justice, common honesty have no place. The ideal
+     Christian is seen in the saint who is seen descending like an angel
+     from heaven amid the welter of human misery, among the victims of
+     ruthless oppression and injustice ... but the cause of that misery
+     lies wholly outside the range of his consciousness; no glimmer of
+     right or wrong enters into his view of it. It is the established
+     order of things, the divinely appointed government of the world,
+     the trial laid upon sinners by divine ordinance. St. Vincent de
+     Paul visits the hell of the French galleys; he proclaims the
+     message of love and calls sinners to repentance; but to the
+     iniquity which creates and maintains that hell he remains
+     absolutely indifferent. He is appointed Grand Almoner to his Most
+     Christian Majesty. The world might groan in misery under the
+     despotism of oppressors, men's lives and men's minds might be
+     enslaved, crushed and blighted; the spirit of Christianity would go
+     forth and _comfort_ them, but it would never occur to it to redress
+     a single one of those wrongs. It has remained unconscious of them.
+     To those wrongs, to men's right to be delivered from them, it was
+     by nature completely blind. In respect to justice, to right and
+     wrong, the spirit of Christianity is not so much immoral as amoral.
+     The notion was as alien to it as the notion of truth. Included in
+     its code was, it might be controversially alleged, an old formula,
+     "the golden rule," a commonplace of most literature, which was
+     popular in the East from China to Asia Minor; but that isolated
+     precept was never interpreted in the sense of justice. It meant
+     forgiveness, forbearing, kindness, but never mere justice, common
+     equity; those virtues were far too unemotional in aspect to appeal
+     to the religious enthusiast. The renunciation of life and all its
+     vanities, the casting overboard of all sordid cares for its
+     maintenance, the suppression of desire, prodigal almsgiving, the
+     consecration of a life, the value of which had disappeared in his
+     eyes, to charity and love, non-resistance, passive obedience, the
+     turning of the other cheek to an enemy, the whole riot of these
+     hyperbolic ethical emotions could fire the Christian consciousness,
+     while it remained utterly unmoved by every form of wrong, iniquity
+     and injustice (Dr. Falta de Gracia. Cited by Dr. R. Briffault, _The
+     Making of Humanity_, pp. 334-5.)
+
+That, we may assume, will be one of the most striking consequences of
+the displacement of Christianity in the social economy. There will be
+less time wasted on what is called philanthropic work--which is often
+the most harmful of all social labours--and more attention to the
+removal of those conditions that have made the display of philanthropy
+necessary. There will not be less feeling for the distressed or the
+unfortunate, but it will be emotion under the guidance of the intellect,
+and the dominant feeling will be that of indignation against the
+conditions that make human suffering and degradation inevitable, rather
+than a mere gratification of purely egoistic feeling which leaves the
+source of the evil untouched.
+
+That will mean a rise in the scale of values of what one may call the
+intellectual virtues--the duty of truthseeking and truth speaking.
+Hitherto the type of character held up for admiration by Christianity
+has been that of the blind believer who allowed nothing to stand in the
+way of his belief, who required no proofs of its truth and allowed no
+disproofs to enter his mind. A society in which religion does not hold a
+controlling place is not likely to place a very high value upon such
+precepts as "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,"
+or "Though he slay me yet will I trust him." But a very high value will
+be placed upon the duty of investigation and the right of criticism. And
+one cannot easily over-estimate the consequences of a generation or two
+brought up in an atmosphere where such teachings obtain. It would mean a
+receptiveness to new ideas, a readiness to overhaul old institutions, a
+toleration of criticism such as would rapidly transform the whole mental
+atmosphere and with it enormously accentuate the capacity for, and the
+rapidity of, social progress.
+
+There is also to be borne in mind the effect of the liberation of the
+enormous amount of energy at present expended in the service of
+religion. Stupid religious controversialists often assume that it is
+part of the Freethinker's case that religion enlists in its service bad
+men, and much time is spent in proving that religious people are mostly
+worthy ones. That could hardly be otherwise in a society where the
+overwhelming majority of men and women profess a religion of some sort.
+But that is, indeed, not the Freethinker's case at all, and if the
+badness of some religious people is cited it is only in answer to the
+foolish argument that religionists are better than others. The real
+complaint against religion is of a different kind altogether. Just as
+the worst thing that one can say about a clergyman intellectually is,
+not that he does not believe in what he preaches, but that he does, so
+the most serious indictment of current religion is not that it enlists
+in its service bad characters, but that it dissipates the energy of
+good men and women in a perfectly useless manner. The dissipation of
+Christian belief means the liberating of a store of energy for service
+that is at present being expended on ends that are without the least
+social value. A world without religion would thus be a world in which
+the sole ends of endeavour would be those of human betterment or human
+enlightenment, and probably in the end the two are one. For there is no
+real betterment without enlightenment, even though there may come for a
+time enlightenment without betterment. It would leave the world with all
+the means of intellectual and aesthetic and social enjoyment that exist
+now, and one may reasonably hope that it will lead to their cultivation
+and diffusion over the whole of society.
+
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+    Chapter V.--The Argument from Causation. Chapter VI.--The Argument
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+    II.--SUBSTITUTES FOR ATHEISM.--Chapter X.--A Question of Prejudice.
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+    CONTENTS: Chapter I.--Slavery and the Bible. Chapter II.--Paganism
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+    open the Campaign. Chapter VII.--Buechner's "Force and Matter."
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+    Chapter X.--Atheism and Agnosticism. Chapter XI.--The French
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+
+    A careful and exhaustive examination of the meaning of Materialism
+    and its present standing, together with its bearing on various
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+Transcriber's Note:
+
+
+Minor punctuation errors and letters printed upside down have been
+corrected without note. Inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. common-place vs.
+commonplace) has been retained. Variant and unusual spellings used
+consistently (e.g. indispensible) have also been kept.
+
+The following corrections and changes were made to the text:
+
+p. 65: knowlelge to knowledge (accumulation of knowledge)
+
+p. 98: upder to under (under the old Greek)
+
+p. 102: extra "to" removed (owe their belief to the philosophical)
+
+p. 114: sterotyped to stereotyped (stereotyped phraseology)
+
+p. 132: developes to develops (organ or an organism develops)
+
+p. 157: it to is (After this lame conclusion it is difficult)
+
+p. 186: percieves to perceives (provided a man perceives)
+
+p. 190: Zeigler to Ziegler (Professor Ziegler)
+
+p. 215: mayority to majority (majority of Christians)
+
+p. 216: precariout to precarious (precarious existence at best)
+
+Advertisements: entrace to entrance (an entrance fee of ten shillings)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Grammar of Freethought, by Chapman Cohen
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