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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30882-8.txt b/30882-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..475a4ba --- /dev/null +++ b/30882-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3306 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of God and Mr. Wells, by William Archer + +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: God and Mr. Wells + A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' + +Author: William Archer + +Release Date: January 7, 2010 [EBook #30882] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND MR. WELLS *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Ritu Aggarwal and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + GOD AND MR. WELLS + + A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF + "GOD THE INVISIBLE KING" + + + + + GOD AND MR. WELLS + + A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF + "GOD THE INVISIBLE KING" + + By WILLIAM ARCHER + + + NEW YORK · ALFRED A. KNOPF · 1917 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY + ALFRED A. KNOPF + _Published, September, 1917_ + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +FOREWORD + + +As I look through the proofs of this little treatise, a twinge of +compunction comes upon me. That humane philosopher Mr. Dooley has +somewhere a saying to this effect: "When an astronomer tells me that +he has discovered a new planet, I would be the last man to brush the +fly off the end of his telescope." Would not this have been a good +occasion for a similar exercise of urbanity? Nay, may it not be said +that my criticism of _God the Invisible King_ is a breach of +discipline, like duelling in the face of the enemy? I am proud to +think that Mr. Wells and I are soldiers in the same army; ought we not +at all costs to maintain a united front? On the destructive side +(which I have barely touched upon) his book is brilliantly effective; +on the constructive side, if unconvincing, it is thoughtful, +imaginative, stimulating, a thing on the whole to be grateful for. +Ought one not rather to hold one's peace than to afford the common +enemy the encouragement of witnessing a squabble in the ranks? + +But we must not yield to the obsession of military metaphor. It is not +what the enemy thinks or what Mr. Wells or I think that matters--it is +what the men of the future ought to think, as being consonant with +their own nature and with the nature of things. Ideas, like organisms, +must abide the struggle for existence, and if the Invisible King is +fitted to survive, my criticism will reinforce and not invalidate him. +Even if he should come to life in a way one can scarcely anticipate, +his proceedings will have to be carefully watched. He cannot claim the +reticences of a "party truce." He will be all the better for a candid, +though I hope not captious, Opposition. + +I thought of printing on my title-page a motto from Mr. Bernard Shaw; +but it will perhaps come better here. "The fact," says Mr. Shaw, "that +a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the +fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of +credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no +means a necessity of life. Whether Socrates got as much happiness out +of life as Wesley is an unanswerable question; but a nation of +Socrateses would be much safer and happier than a nation of Wesleys; +and its individuals would be higher in the evolutionary scale. At all +events, it is in the Socratic man and not in the Wesleyan that our +hope lies now." + +Besides, it has yet to be proved that the believer in the Invisible +King is happier than the sceptic. + + LONDON, _May_ 24, 1917. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I The Great Adventurer 1 + II A God Who "Growed" 3 + III New Myths for Old 8 + IV The Apostle's Creed 32 + V When Is a God Not a God? 47 + VI For and Against Personification 73 + VII Back to the Veiled Being 101 + + + + +GOD AND MR. WELLS + + + + +I + +THE GREAT ADVENTURER + + +When it was known that Mr. H. G. Wells had set forth to discover God, +all amateurs of intellectual adventure were filled with pleasurable +excitement and anticipation. For is not Mr. Wells the great Adventurer +of latter-day literature? No quest is too perilous for him, no +forlorn-hope too daring. He led the first explorers to the moon. He +it was who lured the Martians to earth and exterminated them with +microbes. He has ensnared an angel from the skies and expiscated a +mermaid from the deep. He has mounted a Time Machine (of his own +invention) and gone careering down the vistas of the Future. But these +were comparatively commonplace feats. After all, there had been a +Jules Verne, there had been a Gulliver and a Peter Wilkins, there had +been a More, a Morris and a Bellamy. It might be that he was fitted +for far greater things. "There remains," we said to ourselves, "the +blue ribbon of intellectual adventure, the unachieved North Pole of +spiritual exploration. He has had countless predecessors in the +enterprise, some of whom have loudly claimed success; but their +log-books have been full of mere hallucinations and nursery tales. +What if it should be reserved for Mr. Wells to bring back the first +authentic news from a source more baffling than that of Nile or +Amazon--the source of the majestic stream of Being? What if it should +be given him to sign his name to the first truly-projected chart of +the scheme of things?" + +We almost held our breath in eager anticipation, just as we did when +there came from America a well-authenticated rumor that the problem of +flying had at last been solved. Were we on the brink of another and +much more momentous discovery? Was Mr. Wells to be the Peary of the +great quest? Or only the last of a thousand Dr. Cooks? + + + + +II + +A GOD WHO "GROWED" + + +Our excitement, our suspense, were so much wasted emotion. Mr. Wells's +enterprise was not at all what we had figured it to be. + + GOD + THE INVISIBLE KING + +is a very interesting, and even stimulating disquisition, full of a +fine social enthusiasm, and marked, in many passages, by deep poetic +feeling. But it is not a work of investigation into the springs of +Being. Mr. Wells explicitly renounces from the outset any dealings +with "cosmogony." It is a description of a way of thinking, a system +of nomenclature, which Mr. Wells declares to be extremely prevalent in +"the modern mind," from which he himself extracts much comfort and +fortification, and which he believes to be destined to regenerate the +world. + +But Mr. Wells will not have it that what is involved is a mere system +of nomenclature. He avers that he, in common with many other +like-minded persons, has achieved, not so much an intellectual +discovery as an emotional realisation, of something actual and +objective which he calls God. He does not, so far as I remember, use +the term "objective"; but as he insists that God is "a spirit, a +person, a strongly marked and knowable personality" (p. 5), "a single +spirit and a single person" (p. 18), "a great brother and leader of +our little beings" (p. 24) with much more to the same purpose, it +would seem that he must have in his mind an object external to us, no +mere subjective "stream of tendency," or anything of that sort. It +would of course be foolish to doubt the sincerity of the conviction +which he so constantly and so eagerly asserts. Nevertheless, one +cannot but put forward, even at this stage, the tentative theory that +he is playing tricks with his own mind, and attributing reality and +personality to something that was in its origin a figure of speech. He +has been hypnotized by the word God: + + As when we dwell upon a word we know, + Repeating, till the word we know so well + Becomes a wonder, and we know not why. + +At all events, "God the Invisible King" is not the creator and +sustainer of the universe. As to the origin of things Mr. Wells +professes the most profound agnosticism. "At the back of all known +things," he says, "there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of +existence is a Veiled Being, which seems to know nothing of life or +death or good or ill.... The new religion does not pretend that the +God of its life is that Being, or that he has any relation of control +or association with that Being. It does not even assert that God knows +all, or much more than we do, about that ultimate Being" (p. 14). Very +good; but--here is the first question which seems to arise out of the +Wellsian thesis--are we not entitled to ask of "the new religion" some +more definite account of the relation between "God" and "the Veiled +Being"? Surely it is not enough that it should simply refrain from +"asserting" anything at all on the subject. If "God" is outside +ourselves ("a Being, not us but dealing with us and through us," p. 6) +we cannot leave him hanging in the void, like the rope which the +Indian conjurer is fabled to throw up into the air till it hooks +itself on to nothingness. If we are to believe in him as a lever for +the righting of a world that has somehow run askew, we want to know +something of his fulcrum. Is it possible thus to dissociate him from +the Veiled Being, and proclaim him an independent, an agnostic God? Do +we really get over any difficulty--do we not rather create new +difficulties,--by saying, as Mr. Wells practically does, "Our God is +no metaphysician. He does not care, and very likely does not know, how +this tangle of existence came into being. He is only concerned to +disentangle it a little, to reduce the chaos of the world to some sort +of seemliness and order"? Is it an idle and presumptuous curiosity +which enquires whether we are to consider him co-ordinate with the +Veiled Being, and in that case probably hostile, or subordinate, and +in that case instrumental? Are we, in a word, to consider the earth a +little rebel state in the gigantic empire of the universe, working out +its own salvation under its Invisible King? Or are we to regard God as +the Viceroy of the Veiled Being, to whom, in that case, our ultimate +allegiance is due? + +I talked the other day to a young Australian who had been breaking new +land for wheat-growing. "What do you do?" I asked, "with the stumps of +the trees you fell? It must be a great labour to clear them out." "We +don't clear them out," he replied. "We use ploughs that automatically +rise when they come to a stump, and take the earth again on the other +side." I cannot but conjecture that Mr. Wells's thinking apparatus is +fitted with some such automatic appliance for soaring gaily over the +snags that stud the ploughlands of theology. + + + + +III + +NEW MYTHS FOR OLD + + +Before examining the particular attributes and activities of the +Invisible King, let us look a little more closely into the question +whether a God detached alike from man below and (so to speak) from +heaven above, is a thinkable God in whom any satisfaction can be +found. Mr. Wells must not reply (he probably would not think of doing +so) that "satisfaction" is no test: that he asserts an objective truth +which exists, like the Nelson Column or the Atlantic Ocean, whether we +find satisfaction in it or not. Though he does not mention the word +"pragmatism," his standards are purely pragmatist. He offers no jot or +tittle of evidence for the existence of the Invisible King, except +that it is a hypothesis which he finds to work extremely well. +Satisfaction and nothing else is the test he applies. So we have every +right to ask whether the renunciation of all concern about the Veiled +Being, and concentration upon the thought of a finite God, practically +unrelated to the infinite, can bring us any reasonable sense of +reconciliation to the nature of things. For that, I take it, is the +essence of religion. + +It was in no spirit of irony that I began this essay by expressing the +lively interest with which I learned that Mr. Wells was setting out on +the quest for God. The dogmatic agnosticism which declares it +impossible ever to know anything about the whence, how and why of the +universe does not seem to me more rational than any other dogma which +jumps from "not yet" to "never." Mr. Wells himself disclaims that +dogma. He says: "It may be that minds will presently appear among us +of such a quality that the face of that Unknown will not be altogether +hidden" (p. 108). And in another place (p. 15) he suggests that "our +God, the Captain of Mankind," may one day enable us to "pierce the +black wrappings," or, in other words, to get behind the veil. There is +nothing, then, unreasonable or absurd in man's incurable +inquisitiveness as to God, in the non-Wellsian sense of the term. God +simply means the key to the mystery of existence; and though the keys +hitherto offered have all either jammed or turned round and round +without unlocking anything, it does not follow that no real key exists +within the reach of human investigation or speculation. Therefore one +naturally feels a little stirring of hope at the news that a fresh and +keen intellect, untrammelled by the folk-lore theologies of the past, +is applying itself to the problem. It is always possible, however +improbable, that we may be helped a little forwarder on the path +towards realization. One comes back to the before-mentioned analogy of +flying. We had been assured over and over again, on the highest +authority, that it was an idle dream. When we wanted to express the +superlative degree of the impossible, we said "I can no more do it +than I can fly." But the irrepressible spirit of man was not to be +daunted by _à priori_ demonstrations of impossibility. One day there +came the rumour that the thing had been achieved, followed soon by +ocular demonstration; and now we rub shoulders every day with men who +have outsoared the eagle, and--alas!--carried death and destruction +into the hitherto stainless empyrean. + +It would seem, then, that there is no reason absolutely to despair of +some advance towards a conception of the nature and reason of the +universe. And it is certain that Mr. Wells's God would stand a better +chance of satisfying the innate needs of the human intelligence if he +had not (apparently) given up as a bad job the attempt to relate +himself to the causal plexus of the All. Is he outside that causal +plexus, self-begotten, self-existent? Then he is the miracle of +miracles, a second mystery superimposed on the first. If, on the other +hand, he falls within the system, he might surely manage to convey to +his disciples some glimmering notion of his place in it. The +birth-stories of Gods are always grotesque and unedifying, but that is +because they belong to folk-lore. If this God does not belong to +folk-lore, surely his relation to the Veiled Being might be indicated +without impropriety. Mr. Wells, as we have seen, hints that his +reticence may be due to the fact that he does not know. In that case +this "modern" God is suspiciously like all the ancient Gods, whose +most unfortunate characteristic was that they never knew anything more +than their worshippers. The reason was not far to seek--namely, that +they were mere projections of the minds of these worshippers, +fashioned in their own image. But Mr. Wells assures us that this is +not the case of the Invisible King. + +Mr. Wells will scarcely deny that if it were possible to compress his +mythology and merge his Invisible King in his Veiled Being, the result +would be a great simplification of the problem. But this is not, in +fact, possible; for it would mean the positing of an all-good and +all-powerful Creator, which is precisely the idea which Mr. Wells +rebels against,[1] in common with every one who realizes the facts of +life and the meaning of words. Short of this, however, is no other +simplification possible? Would it not greatly clarify our thought if +we could bring the Invisible King into action, not, indeed, as the +creator of all things, but as the organizer and director of the +surprising and almost incredible epiphenomenon which we call life? Our +scheme would then take this shape: an inconceivable unity behind the +veil, somehow manifesting itself, where it comes within our ken, in +the dual form of a great Artificer and a mass of terribly recalcitrant +matter--the only medium in which he can work. In other words, the +Veiled Being would be as inscrutable as ever, but the Invisible King, +instead of dropping in with a certain air of futility, like a doctor +arriving too late at the scene of a railway accident, would be placed +at the beginning, not of the universe at large, but of the atomic +re-arrangements from which consciousness has sprung. Can we, on this +hypothesis (which is practically that of Manichæanism) hazard any +guess at the motives or forces actuating the Invisible King,--or, to +avoid confusion, let us say the Artificer--which should acquit him of +the charge of being a callous and mischievous demon rather than a +well-willing God? Can we not only place pain and evil (a tautology) to +the account of sluggish, refractory matter, but also conjecture a +sufficient reason why the Artificer should have started the painful +evolution of consciousness, instead of leaving the atoms to whirl +insentiently in the figures imposed on them by the stupendous +mathematician behind the veil? + + [1] In _Mr. Britling Sees It Through_, which is in some sense + a prologue to _God the Invisible King_, we find an emphatic + renunciation of the all-good and all-powerful God. "The + theologians," says Mr. Britling, "have been extravagant about + God. They have had silly, absolute ideas--that he is all + powerful. That he's omni-everything.... Why! if I thought + there was an omnipotent God who looked down on battles and + deaths and all the waste and horror of this war--able to + prevent these things--doing them to amuse himself--I would + spit in his empty face" (p. 406). + +A complete answer to this question would be a complete solution of the +riddle of existence. That, if it be ever attainable, is certainly far +enough off. But there are some considerations, not always sufficiently +present to our minds, which may perhaps help us, not to a solution, +but to a rational restatement, of the riddle. + +It is possible to suppose, in the first place, that the Artificer, +though entirely well-meaning, was not a free agent. We can construct a +myth in which an Elder Power should announce to a Younger Power his +intention of setting a number of sentient puppets dancing for his +amusement, and regaling himself with the spectacle of their antics, in +utter heedlessness of the agonies they must endure, which would, +indeed, lend an additional savor to the diversion. This Elder Power, +with the "sportsman's" preference for pigeons as against clay balls, +would be something like the God of Mr. Thomas Hardy. Then we can +imagine the Younger Power, after a vain protest demanding, as it were, +the vice-royalty of the new kingdom, in order that he might shape its +polity to high and noble ends, educe from tragic imperfection some +approach to perfection, and, in short, make the best of a bad +business. We should thus have (let us say) Marcus Aurelius claiming a +proconsulate under Nero, and, with very limited powers, gradually +substituting order and humanity for oppression and rapine. This +fairy-tale is not unlike Mr. Wells's; but I submit that it has the +advantage of placing the Invisible King, or his equivalent, in a +conceivable relation to the whole mundane process. + +Now let us proceed to the alternative hypothesis. Let us suppose that +the Artificer was a free agent, and that he voluntarily, and in full +view of the consequences, engineered the conjunction of atoms from +which consciousness arose. He could have let it alone, he could have +suffered life to remain an abortive, slumbering potentiality, like the +fire in a piece of flint; yet he deliberately clashed the flint and +steel and kindled the torch which was to be handed on, not only from +generation to generation, but from species to species, through all the +stages of a toilsome, slaughterous, immeasurable ascent. If we accept +this hypothesis, can we acquit the Artificer of wanton cruelty? Can we +view his action with approval, even with gratitude? Or must we, like +Mr. Wells, if we wish to find an outlet for religious emotion, +postulate another, subsequent, intermeddling Power--like, say, an +American consul at the scene of the Turkish massacre--wholly guiltless +of the disaster of life, and doing his little best to mitigate and +remedy it? + +In the present state of our knowledge, it is certainly very difficult +to see how the kindler of the _vitai lampada_, supposing him to have +been responsible for his actions, can claim from a jury of human +beings a verdict of absolute acquittal. But we can, even now, see +certain extenuating circumstances, which evidence not yet available +may one day so powerfully reinforce as to enable him to leave the +Court without a stain on his character. + +For one thing, we are too much impressed and oppressed by the ideas of +magnitude and multitude. Since we have realized the unspeakable +insignificance of the earth in relation to the unimaginable vastness +of star-sown space, we have come to feel such a disproportion between +the mechanism of life and its upshot, as known in our own experience, +that we have a vague sense of maleficence, or at any rate of brutal +carelessness, in the responsible Power, whoever that may be. "What is +it all," we say, "but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million +million of suns?" We feel like insects whom the foot of a heedless +giant may at any moment crush. We dream of the swish of a comet's tail +wiping out organic life on the planet, and we see, as a matter of +fact, great natural convulsions, such as the earthquake of Lisbon or +the eruption of Mont Pélée, treating human communities just as an +elephant might treat an ant-hill. It is this sense of the immeasurable +disproportion in things that a pessimist poet has expressed in the +well-known sonnet:-- + + Know you, my friend, the sudden ecstasy + Of thought that time and space annihilates, + Creation in a moment uncreates, + And whirls the mind, from secular habit free, + Beyond the spheres, beyond infinity, + Beyond the empery of the eternal Fates, + To where the Inconceivable ruminates, + The unthinkable "To be or not to be?" + Then, as Existence flickers into sight, + A marsh-flame in the night of Nothingness-- + The great, soft, restful, dreamless, fathomless night-- + We know the Affirmative the primal curse, + And loathe, with all its imbecile strain and stress, + This ostentatious, vulgar Universe. + +The mood here recorded is one that must be familiar to most thinking +people. "The undevout astronomer is mad," said eighteenth-century +deism: to-day we are more apt to think that the uncritical astronomer +is dense. There is a sort of colossal stupidity about the stars in +their courses that overpowers and disquiets us. If (as Alfred Russel +Wallace has argued) the geocentric theory was not so far out after +all, and the earth, holding a specially favored place in the universe, +is the only home of life, then the disproportion of mechanism to +result seems absolutely appalling. If, on the other hand, all the +million million of suns are pouring out vital heat to a like number +of inhabited planetary systems, the sheer quantity of life, of +struggle, of suffering implied, seems a thought at which to shudder. +We are inclined to say to the inventor of sentience: "Since this +ingenious combination of yours was at best such a questionable boon, +surely you might have been content with one experiment." + +But all such criticism rests upon a fallacy, or rather a brace of +interrelated fallacies. There can be no disproportion between +consciousness and the unconscious, because they are absolutely +incommensurable; and number, in relation to consciousness, is an +illusion. Consciousness, wherever it exists, is single, indivisible, +inextensible; and other consciousnesses, and the whole external +universe, are, to the individual percipient, but shapes in a more or +less protracted dream. + +Why should we trouble about vastness--mere extension in space? There +is a sense in which the infinitesimally small is more marvellous, more +disquieting, than the infinitely great. The ant, the flea, nay, the +phagocyte in our blood, is really a more startling phenomenon than all +the mechanics and chemistry of the heavens. In worrying about the +bigness and the littleness of things, we are making the human body +our standard--the body whose dimensions are no doubt determined by +convenience in relation to terrestrial conditions, but have otherwise +no sort of sanctity or superiority, rightness or fitness. It happens +to be the object to which is attached the highest form of +consciousness we know; but consciousness itself has neither parts nor +magnitude. And consciousness itself is essentially greater than the +very vastness which appals us, seeing that it embraces and envelops +it. Enormous depths of space are pictured in my brain, through my +optic nerve; and what eludes the magic mirror of my retina, my mind +can conceive, apprehend, make its own. It is not even true to say that +the mind cannot conceive infinity--the real truth (if I may for once +be Chestertonian), the real truth is that it can conceive nothing +else. "When Berkeley said there was no matter"--it mattered greatly +what he said. Nothing can be more certain than that, apart from +percipience, there is no matter that matters. From the point of view +of pantheism (the only logical theism) God, far from being a Veiled +Being, or an Invisible King, is precisely the mind which translates +itself into the visible, sensible universe, and impresses itself, in +the form of a never-ending pageant, upon our cognate minds. It has +been thought that human consciousness may have come into being because +God wanted an audience. He was tired of being a cinematograph-film +unreeling before empty benches. Some people have even carried the +speculation further, and wondered whether the attachment of +percipience to organized matter, as in the case of human beings, may +not be a necessary stage in the culture of a pure percipience, capable +of furnishing the pageant of the universe with a permanent and +appreciative audience. In that case the Scottish Catechism would be +justified, which asks "What is the chief end of man?" and answers (as +Stevenson says) nobly if obscurely: "To glorify God and to enjoy Him +forever." But enough of these idle fantasies. What is certain is that +we can hold up our heads serenely among the immensities, knowing that +we are immenser than they. Even if they were malevolent--and that they +do not seem to be--they are no more terrible than the familiar dangers +of our homely earth. They cannot hurt us more than we can be hurt--an +obvious truism but one which is often overlooked. And this brings us +to the consideration of the second fallacy which sometimes warps our +judgment as to the responsibility of the Power which invented life. + +We are all apt to speak and think as though sentience were an article +capable of accumulation, like money or merchandise, in enormous +aggregates--as though pleasure, and more particularly pain, were +subject to the ordinary rules of arithmetic, so that minor quantities, +added together, might mount up to an indefinitely gigantic total. +Poets and philosophers, time out of mind, have been heartbroken over +the enormous mass of evil in the world, and have spoken as though +animated nature were one great organism, with a brain in which every +pang that afflicted each one of its innumerable members was piled up +into a huge, pyramidal agony. But this is obviously not so. That very +"individuation" which to some philosophies is the primal curse--the +condition by all means to be annulled and shaken off[2]--forbids the +adding up of units of sentience. If "individuation" is the source of +human misery (which seems a rather meaningless proposition) it is +beyond all doubt its boundary and limit. We are each of us his own +universe. With each of us the universe is born afresh; with each of us +it dies--assuming, that is to say, that consciousness is extinguished +at death. There never has been and never can be in the world more +suffering than a single organism can sustain--which is another way of +saying that nothing can hurt us more than we can be hurt. Is this an +optimistic statement? Far from it. The individual is capable of great +extremities of suffering; and though not all men, or even most, are +put to the utmost test in this respect, there are certainly cases not +a few in which a man may well curse the day he was born, and see in +the universe that was born with him nothing but an instrument of +torture. But such an one must speak for himself. It is evident that, +take them all round, men accept life as no such evil gift. It cannot +even be said that, in handing it on to others, they are driven by a +fatal instinct which they know in their hearts to be cruel, and would +resist if they could. The vast majority have been, and still are, +entirely light-hearted about the matter, thus giving the best possible +proof that they cherish no grudge against the source of being, but +find it, on the balance, acceptable enough. If it be said that this is +due to stupidity, then stupidity is one of the factors in the case +which the great Artificer must be supposed to have foreseen and +reckoned upon. All these considerations must be taken into account +when we try to sum up the responsibility of an organizer and director +of life, acting of his own free will, although he knew that the +conditions under which he had to work would make the achievement of +any satisfactory result a slow, laborious and painful business. + + [2] Mr. Wells himself is not far from this view. See _God the + Invisible King_, pp. 73, 76, and this book, pp. 39-40. + +"But sympathy!" it may be said--"You have left sympathy out of the +reckoning. Unless we are not only 'individuals' but iron-clad +egotists, we suffer with others more keenly, sometimes, than in our +own persons." Sympathy, no doubt, is, like the summer sun and the +frost of winter, a fact of common experience causing us alternate joy +and pain; but it means no sort of breach in the wall of +"individuation." Our nearest and dearest are simply factors in our +environment, most influential factors, but as external to us as the +trees or the stars. We cannot, in any real sense, draw away their +pains and add them to our own, any more than they, in their turn, can +relieve us of our toothache or our sciatica. They are the points, +doubtless, at which our environment touches us most closely, but +neither incantation nor Act of Parliament, neither priest nor +registrar, can make even man and wife really "one flesh." It was +necessary for the conservation of the species that a strict limit +should be set to the operation of sympathy. Had that emotion been +able to pierce the shell of individuality, so that one being could +actually add the sufferings of another, or of many others, to his own, +life would long ago have come to an end. As it is, sympathy implies an +imaginative extension of individuality, which is of enormous social +value. But we remain, none the less, isolated each in his own +universe, and our fellow-men and women are but shapes in the panorama, +the strange, fantastic dream, which the Veiled Showman unrolls before +us. + +In these post-Darwinian days, moreover, we are inclined to give way to +certain morbid and sentimental exaggerations of sympathy, which do +some injustice to the great Artificer whom we are for the moment +assuming to be responsible for sentient life. Many of us are much +concerned about "nature, red in tooth and claw." It is a sort of +nightmare to us to think of the tremendous fecundity of swamp and +jungle, warren and pond, and of the ruthless struggle for existence +which has made earth, air, and sea one mighty battle-ground. In this +we are again letting the fallacy of number take hold of us. There can +be no aggregate of suffering among lower, any more than among higher, +organisms; and the amount of pain which individual animals have to +endure--even animals of those species which we can suppose to possess +a certain keenness of sensibility--is probably, in the vast majority +of cases, very trifling. Half the anguish of humanity proceeds from +the power of looking before and after. The animal, though he may +suffer from fear of imminent, visible danger, cannot know the torture +of long-drawn apprehension. For most of his life he is probably aware +of a vague well-being; then of a longer or shorter--often a very +short--spell of vague ill-being; and so, the end. Nor is it possible +to doubt that the experience of some animals includes a great deal of +positive rapture. If the lark be not really the soul of joy, he is the +greatest hypocrite under the sun. Many insects seem to be pin-points +of vibrant vitality which we can scarcely believe to be unaccompanied +by pleasurable sensation. The mosquito which I squash on the back of +my hand, and which dies in a bath of my own blood, has had a short +life but doubtless a merry one. The moths which, in a tropic night, +lie in calcined heaps around the lamp, have probably perished in +pursuit of some ecstatic illusion. It does not seem, on the whole, +that we need expend much pity on the brute creation, or make its +destinies a reproach to the great Artificer. Which is not to say, of +course, that we ought not to detest and try with all our might to +abolish the cruelties of labor, commerce, sport and war. + +Again, as to the great calamities--the earthquakes, shipwrecks, +railway accidents, even the wars--which are often made a leading count +in the arraignment of the Author of Sentience, we must not let +ourselves be deceived by the fallacy of number. Their spectacular, +dramatic aspect naturally attracts attention; but the death-roll of a +great shipwreck is in fact scarcely more terrible than the daily bills +of mortality of a great city. It is true that a violent death, +overtaking a healthy man, is apt to involve moments, perhaps hours, of +acute distress which he might have escaped had he died of gradual +decay or of ordinary well-tended disease; and a very short space of +the agony sometimes attendant upon (say) a railway accident, probably +represents itself to the sufferer as an eternity. But there is also +another side to the matter. Instantaneous death in a great catastrophe +must be reckoned as mere euthanasia; and even short of this, the +attendant excitement has often the effect of an anodyne. In the +upshot, no doubt, such occurrences are rightly called disasters, since +their tendency is to cause needlessly painful death, under +circumstances, which in the main, enhance its terrors; but the +sufferings of the victims cannot be added together because they occur +within a limited area, any more than if they had been spread over an +indefinite tract of space. As for war, it increases the liability of +every individual who comes within its wide-flung net to intense bodily +and mental suffering, and to premature and painful death. Moreover, it +destroys social values which _can_ be added up. In this respect it +leaves the world face to face with an appalling deficit. But we must +not let it weigh upon us too heavily, or make it too great a reproach +to the Artificer of human destiny. For the soldier, like every other +sentient organism, is immured in his own universe, and his individual +debit-and-credit account with the Power which placed him there would +be no whit different if he were indeed the only real existence, and +the world around him were naught but a dance of shadows. + +If there were a country of a hundred million people, in which every +citizen was born to an allowance of five pounds, which in all his life +he could not possibly increase, or invest in joint-stock enterprises, +though he might leave some of it unexpended--we should not, in spite +of the £500,000,000 of its capital, call that a wealthy country. Its +effective wealth would be precisely a five-pound note. Similarly, +given a world in which every one is born with a limited capacity of +sentience, inalienable, incommunicable, unique, we should do wrong to +call that world a multi-millionaire in misery, even if it could be +proved that in each individual account the balance of sensation was on +the wrong side of the ledger. It is true that if, in one man's +account, the balance were largely to the bad, he would be entitled to +reproach the Veiled Banker, even though five hundred or five thousand +of his fellows declared themselves satisfied with the result of their +audit. But if the Banker, in opening business, had good reason to +think that, in the long run, the contents would largely outvote the +non-contents, we could scarcely blame him for going ahead. And what +if, for contents and malcontents alike, he had an uncovenanted bonus +up his sleeve? + + * * * * * + +In this disquisition, with its shifting personifications, its +Artificer, Author, Banker and the like, we may seem to have wandered +far away from Mr. Wells and his Invisible King; but I hope the reader +has not wholly lost the clue. Let us recapitulate. Starting from the +idea that its total renunciation of metaphysics, its incuriousness as +to causation, was a weakness in Mr. Wells's system, inasmuch as an +eager curiosity as to these matters is an inseparable part of our +intellectual outfit, we set about enquiring whether it might not be +possible to abandon the notions of omnipotence, omniscience and +omni-benevolence, and yet to conceive a doctrine of origins into which +a well-willing God should enter, not, like the Invisible King, as a +sort of remedial afterthought, but as a prime mover in this baffling +business of life. We put forward two hypotheses, each of which seemed +more thinkable, less in the air, so to speak, than Mr. Wells's scheme +of things. We imagined a wholly callous, unpitying Power, wantonly +setting up combinations in matter which it knew would work out in +cruelty and misery, and another co-ordinate though not quite equal +Power interfering from the first to introduce into the combinations of +the Elder Deity a slow but sure bias towards the good. Then we +proposed an alternative hypothesis, logically simpler, though more +difficult from the moral point of view. We conceived at the source of +organic life an intelligent and well-willing Power constrained, by +some necessity "behind the veil," to carry out his purposes through +the sluggish, refractory, hampering medium of matter. Supposing this +Power free to act or to refrain from acting, we asked whether he could +take the affirmative course--choose the "Everlasting Yea" as Carlyle +would phrase it--without forfeiting our esteem and disqualifying for +the post of Invisible King in the Wellsian sense of the term. In a +tentative way, not exempt, perhaps, from a touch of special pleading, +we advanced certain considerations which seemed to suggest that his +decision to kindle the torch of life might, after all, be justified. +Our provisional conclusion was that though, as at present advised, we +might not quite see our way to hail him as a beneficent Invisible +King, yet we need not go to the opposite extreme of writing him down a +mere Ogre God, indifferent to the vast and purposeless process of +groaning and travail, begetting and devouring, which he had wantonly +initiated. That is the point at which we have now arrived. + +I hope it need not be said I do not attribute any substantive value to +the hypothetical myths here put forward and discussed--that I do not +accept either of them, or propose that anyone else should accept it, +as a probable adumbration of what actually occurred "in the +beginning"--a first chapter in a new Book of Genesis. My purpose was +simply, since myth-making was the order of the day, to hint a +criticism of Mr. Wells's myth, by placing beside it one or two other +fantasies, perhaps as plausible as his, which had the advantage of not +entirely eluding the question of origins. I submit, with great +respect, that my Artificer comes a little less out of the blue than +his Invisible King--that is all I claim for him. + +But here Mr. Wells puts in a protest, not without indignation. +Myth-making, he declares, is _not_ the order of the day. Had he wanted +to indulge in myth-making, he could easily have found some +metaphysical affiliation for his Invisible King. What he has done is +to record a profound spiritual experience, common to himself and many +other good men and true, which has culminated in the recognition of an +actual Power, objectively extant in the world, to which he has felt it +a sacred duty to bear witness. Very good; so be it; let us now look +more in detail into the gospel according to Wells. + + + + +IV + +THE APOSTLE'S CREED + + +A gospel it is, in all literalness; an evangel; a message of glad +tidings. It is not merely _a_ truth, it is "the Truth" (p. 1). Let +there be no mistake about it: Mr. Wells's ambition is to rank with St. +Paul and Mahomet, as the apostle of a new world-religion. He does not +in so many words lay claim to inspiration, but it is almost inevitably +deducible from his premises. He is uttering the first clear and +definite tidings of a God who is endowed with personality, character, +will and purpose. To that Deity he has submitted himself in +enthusiastic devotion. If the God does not seize the opportunity to +speak through such a marvellously suitable, such an ideal, mouthpiece, +then practical common-sense cannot be one of his attributes. Which of +the other Gods who have announced themselves from time to time has +found such a megaphone to reverberate his voice? St. Paul was a poor +tent-maker, whose sermons were not even reported in the religious +press, while his letters probably counted their public by scores, or +at most by hundreds. Mr. Wells, from the outset of his mission, has +the ear of two hemispheres. + +What, then, does he tell us of his God? The first characteristic which +differentiates him from all the other Gods with a big G--for of course +we pay no heed to the departmental gods of polytheism--the first fact +we must grasp and hold fast to, is that he lays no claim to infinity. +"This new faith ... worships _a finite God_" (p. 5; Mr. Wells's +italics). "He has begun and he never will end" (p. 18). "He is within +time and not outside it" (p. 7). Nothing can be more definite than +that. There was a time when God did not exist; and then somehow, +somewhen, he came into being. + +Perhaps to ask "When?" would be to trespass on the department of +origins, from which we are explicitly warned off. It would be to +trench upon "cosmogony." Yet we are not quite without guidance. "The +renascent religion," we are told, "has always been here; it has always +been visible to those that had eyes to see" (p. 1). "Always," in this +context, can only mean during the whole course of human history. +Therefore God must have come into being some time between the issue +of the creative fiat and the appearance of man on the planet. This is +a pretty wide margin, but it is something to go upon. He may have been +contemporary with the amoeba, or with the ichthyosaurus, or haply +with the earliest quadrumana. At the very latest (if "always" is +accurate) he must have made his appearance exactly at the same time as +man; and if I were to give my opinion, I should say that was extremely +probable. At all events, even if he preceded man by a few thousand or +million years, we are compelled to assume that he came in preparation +for the advent of the human species, determined to be on hand when +wanted. For we do not gather that the lower animals stand in need of +his services, or are capable of benefiting by them. One might be +tempted to conceive him as guiding the course of evolution and +hastening its laggard process; but (as we shall see) he scorns the +rôle of Providence, and resolutely abstains from any intromission in +organic or meteorological concerns. It would be pleasant to think that +he had something to do with (for instance) the retreat of the ice-cap +in the northern hemisphere; but we are not encouraged to indulge in +any such speculation. It would appear that the activity of God is +purely psychical and moral--that he has no interest in biology, except +as it influences, and is influenced by, sociology. In short, from all +that one can make out, this God is strictly correlative to Man; and +that is a significant fact which we shall do well to bear in mind. + +As we have already seen, the Infinite (or Veiled) Being is not God (p. +13); nor is God the Life Force, the "impulse thrusting through matter +and clothing itself in continually changing material forms ... the +Will to Be" (pp. 15-16). As we have also seen, Mr. Wells refuses to +define the relation of his God, this "spirit," this "single spirit and +single person," to either of these inscrutable entities. "God," he +says, "comes to us neither out of the stars nor out of the pride of +life, but as a still small voice within" (p. 18). It is by "faith" +that we "find" him (p. 13); but Mr. Wells "doubts if faith can be +complete and enduring if it is not secured by the definite knowledge +of the true God" (p. 135). What, then, is "faith" in this context? It +would be too much to say, with the legendary schoolboy, that it is +"believing what you know isn't true." The implication seems rather to +be that if you begin by believing on inadequate grounds, you will +presently attain to belief on adequate grounds, or, in other words, +knowledge. Thus, when you go to a spiritual séance in a sceptical +frame of mind, the chill of your aura frightens the spirits away, and +you obtain no manifestations; but if you go in a mood of faith, which +practically means confident expectation, the phenomena follow, and you +depart a convert. I use this illustration in no scoffing spirit. The +presupposition is not irrational. It amounts, in effect, to saying +that you must go some way to meet God before God can or will come to +you. This seems a curious coyness; but as God is finite and +conditioned, a bit of a character ("a strongly marked and knowable +personality," p. 5), there is nothing contradictory in it. Even when +we read that "the true God goes through the world like fifes and drums +and flags, calling for recruits along the street" (p. 40), we must not +seize upon the letter of a similitude, and talk about inconsistency. +You must go out to meet even the Salvation Army. It offers you +salvation in vain if you obstinately bolt your door, and insist that +an Englishman's house is his castle. + +The finding of this God is very like what revivalists call +"conversion" (p. 21). You are oppressed by "the futility of the +individual life"; you fall into "a state of helpless self-disgust" +(p. 21); you are, in short, in the condition described by Hamlet when +he says: "It goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly +frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent +canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this +majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appears no other +thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." The +condition may result, as in Hamlet's case, from an untoward +conjunction of outward circumstances; or it may be of physiological +(liverish) origin. The methods of treatment are many--some of them +(such as the administration of alcohol in large doses) disastrously +unwise. In some states of society and periods of history, religion is +the popular specific; and there have been, and are, forms of religion +to which alcohol would be preferable. Fortunately, one can say without +a shadow of hesitancy that "the modern religion" lies under no such +suspicion. As dispensed by Mr. Wells, it is entirely wholesome. If it +is found to cheer, it will certainly not inebriate. Indeed, the doubt +one feels as to its popular success lies in the very fact that it +contains but an innocuous proportion of alcohol. + +You find yourself, then, in the distressful case described by Hamlet +and Mr. Wells. "Man delights you not, no, nor woman neither." You +cannot muster up energy even to kill King Claudius. You go about +gloomily soliloquizing on suicide and kindred topics. Then, "in some +way the idea of God comes into the distressed mind" (p. 21). It +develops through various stages, outlined by Mr. Wells in the passage +cited. In the modern man, it would seem, one great difficulty lies in +"a curious resistance to the suggestion that God is truly a person" +(p. 22). It is here, no doubt, that faith comes in; at all events, you +ultimately get over this stumbling-block. "Then suddenly, in a little +while, in his own time, God comes. The cardinal experience is an +undoubting immediate sense of God. It is the attainment of an absolute +certainty that one is not alone in oneself" (p. 23). You have come, in +fact, to the gate of Damascus. You have found salvation. + +Yes, salvation!--there is no other word for it. Mr. Wells does not +hesitate to use both that word and its correlative, damnation. From +what, then, are you saved? Why, from quite a number of things. You are +saved "from the purposelessness of life" (p. 18). God's immortality +has "taken the sting from death" (p. 22). You have escaped "from the +painful accidents and chagrins of individuation" (p. 73). "Salvation +is to lose oneself" (p. 73); it is "a complete turning away from self" +(p. 84). "Damnation is really over-individuation, and salvation is +escape from self into the larger being of life" (p. 76). In another +place we are told that salvation is "escape from the individual +distress at disharmony and the individual defeat by death, into the +Kingdom of God, and damnation can be nothing more and nothing less +than the failure or inability or disinclination to make that escape" +(p. 148). On the next page we have another definition of damnation +(borrowed, it would seem, from Mr. Clutton Brock), with which I hasten +to express my cordial and enthusiastic agreement: "_Satisfaction with +existing things is damnation._" I have always thought that hell was +the headquarters of conservatism, and am delighted to find such +influential backing for that pious opinion. + +As for sin, it seems to be a falling away from the state of grace +attained through conversion. You can and do sin while you are still +unconverted; for we are told that "repentance is the beginning and +essential of the religious life" (p. 165). Probably (though this is +not clear) your unregenerate condition is in itself sinful, +"individuation" being not very different from the Original Sin of the +theologians. But it is sin after regeneration that really matters. +"Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, and adds not one inch to our +spiritual and moral nature" (p. 146). "It is the amazing and +distressful discovery of every believer so soon as the first +exaltation of belief is past, that one does not remain always in touch +with God" (p. 149). One backslides. One reverts to one's unregenerate +type. The old Adam makes disquieting resurgences in the swept and +garnished mansion from which he seemed to have been for ever cast out. +"This is the personal problem of Sin. _Here prayer avails; here God +can help us_" (p. 150). And what is still more consoling, "though you +sin seventy times seven times, God will still forgive the poor rest of +you.... There is no sin, no state that, being regretted and repented +of, can stand between God and man" (p. 156). + +We shall have to consider later what useful purpose (if any) is served +by this free-and-easy use of the dialect of revivalism. In the +meantime, one would be sorry to seem to write without respect of the +depth of conviction which Mr. Wells throws into his account of the +supreme spiritual experience of finding God. "Thereafter," he says, +"one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has found a +lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution" (pp. +23-24). God is a "huge friendliness, a great brother and leader of our +little beings" (p. 24). "He is a stimulant; he makes us live +immortally and more abundantly. I have compared him to the sensation +of a dear strong friend who comes and stands quietly beside one, +shoulder to shoulder" (p. 39). It certainly takes some courage for a +modern Englishman, not by profession a licensed dealer in spiritual +sentimentality, to write like this. + +And now comes the question, What does God do? What does he aim at? And +how does he effect his purposes? The answer seems to be that, in a +literal, tangible sense, he does nothing. He operates solely in and +through the mind of man; and even through the mind of man he does not +influence external events. This, it may be said, is impossible, since +all those external events which we call human conduct flow from the +mind of man. Perhaps it would be correct to say (for here Mr. Wells +gives us no explicit guidance) that external events are only a +by-product of the influence of God: that, having begotten a certain +spiritual state which he feels to be generally desirable, he takes no +responsibility for the particular consequences that are likely to flow +from it. So, at least, one can best interpret Mr. Wells's repeated +disclaimer of the idea that "God is Magic or God is Providence" (p. +27), that "all the time, incalculably, he is pulling about the order +of events for our personal advantages" (p. 35-6). Commenting on Mr. +Edwyn Bevan's phrase for God, "the Friend behind phenomena," Mr. Wells +insists that the expression "carries with it no obligation whatever to +believe that this Friend is in control of the phenomena" (p. 87). +Perhaps not; but it is a question for after consideration whether +lucidity is promoted by giving the name God to a Power which has no +power--which does not seem even to make directly purposive use of the +influence which it possesses over the minds of believers. Once, in a +coasting steamer on the Pacific, I nearly died of sea-sickness. A +friend was with me, the soul of kindness, such a lovable old man that +I write this down partly for the pleasure of recalling him. He used to +come to my cabin every hour or so, shake his head mournfully, and go +away again. I felt his good will and was grateful for it; but it would +be affectation to pretend that I would not have been still more +grateful had he possessed some "control of phenomena"--had he brought +with him a remedy. Since those days, more than one efficacious +preventive of sea-sickness has been discovered; and I own to counting +the nameless chemists who have achieved this marvel among the most +authentic friends to poor humanity of whom we have any knowledge. +Where is the God (as Mr. Zangwill has pertinently enquired) who will +give us a cure for cancer? + +This, however, is a digression, or at any rate an anticipation. What +the Invisible King actually does, without meddling with phenomena, is +to assume the "captaincy" of the "racial adventure" in which we are +engaged (p. 76). "God must love his followers as a great captain loves +his men ... whose faith alone makes him possible. It is an austere +love. The Spirit of God will not hesitate to send us to torment and +bodily death" (p. 67). And what is this "racial adventure"? It is, in +the first place, the achievement of Mr. Wells's political ideals--an +object which has all my sympathy, since they happen to be, generally +speaking, my own. "As a knight in God's service," says Mr. Wells, "I +take sides against injustice, disorder, and against all those +temporal kings, emperors, princes, landlords, and owners, who set +themselves up against God's rule and worship" (p. 97). By all means! +Only one does not see how, if the kings, emperors and landlords +declare that they, too, have found God, and found him on the side of +monarchy and landlordism, this contention of theirs is to be confuted. +If God does not control phenomena, the actual controllers of events +will be able to maintain in the future, as in the past, that he is on +the side of the big battalions--an argument which it will be hard to +meet, except by raising bigger battalions. In the meantime we have to +note that God's political opinions are only provisional, and that he +himself is open to conviction. "The first purpose of God is the +attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a means to more +knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power" (p. 98-9). And the +object to which he will apply this power is "the conquest of death: +first the overcoming of death in the individual by the incorporation +of the motives of his life into an undying purpose, and then the +defeat of that death which seems to threaten our species upon a +cooling planet beneath a cooling sun" (p. 99). Ultimately, then, it +would seem that God does intend to undertake the control of +phenomena. Dealing with ice-caps is not so entirely outside his +province as one had hastily assumed. The Invisible King is not, after +all, a _roi fainéant_. He will begin to do things as soon as he knows +how: any other course would be obviously rash. One would like to live +a few hundred thousand years, to see him come into overt action. Yet, +in this far-reaching program, there seems to lurk a certain +contradiction, or at least an ambiguity. If, for the believer in God, +death has, here and now, lost its sting--if "we come staggering +through into the golden light of his kingdom, to fight for his kingdom +henceforth, until, at last, we are altogether taken up into his being" +(p. 68)--one does not quite see the reason for this long campaign +against death. Surely the logical consummation would be an ultimate +racial euthanasia, an absorption of humanity into God, a vast +apotheosis-nirvana, after which the earth and sun could go on cooling +at their leisure. + + * * * * * + +Apart from one or two irrepressible "asides," I have attempted in this +chapter to let Mr. Wells speak for himself, proclaim the faith that is +in him, and draw the portrait of his God. Many details are of course +omitted, for which the reader must turn to the original text. He will +find it a pleasant and profitable task. The remainder of my present +undertaking falls into three parts. First I must ask the reader to +consider with me whether Mr. Wells's gospel can be accepted as a real +addition to knowledge, like (say) the discovery of radium, or whether +it is only a re-description in new language (or old language slightly +refurbished) of familiar facts of spiritual experience. In the second +place, assuming that we have to fall back on the latter alternative, +we shall enquire whether anything would be gained by the general +acceptance of this new-old, highly emotionalized terminology. Thirdly, +I shall venture to suggest that when Mr. Wells says "The first purpose +of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a means +to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power," he is only +choosing a mythological way of expressing the fact that if God (in the +ordinary, non-Wellsian sense of the word) is ever to be found, it must +be through patient investigation of the phenomena in which he clothes +himself. + + + + +V + +WHEN IS A GOD NOT A GOD? + + +Though many of Mr. Wells's asseverations of the substantive reality of +his Invisible King have been quoted above, it would be easy to +lengthen their array. There is nothing on which he is so insistent. +For example, "God is no abstraction nor trick of words....[3] He is as +real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace" (p. 56). And again, on the +same page: "He feels us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by +us. He hopes and attempts." There is no limit to the anthropomorphism +of the language which Mr. Wells currently employs. Or rather, there is +only one limit: he disclaims the notion that his God is actually +existent in space, that he has parts and dimensions, and inhabits a +form in any way analogous to ours. He is the Invisible King, not +merely, like the Spanish Fleet, because he "is not yet in sight," but +because he has no material or "astral" integument. Being outside space +(though inside time) he can be omnipresent (p. 61). But of course Mr. +Wells would not pretend that no deity can be called anthropomorphic +who is not actually conceived as incarnate in the visible figure of a +man. An anthropomorphic God is one who reflects the mental +characteristics of his worshippers; and that Mr. Wells's God does, if +ever God did in this world. + + [3] The words here omitted, "no Infinite," are nothing to the + present purpose. Mr. Wells has started by making this + declaration, which we accept without difficulty. No one will + suspect the Invisible King of being an "Infinite" in + disguise. + +Yet almost in the same breath in which he is claiming for his God the +fullest independent reality--thinking of him "as having moods and +aspects, as a man has, and a consistency we call his character" (p. +63)--he will use language implying that he is that very abstraction of +the better parts of human nature which has been proposed for worship +in all the various "religions of humanity," "ethical churches," and so +forth, for two or three generations past. Listen to this: "Though he +does not exist in matter or space, he exists in time, just as a +current of thought may do; he changes and becomes more even as a man's +thought gathers itself together; somewhere in the dawning of mankind +he had a beginning, an awakening, and as mankind grows he grows.... +_He is the undying human memory, the increasing human will_" (p. 61). +When, in the last chapter, I discussed the date of the divinity's +birth, I had overlooked this text. Here we have it in black and white +that he did not precede mankind--that, of course, would have implied +independence--but began with the "dawning" of the race, and has grown +with its growth. Moreover, the analogy of a "current of thought" is +expressly suggested--reinforcing the suspicion which has all along +haunted us that the God of Mr. Wells is nothing else than what is +known to less mythopoeic thinkers as a "stream of tendency." But Mr. +Wells will by no means have it so. Indeed he evidently regards this as +the most annoying, and perhaps damnable, of heresies. On the very next +page he proceeds to rule out the suggestion that "God is the +collective mind and purpose of the human race." "You may declare," he +says, "that this is no God, but merely the sum of mankind. But those +who believe in the new ideas very steadfastly deny that. God is, they +say, not an aggregate but a synthesis." And he goes on to suggest +various analogies: a temple is more than a gathering of stones, a +regiment more than an accumulation of men: we do not love the soil of +our back garden, or the chalk of Kent, or the limestone of Yorkshire; +yet we love England, which is made up of these things. So God is more +than the sum or essence of the nobler impulses of the race: he is a +spirit, a person, a friend, a great brother, a captain, a king: he "is +love and goodness" (p 80); and without him the Service of Man is "no +better than a hobby, a sentimentality or a hypocrisy" (p. 95). + +Let us reflect a little upon these analogies, and see whether they +rest on any solid basis. Why is a temple more than a heap of stones? +Because human intelligence and skill have entered into the stones and +organized them to serve a given purpose or set of purposes: to delight +the eye, to elevate the mind, to express certain ideas, to afford +shelter for worshippers against wind, rain and sun. Why is a regiment +more than a mob? Again because it has been deliberately and +elaborately organized to fulfil certain functions. Why is England more +than the mere rocks of which it is composed? Because these materials +have been grouped, partly by nature, but very largely by the labor of +untold generations of our fathers, into forms which give pleasure to +the eye and appeal to our most intimate and cherished associations. +Besides, when we speak of "England," we do not think only or mainly +of its physical aspects. We think of it as a great community, with an +ancient, and in some ways admirable, tradition of political life, with +a splendid record of achievement in both material and spiritual +things, with a great past, and (we hope) a greater future. In all +these cases the parts have been fused into a whole by human effort, +either consciously or instinctively applied; and it is in virtue of +this effort alone that the whole transcends its parts. But in the case +of a God "synthetized" out of the thought and feeling of untold +generations of men, the analogy breaks down at every point. To assume +that portions of psychic experience are capable of vital coalescence, +is to beg the whole question. We know that stone can be piled on +stone, that men can be trained to form a platoon, a cohort, a phalanx; +but that detached fragments of mind are capable of any sort of +cohesion and organization we do not know at all. And, even if this +point could be granted, where is the organizing power? We should have +to postulate another God to serve as the architect or the +drill-sergeant of our synthetic divinity. Nor would it help matters to +suggest that the God (as it were) crystallized himself; for that is to +assume structural potentialities in his component parts which must +have come from somewhere, so that again we have to presuppose another +God. It is true, no doubt, that portions of thought and feeling can be +collected, arranged, edited, in some sense organized, by human effort; +but the result is an encyclopædia, a thesaurus, an anthology, a +liturgy, a bible--not a God. It may, like the Vedas, the Hebrew +Scriptures and the Koran, become an object of idolatry; but even its +idolaters see in it only an emanation from God, not the God himself. +All this argument may strike the reader as extremely nebulous, but I +submit that the fault is not mine. It was not I who sought to +demonstrate the reality of a figure of speech by placing it on all +fours with a cathedral and a regiment. The whole contention is so +baffling that reason staggers and flounders as in a quicksand. It +rests upon a mixture of categories, as palpable and yet as elusive as +anything in _The Hunting of the Snark_. + +If you tell me that Public Opinion is a God, I am quite willing to +consider whether the metaphor is a luminous and helpful one. But if +you protest that it is no metaphor at all, but a literal statement of +fact, like the statement that Mr. Woodrow Wilson is President of the +United States, I no longer know where we are. Mr. Wells's "undying +human memory and increasing human will" cannot exactly be identified +with Public Opinion, but it belongs to the same order of ideas. Here +there is an actual workable analogy. But there is no practicable +analogy between a purely mental concept and a physical construction. +You will not help me to believe in (say) the doctrine of Original Sin, +by assuring me that it is built, like the Tower Bridge, on the +cantilever principle. + +It is quite certain that, if passionate conviction and the free use of +anthropomorphic language can make a figure of speech a God, the +Invisible King is an individual entity, as detached from Mr. Wells as +Michelangelo's Moses from Michelangelo. Paradoxically enough, he has +put on "individuation" that his worshippers may escape from it. Mr. +Wells's book teems with expressions--I have given many examples of +them--which are wholly inapplicable to any metaphor, however +galvanized into a semblance of life by ecstatic contemplation in the +devotional mind. For example, when we are told that it is doubtful +whether "God knows all, or much more than we do, about the ultimate +Being," the mere assertion of a doubt implies the possibility of +knowledge of a quite different order from any that exists in the human +intelligence. Mr. Wells explicitly assures us that knowledge of the +Veiled Being is (for the present at any rate) inaccessible to our +faculties; but he implies that such knowledge _may_ be possessed by +the Invisible King; and as knowledge cannot possibly be a synthesis of +ignorances, it follows that the Invisible King has powers of +apprehension quite different from, and independent of, any operation +of the human brain. These powers may not, as a matter of fact, have +solved the enigma of existence; but it is clearly implied that they +might conceivably do so; and indeed the text positively asserts that +God knows _something_ more of the Veiled Being than we do, though +perhaps not "much." In view of this passage, and many others of a like +nature, we cannot fall back on the theory that Mr. Wells is merely +trying, by dint of highly imaginative writing, to infuse life into a +deliberate personification, like Robespierre's Goddess of Reason or +Matthew Arnold's Zeitgeist. However difficult it may be, we must +accustom ourselves to the belief that his assertions of the personal +existence of his God represent the efficient element in his thought, +and that if other passages seem inconsistent with that idea--seem to +point to mere abstraction or allegorization of the mind of the +race--it is these passages, and not the more full-blooded +pronouncements, that must be cancelled as misleading or inadequate. +There can be no doubt that the God to whom Mr. Wells seeks to convert +us is (in his apostle's conception) much more of a President Wilson +than of a Zeitgeist. + + * * * * * + +It would be possible, of course, for a God, however dubious and even +inconceivable the method of his "synthesis," to manifest himself in +his effects--to prove his existence by his actions. But this, as we +have seen, the Invisible King scorns to do. His adherents, we are +told, "advance no proof whatever of the existence of God but their +realization of him" (p. 98). There is a sort of implication that the +Deity will not descend to vulgar miracle-working. "An evil and +adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be +given to it"--not even "the sign of Jonah the prophet." + +But to ask for some sort of visible or plausibly conjecturable effect +is not at all the same thing as to ask for miracles. Mr. Wells +proclaims with all his might that the Invisible King works the most +marvellous and beneficent changes in the minds of his devotees; why, +then, do these changes produce no recognizable effect on the course of +events? The God who can work upon the human mind has the key to the +situation in his hands--why, then, does he make such scant use of it? +Is God only a luxury for the intellectually wealthy? The champagne of +the spiritual life? A stimulant and anodyne highly appreciated in the +best circles, but inaccessible to the man of small spiritual means, +whether he be a dweller in palaces or in the slums? + +To say that a given Power can and does potently affect the human mind, +and yet cannot, or at least does not, produce any appreciable or +demonstrable effect on the external aspects of human life, is like +asking us to believe that a man is a heaven-born conductor who can get +nothing out of his orchestra but discords and cacophonies. + +Mr. Wells may perhaps reply that his God _does_ recognizably influence +the course of events--indeed, that everything in history which we see +to be good and desirable is the work of the Invisible King--but that +he does not advance this fact as a proof of God's existence, because +it is discernible only to the eye of faith and cannot be brought home +to unregenerate reason. I do not imagine that he will take this line, +for it would come dangerously near to identifying God with +Providence--a heresy which he abhors. But supposing some other adept +in "modern religion" were to make this claim on behalf of the +Invisible King, would it go any way towards persuading us that we owe +him our allegiance? + +The assumption would be, as I understand it, that of a finite God, +unable to modify the operations of matter, but with an unlimited, or +at any rate a very great, power of influencing the workings of the +human mind. He would have no control over meteorological conditions: +he could not "ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm"; he could +not subdue the earthquake or prevent the Greenland glacier from +"calving" icebergs into the Atlantic. He could not release the human +body from the rhythms of growth and decay; he could not eradicate that +root of all evil, the association of consciousness with a mechanism +requiring to be constantly stoked with a particular sort of fuel which +exists only in limited quantities. If God could arrange for life to be +maintained on a diet of inorganic substances--if he could enable +animals, like plants, to go direct to minerals and gases for their +sustenance, instead of having it, so to speak, half-digested in the +vegetable kingdom--or even if, under the present system, he could make +fecundity, in any given species, automatically proportionate to the +supply of food--he would at one stroke refashion earthly life in an +extremely desirable sense. But this we assume to be beyond his +competence: the Veiled Being has autocratically imposed the struggle +for existence as an inexorable condition of the Invisible King's +activities, except in so far as it can be eluded by and through the +human intelligence. His problem, then, will be to guide the minds of +men towards a realization that their higher destiny lies in using +their intelligence to substitute ordered co-operation for the +sanguinary competition above which merely instinctive organism are +incapable of rising. + +Observe that in exercising this power of psychical influence there +would be no sort of miracle-working, no interference with the order of +nature. The influence of mind upon mind, even without the intervention +of words or other symbols, is a part of the order of nature which no +one to-day dreams of questioning. Hypnotic suggestion is a department +of orthodox medical practice, and telepathy is more and more widely +admitted, if only as a refuge from the hypothesis of survival after +death. If, then, we have a divine mind applying itself to the problems +of humanity, and capable of suggesting ideas to the mind of +man--appealing, as a "still small voice" (p. 18), to his +intelligence, his emotions and his will--one cannot but figure its +power for good as almost illimitable. What is to prevent it from +achieving a very rapid elimination of the ape and the tiger, the +Junker and the Tory, and substituting social enthusiasms for +individual passions as the motive-power of human conduct? We may admit +that the brain of man must first be developed up to a certain point +before divine suggestion could effectively work upon it. But we know +that men and races of magnificent brainpower must have existed on the +planet thousands and thousands of years ago. What, then, has the +Invisible King made of his opportunities? + +Frankly, he has made a terrible hash of them. It is hard to see how +the progress of the race could possibly have been slower, more +laborious, more painful than in fact it has been. No doubt there have +been a few splendid spurts, which we may, if we please, trace to the +genial goading of the Invisible King. But all the great movements have +dribbled away into frustration and impotence. There was, for example, +the glorious intellectual efflorescence of Greece. There, you may say, +the Invisible King was almost visibly at work. But, after all, what a +flash-in-the-pan it was! Hellas was a little island of light +surrounded by gloomy immensities of barbarism; yet, instead of +stablishing and fortifying a political cosmos, its leading men had +nothing better to do than to plunge into the bloody chaos of the +Peloponnesian War, and set back the clock of civilization by untold +centuries. What was the Invisible King about when that catastrophe +happened? Similarly, the past two centuries, and especially the past +seventy-five years, have witnessed a marvellous onrush in man's +intellectual apprehension of the universe and mastery over the latent +energies of matter. But because moral and political development has +lagged hopelessly behind material progress, the world is plunged into +a war of unexampled magnitude and almost unexampled fury, wherein the +heights of the air and depths of the sea are pressed into the service +of slaughter. Where was the Invisible King in July, 1914? Or, for that +matter, what has he been doing since July, 1870? "Either he was +musing, or he was on a journey, or peradventure he slept." Truly it +would seem that he might have advised Mr. Wells to wait for the "Cease +fire!" before proclaiming his godhead. + +Of course Mr. Wells will remind me that he claims for him no material +potency; and I must own that no happier moment could have been chosen +for the annunciation of an impotent God. But the plea does not quite +tally with the facts. In the first place (as we have seen) the +Invisible King is _going_ to do things--he is going to do very +remarkable things as soon as he knows how. And in the second place it +is impossible to conceive that the tremendous psychical influence +which is claimed for this God can be exercised without producing +external reactions. Why, he is actually stated to be--like another +God, his near relative, whom he rather unkindly disowns--he is stated +to be "the light of the world" (p. 18). Is there any meaning in such a +statement if it be not pertinent to ask what sort of light has led the +world into the ghastly quagmire in which it is to-day agonizing? The +truth is that Mr. Wells attributes to his God powers which, even if he +had no greater knowledge than Mr. Wells himself possesses, could be +used to epoch-making advantage. Fancy an omnipresent H. G. Wells, able +to speak in a still small voice to all men of good-will throughout the +world! What a marvellous revolution might he not effect! Mr. Wells +himself has outlined such a revolution in one of his most thoughtful +romances, _In the Days of the Comet_. From the fact that it does not +occur, may we not fairly suspect that the Invisible King is a creation +of the same mythopoeic faculty which engendered the wonder-working +comet with its aura of sweet-reasonableness? + +If we turn to Mr. Britling, we find that that eminent publicist was +distressed by a sense of the difficulty of conveying God's message to +the world; only he modestly attributed it to defects in his own +equipment rather than to powerlessness on the part of God. We read on +page 427:--"Never had it been so plain to Mr. Britling that he was a +weak, silly, ill-informed and hasty-minded writer, and never had he +felt so invincible a conviction that the Spirit of God was in him, and +that it fell to him to take some part in the establishment of a new +order of living upon the earth.... Always he seemed to be on the verge +of some illuminating and beautiful statement of his cause; always he +was finding his writing inadequate, a thin treachery to the impulse of +his heart." Have we not in such an experience an irrefutable proof of +the inefficacy of Mr. Britling's God? Always the world has been all +ears for a clear, convincing, compulsive message from God; always, or +at any rate for many thousands of years, there have been men who +seemed the predestined mouthpieces of such a message; always what +purported to be the word of God has proved to be either powerless to +make itself heard, or powerful only to the begetting of hideous moral +and social corruptions. God spoke (it is said) through the Vedic +_rishis_, the sages of the Himalayas--and the result has been caste, +cow-worship, suttee, abominations of asceticism, and nameless orgies +of sensuality. God spoke through Moses, and the result was--Judaism! +God spoke through Jesus, and the result was Arianism and +Athanasianism, the Papacy, the Holy Office, the Thirty Years' War, +massacres beyond computation, and the slowly calcined flesh of an +innumerable army of martyrs. All this, no doubt, was due to gross and +palpable misunderstanding of the message delivered through Jesus; but +since it was so fatally open to misunderstanding, would it not better +have remained undelivered? Could the world have been appreciably worse +off without it? The question is rather an idle one, since it turns on +"might have beens." That the element of good in the message of Jesus +has been to some extent efficient, no one would deny. But the alloy of +potential evil has made itself so overpoweringly actual that to strike +a balance between the two forces is impossible, and the question is +generally decided by throwing a solid chunk of prejudice into one +scale or the other. + +There has never been a time when a really well-informed revelation, +uttered with charm and power, might not have revolutionized the world. +"A well-informed revelation!" the reader may cry: "What terrible +bathos!" Mr. Wells, moreover, speaks slightingly of revelation (pp. +19, 163) in a tone that seems to imply that "modern religion" would +have nothing to do with it even if it could. But the demand for a +revelation is eminently reasonable and justified; and the only trouble +about the historic revelations is that they have all been so +shockingly ill-informed, and have revealed nothing to the purpose. +Robert Louis Stevenson anticipated Mr. Wells's view of the matter when +he wrote ironically:-- + + It's a simple thing that I demand, + Though humble as can be-- + A statement fair in my Maker's hand + To a gentleman like me-- + + A clean account, writ fair and broad, + And a plain apologee-- + Or deevil a ceevil word to God + From a gentleman like me. + +But why this irony? What an infinity of trouble and pain would have +been saved if such a "clean account, writ fair and broad," had been +vouchsafed, and had been found to tally with the facts! Nor have the +reputedly wise and good of this world seen any presumption in desiring +such a _communiqué_. Most of them thought they had received it, and +many wasted half their lives in attempting to reconcile new knowledge +with old ignorance, promulgated under the guarantee of God. I cannot +but think that the poet got nearer the heart of the matter who +wrote:-- + + Was Moses upon Sinai taught + How Sinai's mighty ribs were wrought? + Did Buddha, 'neath the bo-tree's shade, + Learn how the stars were poised and swayed? + + Did Jesus still pain's raging storm, + And dower the world with chloroform? + Or Mahomet a jehad decree + 'Gainst microbe-harboring gnat and flea? + + Has revelation e'er revealed + Aught from its age and hour concealed? + Or miracle, since time began, + Conferred a single boon on Man? + +Truly, we may agree with Mr. Wells that the Invisible King was +probably not in the secrets of the Veiled Being, else he could +scarcely have kept them so successfully. But have we any use for a God +who can teach us nothing? who has to be taught by us before he can do +anything worth mentioning? The old Gods who professed to teach were +much more rational in theory, if only their teaching had not been all +wrong. Man has built up his knowledge of the universe he lives in by +slow, laborious degrees, not helped, but constantly and cruelly +hindered, by his Gods. Yet Mr. Wells will surely not deny that an +approximately true conception of the process of nature, and of his own +origin and history, was an indispensable basis for all right and +lasting social construction. What colossal harm has been wrought, for +instance, by the fairy-tale of the Fall, and all its theological +consequences! Yet, age after age, the Invisible King did nothing to +shake its calamitous prestige. Of late it is true that the progress of +knowledge has seemed no longer slow, but amazingly rapid; but that is +because the amount of energy devoted to it has been multiplied a +hundredfold. Each new step is still a very short one: it is generally +found that several investigators have independently arrived at the +verge of a new discovery, and it is often a matter of chance which of +them first crosses the line and is lucky enough to associate his name +with the completed achievement. All this means that to-day, as from +the beginning, man has to wring her secrets from Nature in the sweat +of his brain, and without the smallest assistance from any Invisible +King or other potentate. To-day there are doubtless beneficent secrets +under our very noses, so to speak, which one word of a still small +voice might enable us to grasp, but which may remain undiscovered, to +our great detriment, for centuries to come. There is, in short, no +single point, either in history or in contemporary life, where "the +light of the world" can be shown, or plausibly conjectured, to have +lighted us to any practical purpose. And it is futile to urge, I +repeat, that it could not have done so without a miraculous +disturbance of the order of nature. The influence of mind upon mind, +however conveyed, is the most natural thing in the world; and, short +of transplanting mountains, inhibiting earthquakes, and teaching +people to subsist on air, there is nothing that mind cannot do. + +Besides, when we come to think of it, why this prejudice against +miracles? Why is Mr. Wells so sternly opposed to the bare idea of +Providence? "Fear and feebleness," he says, "go straight to the +Heresies that God is Magic or that God is Providence" (p. 27)--as +though it were disgracefully pusillanimous to prefer a well-governed +to an ungoverned world. God, in the ordinary sense of the word, the +sense we all understand, is unquestionably magic, whether we like it +or not. He is none the less magic because he works through one great +spell, and not through a host of minor, petti-fogging miracles. Upon +the matter of fact we are all agreed, Mr. Chesterton only dissenting; +but Mr. Wells writes as if it were an essentially godlike thing, and +greatly to the credit of any and every God, to give Nature its head, +and take no further trouble about the matter. I cannot share that +view. My only objection to Providence is that it manifestly does not +exist. If it did exist, and made the world an appreciably better place +to live in, why should we grudge it a few miracles? There is a touch +of the sour-grapes philosophy in the rationalist attitude on this +matter which Mr. Wells attributes to his Invisible King. Because we +can't have any miracles, we say we don't want them. Also, no doubt, we +see that the alleged miracles of the past were childish futilities, +doing at most a little temporary good to individuals, never rendering +any permanent service to a city or a nation, and much less to mankind +at large. They were a sort of niggardly alms from omnipotence, not a +generous endowment or a liberal compensation. But is that any reason +why an intelligent Power should be unable to devise a really helpful +miracle? Another plausible objection is that, even if we could admit +the justice of a system of rewards and punishments, good and evil are +so inextricably intermixed in this world that it is impossible to +distribute benefits on a satisfactory moral scheme. It is impossible +to manipulate the rainfall so that the righteous farmer shall have +just what he wants at the appropriate seasons, while his wicked +neighbour suffers from alternate drought and floods; nor can it be +arranged that the midday express shall convey all the good people +safely, while the 4.15, which is wrecked, carries none but undesirable +characters. To this it might be replied that the inconceivable +complexity of the chess-board of the world exists only in relation to +our human faculties; but what is far more to the point is the +indubitable fact that many salutary miracles might be wrought which +would raise no question whatever as to the moral merits or defects of +the beneficiaries. Miracles of alleged justice may reasonably be +deprecated; but where is the objection to miracles of mercy, falling, +like the blessed rain from heaven, on both just and unjust? + +The haughty soul of Mr. Wells may prefer a deity who offers us no +tangible bribes--who not only does not work miracles, but will not +even utilize to material ends that great system of wireless telegraphy +between his mind and ours which he has, by hypothesis, at his +disposal. Mine, I confess, is a humbler spirit. I should be perfectly +willing to accept even thaumaturgic benefits if only they came in my +way; and I cannot regard it as a merit in a God that he should +carefully abstain from using even his powers of suggestion to do some +practical good in the world, and, incidentally, to demonstrate his own +existence. + + * * * * * + +It is difficult, in the course of a long discussion, to keep the +attention fixed on the precise point at issue. I therefore sum up in a +few words the argument of this chapter. + +In the first place, I have shown that, if words mean anything, Mr. +Wells does actually wish us to believe that his God is not a figure of +speech, but a person, an individual, as real and independent an entity +as the Kaiser or President Wilson. In the second place, I have +enquired whether anything he says enables us to conceive _à priori_ +the possibility of such an entity disengaging itself from the mind of +the race, and have regretfully been led to the conclusion that the +genesis of this God remains at least as insoluble a mystery as that of +any other God ever placed before a confiding public. Thirdly, I have +approached the question _à posteriori_ and enquired whether history or +present experience offers any evidence from which we can reasonably +infer the existence and activity of such a God--arriving once more at +a negative conclusion. With the best will in the world, I can discover +nothing in this Invisible King but a sort of new liqueur--or old +liqueur with a new label--suited, no doubt, to the constitutions of +certain very exceptional people. Mr. Wells avers that he himself finds +it supremely grateful and comforting, and further appeals to the +testimony of a number of other (unnamed) believers--"English, +Americans, Bengalis, Russians, French ... Positivists, Baptists, +Sikhs, Mohammedans" (p. 4)--a quaint Pentecostal gathering. It is +true, of course, that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and +of the liqueur in the drinking. But some of us are inveterately +sceptical of the virtues of alcohol, even in non-intoxicant doses, and +are apt to think that the man who discovers a remedy for sea-sickness +or a prophylactic against typhoid is a greater benefactor of the race +than a God whose special characteristic it is to be not only invisible +himself but equally imperceptible in his workings. + + + + +VI + +FOR AND AGAINST PERSONIFICATION + + +For those of us who cannot accept Mr. Wells's Invisible King as a God +in any useful or even comprehensible sense of the term, there remains +the question whether he is a useful figure of speech. Metaphors and +personifications are often things of great potency, whether for good +or evil. It might quite well happen that, if we wholly rejected Mr. +Wells's gospel, on account of a mere squabble as to the meaning of the +word "God," we should thereby lose something which might have been of +the utmost value to us. Let us not run the risk of throwing out the +baby with the bath-water. + +Take the case of a very similar personification with which we are all +familiar--to wit, John Bull. Is he a helpful or a detrimental +"synthesis"? It is not quite easy to say. There is a certain +geniality, a bluff wholesomeness, a downright honesty about him, which +has doubtless its value; but on the other hand he is the incarnation +of Philistinism and Toryism, the perfect expression of the average +sensual man. I am told that in one of his avatars he has something +like two million worshippers, on whom his influence is of the most +questionable, precisely because they have implicit "faith" in him, and +regard him as a "Friend behind phenomena," a "great brother," a +"strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, inspiring, and +lovable." That is an illustration of the dangers which may lurk in +prosopopoeia. But in the main we can regard John Bull without too +much misgiving, because we cannot regard him seriously. His worship +will always be seasoned with the saving grace of humor. He can do +service in two capacities--sometimes as an ideal, often as a +deterrent. Whatever religious revolutions may await us, we are not +likely to see St. Paul's Cathedral solemnly re-dedicated to the +worship of John Bull. He and his sister divinity, Mrs. Grundy, have +never lacked adorers in that basilica; but their cult is probably not +on the increase. + +The Invisible King, on the other hand, is a personage to be taken with +the utmost seriousness. If he has anything like the success Mr. Wells +anticipates for him, it is quite on the cards that he might oust the +present Reigning Family from one or all of the cathedrals. It is true +that Mr. Wells deprecates any ritual worship; but "religious thought +finely expressed" would always be in order; and he "does not see why +there should not be, under God, associations for building cathedrals +and such like great still places urgent with beauty, into which men +and women may go to rest from the clamor of the day's confusions" (p. +168). If cathedrals may be built, all the more clearly may they be +appropriated--if you can convert or evict the dean and chapter. If the +Invisible King should take the fancy of the nation and the world, as +Mr. Wells would have us think that he is already doing, he is bound to +become the object of a formal cult. We shall very soon see a +prayer-book of the "modern religion" with marriage, funeral and +perhaps baptismal services, with daily lessons, and with suitable +forms of prayer for persons who cannot trust themselves to extempore +communings even with a "great brother." + +Well, there might be no great harm in this. Some solemn form for the +expression of cosmic, and even of mundane or political, emotion would +doubtless be useful; and if the "modern religion" could be saved from +degenerating into a hysterical superstition on the one hand, or a +petrified, persecuting orthodoxy on the other, it would certainly be a +vast improvement on many of the religions of to-day. + +But the ambitions of the Invisible King go far beyond the mere +presidency of an Ethical Church on an extended scale. He is to be a +King and no mistake; not even a King of Kings, but "sole Monarch of +the universal earth." Autocracies, oligarchies, and democracies are +alike to be swept out of his path. The "implicit command" of the +modern religion "to all its adherents is to make plain the way to the +world theocracy" (p. 97). How the fiats of the Invisible King are to +be issued, we are not informed. If through the ballot-box--"vox +populi, vox dei"--then the distinction between theocracy and democracy +will scarcely be apparent to the naked eye. And one does not see how, +in the transition stage at any rate, recourse to the ballot-box is to +be avoided, if only as a lesser evil than recourse to howitzers, tanks +and submarines. We read that "if you do not feel God then there is no +persuading you of him"; but if you do, "you will realize more and more +clearly, that thus and thus and no other is his method and intention" +(p. 98). Now, assuming (no slight assumption) that the oracles of +God, the message of the still small voice, will be identically +interpreted by all believers, the unbelievers, those who "do not feel +God," have still to be dealt with; and, as they are not open to +persuasion, it would seem that the faithful must be prepared either to +shoot them down or to vote them down--whereof the latter seems the +humaner alternative. It is true that Mr. Wells's God is a man of war; +like that other whom he disowns but strangely resembles, "he brings +mankind not rest but a sword" (p. 96). But we may confidently hold +that this, at any rate, is but a manner of speaking. Even if the God +is real, his sword is metaphoric. Mr. Wells is not seriously proposing +to take his cue from his Mohammedan friends, raise the cry of "Allahu +Akbar!" and propagate his gospel scimitar in hand. It is hard to see, +then, what other method there can be of dealing with the heathen, +except the method of the ballot-box--of course with proportional +representation. When there are no more heathen--when the whole world +can read the will of God by direct intuition, as though it were +written in letters of fire across the firmament--then, indeed, the +ballot-box may join the throne, sceptre and crown in the historical +museum. But even the robust optimism of the _gottestrunken_ Mr. Wells +can scarcely conceive this millennium to be at hand. So that in the +meantime it seems unwise to speak slightingly of democracy, lest we +thereby help the Powers, both here and elsewhere, which are fighting +for something very much worse. For I take it that the worst enemy of +the Wellsian God is the Superman, who has quite a sporting chance of +coming out on top, if not actually in this War, at least in the welter +that will succeed it. + +But seriously, is any conceivable sort of theocracy a desirable ideal? +Or, to put the same question in more general terms, is it wise of Mr. +Wells to make such play with the word "God"? He himself admits that +"God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and bad associations: +his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange preferences, +his vindictive Old Testament past" (p. 8)--and, it may fairly be +added, his blood-boltered, Kultur-stained present. Is it possible to +deodorize a word which comes to us redolent of "good, thick stupefying +incense-smoke," mingled with the reek of the auto-da-fé? Can we beat +into a ploughshare the sword of St. Bartholomew, and a thousand other +deeds of horror? God has been by far the most tragic word in the whole +vocabulary of the race--a spell to conjure up all the worst fiends in +human nature: arrogance and abjectness, fanaticism, hatred and +atrocity. Religious reformers--with Jesus at their head--have time and +again tried to divest it of some, at least, of its terrors, but they +have invariably failed. Will Mr. Wells succeed any better? Is it not +apparent in the foregoing discussion that, even if the word had no +other demerits, it leads us into regions in which the mind can find no +firm foothold? I have done my best to accept Mr. Wells's definitions, +but I am sure he feels that I have constantly slipped from the strait +and narrow path. Has he himself always kept to it? I think not. And, +waiving that point, is it at all likely that people in general will be +more successful than I have been in grasping and holding fast to the +differentiating attributes of Mr. Wells's divinity? If the word is at +best a confusion and at worst a war-whoop, should we not try to +dispense with it, to avoid it, to find a substitute which should more +accurately, if less truculently, express our idea? Is it wise or kind +to seek to impose on the future an endless struggle with its sinister +ambiguities? + +There are, no doubt, regions of thought from which it is extremely +difficult to exclude the word; but these, fortunately, are regions in +which it is almost necessarily divested of its historical +associations. As a term of pure philosophy, if safeguarded by careful +definition, it is a convenient piece of shorthand, obviating the +necessity for a constant recourse to cumbrous formulas. But politics +is not one of these regions of thought; and it is precisely in +politics that the intervention of God has from of old been most +disastrous. "Theocracy" has always been the synonym for a bleak and +narrow, if not a fierce and blood-stained, tyranny. Why seek to revive +and rehabilitate a word of such a dismal connotation? I suggest that +even if the Invisible King _were_ a God, it would be tactful to +pretend that he was not. As he is _not_ a God, in any generally +understood sense of the term, it seems a curious perversity to pretend +that he is. + + * * * * * + +Even in the region of morals it is a backward step to restore God to +the supremacy from which he has with the utmost difficulty been +deposed. I am sure Mr. Wells does not in his heart believe that any +theological sanction is required for the plain essentials of social +well-doing, or any theological stimulus for the rare sublimities of +virtue. Incalculable mischief has been wrought by the clerical +endeavour to set up a necessary association between right conduct and +orthodoxy, between heterodoxy and vice. This Mr. Wells knows as well +as I do; yet he can use such phrases as "Without God, the 'Service of +Man' is no better than a hobby or a sentimentality or a hypocrisy." No +doubt he has carefully explained that he does not mean by God or +religion what the clergy mean; but can he be sure that by imitating +their phrases he may not imperceptibly slide into their frame of mind? +or at any rate tempt the weaker brethren to do so? In using such an +expression he comes perilously near the attitude adopted by the Bishop +of London in a recent address to the sailors of the Grand Fleet. His +Lordship told his hearers--we have it on his own authority--that +"there was in everyone a good man and a bad man. And I have not known +a case," he added, "where the good man conquered the bad man without +religion." Can there be any doubt that the Bishop was either +telling--well, not the truth--or shamelessly playing with words? Of +course it may be said that any man who keeps his lower instincts in +control does so by aid of a feeling that there are higher values in +life than sensual gratification or direct self-gratification of any +sort; and we may, if we are so minded, call this feeling religion. But +it is a very inconvenient meaning to attach to the word, and we cannot +take it to be the meaning the Bishop had in view. What he meant, in +all probability--what he desired his simple-minded hearers to +understand--was that he had never known a good man who did not +believe, if not in all the dogmas of the Church of England, at any +rate in the Christian Trinity, the fall of man, redemption from sin, +and the inspiration of the Scriptures. He meant that no man could be +good who did not believe that God has given us in writing a synopsis +of his plan of world-government, and has himself sojourned on earth +and submitted to an appearance of death, some two thousand years ago, +in fulfilment of the said plan. If he did _not_ mean that, he was, I +repeat, playing with words and deceiving his hearers, who would +certainly understand him to mean something to that effect; and if he +_did_ mean that, he departed very palpably from the truth. The Bishop +of London is no recluse, shut up in a monastery among men of his own +faith. He is a man of the modern world, and he must know, and know +that he knows, scores of men as good as himself who have no belief in +anything that he would recognize as religion. Perhaps he was not +directly conscious of telling a falsehood, for "faith" plays such +havoc with the intellect that men cease to attach any living meaning +to words, and come to deal habitually in those unrealized phrases +which we call cant. But whatever may have been his excuses to his +conscience, he was saying a very noxious thing to the simple, gallant +souls who heard him. Many of them must have been well aware that they +had no faith that would have satisfied the Bishop of London, and that +whatever religious ideas lurked in their minds were of very little use +to them in struggling with the temptations of a sailor's life. Where +was the sense in telling them that the ordinary motives which make for +good conduct--prudence, self-respect, loyalty, etc., etc.--are of no +avail, and that they must inevitably be bad men if they had not "found +religion"? If such talk does no positive harm, it is only because men +have learnt to discount the patter of theology. Yet here we find Mr. +Wells, after vigorously disclaiming any participation in the Bishop's +beliefs, falling into the common form of episcopal patter, and telling +me, for example--a benighted but quite well-intentioned heathen--that +I can do no good in my generation unless I believe in a God whom he +and a number of Eastern sages, Parthians, Medes, Elamites and dwellers +in Mesopotamia, have recently "synthetized" out of their inner +consciousnesses! It is not Mr. Wells's fault if I do not abandon the +steep and thorny track of austerity which I have hitherto pursued, +invest all my spare cash either in whiskey or in whiskey shares, and +go for my philosophy in future to the inspiring author of _Musings +without Method_ in "Blackwood." + +It is not quite clear why Mr. Wells should accept so large a part of +the Christian ethic and yet refuse to identify his Invisible King with +Christ. One would have supposed it quite as easy to divest the +Christ-figure of any inconvenient attributes as to eliminate +omniscience and omnipotence from the God-idea. Mr. Wells constantly +allows his thoughts to run into the stereotype moulds of biblical +phraseology. We have seen how he talks of "the still small voice," of +"the light of the world," "taking the sting from death" and of God +coming "in his own time" and bringing "not rest but a sword." To those +instances may be added such phrases as "death will be swallowed up in +victory" (p. 39), "by the grace of the true God" (p. 44), "God is +Love" (p. 65), "the Son of Man" (p. 86), "I become my brother's +keeper" (p. 97), "he it is who can deliver us 'from the body of this +death'" (p. 99). But the clearest indication of Christian influence is +to be found in Mr. Wells's unhesitating and emphatic adoption of the +idea that "Salvation is indeed to lose oneself" (p. 73). "The +difference," he says, "between ... the unbeliever and the servant of +the true God is this ... that the latter has experienced a complete +turning away from self. This only difference is all the difference in +the world" (p. 84). It is curious what a fascination this turn of +phrase has exercised upon many and diverse intelligences. Mr. Bernard +Shaw, for instance, adopts it with enthusiasm. Henrik Ibsen--if it is +ever possible to tie a true dramatist down to a doctrine--preaches in +_Peer Gynt_ that "to be thyself is to slay thyself." Mr. Wells has a +cloud of witnesses to back him up; and yet it is very doubtful whether +the turn of phrase is a really helpful one--whether it does not rather +get in the way of the natural man in his quest for a sound rule of +life. + +It is a commonplace that the entirely self-centred man--the Robinson +Crusoe of a desert island of egoism--is unhappy. At least if he is not +he belongs to a low intellectual and moral type: the proof being that +all development above the level of the oyster and the slug has +involved more or less surrender of the immediate claims of "number +one" to some larger unity. Progress has always consisted, and still +consists, in the widening of the ideal concept which appeals to our +loyalty. Is it not Mr. Wells's endeavour in this very book to claim +our devotion for the all-embracing and ultimate ideal--the human race? +So far, we are all at one. But when we are told that "conversion" or +"salvation" consists in a "_complete_ turning away from self," common +sense revolts. It is not true either in every-day life or in larger +matters of conduct. In every-day life the incurably "unselfish" person +is an intolerable nuisance. Here the common-sense rule is very simple: +you have no right to seek your own "salvation," or, in non-theological +terms, your own self-approval, at the cost of other people's; you have +no business to offer sacrifices which the other party ought not to +accept. It is true that in the application of this simple rule +difficult problems may arise; but a little tact will generally go a +long way towards solving them. In these matters an ounce of tact is +worth a pound of casuistry. And in our every-day England, in all +classes, it is my profound conviction that a reasonable selflessness +is very far from uncommon, very far from being confined to the +"converted" of any religion. For forty years I have watched it growing +and spreading before my very eyes. Reading the other way _The +Roundabout Papers_, I was greatly struck by the antiquated cast of the +manners therein described. Of course Thackeray, in his day, was +reputed a cynic, and supposed to have an over-partiality for studying +the seamy side of things. But even if that had been true (which I do +not believe) it would not have accounted for all the difference +between the world he saw and that in which we move to-day. I suggest, +then, that so far as the minor moralities are concerned, no new +religion is required, and we have only to let things pursue their +natural trend. + +And what of the great selflessnesses? What of the ideal loyalties? +What of the long-accumulated instincts which tell a man, in tones +which brook no contradiction, that the shortest life and the cruellest +death are better than the longest life of sensual self-contempt? Here, +as it seems to me, Mr. Wells's apostolate of a new religion is very +conspicuously superfluous--much more so than it would have been five +years ago. For have not he and I been privileged to witness one of the +most beautiful sights that the world ever saw--the flocking of Young +England, in its hundreds upon hundreds of thousands, to endure the +extremity of hardship and face the high probability of a cruel death, +not for England alone, not even for England, France and Belgium, but +for what they obscurely but very potently felt to be the highest +interests of the very same ideal entity which Mr. Wells proposes to +our devotion--the human race? I am sure he would be the last to +minimize the significance of that splendid uprising. No doubt there +were other motives at work: in some, the mere love of change and +adventure; in others, the pressure of public opinion. But my own +observation assures me that, on the whole, these unideal motives +played a very small part. The young men simply felt that he who held +back was unfaithful to his fathers and unworthy of his sons; and they +"turned away from self" without a moment's hesitation, and streamed to +the colors with all the more eagerness the longer the casualty-lists +grew, and the more clearly the horrors they had to face were brought +home to them. Has there been any voluntary "slaying of self" on so +huge a scale since the world began? I have not heard of it. And Mr. +Wells will scarcely tell me that these young men went through the +experiences he describes as "conversion," and escaped from the burden +of "over-individuation" by throwing themselves into the arms of a +synthetic God! Many of them, no doubt, would have expressed their +idealism, had they expressed it at all, in terms of Christianity; but +that, we are told, is a delusion, and the only true God is the +Invisible King. If that be so, the conclusion would seem to be that, +in the present stage of the evolution of human character, no God at +all is needed to enable millions of men, in whom the blood runs high +and the joy of life is at its keenest, to achieve the conquest of self +in one of its noblest forms. Or (what comes to the same thing) any +sort of God will serve the purpose. Your God (divested of metaphysical +attributes) is simply a name for your own better instincts and +impulses. Many people, perhaps most, share Mr. Wells's tendency to +externalize, objectivate, personify these impulses; and there may be +no harm in doing so. But when it comes to asserting that your own +personification is the only true one, then--I am not so sure. + +Finally there arises the question whether the personification of the +Invisible King can really, in any comprehensible sense, and for any +considerable number of normal human beings, rob death of its sting, +the grave of its victory? On this point discussion cannot possibly be +conclusive, for the ultimate test is necessarily a personal one. If +any sane and sincere person tells me that a certain idea, or emotion, +or habit of mind, or even any rite or incantation, has deprived death +of its terrors for him, I can only congratulate him, even if I have to +confess that my own experience gives me no clue to his meaning. It is +not even very profitable to enquire whether a man can be confident of +his own attitude towards death unless he has either come very close to +its brink himself, or known what it means to witness the extinction of +a life on which his whole joy in the present and hope for the future +depended. All one can do is to try to ascertain as nearly as possible +what the contemner of death really means, and to consider whether his +individual experience or feeling is, or is likely to become, typical. + +One thing we must plainly realize, and that is that, for the purposes +of his present argument, Mr. Wells conceives death to be a real +extinction of the individual consciousness. He does not formally +commit himself to a denial of personal immortality, but it is a +contingency which he declines to take into account. Oddly enough, in +trying to acclimatize our minds to the idea of such an absolutely +incorporeal and immaterial, yet really existent, being as his +Invisible King, he comes near to clearing away the one great obstacle +to belief in survival after death. "From the earliest ages," he says, +"man's mind has found little or no difficulty in the idea of something +essential to the personality, a soul or a spirit or both, existing +apart from the body and continuing after the destruction of the body, +and being still a person and an individual" (p. 59). He does not +actually say that there _is_ no difficulty about this conception: he +only says that, as a matter of history, the great mass of men have +found it easy and natural to believe in ghosts. But it is hard to see +any force in his argument at this point unless he means to imply that +he himself finds "little or no difficulty" in conceiving the continued +existence of a spiritual consciousness and individuality after the +dissolution of the body to which it has been attached; and if he does +mean this, it is hard to see why he does not take his stand beside Sir +Oliver Lodge on the spiritist platform. To many of us, the extreme +difficulty of such a conception is the one great barrier to the +acceptance of the spiritist theory, for which remarkable evidence can +certainly be adduced. This, however, is a digression. So far as _God +the Invisible King_ is concerned, Mr. Wells must be taken as ignoring, +if not rejecting, the idea of personal immortality. + +The victory over death, then, which the Invisible King is said to +achieve, does not consist in its abolition. It may probably be best +defined as the perfect reconcilement of the believer to the extinction +of his individual consciousness. And what are the grounds of that +reconcilement? Let us search the scriptures. Where the steps are +described by which the catechumen approaches the full realization of +God, it is said that at that stage he feels that "if there were such a +being he would supply the needed consolation and direction, his +continuing purpose would knit together the scattered effort of life, +_his immortality would take the sting from death_" (p. 21-22). A +little further on, the idea is elaborated in a high strain of +mysticism. God, who "captains us but does not coddle us" (p. 42), will +by no means undertake to hold the believer scatheless among the +pitfalls and perils that beset our earthly pilgrimage. "But God will +be with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane, or the dark +ice-cave, God will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, +it is not an end. He will be with you as you face death; he will die +with you as he has died already countless myriads of brave deaths. He +will come so close to you that at the last you will not know whether +it is you or he who dies, and the present death will be swallowed up +in his victory" (p. 39). The passage has already been quoted in which +it is written that, at the end of the fight for God's Kingdom, "we are +altogether taken up into his being" (p. 68). In a discussion of "the +religion of atheists" we are told that unregenerate man is "acutely +aware of himself as an individual and unawakened to himself as a +species," wherefore he "finds death frustration." His mistake is in +not seeing that his own frustration "may be the success and triumph of +his kind" (p. 72). At the point where we are told that "the first +purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge," we are further +informed that "he will apprehend more fully as time goes on" the +purpose to which this knowledge is to be applied. But already it is +possible to define "the broad outlines" of his purpose. "It is the +conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the individual _by +the incorporation of the motives of his life into an undying purpose_" +(p. 99), and then, as we saw before, the defeat of the threatened +extinction of life through the cooling of the planet. These, I think, +are the chief texts bearing directly on this particular matter; but +there is one other remark which must not be overlooked. "A convicted +criminal, frankly penitent," we are told, "... may still die well and +bravely on the gallows, to the glory of God. He may step straight from +that death into the immortal being of God." + +To what, now, does all this amount? Is there any more substantial +solace in it than in the "Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible" +aspiration of mid-nineteenth-century positivism? Far be it from me to +speak contemptuously of that aspiration. It gives a new orientation +and consistency to thought and effort during life; and to the man who +feels that his little note will melt into the world-harmony that is to +be, that thought may impart a certain serenity under the shadow of the +end. It is certainly better to feel at night, "I have done a fair +day's work," than to lie down with the confession, "My day has been +wasted, and worse." No one wants, I suppose, to say with Peer Gynt:-- + + Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me, + That I trampled thy grasses to no avail; + Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away + Thy glory of light in an empty hut. + Beautiful sun and beautiful earth, + You were foolish to bear and give light to my mother. + +But there is also another side to the question. The more surely you +believe that "through the ages one increasing purpose runs"--the more +intimately you have merged your individual will in what Mr. Wells +would call the will of the Invisible King--the less do you relish the +thought that you can never see that will worked out. The intenser your +interest in the play, the greater your disinclination to leave the +theatre just as the plot is thickening. Nor does it afford much +consolation to know that the Producer is just (as it were) getting +into his stride, and that, if the house should become too cold for +comfort, arrangements will be made for the transference of the +production to another theatre, with a better heating-apparatus. + +Is there any real escape from the fact that for each of us the one +thing that actually exists is our individual consciousness? It is our +universe; and if its trembling flame is blown out, that particular +universe is no more. If its limits of "individuation" are +irrecoverably lost, what avails it to tell us that the flame is +absorbed into the light of the world or the dayspring on high? Is it +possible to imagine that the rain-drop which falls in the Atlantic +thrills with a great rapture as its molecules disperse in the moment +of coalescence, because it is now part of an infinite and immortal +entity? Yes, it is possible to imagine it rejoicing that its "chagrins +of egotism," as an individual drop, are now over; in fact, this is +precisely the sort of thing that some poets love to imagine; but has +it any real relevance to our sublunary lot? Can it minister any +substantial comfort or fortification to the normal man in the moment +of peril or agony? I ask; I do not answer. Can Mr. Wells put in the +witness-box any flight-lieutenant who will swear that in his reeling +aeroplane, as death seemed on the point of engulfing him, he felt +uncertain whether it was God or he that was about to die, and +gloriously certain that in any case he was about to "step straight +into the immortal being of God"? And even if, in the excitement of +violent action, such hallucinations do mean something to a peculiar +type of mind, has any one dying of pneumonia or Bright's disease been +known to declare that, though his mortal spark was on the point of +extinction, he felt that "by the incorporation of the motives of his +life into an undying purpose" he had triumphed over death and the +grave? The simple soul who says "We shall meet in Heaven" no doubt +enjoys such a triumph--and even if he fails to keep the appointment, +no one is any the worse. But where are the men and women who feel the +immortality of God, however we define or construct him, a rich +compensation for their own mortality? + +It may be said that I am applying shockingly terrestrial tests to Mr. +Wells's soaring transcendentalisms. I am simply asking: "Will they +work?" A world-religion cannot be what I have called a luxury for the +intellectually wealthy. It must be within the reach of plain men and +women; and plain men and women cannot, as the French say, "pay +themselves with words." Take them all round, they do not make too much +of death. With or without the aid of religion, they generally meet it +with tolerable fortitude. But it will be hard to persuade them that +annihilation is a thing to be faced with rapture, because a synthetic +God is indestructible; or that death is not death because other people +will be alive a hundred or a thousand years hence. Even if you cannot +offer them another life, you may tell them of the grave as a place +where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest, and +they will understand. But will they understand if you tell them that +we triumph over the grave because God dies with us and yet never dies? +I fear it will need something clearer and more credible than this to +make the undertaker a popular functionary. + +The doctrines of "the modern religion" may give us a new motive for +living; but how can they at the same time diminish our distaste for +dying? That might be their effect, no doubt, in cases where we felt +that our death was promoting some great and sacred cause more than our +life could have done; but such cases must always be extremely rare. +Even the soldier on the battlefield will help his country more by +living than by dying, if he can do so without failing in his duty. His +death is not a triumph, but only a lesser evil than cowardice and +disgrace. And what shall we say, for example, of the case of a young +biologist who dies of blood-poisoning on the eve of a great and +beneficent discovery? Is not this a case in which the modern God might +with advantage have swerved from his principles and (for once) played +the part of Providence? It is better, no doubt, to die in a good cause +than to throw away life in the pursuit of folly or vice; but is it +not playing with words to say that even the end of a martyr to science +like Captain Scott, or a martyr to humanity like Edith Cavell, is a +triumph over death and the grave? It is a triumph over cowardice, +baseness, the love of ease and safety, all the paltrier aspects of our +nature; but a triumph over death it is not. If it be true (which I do +not believe) that German soldiers sign a declaration devoting the +glycerine in their dead bodies to their country's service, one may +imagine that some of them feel a species of satisfaction in resolving +upon this final proof of patriotism; but it will be a gloomy +satisfaction at best; there will be a lack of exhilaration about it; +if the Herr Hauptmann who witnesses their signatures congratulates +them on having triumphed over death, they will be apt to think it a +rather empty form of words. If they had had the advantage of reading +Jane Austen, they would probably say with Mr. Bennet, "Let us take a +more cheerful view of the subject, and suppose that I survive." + +I fear that not even the companionship offered by the modern God in +the act of dissolution will make death a cheerful experience, or +induce ordinary, unaffected mortals to glory in their mortality. It +is too much the habit of Gods to pretend to die when they don't really +die at all--when, in fact, the whole idea is a mere intellectual +hocus-pocus. + + + + +VII + +BACK TO THE VEILED BEING + + +Why has Mr. Wells partly goaded and partly hypnotized himself into the +belief that he is the predestined prolocutor of a new hocus-pocus? +Rightly or wrongly, I diagnose his case thus: What he really cares for +is the future of humanity, or, in more concrete language, social +betterment. He suffers more than most of us from the spectacle of the +world of to-day, because he has the constructive imagination which can +place alongside of that chaos of cupidities and stupidities a vision +of a rational world-order which seems easily attainable if only some +malignant spell could be lifted from the spirit of man. But he finds +himself impotent in face of the crass inertia of things-as-they-are. +Except the gift of oratory, he has all possible advantages for the +part of a social regenerator. He has the pen of a ready and sometimes +very impressive writer; he has a fair training in science; he has a +fertile and inventive brain; his works of fiction have won for him a +great public, both in Europe and America; yet he feels that his social +philosophy, his ardent and enlightened meliorism, makes no more +impression than the buzzing of a gnat in the ear of a drowsy mastodon. +At the same time he has persuaded himself, whether on internal or on +external evidence--partly, I daresay, on both--that men cannot thrive, +either as individuals or as world-citizens, without some relation of +reverence and affection to something outside and above themselves. He +foresees that Christianity will come bankrupt out of the War, and yet +that the huge, shattering experience will throw the minds of men open +to spiritual influences. At the same time (of this one could point to +several incidental evidences) he has come a good deal in contact with +Indian religiosity, and learnt to know a type of mind to which God, in +one form or another, is indeed an essential of life, while the +particular form is a matter of comparative indifference. Then the idea +strikes him: "Have we not here a great opportunity for placing the +motive-power of spiritual fervor behind, or within, the sluggish +framework of social idealism? Here it lies, well thought-out, +carefully constructed, but inert, like an aeroplane without an +engine. By giving the glow of supernaturalism, of the worship of a +personal God, to the good old Religion of Humanity, may we not impart +to our schemes for a well-ordered world precisely the uplift they at +present lack? It was all very well for chilly New England +transcendentalism to 'hitch its waggon to a star,' but the result is +that Boston is governed by a Roman Catholic Archbishop. It is really +much easier and more effective to hitch our waggon to God, who, being +a synthesis of our own higher selves, will naturally pull it in +whatever direction we want. Thus the mass of mankind will escape from +that spiritual loneliness which is so discomfortable to them, and will +find, in one and the same personification, a deity to listen to their +prayers, and a 'boss,' in the Tammany sense of the term, to herd them +to the polling-booths. What we want is collectivism touched with +emotion. By proclaiming it to be the will of God, and identifying +sound politics with ecstatic piety, we may shorten by several +centuries the path to a new world-order." + +This is a translation into plain English of the thoughts which would +seem to have possessed Mr. Wells's mind during the past year or so. I +do not for a moment mean that he put them to himself in plain +English. That would be to accuse him of insincerity--a thought which I +most sincerely disclaim. I have not the least doubt that the Invisible +King does actually supply a "felt want" in his spiritual outfit, and +that he is perfectly convinced that most other people are similarly +constituted and will welcome this new object of loyalty and devotion. +Time will show whether his psychology is correct. If it is, then he +has indeed made an important discovery. To use a very homely +illustration: a carrot dangled from the end of a stick before a +donkey's nose makes no mechanical difference in the problem of +traction presented by the costermonger's barrow. If anything, it adds +to the weight to be drawn. But if the sight of it cheers, heartens, +and inspires the donkey, helping him to overcome those fits of +lethargy so characteristic of his race, then the carrot may quite +appreciably accelerate the general rate of progress. It all depends on +the psychology of the donkey. + +Moses doubtless did very wisely in going up into Mount Sinai and +abiding there forty days and forty nights. Whatever he may have seen +and heard, the semblance of communion with a Higher Power +unquestionably lent a prestige to his scheme of social reform which +it could never have attained had he offered it on its inherent merits, +as the project of a mere human legislator, or (still worse) of a man +of letters. Moses, in fact, knew his Children of Israel. Does Mr. +Wells know his modern Englishmen or Anglo-Americans? + +That is the question. + +Mr. Bernard Shaw has made a similar and very ingenious attempt, not +exactly to found a new religion, but to place his ideas in a religious +atmosphere. In the preface to _Androcles and the Lion_ (a disquisition +just about as long as _God the Invisible King_) he propounds the +question, "Why not give Christianity a trial?" and opens the +discussion thus: "The question seems a hopeless one after 2,000 years +of resolute adherence to the old cry of 'Not this man, but Barabbas.' +Yet it is beginning to look as if Barabbas was a failure, in spite of +his strong right hand, his victories, his empires, his millions of +money, and his moralities and churches and political constitutions. +'This man' has not been a failure yet; for nobody has ever been sane +enough to try his way." Then he goes on to shew, by a course of very +plausible reasoning, that the teaching of Jesus was, in all +essentials, an exact anticipation of the economic and social +philosophy of G. B. S.; so that, in giving political expression to +that philosophy, we should be, for the first time, establishing the +Kingdom of Christ upon earth. It is true that there are passages in +the Gospels which no more accord with Mr. Shaw's sociology than do +omnipotence and omniscience with the theology of Mr. Wells. But these +passages do not embarrass Mr. Shaw. He simply points out that, at +Matthew xvi, 16, where Peter hailed him as "the Christ, the Son of the +living God," Jesus went mad. Up to that fatal moment "his history is +that of a man sane and interesting apart from his special gifts as +orator, healer and prophet"; but from that point onward he set to work +to live up to "his destiny as a god," part of which was to be killed +and to rise again. Many other prophets have gone mad--for instance, +Ruskin and Nietzsche. Therefore we can have no difficulty in simply +eliminating as a morbid aberration whatever is un-Shavian in the +message of Jesus, and accepting the rest as the sincere milk of the +word. Mr. Shaw's attempt to place his philosophy under divine +patronage is not so serious as Mr. Wells's; for Mr. Shaw can never +take himself quite seriously for five pages together. But the motive, +in each case, in manifestly the same--to obtain for a system of ideas +the prestige, the power of insinuation, penetration, and stimulation, +that attaches to the very name of religion. + +The notion is a very tempting one. What every prophet wants, in the +babel of latter-day thought, is a magic sounding-board which shall +make his voice carry to the ends of the earth and penetrate to the +dullest understanding. The more he believes in his own reason, the +more he yearns for some method of out-shouting the unreason of his +neighbours. German philosophy thought it had discovered the ideal +reverberator in the artillery of Herr Krupp von Bohlen; but the world +is curiously indisposed to conversion by cannon, and has retorted in a +still louder roar of high-explosive arguments. God, as a +politico-philosophical ally, is certainly cheaper than Herr Krupp; +and, divested of his mediæval sword and tinder-box, he is decidedly +humaner. But is the glamour of his name quite what it once was? Or can +it be restored to its pristine potency? + +On a question, such as this, on which the evidence is too vague, too +voluminous and too complex to be interpreted with any certainty, our +wishes are apt to take control of our thoughts. Making all allowance +for this source of error, I nevertheless venture to suggest to Mr. +Wells that we may perhaps be passing out of, not into, an age of +religiosity. May it not be that the time has come to give the name of +God a rest? Is it not possible, and even probable, that, while the +vast apocalypse of the observatory and the laboratory is proceeding +with unexampled speed, thinking people may prefer to await its +developments, rather than pin their faith to an interim, synthetic +God, whom his own still, small voice must, in moments of candor, +confess to be merely make-believe? Is it the fact that men, or even +women, of our race are, as a rule, absolutely dependent for courage, +energy, self-control and self-devotion, upon some "great brother" +outside themselves, "a strongly-marked personality, loving, inspiring +and lovable," whom they conceive to be always within call? In making +this assumption, is not Mr. Wells ignoring the great mass of paganism +in the world around him--not all of it, or even most of it, +self-conscious and self-confessed, but none the less real on that +account? He makes a curious remark as to the personage whom he calls +"the benevolent atheist," which is, I take it, his nickname for the +man who is not much interested in midway Gods between himself and the +Veiled Being. This hapless fellow-creature, says Mr. Wells, "has not +really given himself or got away from himself. He has no one to whom +he can give himself. _He is still a masterless man_" (p. 83). As Mr. +Wells has evidently read a good deal about Japan, he no doubt takes +this expression from Japanese feudalism, which made a distinct class +of the "ronin" or masterless man, who had, by death or otherwise, lost +his feudal superior. But is it really, to our Western sense, a +misfortune to be a masterless man? Does the healthy human spirit +suffer from having no one to bow down to, no one to relieve it of the +burden of choice, responsibility, self-control? If our feudal +allegiance has terminated through the death of the Gods who asserted a +hereditary claim upon it, must we make haste to build ourselves an +idol, or synthetize a mosaic ikon, to serve as the recipient of our +obeisances, genuflexions, osculations? I cannot believe that this is a +general, and much less a universal, tendency. If any one is irked by +the condition of a "masterless man," the Roman Catholic Church holds +wide its doors for him. It seems very doubtful whether any less +ancient, dogmatic, hieratic, spectacular form of make-believe will +serve his turn. + +It has sometimes seemed to me that the one great advantage of Western +Christianity lies in the fact that nobody very seriously believes in +it. "Nobody" is not a mathematically accurate expression, but it is +quite in the line of the truth. You have to go to Asia to find out +what religion means. If you cannot get so far, Russia will serve as a +half-way house; but to study religion on its native heath, so to +speak, you must go to India. Of course there may be some illusion in +the matter, due to one's ignorance of the languages and inability to +estimate the exact spiritual significance of outward manifestations; +but I cannot believe that, anywhere between Suez and Singapore, there +exists that healthy godlessness, that lack of any real effective +dependence on any outward Power "dal tetto in su," which is so common +in and around all Christian churches. In China and Japan it is another +matter. There, I fancy, religious "ronins" are common enough. But in +the lands of the Crescent and the land of "OM," anything like freedom +of the human spirit is probably very rare and very difficult. The +difference does not arise from any lesser stringency in the claims of +Christianity to spiritual dominion, but rather, I imagine, from a +deep-seated divergence in racial heredity. We Western Aryans have +behind us the serene and splendid rationalisms of Greece and Rome. We +are accustomed from childhood to the knowledge that our civilization +was founded by two mighty aristocracies of intellect, to whom the +religions of their day were, as they are to us, nothing but more or +less graceful fairy-tales.[4] We know that many of the greatest men +the world ever saw, while phrasing their relation to the "deus +absconditus" in various ways, were utterly free from that penitential, +supplicatory abjectness which is the mark of Asian salvationism. And +though of course the conscious filiation to Greece and Rome is rare, +the habit of mind which holds up its head in the world and feels no +childish craving to cling to the skirts of a God, is not rare at all. +Therefore I conceive that people who are shaken out of their +conventional, unrealized Christianity by the earthquake of the war +will not, as a rule, be in any hurry to rush into the arms of the +"great brother" constructed for them by Mr. Wells. It is easier to +picture them flocking to the banner of the Fabian Jesus--the Christ +uncrucified, and restored to sanity, of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + + [4] Namque deos didici securum agere aevum, + nec, siquid miri faciat natura, deos id + tristes ex alto caeli demittere tecto. + HORACE, _Satires_ I., 5. + + * * * * * + +Does it really seem to Mr. Wells an arid and damnable "atheism" that +finds in the very mystery of existence a subject of contemplation so +inexhaustibly marvellous as to give life the fascination of a +detective story? When Mr. Wells tells us that "the first purpose of +God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a means to +more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power," he states what +is, to many of us, the first and last article of religion--only that +we prefer to steer clear of hocus-pocus and substitute "Man" for +"God." If we are almost, or even quite, reconciled to the cruelties +and humiliations of life by the thought of its visual glories, its +intellectual triumphs, and the mysteries with which it is surrounded, +is that frame of mind wholly unworthy to be called religious? If it +is, I, for one, shall not complain; for religion, like God, is a word +that has been-- + + Defamed by every charlatan + And soil'd with all ignoble use. + +But it will be difficult to persuade me of the loftier spirituality, +or even the more abiding solace, involved in ecstatic devotion to a +figure of speech. + +There are two elements of consolation in life: the things of which we +are sure, and the things of which we are unsure. We are sure that man +has somehow been launched upon the most romantic adventure that mind +can conceive. He has set forth to conquer and subdue the world, +including the stupidities and basenesses of his own nature. At first +his progress was incalculably slow; then he came on with a rush in the +great sub-tropical river basins; and presently, where the brine of the +Ægean got into his blood, he achieved such miracles of thought and art +that his subsequent history, for well-nigh two thousand years, bore +the appearance of retrogression. I have already asked what the +Invisible King was about when he suffered the glory that was Athens to +sink in the fog-bank that was Alexandria. At all events, that +wonderful false-start came to nothing. Rome succeeded to the +world-leadership; and Rome, though energetic and capable, was never +brilliant. With her, European free thought, investigation, science +flickered out, and Asian religion took its place. Truly the slip-back +from antiquity to the dark ages offers a specious argument to the +atheists--the true and irredeemable atheists--who deny the reality of +progress. Specious, but quite insubstantial; for we can analyze the +terrestrial conditions which led to that catastrophe, and assure +ourselves that the bugbear of their recurrence is nothing more than a +bugbear. The printing-press alone is an inestimable safeguard. If the +Greeks had hit upon the idea of movable types--and it is little to the +credit of the Invisible King that they did not--the onrush of +barbarism and Byzantinism would not have been half so disastrous. And +even through the Dark Ages the bias towards betterment is still +perceptible, though its operation was terribly hampered. Then, at +last, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took up the thread of +progress where antiquity had dropped it. Science revived, and bade +defiance to dogma. The garnering of knowledge began afresh; and true +knowledge has this to distinguish it from pseudo-sciences like +astrology, theology, and philately, that it is instinct with +procreative vigour. Knowledge breeds knowledge with ever-increasing +rapidity; and the result is that the past hundred years have seen +additions to man's control over the powers of nature which outstrip +the wildest imaginings of Eastern romance. When Mr. Gladstone first +went to Rome in 1832, his "transportation" was no swifter and scarcely +more comfortable than that of Cæsar in the fifties before Christ. +Today he could fly over the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa, and then cover +the distance from Milan onwards at the rate of seventy miles an hour +in a limousine as luxurious as an Empress's boudoir. We are piling up +the knowledge which is power at an enormous rate--indeed rather too +rapidly, since we have not yet the sense to discriminate between power +for good and power for evil. But "burnt bairns dread the fire," and +after the present awful experience, there is fair ground for hope that +measures will be taken to provide strait-waistcoats for the criminal +lunatics whose vanity and greed impel them to let loose the powers of +destruction. + +Can any thinking man say that the world is quite the same to him since +the invention of wireless telegraphy? True it is only one among the +multitude of phenomena behind which the Veiled Being dissembles +himself. But is it not a phenomenon of a new and perhaps an +epoch-marking order? It may not make the veil more diaphanous, but it +somehow suggests an alteration--perhaps a progressive alteration--in +its texture. + +When we say we are sure of the fact of progress, the atheist comes +down on us with the retort that we thereby confess ourselves naïve and +credulous optimists. As well say that when we express our confidence +that the North Western Railway will carry us to Manchester, we thereby +imply the belief that Manchester is the Earthly Paradise. It is quite +possible--any one who is so minded may say it is quite probable--that +progress means advance towards disillusion. What we are sure of is +merely this: that life may be, and ought to be, a very different thing +from what it now is, and that it is in our own power to make it so. We +have not the least doubt that the generations which come after us will +say:-- + + We will not cease from mortal strife, + Nor shall the sword slip from our hand, + Till we have built Jerusalem + In England's green and pleasant land. + +But whether, when they have built it, they will think Jerusalem worth +the building is quite a different matter. It may be that Leopardi was +right when he said, "Men are miserable by necessity, but resolute in +believing themselves to be miserable by accident." That is a +proposition which the individual can accept or reject so far as his +own little span is concerned, but on which the race, as such, can pass +no valid judgment. Life has never had a fair chance. It has always +been so beset with accidental and corrigible evils that no man can say +what life, in its ultimate essence, really is. All we know is that +many of its miseries are factitious, inessential, eminently curable; +and till these are eradicated, how are we to determine whether there +are other evils too deep-rooted for our surgery? It may be, for +example, that the elimination of Pain would only leave a vacuum for +Tedium to rush in; but how are we to decide this _à priori_? Let us +learn what are the true potentialities of life before we undertake to +declare whether it is worth living or not. + +Perhaps I may be allowed to quote at this point some words of my own +which express the idea I am trying to convey as clearly as I am +capable of putting it. They are part of the last paragraph of an +address entitled _Knowledge and Character: The Straight Road in +Education_:[5] + + The great, dominant, all-controlling fact of this life is the + innate bias of the human spirit, not towards evil, as the + theologians tell us, but towards good. But for this bias, man + would never have been man; he would only have been one more + species of wild animal ranging a savage, uncultivated globe, + the reeking battle-ground of sheer instinct and appetite. But + somehow and somewhere there germinated in his mind the idea + that association, co-operation, would serve his ends better + than unbridled egoism in the struggle for existence. Instead + of "each man for himself" his motto became "each man for his + family, or his tribe, or his nation, or--ultimately--for + humankind." And, at a very early stage, what made for + association, co-operation, brotherhood, came to be designated + "good," while that which sinned against these upward + tendencies was stigmatized as "evil." From that moment the + battle was won, and the transfiguration of human life became + only a matter of time. The prejudice in favour of the idea of + good is the fundamental fact of our moral nature. It has an + irresistible, a magical prestige. We have made, and are still + making, a myriad mistakes--tragic and horrible mistakes--in + striving for good things which are evils in disguise. A few + of us (though relatively not very many) try to overcome the + prejudice altogether, and say, "Evil, be thou my good!" But + even these recreants and deserters from the great army of + humanity have to express themselves in terms of good, and to + take their stand on a sheer contradiction. Evil, as such, has + simply not a fighting chance. The prestige of good is + stupendous. We are all hypnotized by it; and the reason we + are slow in realizing the ideal is, not that we are evil, but + that we are stupid. + + [5] London: George Allen and Unwin, 1916. + +"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens"--no one had a +better right to say that than a German poet. But though the Invisible +King has made a poor fight against human stupidity, it is not really +unconquerable. If Gods cannot conquer it, men can. Its strongholds +are falling one by one, and, though a long fight is before us, its end +is not in doubt. + +We may even hope, not without some plausibility, that moral progress +may be all the more rapid in the future because the limit of what +may be called mechanical progress cannot be so very far off. The +conquest of distance is the great material fact that makes for +world-organization; and distance cannot, after all, be more than +annihilated--it cannot be reduced to a minus quantity. Now that we can +whisper round the globe as we whisper round the dome of St. Paul's, we +cannot get much further on that line of advance, until immaterial +thought-transference shall enable us "to flash through one another in +a moment as we will." We may before long have reduced the crossing of +the Atlantic from five days to one, or even less; but in that +direction, too, there is a limit to progress; no invention will enable +us to arrive before we start. The conquest of physical disease seems +to be well within view; the possibilities of intensive cultivation and +selective breeding in plants and animals are likely to be rapidly +developed. When such material problems cease to exercise the first +fascination upon the enquiring mind, the mental sciences, psychology +and sociology, with the great neglected art of education, may come +into their kingdom. Then the atheism which avers that the world stands +still, or moves only in a circle, will no longer be possible. Then all +reasonable men will feel themselves soldiers in "a mighty army which +has won splendid victories (though here and there chequered with +defeats) on its march out of the dim and tragic past, and is clearly +destined to far greater triumphs in the future, if only each man does, +with unflinching loyalty, the duty assigned to him." That loyalty will +then be the conscious and acknowledged rule of life, as it is now in +an instinctive and half-realized fashion. It will help us, more than +all the personifications in the world, to "turn away from self." It +will not take the sting from death, but it will enable us to feel that +we have earned our rest, and brought no disgrace upon the colors of +our regiment. + +Is it necessary to protest once more that this assurance of progress +towards the good is not to be confounded with optimism? For it is +clear that "good" is a question-begging word. The only possible +definition of "good" is "that which makes for life"--for life, not +only measured by quantity, but by quality and intensity--"that ye may +have life more abundantly." Why is egoism evil? Because a world in +which it reigned supreme would very soon come to an end, or at any +rate could not support anything like the abundance of life which is +rendered possible by mutual aid and co-operation. Why are order, +justice, courage, humanity good? Because they enable more people to +lead fuller lives than would be possible in the absence of such +guiding principles. But in all this we assume the validity of the +standard--"life"--which is precisely what pessimism denies. And +pessimism may quite conceivably be in the right on't. It is quite +conceivable that, having made the best that can possibly be made of +life, a world-weary race might decide that the best was not good +enough, and deliberately turn away from it. But that is a contingency, +a speculation, which no sane man would allow to affect his action here +and now, or to impair his loyalty to his comrades in the great +terrestrial adventure. + +And is not this question of the ultimate value of life precisely one +of the uncertainties which lend--if the flippancy may be excused--a +"sporting interest" to our position? I have said that we have two +elements of consolation: the things which are sure and the things +which are unsure: in other words, the axioms and the mysteries. +Reason is all very well so far as it goes, and we do right to trust to +it; but it may prove, after all, that the things that are behind and +beyond and above reason are the things that really matter. Does this +seem a concession to obscurantism? Not at all--for the things +obscurantism glories in are things beneath reason, which is quite +another affair. At the same time, we are too apt to think that reason +has drawn a complete outline-map of its "sphere of influence," in +which there are many details to be filled in, but no boundaries to be +shifted, no regions wholly unexplored. It is, for instance, very +unreasonable to hold that we can draw a hard and fast line between the +materially possible and impossible. There is certainly a curious +ragged edge to our purely scientific knowledge, and it may well be +that in following up the frayed-out threads we may come upon things +very surprising and important. For example, the question whether +consciousness can exist detached from organized matter, or attached to +some form of matter of which we have no knowledge, I regard as purely +a question of evidence; and I not only admit but assert that the +evidence pointing in that direction is worthy of careful examination. +The interpretation which sees in it a proof of personal immortality +may be wrong, but that does not prove that the right interpretation is +not worth discovering. The spiritist voyagers may not have reached the +Indies of their hopes, yet may have stumbled upon an unsuspected +America. Nor does the fact that they are eager and credulous +invalidate the whole, or anything like the whole, of their evidence. + +After all, is it a greater miracle that consciousness should exist +_de_tached from matter than that it should exist _at_tached to matter? +Yet the latter miracle nobody doubts, except in the nursery games of +the metaphysicians. + +To define, or rather to adumbrate, the realm of mystery, which is yet +as indisputably real as the realm of reason and sense, we naturally +turn to the poets, the seers. Here is a glimpse of it through the eyes +of Francis Thompson, that creature of transcendent vision who made a +strange pretence of wearing the blinkers of the Roman Catholic Church. +Thus he writes in his "Anthem of Earth":-- + + Ay, Mother! Mother! + What is this Man, thy darling kissed and cuffed, + Thou lustingly engender'st, + To sweat, and make his brag, and rot, + Crowned with all honour and all shamefulness? + From nightly towers + He dogs the secret footsteps of the heavens, + Sifts in his hands the stars, weighs them as gold-dust, + And yet is he successive unto nothing + But patrimony of a little mould, + And entail of four planks. Thou hast made his mouth + Avid of all dominion and all mightiness, + All sorrow, all delight, all topless grandeurs, + All beauty and all starry majesties, + And dim transtellar things;--even that it may, + Filled in the ending with a puff of dust, + Confess--"It is enough." The world left empty + What that poor mouthful crams. His heart is builded + For pride, for potency, infinity, + All heights, all deeps, and all immensities, + Arras'd with purple like the house of kings,-- + To stall the grey rat, and the carrion-worm + Statelily lodge. Mother of mysteries! + Sayer of dark sayings in a thousand tongues, + Who bringest forth no saying yet so dark + As we ourselves, thy darkest! + +Surely this is the very truth. Man is a hieroglyph to which reason +supplies no key--nay, reason itself is the heart of the enigma. And +does not this lend a strange fascination to the adventure of life? + +Another singer, in a very much simpler strain, puts something of the +same idea:-- + + Marooned on an isle of mystery, + From a stupor of sleep we woke, + And gazed at each other wistfully, + A wondering, wildered folk. + + There were flowery valleys and mountains blue, + And pastures, and herds galore, + And fruits that were luscious to bite into, + Though bitter at the core. + + So we plucked up heart, and we dree'd our weird + Through flickering gleam and gloom, + And still for rescue we hoped--or feared-- + From our island home and tomb. + + But never over the sailless sea + Came messenger bark or schooner + With news from the far-off realm whence we + Set sail for that isle of mystery, + Or a whisper of apology + From our mute, malign marooner. + +The strain of pessimism in this is even more marked than in Thompson's +"Anthem"; and indeed it is hard to deny that the resolute silence of +the "Veiled Being," the "Invisible King," and all the Gods and +godlings ever propounded to mortal piety, is one of their most +suspicious characteristics. Yet it may be that this reproach, however +natural, does the Veiled Being--or the Younger Power of our +alternative myth--a measure of injustice. It may be that the great +Dramaturge keeps his plot to himself precisely in order that the +interest may be maintained up to the fall of the curtain. It may be +that its disclosure would upset the conditions of some vast experiment +which he is working out. Where would be the interest of a race if its +result were a foregone conclusion? Where the passion of a battle if +its issue were foreknown? What if we should prove to be somnambulists +treading some dizzy edge between two abysses, and able to reach the +goal only on condition that we are unconscious of the process? Perhaps +the sanest view of the problem is that presented in Bliss Carman's +haunting poem + + THE JUGGLER + + Look how he throws them up and up, + The beautiful golden balls! + They hang aloft in the purple air, + And there never is one that falls. + + He sends them hot from his steady hand, + He teaches them all their curves; + And whether the reach be little or long, + There never is one that swerves. + + Some, like the tiny red one there, + He never lets go far; + And some he has sent to the roof of the tent + To swim without a jar. + + So white and still they seem to hang, + You wonder if he forgot + To reckon the time of their return + And measure their golden lot. + + Can it be that, hurried or tired out, + The hand of the juggler shook? + O never you fear, his eye is clear, + He knows them all like a book. + + And they will home to his hand at last, + For he pulls them by a cord + Finer than silk and strong as fate, + That is just the bid of his word. + + Was ever there such a sight in the world? + Like a wonderful winding skein,-- + The way he tangles them up together + And ravels them out again! + + * * * * * + + If I could have him at the inn + All by myself some night,-- + Inquire his country, and where in the world + He came by that cunning sleight! + + Where do you guess he learned the trick + To hold us gaping here, + Till our minds in the spell of his maze almost + Have forgotten the time of year? + + One never could have the least idea. + Yet why he disposed to twit + A fellow who does such wonderful things + With the merest lack of wit? + + Likely enough, when the show is done + And the balls all back in his hand, + He'll tell us why he is smiling so, + And we shall understand. + +I am not, perhaps, very firmly assured of this consummation. Yet I am +much more hopeful of one day understanding the Juggler and the Balls +than of ever getting into confidential relations with Mr. Wells's +Invisible King. + + * * * * * + +One is conscious of a sort of churlishness in thus rejecting the +advances of so amiable a character as the Invisible King. But is Mr. +Wells, on his side, quite courteous, or even quite fair, to the Veiled +Being? "Riddle me no riddles!" he seems to say; "I am tired of your +guessing games. Let us have done with 'distressful enquiry into +ultimate origins,' and 'bring our minds to the conception of a +spontaneous and developing God'--one of whose existence and +benevolence we are sure, since we made him ourselves. I want something +to worship, to take me out of myself, to inspire me with brave phrases +about death. How can one worship an insoluble problem? Will an enigma +die with me in a reeling aeroplane? While you lurk obstinately behind +that veil, how can I even know that your political views are sound? +Whereas the Invisible King gives forth oracles of the highest +political wisdom, in a voice which I can scarcely distinguish from my +own. You are a remote, tantalizing entity with nothing comforting or +stimulating about you. But as for my Invisible King, 'Closer is he +than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.'" + +A little way back, I compared Mr. Wells to Moses; but, looked at from +another point of view, he and his co-religionists may rather be +likened to the Children of Israel. Tired of waiting for news from the +God on the cloudy mountain-top, did they not make themselves a +synthetic deity, finite, friendly, and very like the Invisible King, +inasmuch as he seems to have worked no miracles, and done, in fact, +nothing whatever? But the God on the mountain-top was wroth, and +accused them of idolatry, surely not without reason. For what is +idolatry if it be not manufacturing a God, whether out of golden +earrings or out of humanitarian sentiments, and then bowing down and +worshipping it? + +The wrath of the tribal God against his bovine rival was certainly +excessive--yet we cannot regard idolatry as one of the loftier +manifestations of the religious spirit. The man who can bow down and +worship the work of his hands shows a morbid craving for +self-abasement. It is possible, no doubt, to plead that the graven +image is a mere symbol of incorporeal, supersensible deity; and the +plea is a good one, if, and in so far as, we can believe that the +distinction between the sign and the thing signified is clear to the +mind of the devotee. The difficulty lies in believing that the type of +mind which is capable of focussing its devotion upon a statuette is +also capable of distinguishing between the idea of a symbol and the +idea of a portrait. But when we pass from the work of a man's hands to +the work of his brain--from an actual piece of sculpture to a mental +construction--the plea of symbolism can no longer be advanced. This +graven image of the mind, so to speak, is the veritable God, or it is +nothing; and Mr. Wells, as we have seen, is profuse in his assurances +that it is the veritable God. That is what makes his whole attitude +and argument so baffling. One can understand an idolater who says "I +believe that my God inhabits yonder image," or "Yonder image is only a +convenient point of concentration for the reverence, gratitude, and +love which pass through it to the august and transcendent Spirit whom +it symbolizes." But how are we to understand the idolater who adores, +and claims actual divinity for, an emanation from his own brain and +the brains of a certain number of like-minded persons? Is it not as +though a ventriloquist were to prostrate himself before his own +puppet? + +This craving for something to worship points to an almost uncanny +recrudescence of the spirit of Asia in a fine European intelligence. +For my own part, as above stated, I cannot believe Mr. Wells's case to +be typical; but in that I may be mistaken. It is possible that an +epidemic of Asiatic religiosity may be one of the sequels of the War. +If that be so--if there are many people who shrink from the condition +of the spiritual "ronin," and are in search of a respectable "daimio" +to whom to pay their devotion--I beg leave strongly to urge the claims +of the Veiled Being as against the Invisible King. + +He has at the outset the not inconsiderable advantage of being an +entity instead of a non-entity. Whoever or whatever he may be, we are +compelled by the very constitution of our minds to assume his (or its) +existence; whereas there is manifestly no compulsion to assume the +existence of the Invisible King. + +Then, again, the Veiled Being is entirely unpretentious. There is no +bluster and no cant about him. He does not claim our gratitude for the +doubtful boon of life. He does not pretend to be just, while he is +committing, or winking at, the most intolerable injustices. He does +not set up to be long-suffering, while in fact he is childishly +touchy. He does not profess to be merciful, while the incurable ward, +the battlefield--nay, even the maternity home and the dentist's +parlor--are there to give him the lie. (Here, of course, I am not +contrasting him with the Invisible King, but with more ancient and +still more Asian divinities.) It is the moral pretensions tagged on by +the theologians to metaphysical Godhead that revolt and estrange +reasonable men--Mr. Wells among the rest. If you tell us that behind +the Veil we shall find a good-natured, indulgent old man, who chastens +us only for our good, is pleased by our flatteries (with or without +music), and is not more than suitably vexed at our naughtinesses in +the Garden of Eden and elsewhere--we reply that this is a nursery tale +which has been riddled, time out of mind, not by wicked sceptics, but +by the spontaneous, irrepressible criticism of babes and sucklings. +But if you divest the Veiled Being of all ethical--or in other words +of all human--attributes, then there is no difficulty whatever in +admiring, and even adoring, the marvels he has wrought. Tennyson went +deeper than he realized into the nature of things when he wrote-- + + "For merit lives from man to man, + But not from man, O Lord, to thee." + +Once put aside all question of merit and demerit, of praise and blame, +and more especially (but this will shock Mr. Wells) of salvation and +damnation--and nothing can be easier than to pay to the works of the +Veiled Being the meed of an illimitable wonder. When we think of the +roaring vortices of flame that spangle the heavens night by night, at +distances that beggar conception: when we think of our tiny earth, +wrapped in its little film of atmosphere, spinning safely for ages +untold amid all these appalling immensities: and when we think, on the +other hand, of the battles of claw and maw going on, beneath the +starry vault, in that most miraculous of jewels, a drop of water: we +cannot but own that the Power which set all this whirl of atoms agoing +is worthy of all admiration. And approbation? Ah, that is another +matter; for there the moral element comes in. It is possible (and here +lies the interest of the enigma) that the Veiled Being may one day +justify himself even morally. Perhaps he is all the time doing so +behind the veil. But on that it is absolutely useless to speculate. +Light may one day come to us, but it will come through patient +investigation, not through idle pondering and guessing. In the +meantime, poised between the macrocosm and the microcosm, ourselves +including both extremes, and being, perhaps, the most stupendous +miracle of all, we cannot deny to this amazing frame of things the +tribute of an unutterable awe. If that be religion, I profess myself +as religious as Mr. Wells. I am even willing to join him in some +outward, ceremonial expression of that sentiment, if he can suggest +one that shall not be ridiculously inadequate. What about kneeling +through the C Minor Symphony? That seems to me about as near as we can +get. Or I will go with him to Primrose Hill some fine morning (like +the Persian Ambassador fabled by Charles Lamb) and worship the Sun, +chanting to him William Watson's magnificent hymn:-- + + "To thee as our Father we bow, + Forbidden thy Father to see, + Who is older and greater than thou, as thou + Art greater and older than we." + +The sun, at any rate, is not a figure of speech, and is a symbol which +runs no risk of being mistaken for a portrait. If Mr. Wells would be +content with some such "bright sciential idolatry," I would willingly +declare myself a co-idolater. But alas! he is the hierophant of the +Invisible King, and prayer to that impotent potentate is to me a moral +impossibility. I would rather face damnation, especially in the mild +form threatened by Mr. Wells, which consists (pp. 148-149) in not +knowing that you are damned. + +And if Mr. Wells maintains that in the worship of the non-moral Veiled +Being there is no practical, pragmatic comfort, I reply that I am not +so sure of that. When all is said and done, is there not more hope, +more solace, in an enigma than in a _façon de parler_? I should be +quite willing to accept the test of the reeling aeroplane. The aviator +can say to his soul: "Here am I, one of the most amazing births of +time, the culmination of an endless series of miracles. Perhaps I am +on the verge of extinction--if so, what does it all matter? But +perhaps, on the contrary, I am about to plunge into some new +adventure, as marvellous as this. More marvellous it cannot be, but +it may perhaps be more agreeable. At all events, there is something +fascinating in this leap in the dark. Good bye, my soul! Good-bye, +my memory! + + 'If we should meet again, why, we shall smile; + If not, why then this parting was well made.'" + +I cannot but think that there is as much religion and as much solace +in such a shaking-off of "the bur o' the world" as in the thought that +the last new patent God is going to die with you, and that you, +unconsciously and indistinguishably merged in him, are going to live +for ever. + + + + + THE NEWEST BORZOI BOOKS + + + LUSTRA + _By Ezra Pound_ + + DANDELIONS + _By Coulson T. Cade_ + + A CHASTE MAN + _By Louis Wilkinson_ + + GOD AND MR. WELLS + _By William Archer_ + + MARTIN RIVAS + _By Alberto Blest-Gana_ + + BEATING 'EM TO IT + _By Chester Cornish_ + + A BOOK OF PREFACES + _By H. L. Mencken_ + + THE THREE BLACK PENNYS + _By Joseph Hergesheimer_ + + INTERPRETERS AND INTERPRETATIONS + _By Carl Van Vechten_ + + MR. GEORGE JEAN NATHAN PRESENTS + _By George Jean Nathan_ + + OTHERS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE NEW VERSE + _Edited by Alfred Kreymborg_ + 1917 Issue + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + + +1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. + +2. The words amoeba, mythopoeic and prosopopoeia use "oe" ligature in +the original text. + +3. The following misprints have been corrected: + "blackslides" corrected to "backslides" (page 40) + "annhilated" corrected to "annihilated" (page 119) + +4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies +in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been +retained. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of God and Mr. Wells, by William Archer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND MR. 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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: God and Mr. Wells + A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' + +Author: William Archer + +Release Date: January 7, 2010 [EBook #30882] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND MR. WELLS *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Ritu Aggarwal and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="titlequot"><p> +GOD AND MR. WELLS<br /> +<small>A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF<br /> +"GOD THE INVISIBLE KING"</small> +</p></div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 15%;"> +<img src="images/fig001.jpg" width="100%" alt="Icon" title="Icon" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>GOD AND MR. WELLS</h1> + +<h3>A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF<br /> +"GOD THE INVISIBLE KING"</h3> + +<h2>By WILLIAM ARCHER</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 40%;"> +<img src="images/fig003.jpg" width="100%" alt="Publisher Icon" title="Publisher Icon" /> +</div> + +<h2><small>NEW YORK</small> · ALFRED A. KNOPF · <small>1917</small></h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h4>COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY<br /> +ALFRED A. KNOPF<br /> +<i>Published, September, 1917</i></h4> + +<h5>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<h2>FOREWORD</h2> + +<p>As I look through the proofs of this little treatise, a twinge of +compunction comes upon me. That humane philosopher Mr. Dooley has +somewhere a saying to this effect: "When an astronomer tells me that +he has discovered a new planet, I would be the last man to brush the +fly off the end of his telescope." Would not this have been a good +occasion for a similar exercise of urbanity? Nay, may it not be said +that my criticism of <i>God the Invisible King</i> is a breach of +discipline, like duelling in the face of the enemy? I am proud to +think that Mr. Wells and I are soldiers in the same army; ought we not +at all costs to maintain a united front? On the destructive side +(which I have barely touched upon) his book is brilliantly effective; +on the constructive side, if unconvincing, it is thoughtful, +imaginative, stimulating, a thing on the whole to be grateful for. +Ought one not rather to hold one's peace than to afford the common +enemy the encouragement of witnessing a squabble in the ranks?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> +But we must not yield to the obsession of military metaphor. It is not +what the enemy thinks or what Mr. Wells or I think that matters—it is +what the men of the future ought to think, as being consonant with +their own nature and with the nature of things. Ideas, like organisms, +must abide the struggle for existence, and if the Invisible King is +fitted to survive, my criticism will reinforce and not invalidate him. +Even if he should come to life in a way one can scarcely anticipate, +his proceedings will have to be carefully watched. He cannot claim the +reticences of a "party truce." He will be all the better for a candid, +though I hope not captious, Opposition.</p> + +<p>I thought of printing on my title-page a motto from Mr. Bernard Shaw; +but it will perhaps come better here. "The fact," says Mr. Shaw, "that +a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the +fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of +credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no +means a necessity of life. Whether Socrates got as much happiness out +of life as Wesley is an unanswerable question; but a nation of Socrateses +would be much safer and happier than a nation of Wesleys; and its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> +individuals would be higher in the evolutionary scale. At all +events, it is in the Socratic man and not in the Wesleyan that our +hope lies now."</p> + +<p>Besides, it has yet to be proved that the believer in the Invisible +King is happier than the sceptic.</p> + +<p style='margin-left:1em;'><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>May</i> 24, 1917.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#I">I</a></td> + <td>The Great Adventurer</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#II">II</a></td> + <td>A God Who "Growed"</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#III">III</a></td> + <td>New Myths for Old</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#IV">IV</a></td> + <td>The Apostle's Creed</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#V">V</a></td> + <td>When Is a God Not a God?</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#VI">VI</a></td> + <td>For and Against Personification</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#VII">VII</a></td> + <td>Back to the Veiled Being</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h1>GOD AND MR. WELLS</h1> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> +<h3>THE GREAT ADVENTURER</h3> + +<p>When it was known that Mr. H. G. Wells had set forth to discover God, +all amateurs of intellectual adventure were filled with pleasurable +excitement and anticipation. For is not Mr. Wells the great Adventurer +of latter-day literature? No quest is too perilous for him, no +forlorn-hope too daring. He led the first explorers to the moon. +He it was who lured the Martians to earth and exterminated them +with microbes. He has ensnared an angel from the skies and expiscated +a mermaid from the deep. He has mounted a Time Machine (of his own +invention) and gone careering down the vistas of the Future. +But these were comparatively commonplace feats. After all, +there had been a Jules Verne, there had been a Gulliver and +a Peter Wilkins, there had been a More, a Morris and a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +Bellamy. It might be that he was fitted for far greater things. "There +remains," we said to ourselves, "the blue ribbon of intellectual +adventure, the unachieved North Pole of spiritual exploration. He has +had countless predecessors in the enterprise, some of whom have loudly +claimed success; but their log-books have been full of mere +hallucinations and nursery tales. What if it should be reserved for +Mr. Wells to bring back the first authentic news from a source more +baffling than that of Nile or Amazon—the source of the majestic +stream of Being? What if it should be given him to sign his name to +the first truly-projected chart of the scheme of things?"</p> + +<p>We almost held our breath in eager anticipation, just as we did when +there came from America a well-authenticated rumor that the problem of +flying had at last been solved. Were we on the brink of another and +much more momentous discovery? Was Mr. Wells to be the Peary of the +great quest? Or only the last of a thousand Dr. Cooks?</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> +<h3>A GOD WHO "GROWED"</h3> + +<p>Our excitement, our suspense, were so +much wasted emotion. Mr. Wells's enterprise +was not at all what we had figured +it to be.</p> + +<h1>GOD<br /> +<small>THE INVISIBLE KING</small></h1> + +<p>is a very interesting, and even stimulating disquisition, full of a +fine social enthusiasm, and marked, in many passages, by deep poetic +feeling. But it is not a work of investigation into the springs of +Being. Mr. Wells explicitly renounces from the outset any dealings +with "cosmogony." It is a description of a way of thinking, a system +of nomenclature, which Mr. Wells declares to be extremely prevalent in +"the modern mind," from which he himself extracts much comfort and +fortification, and which he believes to be destined to regenerate the +world.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +But Mr. Wells will not have it that what is involved is a mere system +of nomenclature. He avers that he, in common with many other +like-minded persons, has achieved, not so much an intellectual +discovery as an emotional realisation, of something actual and +objective which he calls God. He does not, so far as I remember, use +the term "objective"; but as he insists that God is "a spirit, a +person, a strongly marked and knowable personality" (p. 5), "a single +spirit and a single person" (p. 18), "a great brother and leader of +our little beings" (p. 24) with much more to the same purpose, it +would seem that he must have in his mind an object external to us, no +mere subjective "stream of tendency," or anything of that sort. It +would of course be foolish to doubt the sincerity of the conviction +which he so constantly and so eagerly asserts. Nevertheless, one +cannot but put forward, even at this stage, the tentative theory that +he is playing tricks with his own mind, and attributing reality and +personality to something that was in its origin a figure of speech. He +has been hypnotized by the word God:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As when we dwell upon a word we know,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Repeating, till the word we know so well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Becomes a wonder, and we know not why.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +At all events, "God the Invisible King" is not the creator and +sustainer of the universe. As to the origin of things Mr. Wells +professes the most profound agnosticism. "At the back of all known +things," he says, "there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of +existence is a Veiled Being, which seems to know nothing of life or +death or good or ill.... The new religion does not pretend that the +God of its life is that Being, or that he has any relation of control +or association with that Being. It does not even assert that God knows +all, or much more than we do, about that ultimate Being" (p. 14). Very +good; but—here is the first question which seems to arise out of +the Wellsian thesis—are we not entitled to ask of "the new +religion" some more definite account of the relation between "God" and +"the Veiled Being"? Surely it is not enough that it should simply +refrain from "asserting" anything at all on the subject. If "God" is +outside ourselves ("a Being, not us but dealing with us and through +us," p. 6) we cannot leave him hanging in the void, like the rope +which the Indian conjurer is fabled to throw up into the air till +it hooks itself on to nothingness. If we are to believe in him as +a lever for the righting of a world that has somehow run askew, we +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +want to know something of his fulcrum. Is it possible thus to +dissociate him from the Veiled Being, and proclaim him an independent, +an agnostic God? Do we really get over any difficulty—do we not +rather create new difficulties,—by saying, as Mr. Wells +practically does, "Our God is no metaphysician. He does not care, and +very likely does not know, how this tangle of existence came into +being. He is only concerned to disentangle it a little, to reduce the +chaos of the world to some sort of seemliness and order"? Is it an +idle and presumptuous curiosity which enquires whether we are to +consider him co-ordinate with the Veiled Being, and in that case +probably hostile, or subordinate, and in that case instrumental? Are +we, in a word, to consider the earth a little rebel state in the +gigantic empire of the universe, working out its own salvation under +its Invisible King? Or are we to regard God as the Viceroy of the +Veiled Being, to whom, in that case, our ultimate allegiance is due?</p> + +<p>I talked the other day to a young Australian who had been breaking new land +for wheat-growing. "What do you do?" I asked, "with the stumps of the trees +you fell? It must be a great labour to clear them out." "We don't clear them +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +out," he replied. "We use ploughs that automatically rise when they +come to a stump, and take the earth again on the other side." I cannot +but conjecture that Mr. Wells's thinking apparatus is fitted with some +such automatic appliance for soaring gaily over the snags that stud +the ploughlands of theology.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> +<h3>NEW MYTHS FOR OLD</h3> + +<p>Before examining the particular attributes and activities of the +Invisible King, let us look a little more closely into the question +whether a God detached alike from man below and (so to speak) from +heaven above, is a thinkable God in whom any satisfaction can be +found. Mr. Wells must not reply (he probably would not think of doing +so) that "satisfaction" is no test: that he asserts an objective truth +which exists, like the Nelson Column or the Atlantic Ocean, whether we +find satisfaction in it or not. Though he does not mention the word +"pragmatism," his standards are purely pragmatist. He offers no jot or +tittle of evidence for the existence of the Invisible King, except +that it is a hypothesis which he finds to work extremely well. Satisfaction +and nothing else is the test he applies. So we have every right to ask +whether the renunciation of all concern about the Veiled Being, and +concentration upon the thought of a finite God, practically unrelated to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +the infinite, can bring us any reasonable sense of reconciliation to +the nature of things. For that, I take it, is the essence of religion.</p> + +<p>It was in no spirit of irony that I began this essay by expressing the +lively interest with which I learned that Mr. Wells was setting out on +the quest for God. The dogmatic agnosticism which declares it +impossible ever to know anything about the whence, how and why of the +universe does not seem to me more rational than any other dogma which +jumps from "not yet" to "never." Mr. Wells himself disclaims that +dogma. He says: "It may be that minds will presently appear among us +of such a quality that the face of that Unknown will not be altogether +hidden" (p. 108). And in another place (p. 15) he suggests that "our +God, the Captain of Mankind," may one day enable us to "pierce the +black wrappings," or, in other words, to get behind the veil. There is +nothing, then, unreasonable or absurd in man's incurable inquisitiveness +as to God, in the non-Wellsian sense of the term. God simply means the +key to the mystery of existence; and though the keys hitherto offered +have all either jammed or turned round and round without unlocking +anything, it does not follow that no real key exists within the reach of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +human investigation or speculation. Therefore one naturally feels a +little stirring of hope at the news that a fresh and keen intellect, +untrammelled by the folk-lore theologies of the past, is applying +itself to the problem. It is always possible, however improbable, that +we may be helped a little forwarder on the path towards realization. +One comes back to the before-mentioned analogy of flying. We had been +assured over and over again, on the highest authority, that it was an +idle dream. When we wanted to express the superlative degree of the +impossible, we said "I can no more do it than I can fly." But the +irrepressible spirit of man was not to be daunted by <i>à priori</i> +demonstrations of impossibility. One day there came the rumour that +the thing had been achieved, followed soon by ocular demonstration; +and now we rub shoulders every day with men who have outsoared the +eagle, and—alas!—carried death and destruction into the +hitherto stainless empyrean.</p> + +<p>It would seem, then, that there is no reason absolutely to despair of +some advance towards a conception of the nature and reason of the universe. +And it is certain that Mr. Wells's God would stand a better chance of +satisfying the innate needs of the human intelligence if he had not +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +(apparently) given up as a bad job the attempt to relate himself to +the causal plexus of the All. Is he outside that causal plexus, +self-begotten, self-existent? Then he is the miracle of miracles, a +second mystery superimposed on the first. If, on the other hand, he +falls within the system, he might surely manage to convey to his +disciples some glimmering notion of his place in it. The birth-stories +of Gods are always grotesque and unedifying, but that is because they +belong to folk-lore. If this God does not belong to folk-lore, surely +his relation to the Veiled Being might be indicated without +impropriety. Mr. Wells, as we have seen, hints that his reticence may +be due to the fact that he does not know. In that case this "modern" +God is suspiciously like all the ancient Gods, whose most unfortunate +characteristic was that they never knew anything more than their +worshippers. The reason was not far to seek—namely, that they +were mere projections of the minds of these worshippers, fashioned in +their own image. But Mr. Wells assures us that this is not the case of +the Invisible King.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wells will scarcely deny that if it were possible to compress his +mythology and merge his Invisible King in his Veiled Being, the result would +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +be a great simplification of the problem. But this is not, in fact, +possible; for it would mean the positing of an all-good and +all-powerful Creator, which is precisely the idea which Mr. Wells +rebels against,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +in common with every one who realizes the facts of life and the +meaning of words. Short of this, however, is no other simplification +possible? Would it not greatly clarify our thought if we could bring +the Invisible King into action, not, indeed, as the creator of all +things, but as the organizer and director of the surprising and almost +incredible epiphenomenon which we call life? Our scheme would then +take this shape: an inconceivable unity behind the veil, somehow +manifesting itself, where it comes within our ken, in the dual form of +a great Artificer and a mass of terribly recalcitrant matter—the +only medium in which he can work. In other words, the Veiled Being +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +would be as inscrutable as ever, but the Invisible King, instead of +dropping in with a certain air of futility, like a doctor arriving too +late at the scene of a railway accident, would be placed at the +beginning, not of the universe at large, but of the atomic +re-arrangements from which consciousness has sprung. Can we, on this +hypothesis (which is practically that of Manichæanism) hazard +any guess at the motives or forces actuating the Invisible +King,—or, to avoid confusion, let us say the +Artificer—which should acquit him of the charge of being a +callous and mischievous demon rather than a well-willing God? Can we +not only place pain and evil (a tautology) to the account of sluggish, +refractory matter, but also conjecture a sufficient reason why the +Artificer should have started the painful evolution of consciousness, +instead of leaving the atoms to whirl insentiently in the figures +imposed on them by the stupendous mathematician behind the veil?</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> In +<i>Mr. Britling Sees It Through</i>, which is in some sense a prologue +to <i>God the Invisible King</i>, we find an emphatic renunciation +of the all-good and all-powerful God. "The theologians," says Mr. +Britling, "have been extravagant about God. They have had silly, +absolute ideas—that he is all powerful. That he's +omni-everything.... Why! if I thought there was an omnipotent God who +looked down on battles and deaths and all the waste and horror of this +war—able to prevent these things—doing them to amuse +himself—I would spit in his empty face" (p. 406).</p></div> + +<p>A complete answer to this question would be a complete +solution of the riddle of existence. That, if it be ever attainable, +is certainly far enough off. But there are some considerations, +not always sufficiently present to our minds, which may perhaps +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +help us, not to a solution, but to a rational restatement, of the +riddle.</p> + +<p>It is possible to suppose, in the first place, that the Artificer, +though entirely well-meaning, was not a free agent. We can construct a +myth in which an Elder Power should announce to a Younger Power his +intention of setting a number of sentient puppets dancing for his +amusement, and regaling himself with the spectacle of their antics, in +utter heedlessness of the agonies they must endure, which would, +indeed, lend an additional savor to the diversion. This Elder Power, +with the "sportsman's" preference for pigeons as against clay balls, +would be something like the God of Mr. Thomas Hardy. Then we can +imagine the Younger Power, after a vain protest demanding, as it were, +the vice-royalty of the new kingdom, in order that he might shape its +polity to high and noble ends, educe from tragic imperfection some +approach to perfection, and, in short, make the best of a bad business. +We should thus have (let us say) Marcus Aurelius claiming a proconsulate +under Nero, and, with very limited powers, gradually substituting +order and humanity for oppression and rapine. This fairy-tale is +not unlike Mr. Wells's; but I submit that it has the advantage of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +placing the Invisible King, or his equivalent, in a conceivable +relation to the whole mundane process.</p> + +<p>Now let us proceed to the alternative hypothesis. Let us suppose that +the Artificer was a free agent, and that he voluntarily, and in full +view of the consequences, engineered the conjunction of atoms from +which consciousness arose. He could have let it alone, he could have +suffered life to remain an abortive, slumbering potentiality, like the +fire in a piece of flint; yet he deliberately clashed the flint and +steel and kindled the torch which was to be handed on, not only from +generation to generation, but from species to species, through all the +stages of a toilsome, slaughterous, immeasurable ascent. If we accept +this hypothesis, can we acquit the Artificer of wanton cruelty? Can we +view his action with approval, even with gratitude? Or must we, like +Mr. Wells, if we wish to find an outlet for religious emotion, +postulate another, subsequent, intermeddling Power—like, say, an +American consul at the scene of the Turkish massacre—wholly +guiltless of the disaster of life, and doing his little best to +mitigate and remedy it?</p> + +<p>In the present state of our knowledge, it is certainly very difficult to see +how the kindler of the <i>vitai lampada</i>, supposing him to have been responsible +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +for his actions, can claim from a jury of human beings a verdict of +absolute acquittal. But we can, even now, see certain extenuating +circumstances, which evidence not yet available may one day so +powerfully reinforce as to enable him to leave the Court without a +stain on his character.</p> + +<p>For one thing, we are too much impressed and oppressed by the ideas of +magnitude and multitude. Since we have realized the unspeakable +insignificance of the earth in relation to the unimaginable vastness +of star-sown space, we have come to feel such a disproportion between +the mechanism of life and its upshot, as known in our own experience, +that we have a vague sense of maleficence, or at any rate of brutal +carelessness, in the responsible Power, whoever that may be. "What is +it all," we say, "but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million +million of suns?" We feel like insects whom the foot of a heedless +giant may at any moment crush. We dream of the swish of a comet's tail +wiping out organic life on the planet, and we see, as a matter of +fact, great natural convulsions, such as the earthquake of Lisbon or +the eruption of Mont Pélée, treating human communities +just as an elephant might treat an ant-hill. It is this sense +of the immeasurable disproportion in things that a pessimist +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +poet has expressed in the well-known sonnet:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Know you, my friend, the sudden ecstasy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of thought that time and space annihilates,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Creation in a moment uncreates,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whirls the mind, from secular habit free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the spheres, beyond infinity,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beyond the empery of the eternal Fates,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To where the Inconceivable ruminates,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The unthinkable "To be or not to be?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, as Existence flickers into sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A marsh-flame in the night of Nothingness—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The great, soft, restful, dreamless, fathomless night—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We know the Affirmative the primal curse,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And loathe, with all its imbecile strain and stress,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This ostentatious, vulgar Universe.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The mood here recorded is one that must be +familiar to most thinking people. "The undevout +astronomer is mad," said eighteenth-century deism: +to-day we are more apt to think that the uncritical +astronomer is dense. There is a sort of colossal +stupidity about the stars in their courses that overpowers +and disquiets us. If (as Alfred Russel +Wallace has argued) the geocentric theory was not +so far out after all, and the earth, holding a specially +favored place in the universe, is the only +home of life, then the disproportion of mechanism +to result seems absolutely appalling. If, on the +other hand, all the million million of suns are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +pouring out vital heat to a like number of inhabited +planetary systems, the sheer quantity of life, of +struggle, of suffering implied, seems a thought at +which to shudder. We are inclined to say to the +inventor of sentience: "Since this ingenious combination +of yours was at best such a questionable +boon, surely you might have been content with one +experiment."</p> + +<p>But all such criticism rests upon a fallacy, or +rather a brace of interrelated fallacies. There can +be no disproportion between consciousness and the +unconscious, because they are absolutely incommensurable; +and number, in relation to consciousness, +is an illusion. Consciousness, wherever it +exists, is single, indivisible, inextensible; and other +consciousnesses, and the whole external universe, +are, to the individual percipient, but shapes in a +more or less protracted dream.</p> + +<p>Why should we trouble about vastness—mere +extension in space? There is a sense in which the +infinitesimally small is more marvellous, more disquieting, +than the infinitely great. The ant, the +flea, nay, the phagocyte in our blood, is really a +more startling phenomenon than all the mechanics +and chemistry of the heavens. In worrying about +the bigness and the littleness of things, we are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +making the human body our standard—the body +whose dimensions are no doubt determined by convenience +in relation to terrestrial conditions, but +have otherwise no sort of sanctity or superiority, +rightness or fitness. It happens to be the object to +which is attached the highest form of consciousness +we know; but consciousness itself has neither parts +nor magnitude. And consciousness itself is essentially +greater than the very vastness which appals +us, seeing that it embraces and envelops it. Enormous +depths of space are pictured in my brain, +through my optic nerve; and what eludes the magic +mirror of my retina, my mind can conceive, apprehend, +make its own. It is not even true to say that +the mind cannot conceive infinity—the real truth +(if I may for once be Chestertonian), the real +truth is that it can conceive nothing else. "When +Berkeley said there was no matter"—it mattered +greatly what he said. Nothing can be more +certain than that, apart from percipience, there +is no matter that matters. From the point of +view of pantheism (the only logical theism) God, +far from being a Veiled Being, or an Invisible +King, is precisely the mind which translates itself +into the visible, sensible universe, and impresses +itself, in the form of a never-ending pageant, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +upon our cognate minds. It has been thought +that human consciousness may have come into being +because God wanted an audience. He was tired of +being a cinematograph-film unreeling before empty +benches. Some people have even carried the speculation +further, and wondered whether the attachment +of percipience to organized matter, as in the +case of human beings, may not be a necessary stage +in the culture of a pure percipience, capable of furnishing +the pageant of the universe with a permanent +and appreciative audience. In that case the +Scottish Catechism would be justified, which asks +"What is the chief end of man?" and answers (as +Stevenson says) nobly if obscurely: "To glorify +God and to enjoy Him forever." But enough of +these idle fantasies. What is certain is that we can +hold up our heads serenely among the immensities, +knowing that we are immenser than they. Even if +they were malevolent—and that they do not seem +to be—they are no more terrible than the familiar +dangers of our homely earth. They cannot hurt us +more than we can be hurt—an obvious truism but +one which is often overlooked. And this brings us +to the consideration of the second fallacy which +sometimes warps our judgment as to the responsibility +of the Power which invented life.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +We are all apt to speak and think as though +sentience were an article capable of accumulation, +like money or merchandise, in enormous aggregates—as +though pleasure, and more particularly pain, +were subject to the ordinary rules of arithmetic, so +that minor quantities, added together, might mount +up to an indefinitely gigantic total. Poets and +philosophers, time out of mind, have been heartbroken +over the enormous mass of evil in the world, +and have spoken as though animated nature were +one great organism, with a brain in which every +pang that afflicted each one of its innumerable +members was piled up into a huge, pyramidal +agony. But this is obviously not so. That very +"individuation" which to some philosophies is the +primal curse—the condition by all means to be +annulled and shaken off<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>—forbids +the adding up of units of sentience. If "individuation" +is the source of human misery (which seems a rather +meaningless proposition) it is beyond all doubt its +boundary and limit. We are each of us his own +universe. With each of us the universe is born +afresh; with each of us it dies—assuming, that is +to say, that consciousness is extinguished at death. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +There never has been and never can be in the world +more suffering than a single organism can sustain—which +is another way of saying that nothing can +hurt us more than we can be hurt. Is this an optimistic +statement? Far from it. The individual +is capable of great extremities of suffering; and +though not all men, or even most, are put to the +utmost test in this respect, there are certainly cases +not a few in which a man may well curse the day +he was born, and see in the universe that was born +with him nothing but an instrument of torture. +But such an one must speak for himself. It is +evident that, take them all round, men accept life +as no such evil gift. It cannot even be said that, in +handing it on to others, they are driven by a fatal +instinct which they know in their hearts to be cruel, +and would resist if they could. The vast majority +have been, and still are, entirely light-hearted about +the matter, thus giving the best possible proof that +they cherish no grudge against the source of being, +but find it, on the balance, acceptable enough. If +it be said that this is due to stupidity, then stupidity +is one of the factors in the case which the great +Artificer must be supposed to have foreseen and +reckoned upon. All these considerations must be +taken into account when we try to sum up the responsibility +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +of an organizer and director of life, +acting of his own free will, although he knew that +the conditions under which he had to work would +make the achievement of any satisfactory result a +slow, laborious and painful business.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Mr. +Wells himself is not far from this view. See <i>God the +Invisible King</i>, pp. 73, 76, and this book, pp. 39-40.</p></div> + +<p>"But sympathy!" it may be said—"You have +left sympathy out of the reckoning. Unless we are +not only 'individuals' but iron-clad egotists, we suffer +with others more keenly, sometimes, than in +our own persons." Sympathy, no doubt, is, like +the summer sun and the frost of winter, a fact of +common experience causing us alternate joy and +pain; but it means no sort of breach in the wall of +"individuation." Our nearest and dearest are +simply factors in our environment, most influential +factors, but as external to us as the trees or the +stars. We cannot, in any real sense, draw away +their pains and add them to our own, any more +than they, in their turn, can relieve us of our +toothache or our sciatica. They are the points, +doubtless, at which our environment touches us +most closely, but neither incantation nor Act of +Parliament, neither priest nor registrar, can make +even man and wife really "one flesh." It was +necessary for the conservation of the species that +a strict limit should be set to the operation of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +sympathy. Had that emotion been able to pierce +the shell of individuality, so that one being could +actually add the sufferings of another, or of many +others, to his own, life would long ago have come +to an end. As it is, sympathy implies an imaginative +extension of individuality, which is of enormous +social value. But we remain, none the less, +isolated each in his own universe, and our fellow-men +and women are but shapes in the panorama, +the strange, fantastic dream, which the Veiled +Showman unrolls before us.</p> + +<p>In these post-Darwinian days, moreover, we are +inclined to give way to certain morbid and sentimental +exaggerations of sympathy, which do some +injustice to the great Artificer whom we are for +the moment assuming to be responsible for sentient +life. Many of us are much concerned about "nature, +red in tooth and claw." It is a sort of nightmare +to us to think of the tremendous fecundity +of swamp and jungle, warren and pond, and of the +ruthless struggle for existence which has made +earth, air, and sea one mighty battle-ground. In +this we are again letting the fallacy of number +take hold of us. There can be no aggregate of +suffering among lower, any more than among +higher, organisms; and the amount of pain which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +individual animals have to endure—even animals +of those species which we can suppose to possess +a certain keenness of sensibility—is probably, in +the vast majority of cases, very trifling. Half the +anguish of humanity proceeds from the power of +looking before and after. The animal, though he +may suffer from fear of imminent, visible danger, +cannot know the torture of long-drawn apprehension. +For most of his life he is probably aware of +a vague well-being; then of a longer or shorter—often +a very short—spell of vague ill-being; and +so, the end. Nor is it possible to doubt that the +experience of some animals includes a great deal +of positive rapture. If the lark be not really the +soul of joy, he is the greatest hypocrite under the +sun. Many insects seem to be pin-points of vibrant +vitality which we can scarcely believe to be unaccompanied +by pleasurable sensation. The mosquito +which I squash on the back of my hand, and +which dies in a bath of my own blood, has had a +short life but doubtless a merry one. The moths +which, in a tropic night, lie in calcined heaps +around the lamp, have probably perished in pursuit +of some ecstatic illusion. It does not seem, on +the whole, that we need expend much pity on the +brute creation, or make its destinies a reproach to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +the great Artificer. Which is not to say, of course, +that we ought not to detest and try with all our +might to abolish the cruelties of labor, commerce, +sport and war.</p> + +<p>Again, as to the great calamities—the earthquakes, +shipwrecks, railway accidents, even the +wars—which are often made a leading count in the +arraignment of the Author of Sentience, we must +not let ourselves be deceived by the fallacy of number. +Their spectacular, dramatic aspect naturally +attracts attention; but the death-roll of a great shipwreck +is in fact scarcely more terrible than the +daily bills of mortality of a great city. It is true +that a violent death, overtaking a healthy man, is +apt to involve moments, perhaps hours, of acute distress +which he might have escaped had he died of +gradual decay or of ordinary well-tended disease; +and a very short space of the agony sometimes attendant +upon (say) a railway accident, probably +represents itself to the sufferer as an eternity. But +there is also another side to the matter. Instantaneous +death in a great catastrophe must be reckoned +as mere euthanasia; and even short of this, the +attendant excitement has often the effect of an +anodyne. In the upshot, no doubt, such occurrences +are rightly called disasters, since their tendency +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +is to cause needlessly painful death, under +circumstances, which in the main, enhance its terrors; +but the sufferings of the victims cannot be +added together because they occur within a limited +area, any more than if they had been spread over +an indefinite tract of space. As for war, it increases +the liability of every individual who comes +within its wide-flung net to intense bodily and mental +suffering, and to premature and painful death. +Moreover, it destroys social values which <i>can</i> be +added up. In this respect it leaves the world face +to face with an appalling deficit. But we must not +let it weigh upon us too heavily, or make it too +great a reproach to the Artificer of human destiny. +For the soldier, like every other sentient organism, +is immured in his own universe, and his +individual debit-and-credit account with the Power +which placed him there would be no whit different +if he were indeed the only real existence, and the +world around him were naught but a dance of +shadows.</p> + +<p>If there were a country of a hundred million +people, in which every citizen was born to an +allowance of five pounds, which in all his life he +could not possibly increase, or invest in joint-stock +enterprises, though he might leave some of it +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +unexpended—we should not, in spite of the +£500,000,000 of its capital, call that a wealthy +country. Its effective wealth would be precisely +a five-pound note. Similarly, given a world in +which every one is born with a limited capacity of +sentience, inalienable, incommunicable, unique, we +should do wrong to call that world a multi-millionaire +in misery, even if it could be proved that in +each individual account the balance of sensation +was on the wrong side of the ledger. It is true +that if, in one man's account, the balance were +largely to the bad, he would be entitled to reproach +the Veiled Banker, even though five hundred +or five thousand of his fellows declared themselves +satisfied with the result of their audit. But if the +Banker, in opening business, had good reason to +think that, in the long run, the contents would +largely outvote the non-contents, we could scarcely +blame him for going ahead. And what if, for +contents and malcontents alike, he had an uncovenanted +bonus up his sleeve?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In this disquisition, with its shifting personifications, +its Artificer, Author, Banker and the like, +we may seem to have wandered far away from +Mr. Wells and his Invisible King; but I hope the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +reader has not wholly lost the clue. Let us recapitulate. +Starting from the idea that its total +renunciation of metaphysics, its incuriousness as +to causation, was a weakness in Mr. Wells's system, +inasmuch as an eager curiosity as to these +matters is an inseparable part of our intellectual +outfit, we set about enquiring whether it might not +be possible to abandon the notions of omnipotence, +omniscience and omni-benevolence, and yet to +conceive a doctrine of origins into which a well-willing +God should enter, not, like the Invisible +King, as a sort of remedial afterthought, but as +a prime mover in this baffling business of life. We +put forward two hypotheses, each of which seemed +more thinkable, less in the air, so to speak, than +Mr. Wells's scheme of things. We imagined a +wholly callous, unpitying Power, wantonly setting +up combinations in matter which it knew would +work out in cruelty and misery, and another co-ordinate +though not quite equal Power interfering +from the first to introduce into the combinations +of the Elder Deity a slow but sure bias towards +the good. Then we proposed an alternative +hypothesis, logically simpler, though more difficult +from the moral point of view. We conceived at +the source of organic life an intelligent and well-willing +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +Power constrained, by some necessity +"behind the veil," to carry out his purposes +through the sluggish, refractory, hampering +medium of matter. Supposing this Power free to +act or to refrain from acting, we asked whether +he could take the affirmative course—choose the +"Everlasting Yea" as Carlyle would phrase it—without +forfeiting our esteem and disqualifying for +the post of Invisible King in the Wellsian sense of +the term. In a tentative way, not exempt, perhaps, +from a touch of special pleading, we advanced +certain considerations which seemed to +suggest that his decision to kindle the torch of life +might, after all, be justified. Our provisional +conclusion was that though, as at present advised, +we might not quite see our way to hail him as a +beneficent Invisible King, yet we need not go to +the opposite extreme of writing him down a mere +Ogre God, indifferent to the vast and purposeless +process of groaning and travail, begetting and devouring, +which he had wantonly initiated. That +is the point at which we have now arrived.</p> + +<p>I hope it need not be said I do not attribute +any substantive value to the hypothetical myths +here put forward and discussed—that I do not +accept either of them, or propose that anyone else +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +should accept it, as a probable adumbration of +what actually occurred "in the beginning"—a +first chapter in a new Book of Genesis. My purpose +was simply, since myth-making was the order +of the day, to hint a criticism of Mr. Wells's myth, +by placing beside it one or two other fantasies, +perhaps as plausible as his, which had the advantage +of not entirely eluding the question of origins. +I submit, with great respect, that my Artificer +comes a little less out of the blue than his Invisible +King—that is all I claim for him.</p> + +<p>But here Mr. Wells puts in a protest, not without +indignation. Myth-making, he declares, is <i>not</i> +the order of the day. Had he wanted to indulge +in myth-making, he could easily have found some +metaphysical affiliation for his Invisible King. +What he has done is to record a profound spiritual +experience, common to himself and many other +good men and true, which has culminated in the +recognition of an actual Power, objectively extant +in the world, to which he has felt it a sacred duty +to bear witness. Very good; so be it; let us now +look more in detail into the gospel according to +Wells.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> +<h3>THE APOSTLE'S CREED</h3> + +<p>A gospel it is, in all literalness; an +evangel; a message of glad tidings. It +is not merely <i>a</i> truth, it is "the Truth" +(p. 1). Let there be no mistake about it: Mr. +Wells's ambition is to rank with St. Paul and +Mahomet, as the apostle of a new world-religion. +He does not in so many words lay claim to inspiration, +but it is almost inevitably deducible +from his premises. He is uttering the first clear +and definite tidings of a God who is endowed with +personality, character, will and purpose. To that +Deity he has submitted himself in enthusiastic +devotion. If the God does not seize the opportunity +to speak through such a marvellously suitable, +such an ideal, mouthpiece, then practical +common-sense cannot be one of his attributes. +Which of the other Gods who have announced +themselves from time to time has found such a +megaphone to reverberate his voice? St. Paul was +a poor tent-maker, whose sermons were not even +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +reported in the religious press, while his letters +probably counted their public by scores, or at most +by hundreds. Mr. Wells, from the outset of his +mission, has the ear of two hemispheres.</p> + +<p>What, then, does he tell us of his God? The +first characteristic which differentiates him from +all the other Gods with a big G—for of course we +pay no heed to the departmental gods of polytheism—the +first fact we must grasp and hold fast to, +is that he lays no claim to infinity. "This new +faith ... worships <i>a finite God</i>" (p. 5; Mr. +Wells's italics). "He has begun and he never +will end" (p. 18). "He is within time and not +outside it" (p. 7). Nothing can be more definite +than that. There was a time when God did not +exist; and then somehow, somewhen, he came into +being.</p> + +<p>Perhaps to ask "When?" would be to trespass +on the department of origins, from which we are +explicitly warned off. It would be to trench upon +"cosmogony." Yet we are not quite without +guidance. "The renascent religion," we are told, +"has always been here; it has always been visible +to those that had eyes to see" (p. 1). "Always," +in this context, can only mean during the whole +course of human history. Therefore God must +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +have come into being some time between the issue +of the creative fiat and the appearance of man on +the planet. This is a pretty wide margin, but it is +something to go upon. He may have been contemporary +with the amœba, or with the ichthyosaurus, +or haply with the earliest quadrumana. +At the very latest (if "always" is accurate) he +must have made his appearance exactly at the +same time as man; and if I were to give my +opinion, I should say that was extremely probable. +At all events, even if he preceded man by a few +thousand or million years, we are compelled to +assume that he came in preparation for the advent +of the human species, determined to be on hand +when wanted. For we do not gather that the lower +animals stand in need of his services, or are capable +of benefiting by them. One might be tempted to +conceive him as guiding the course of evolution and +hastening its laggard process; but (as we shall +see) he scorns the rôle of Providence, and resolutely +abstains from any intromission in organic +or meteorological concerns. It would be pleasant +to think that he had something to do with (for +instance) the retreat of the ice-cap in the northern +hemisphere; but we are not encouraged to indulge +in any such speculation. It would appear that the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +activity of God is purely psychical and moral—that +he has no interest in biology, except as it +influences, and is influenced by, sociology. In +short, from all that one can make out, this God is +strictly correlative to Man; and that is a significant +fact which we shall do well to bear in mind.</p> + +<p>As we have already seen, the Infinite (or Veiled) +Being is not God (p. 13); nor is God the Life +Force, the "impulse thrusting through matter and +clothing itself in continually changing material +forms ... the Will to Be" (pp. 15-16). As we +have also seen, Mr. Wells refuses to define the +relation of his God, this "spirit," this "single +spirit and single person," to either of these inscrutable +entities. "God," he says, "comes to us +neither out of the stars nor out of the pride of life, +but as a still small voice within" (p. 18). It is by +"faith" that we "find" him (p. 13); but Mr. Wells +"doubts if faith can be complete and enduring if +it is not secured by the definite knowledge of the +true God" (p. 135). What, then, is "faith" in +this context? It would be too much to say, with +the legendary schoolboy, that it is "believing what +you know isn't true." The implication seems +rather to be that if you begin by believing on inadequate +grounds, you will presently attain to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +belief on adequate grounds, or, in other words, +knowledge. Thus, when you go to a spiritual +séance in a sceptical frame of mind, the chill of +your aura frightens the spirits away, and you +obtain no manifestations; but if you go in a mood +of faith, which practically means confident expectation, +the phenomena follow, and you depart a +convert. I use this illustration in no scoffing +spirit. The presupposition is not irrational. It +amounts, in effect, to saying that you must go +some way to meet God before God can or will +come to you. This seems a curious coyness; but +as God is finite and conditioned, a bit of a character +("a strongly marked and knowable personality," +p. 5), there is nothing contradictory +in it. Even when we read that "the true God +goes through the world like fifes and drums and +flags, calling for recruits along the street" (p. 40), +we must not seize upon the letter of a similitude, +and talk about inconsistency. You must go out +to meet even the Salvation Army. It offers you +salvation in vain if you obstinately bolt your door, +and insist that an Englishman's house is his castle.</p> + +<p>The finding of this God is very like what revivalists +call "conversion" (p. 21). You are oppressed +by "the futility of the individual life"; you fall +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +into "a state of helpless self-disgust" (p. 21); +you are, in short, in the condition described by +Hamlet when he says: "It goes so heavily with my +disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems +to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent +canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging +firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden +fire, why it appears no other thing to me but a +foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." The +condition may result, as in Hamlet's case, from an +untoward conjunction of outward circumstances; +or it may be of physiological (liverish) origin. +The methods of treatment are many—some of them +(such as the administration of alcohol in large +doses) disastrously unwise. In some states of +society and periods of history, religion is the popular +specific; and there have been, and are, forms +of religion to which alcohol would be preferable. +Fortunately, one can say without a shadow of +hesitancy that "the modern religion" lies under +no such suspicion. As dispensed by Mr. Wells, it +is entirely wholesome. If it is found to cheer, it +will certainly not inebriate. Indeed, the doubt +one feels as to its popular success lies in the very +fact that it contains but an innocuous proportion of +alcohol.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +You find yourself, then, in the distressful case +described by Hamlet and Mr. Wells. "Man delights +you not, no, nor woman neither." You +cannot muster up energy even to kill King +Claudius. You go about gloomily soliloquizing on +suicide and kindred topics. Then, "in some way +the idea of God comes into the distressed mind" +(p. 21). It develops through various stages, outlined +by Mr. Wells in the passage cited. In the +modern man, it would seem, one great difficulty +lies in "a curious resistance to the suggestion that +God is truly a person" (p. 22). It is here, no +doubt, that faith comes in; at all events, you +ultimately get over this stumbling-block. "Then +suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God +comes. The cardinal experience is an undoubting +immediate sense of God. It is the attainment of +an absolute certainty that one is not alone in oneself" +(p. 23). You have come, in fact, to the gate +of Damascus. You have found salvation.</p> + +<p>Yes, salvation!—there is no other word for it. +Mr. Wells does not hesitate to use both that word +and its correlative, damnation. From what, then, +are you saved? Why, from quite a number of +things. You are saved "from the purposelessness +of life" (p. 18). God's immortality has "taken +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +the sting from death" (p. 22). You have escaped +"from the painful accidents and chagrins of individuation" +(p. 73). "Salvation is to lose oneself" +(p. 73); it is "a complete turning away +from self" (p. 84). "Damnation is really over-individuation, +and salvation is escape from self +into the larger being of life" (p. 76). In another +place we are told that salvation is "escape from +the individual distress at disharmony and the individual +defeat by death, into the Kingdom of +God, and damnation can be nothing more and +nothing less than the failure or inability or disinclination +to make that escape" (p. 148). On the +next page we have another definition of damnation +(borrowed, it would seem, from Mr. Clutton +Brock), with which I hasten to express my cordial +and enthusiastic agreement: "<i>Satisfaction with +existing things is damnation.</i>" I have always +thought that hell was the headquarters of conservatism, +and am delighted to find such influential +backing for that pious opinion.</p> + +<p>As for sin, it seems to be a falling away from +the state of grace attained through conversion. +You can and do sin while you are still unconverted; +for we are told that "repentance is the beginning +and essential of the religious life" (p. 165). +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +Probably (though this is not clear) your unregenerate +condition is in itself sinful, "individuation" being +not very different from the Original Sin of the +theologians. But it is sin after regeneration that +really matters. "Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, +and adds not one inch to our spiritual and +moral nature" (p. 146). "It is the amazing and +distressful discovery of every believer so soon as +the first exaltation of belief is past, that one does +not remain always in touch with God" (p. 149). +One backslides. One reverts to one's unregenerate +type. The old Adam makes disquieting resurgences +in the swept and garnished mansion from +which he seemed to have been for ever cast out. +"This is the personal problem of Sin. <i>Here prayer +avails; here God can help us</i>" (p. 150). And +what is still more consoling, "though you sin seventy +times seven times, God will still forgive the +poor rest of you.... There is no sin, no state +that, being regretted and repented of, can stand between +God and man" (p. 156).</p> + +<p>We shall have to consider later what useful purpose +(if any) is served by this free-and-easy use +of the dialect of revivalism. In the meantime, one +would be sorry to seem to write without respect of +the depth of conviction which Mr. Wells throws into +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +his account of the supreme spiritual experience of +finding God. "Thereafter," he says, "one goes +about the world like one who was lonely and has +found a lover, like one who was perplexed and has +found a solution" (pp. 23-24). God is a "huge +friendliness, a great brother and leader of our little +beings" (p. 24). "He is a stimulant; he makes +us live immortally and more abundantly. I have +compared him to the sensation of a dear strong +friend who comes and stands quietly beside one, +shoulder to shoulder" (p. 39). It certainly takes +some courage for a modern Englishman, not by +profession a licensed dealer in spiritual sentimentality, +to write like this.</p> + +<p>And now comes the question, What does God do? +What does he aim at? And how does he effect his +purposes? The answer seems to be that, in a literal, +tangible sense, he does nothing. He operates +solely in and through the mind of man; and even +through the mind of man he does not influence external +events. This, it may be said, is impossible, +since all those external events which we call human +conduct flow from the mind of man. Perhaps it +would be correct to say (for here Mr. Wells gives +us no explicit guidance) that external events are +only a by-product of the influence of God: that, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +having begotten a certain spiritual state which he +feels to be generally desirable, he takes no responsibility +for the particular consequences that +are likely to flow from it. So, at least, one can best +interpret Mr. Wells's repeated disclaimer of the +idea that "God is Magic or God is Providence" +(p. 27), that "all the time, incalculably, he is +pulling about the order of events for our personal +advantages" (p. 35-6). Commenting on Mr. Edwyn +Bevan's phrase for God, "the Friend behind +phenomena," Mr. Wells insists that the expression +"carries with it no obligation whatever to believe +that this Friend is in control of the phenomena" +(p. 87). Perhaps not; but it is a question for +after consideration whether lucidity is promoted by +giving the name God to a Power which has no power—which +does not seem even to make directly purposive +use of the influence which it possesses over +the minds of believers. Once, in a coasting +steamer on the Pacific, I nearly died of sea-sickness. +A friend was with me, the soul of kindness, +such a lovable old man that I write this down partly +for the pleasure of recalling him. He used to +come to my cabin every hour or so, shake his head +mournfully, and go away again. I felt his good +will and was grateful for it; but it would be affectation +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +to pretend that I would not have been still more +grateful had he possessed some "control of phenomena"—had +he brought with him a remedy. +Since those days, more than one efficacious preventive +of sea-sickness has been discovered; and I own +to counting the nameless chemists who have +achieved this marvel among the most authentic +friends to poor humanity of whom we have any +knowledge. Where is the God (as Mr. Zangwill +has pertinently enquired) who will give us a cure +for cancer?</p> + +<p>This, however, is a digression, or at any rate +an anticipation. What the Invisible King actually +does, without meddling with phenomena, is to assume +the "captaincy" of the "racial adventure" in +which we are engaged (p. 76). "God must love +his followers as a great captain loves his men ... whose +faith alone makes him possible. It is an +austere love. The Spirit of God will not hesitate +to send us to torment and bodily death" (p. 67). +And what is this "racial adventure"? It is, in the +first place, the achievement of Mr. Wells's political +ideals—an object which has all my sympathy, since +they happen to be, generally speaking, my own. +"As a knight in God's service," says Mr. Wells, "I +take sides against injustice, disorder, and against +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +all those temporal kings, emperors, princes, landlords, +and owners, who set themselves up against +God's rule and worship" (p. 97). By all means! +Only one does not see how, if the kings, emperors +and landlords declare that they, too, have found +God, and found him on the side of monarchy and +landlordism, this contention of theirs is to be confuted. +If God does not control phenomena, the +actual controllers of events will be able to maintain +in the future, as in the past, that he is on the +side of the big battalions—an argument which it +will be hard to meet, except by raising bigger battalions. +In the meantime we have to note that +God's political opinions are only provisional, and +that he himself is open to conviction. "The first +purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, +of knowledge as a means to more knowledge, +and of knowledge as a means to power" (p. 98-9). +And the object to which he will apply this power +is "the conquest of death: first the overcoming of +death in the individual by the incorporation of the +motives of his life into an undying purpose, and +then the defeat of that death which seems to threaten +our species upon a cooling planet beneath a cooling +sun" (p. 99). Ultimately, then, it would seem +that God does intend to undertake the control of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +phenomena. Dealing with ice-caps is not so entirely +outside his province as one had hastily assumed. +The Invisible King is not, after all, a +<i>roi fainéant</i>. He will begin to do things as soon +as he knows how: any other course would be obviously +rash. One would like to live a few hundred +thousand years, to see him come into overt +action. Yet, in this far-reaching program, there +seems to lurk a certain contradiction, or at least +an ambiguity. If, for the believer in God, death +has, here and now, lost its sting—if "we come +staggering through into the golden light of his kingdom, +to fight for his kingdom henceforth, until, at +last, we are altogether taken up into his being" +(p. 68)—one does not quite see the reason for this +long campaign against death. Surely the logical +consummation would be an ultimate racial euthanasia, +an absorption of humanity into God, a vast +apotheosis-nirvana, after which the earth and sun +could go on cooling at their leisure.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Apart from one or two irrepressible "asides," +I have attempted in this chapter to let Mr. Wells +speak for himself, proclaim the faith that is in +him, and draw the portrait of his God. Many +details are of course omitted, for which the reader +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +must turn to the original text. He will find it a +pleasant and profitable task. The remainder of +my present undertaking falls into three parts. +First I must ask the reader to consider with me +whether Mr. Wells's gospel can be accepted as a +real addition to knowledge, like (say) the discovery +of radium, or whether it is only a re-description +in new language (or old language slightly refurbished) +of familiar facts of spiritual experience. +In the second place, assuming that we have to fall +back on the latter alternative, we shall enquire +whether anything would be gained by the general +acceptance of this new-old, highly emotionalized +terminology. Thirdly, I shall venture to suggest +that when Mr. Wells says "The first purpose of +God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge +as a means to more knowledge, and of knowledge +as a means to power," he is only choosing a +mythological way of expressing the fact that if God +(in the ordinary, non-Wellsian sense of the word) +is ever to be found, it must be through patient investigation +of the phenomena in which he clothes +himself.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> +<h3>WHEN IS A GOD NOT A GOD?</h3> + +<p>Though many of Mr. Wells's asseverations +of the substantive reality of his Invisible +King have been quoted above, it would be +easy to lengthen their array. There is nothing on +which he is so insistent. For example, "God is no +abstraction nor trick of words....<a name="FNanchor_1_3" id="FNanchor_1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> He +is as real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace" (p. 56). +And again, on the same page: "He feels us and +knows us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He +hopes and attempts." There is no limit to the anthropomorphism +of the language which Mr. Wells +currently employs. Or rather, there is only one +limit: he disclaims the notion that his God is actually +existent in space, that he has parts and dimensions, +and inhabits a form in any way analogous to +ours. He is the Invisible King, not merely, like the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +Spanish Fleet, because he "is not yet in sight," +but because he has no material or "astral" integument. +Being outside space (though inside time) +he can be omnipresent (p. 61). But of course Mr. +Wells would not pretend that no deity can be called +anthropomorphic who is not actually conceived as +incarnate in the visible figure of a man. An anthropomorphic +God is one who reflects the mental +characteristics of his worshippers; and that Mr. +Wells's God does, if ever God did in this world.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_3" id="Footnote_1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The +words here omitted, "no Infinite," are nothing to the +present purpose. Mr. Wells has started by making this declaration, +which we accept without difficulty. No one will suspect +the Invisible King of being an "Infinite" in disguise.</p></div> + +<p>Yet almost in the same breath in which he is +claiming for his God the fullest independent reality—thinking +of him "as having moods and aspects, +as a man has, and a consistency we call his character" +(p. 63)—he will use language implying that +he is that very abstraction of the better parts of +human nature which has been proposed for worship +in all the various "religions of humanity," +"ethical churches," and so forth, for two or three +generations past. Listen to this: "Though he +does not exist in matter or space, he exists in time, +just as a current of thought may do; he changes +and becomes more even as a man's thought gathers +itself together; somewhere in the dawning of mankind +he had a beginning, an awakening, and as +mankind grows he grows.... <i>He is the undying</i> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +<i>human memory, the increasing human will</i>" +(p. 61). When, in the last chapter, I discussed the +date of the divinity's birth, I had overlooked this +text. Here we have it in black and white that +he did not precede mankind—that, of course, +would have implied independence—but began +with the "dawning" of the race, and has grown +with its growth. Moreover, the analogy of a "current +of thought" is expressly suggested—reinforcing +the suspicion which has all along haunted us +that the God of Mr. Wells is nothing else than what +is known to less mythopœic thinkers as a "stream of +tendency." But Mr. Wells will by no means have +it so. Indeed he evidently regards this as the most +annoying, and perhaps damnable, of heresies. +On the very next page he proceeds to rule out the +suggestion that "God is the collective mind and +purpose of the human race." "You may declare," +he says, "that this is no God, but merely the sum of +mankind. But those who believe in the new ideas +very steadfastly deny that. God is, they say, not +an aggregate but a synthesis." And he goes on to +suggest various analogies: a temple is more than a +gathering of stones, a regiment more than an accumulation +of men: we do not love the soil of our +back garden, or the chalk of Kent, or the limestone +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +of Yorkshire; yet we love England, which is made +up of these things. So God is more than the sum +or essence of the nobler impulses of the race: he is +a spirit, a person, a friend, a great brother, a captain, +a king: he "is love and goodness" (p 80); +and without him the Service of Man is "no better +than a hobby, a sentimentality or a hypocrisy" (p. +95).</p> + +<p>Let us reflect a little upon these analogies, and +see whether they rest on any solid basis. Why is +a temple more than a heap of stones? Because +human intelligence and skill have entered into the +stones and organized them to serve a given purpose +or set of purposes: to delight the eye, to elevate +the mind, to express certain ideas, to afford +shelter for worshippers against wind, rain and sun. +Why is a regiment more than a mob? Again because +it has been deliberately and elaborately organized +to fulfil certain functions. Why is England +more than the mere rocks of which it is composed? +Because these materials have been +grouped, partly by nature, but very largely by the +labor of untold generations of our fathers, into +forms which give pleasure to the eye and appeal to +our most intimate and cherished associations. Besides, +when we speak of "England," we do not think +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +only or mainly of its physical aspects. We think +of it as a great community, with an ancient, and in +some ways admirable, tradition of political life, +with a splendid record of achievement in both material +and spiritual things, with a great past, and +(we hope) a greater future. In all these cases the +parts have been fused into a whole by human effort, +either consciously or instinctively applied; and it +is in virtue of this effort alone that the whole transcends +its parts. But in the case of a God "synthetized" +out of the thought and feeling of untold +generations of men, the analogy breaks down at +every point. To assume that portions of psychic +experience are capable of vital coalescence, is to +beg the whole question. We know that stone can +be piled on stone, that men can be trained to form a +platoon, a cohort, a phalanx; but that detached +fragments of mind are capable of any sort of cohesion +and organization we do not know at all. +And, even if this point could be granted, where is +the organizing power? We should have to postulate +another God to serve as the architect or the +drill-sergeant of our synthetic divinity. Nor would +it help matters to suggest that the God (as it were) +crystallized himself; for that is to assume structural +potentialities in his component parts which must +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +have come from somewhere, so that again we have +to presuppose another God. It is true, no doubt, +that portions of thought and feeling can be collected, +arranged, edited, in some sense organized, +by human effort; but the result is an encyclopædia, +a thesaurus, an anthology, a liturgy, a bible—not a +God. It may, like the Vedas, the Hebrew Scriptures +and the Koran, become an object of idolatry; +but even its idolaters see in it only an emanation +from God, not the God himself. All this argument +may strike the reader as extremely nebulous, +but I submit that the fault is not mine. It was not +I who sought to demonstrate the reality of a figure +of speech by placing it on all fours with a cathedral +and a regiment. The whole contention is so baffling +that reason staggers and flounders as in a +quicksand. It rests upon a mixture of categories, +as palpable and yet as elusive as anything in <i>The +Hunting of the Snark</i>.</p> + +<p>If you tell me that Public Opinion is a God, I +am quite willing to consider whether the metaphor +is a luminous and helpful one. But if you protest +that it is no metaphor at all, but a literal statement +of fact, like the statement that Mr. Woodrow +Wilson is President of the United States, I no +longer know where we are. Mr. Wells's "undying +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +human memory and increasing human will" cannot +exactly be identified with Public Opinion, but +it belongs to the same order of ideas. Here there +is an actual workable analogy. But there is no +practicable analogy between a purely mental concept +and a physical construction. You will not +help me to believe in (say) the doctrine of Original +Sin, by assuring me that it is built, like the Tower +Bridge, on the cantilever principle.</p> + +<p>It is quite certain that, if passionate conviction +and the free use of anthropomorphic language can +make a figure of speech a God, the Invisible King +is an individual entity, as detached from Mr. Wells +as Michelangelo's Moses from Michelangelo. +Paradoxically enough, he has put on "individuation" +that his worshippers may escape from it. +Mr. Wells's book teems with expressions—I have +given many examples of them—which are wholly +inapplicable to any metaphor, however galvanized +into a semblance of life by ecstatic contemplation +in the devotional mind. For example, when we +are told that it is doubtful whether "God knows +all, or much more than we do, about the ultimate +Being," the mere assertion of a doubt implies the +possibility of knowledge of a quite different order +from any that exists in the human intelligence. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +Mr. Wells explicitly assures us that knowledge of +the Veiled Being is (for the present at any rate) +inaccessible to our faculties; but he implies that +such knowledge <i>may</i> be possessed by the Invisible +King; and as knowledge cannot possibly be a synthesis +of ignorances, it follows that the Invisible +King has powers of apprehension quite different +from, and independent of, any operation of the +human brain. These powers may not, as a matter +of fact, have solved the enigma of existence; but +it is clearly implied that they might conceivably +do so; and indeed the text positively asserts that +God knows <i>something</i> more of the Veiled Being +than we do, though perhaps not "much." In view +of this passage, and many others of a like nature, +we cannot fall back on the theory that Mr. Wells +is merely trying, by dint of highly imaginative +writing, to infuse life into a deliberate personification, +like Robespierre's Goddess of Reason or +Matthew Arnold's Zeitgeist. However difficult it +may be, we must accustom ourselves to the belief +that his assertions of the personal existence of his +God represent the efficient element in his thought, +and that if other passages seem inconsistent with +that idea—seem to point to mere abstraction or +allegorization of the mind of the race—it is these +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +passages, and not the more full-blooded pronouncements, +that must be cancelled as misleading or +inadequate. There can be no doubt that the God +to whom Mr. Wells seeks to convert us is (in his +apostle's conception) much more of a President +Wilson than of a Zeitgeist.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It would be possible, of course, for a God, however +dubious and even inconceivable the method of +his "synthesis," to manifest himself in his effects—to +prove his existence by his actions. But this, +as we have seen, the Invisible King scorns to do. +His adherents, we are told, "advance no proof whatever +of the existence of God but their realization of +him" (p. 98). There is a sort of implication that +the Deity will not descend to vulgar miracle-working. +"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh +after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it"—not +even "the sign of Jonah the prophet."</p> + +<p>But to ask for some sort of visible or plausibly +conjecturable effect is not at all the same thing as +to ask for miracles. Mr. Wells proclaims with all +his might that the Invisible King works the most +marvellous and beneficent changes in the minds of +his devotees; why, then, do these changes produce +no recognizable effect on the course of events? The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +God who can work upon the human mind has the +key to the situation in his hands—why, then, does +he make such scant use of it? Is God only a +luxury for the intellectually wealthy? The champagne +of the spiritual life? A stimulant and anodyne +highly appreciated in the best circles, but +inaccessible to the man of small spiritual means, +whether he be a dweller in palaces or in the slums?</p> + +<p>To say that a given Power can and does potently +affect the human mind, and yet cannot, or at least +does not, produce any appreciable or demonstrable +effect on the external aspects of human life, is like +asking us to believe that a man is a heaven-born +conductor who can get nothing out of his orchestra +but discords and cacophonies.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wells may perhaps reply that his God <i>does</i> +recognizably influence the course of events—indeed, +that everything in history which we see to be +good and desirable is the work of the Invisible King—but +that he does not advance this fact as a proof +of God's existence, because it is discernible only to +the eye of faith and cannot be brought home to +unregenerate reason. I do not imagine that he will +take this line, for it would come dangerously near +to identifying God with Providence—a heresy +which he abhors. But supposing some other adept +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +in "modern religion" were to make this claim on +behalf of the Invisible King, would it go any way +towards persuading us that we owe him our allegiance?</p> + +<p>The assumption would be, as I understand it, +that of a finite God, unable to modify the operations +of matter, but with an unlimited, or at any +rate a very great, power of influencing the workings +of the human mind. He would have no control +over meteorological conditions: he could not +"ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm"; he +could not subdue the earthquake or prevent the +Greenland glacier from "calving" icebergs into +the Atlantic. He could not release the human body +from the rhythms of growth and decay; he could +not eradicate that root of all evil, the association +of consciousness with a mechanism requiring to be +constantly stoked with a particular sort of fuel +which exists only in limited quantities. If God +could arrange for life to be maintained on a diet +of inorganic substances—if he could enable animals, +like plants, to go direct to minerals and gases +for their sustenance, instead of having it, so to +speak, half-digested in the vegetable kingdom—or +even if, under the present system, he could make +fecundity, in any given species, automatically proportionate +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +to the supply of food—he would at one +stroke refashion earthly life in an extremely desirable +sense. But this we assume to be beyond his +competence: the Veiled Being has autocratically +imposed the struggle for existence as an inexorable +condition of the Invisible King's activities, except +in so far as it can be eluded by and through the +human intelligence. His problem, then, will be to +guide the minds of men towards a realization that +their higher destiny lies in using their intelligence +to substitute ordered co-operation for the sanguinary +competition above which merely instinctive +organism are incapable of rising.</p> + +<p>Observe that in exercising this power of psychical +influence there would be no sort of miracle-working, +no interference with the order of nature. The +influence of mind upon mind, even without the intervention +of words or other symbols, is a part of +the order of nature which no one to-day dreams +of questioning. Hypnotic suggestion is a department +of orthodox medical practice, and telepathy +is more and more widely admitted, if only as a +refuge from the hypothesis of survival after death. +If, then, we have a divine mind applying itself to +the problems of humanity, and capable of suggesting +ideas to the mind of man—appealing, as a "still +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +small voice" (p. 18), to his intelligence, his emotions +and his will—one cannot but figure its power +for good as almost illimitable. What is to prevent +it from achieving a very rapid elimination of +the ape and the tiger, the Junker and the Tory, +and substituting social enthusiasms for individual +passions as the motive-power of human conduct? +We may admit that the brain of man must first +be developed up to a certain point before divine +suggestion could effectively work upon it. But we +know that men and races of magnificent brainpower +must have existed on the planet thousands +and thousands of years ago. What, then, has the +Invisible King made of his opportunities?</p> + +<p>Frankly, he has made a terrible hash of them. +It is hard to see how the progress of the race could +possibly have been slower, more laborious, more +painful than in fact it has been. No doubt there +have been a few splendid spurts, which we may, +if we please, trace to the genial goading of the +Invisible King. But all the great movements have +dribbled away into frustration and impotence. +There was, for example, the glorious intellectual +efflorescence of Greece. There, you may say, the +Invisible King was almost visibly at work. But, +after all, what a flash-in-the-pan it was! Hellas +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +was a little island of light surrounded by gloomy +immensities of barbarism; yet, instead of stablishing +and fortifying a political cosmos, its leading +men had nothing better to do than to plunge +into the bloody chaos of the Peloponnesian War, +and set back the clock of civilization by untold centuries. +What was the Invisible King about when +that catastrophe happened? Similarly, the past +two centuries, and especially the past seventy-five +years, have witnessed a marvellous onrush in man's +intellectual apprehension of the universe and mastery +over the latent energies of matter. But because +moral and political development has lagged +hopelessly behind material progress, the world is +plunged into a war of unexampled magnitude and +almost unexampled fury, wherein the heights of +the air and depths of the sea are pressed into the +service of slaughter. Where was the Invisible +King in July, 1914? Or, for that matter, what has +he been doing since July, 1870? "Either he was +musing, or he was on a journey, or peradventure he +slept." Truly it would seem that he might have +advised Mr. Wells to wait for the "Cease fire!" before +proclaiming his godhead.</p> + +<p>Of course Mr. Wells will remind me that he +claims for him no material potency; and I must +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +own that no happier moment could have been +chosen for the annunciation of an impotent God. +But the plea does not quite tally with the facts. In +the first place (as we have seen) the Invisible King +is <i>going</i> to do things—he is going to do very remarkable +things as soon as he knows how. And in +the second place it is impossible to conceive that +the tremendous psychical influence which is claimed +for this God can be exercised without producing +external reactions. Why, he is actually stated to +be—like another God, his near relative, whom he +rather unkindly disowns—he is stated to be "the +light of the world" (p. 18). Is there any meaning +in such a statement if it be not pertinent to ask +what sort of light has led the world into the +ghastly quagmire in which it is to-day agonizing? +The truth is that Mr. Wells attributes to his God +powers which, even if he had no greater knowledge +than Mr. Wells himself possesses, could be +used to epoch-making advantage. Fancy an omnipresent +H. G. Wells, able to speak in a still small +voice to all men of good-will throughout the world! +What a marvellous revolution might he not effect! +Mr. Wells himself has outlined such a revolution +in one of his most thoughtful romances, <i>In the +Days of the Comet</i>. From the fact that it does +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +not occur, may we not fairly suspect that the Invisible +King is a creation of the same mythopœic +faculty which engendered the wonder-working +comet with its aura of sweet-reasonableness?</p> + +<p>If we turn to Mr. Britling, we find that that +eminent publicist was distressed by a sense of the +difficulty of conveying God's message to the world; +only he modestly attributed it to defects in his own +equipment rather than to powerlessness on the part +of God. We read on page 427:—"Never +had it been so plain to Mr. Britling that he was +a weak, silly, ill-informed and hasty-minded +writer, and never had he felt so invincible a conviction +that the Spirit of God was in him, and that +it fell to him to take some part in the establishment +of a new order of living upon the earth.... Always +he seemed to be on the verge of some illuminating +and beautiful statement of his cause; always +he was finding his writing inadequate, a thin treachery +to the impulse of his heart." Have we not in +such an experience an irrefutable proof of the inefficacy +of Mr. Britling's God? Always the world +has been all ears for a clear, convincing, compulsive +message from God; always, or at any rate for many +thousands of years, there have been men who +seemed the predestined mouthpieces of such a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +message; always what purported to be the word +of God has proved to be either powerless to make +itself heard, or powerful only to the begetting of +hideous moral and social corruptions. God spoke +(it is said) through the Vedic <i>rishis</i>, the sages of +the Himalayas—and the result has been caste, cow-worship, +suttee, abominations of asceticism, and +nameless orgies of sensuality. God spoke through +Moses, and the result was—Judaism! God spoke +through Jesus, and the result was Arianism and +Athanasianism, the Papacy, the Holy Office, the +Thirty Years' War, massacres beyond computation, +and the slowly calcined flesh of an innumerable +army of martyrs. All this, no doubt, was due to +gross and palpable misunderstanding of the message +delivered through Jesus; but since it was so +fatally open to misunderstanding, would it not better +have remained undelivered? Could the world +have been appreciably worse off without it? The +question is rather an idle one, since it turns on +"might have beens." That the element of good in +the message of Jesus has been to some extent efficient, +no one would deny. But the alloy of potential +evil has made itself so overpoweringly actual +that to strike a balance between the two forces is +impossible, and the question is generally decided +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +by throwing a solid chunk of prejudice into one +scale or the other.</p> + +<p>There has never been a time when a really well-informed +revelation, uttered with charm and +power, might not have revolutionized the world. +"A well-informed revelation!" the reader may cry: +"What terrible bathos!" Mr. Wells, moreover, +speaks slightingly of revelation (pp. 19, 163) in a +tone that seems to imply that "modern religion" +would have nothing to do with it even if it could. +But the demand for a revelation is eminently +reasonable and justified; and the only trouble about +the historic revelations is that they have all been so +shockingly ill-informed, and have revealed nothing +to the purpose. Robert Louis Stevenson anticipated +Mr. Wells's view of the matter when he +wrote ironically:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It's a simple thing that I demand,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Though humble as can be—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A statement fair in my Maker's hand<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To a gentleman like me—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A clean account, writ fair and broad,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And a plain apologee—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or deevil a ceevil word to God<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From a gentleman like me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But why this irony? What an infinity of trouble +and pain would have been saved if such a "clean +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +account, writ fair and broad," had been vouchsafed, +and had been found to tally with the facts! +Nor have the reputedly wise and good of this world +seen any presumption in desiring such a <i>communiqué</i>. +Most of them thought they had received +it, and many wasted half their lives in attempting +to reconcile new knowledge with old ignorance, +promulgated under the guarantee of God. I cannot +but think that the poet got nearer the heart of +the matter who wrote:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Was Moses upon Sinai taught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How Sinai's mighty ribs were wrought?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did Buddha, 'neath the bo-tree's shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Learn how the stars were poised and swayed?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Did Jesus still pain's raging storm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dower the world with chloroform?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or Mahomet a jehad decree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Gainst microbe-harboring gnat and flea?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Has revelation e'er revealed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aught from its age and hour concealed?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or miracle, since time began,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conferred a single boon on Man?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Truly, we may agree with Mr. Wells that the +Invisible King was probably not in the secrets of +the Veiled Being, else he could scarcely have kept +them so successfully. But have we any use for a +God who can teach us nothing? who has to be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +taught by us before he can do anything worth +mentioning? The old Gods who professed to teach +were much more rational in theory, if only their +teaching had not been all wrong. Man has built +up his knowledge of the universe he lives in by +slow, laborious degrees, not helped, but constantly +and cruelly hindered, by his Gods. Yet Mr. +Wells will surely not deny that an approximately +true conception of the process of nature, and of +his own origin and history, was an indispensable +basis for all right and lasting social construction. +What colossal harm has been wrought, for instance, +by the fairy-tale of the Fall, and all its +theological consequences! Yet, age after age, the +Invisible King did nothing to shake its calamitous +prestige. Of late it is true that the progress of +knowledge has seemed no longer slow, but +amazingly rapid; but that is because the amount +of energy devoted to it has been multiplied a hundredfold. +Each new step is still a very short one: +it is generally found that several investigators have +independently arrived at the verge of a new discovery, +and it is often a matter of chance which +of them first crosses the line and is lucky enough +to associate his name with the completed achievement. +All this means that to-day, as from the be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>ginning, +man has to wring her secrets from Nature +in the sweat of his brain, and without the smallest +assistance from any Invisible King or other potentate. +To-day there are doubtless beneficent secrets +under our very noses, so to speak, which one word +of a still small voice might enable us to grasp, but +which may remain undiscovered, to our great detriment, +for centuries to come. There is, in short, no +single point, either in history or in contemporary +life, where "the light of the world" can be shown, +or plausibly conjectured, to have lighted us to any +practical purpose. And it is futile to urge, I repeat, +that it could not have done so without a miraculous +disturbance of the order of nature. The influence +of mind upon mind, however conveyed, is +the most natural thing in the world; and, short of +transplanting mountains, inhibiting earthquakes, +and teaching people to subsist on air, there is nothing +that mind cannot do.</p> + +<p>Besides, when we come to think of it, why this +prejudice against miracles? Why is Mr. Wells so +sternly opposed to the bare idea of Providence? +"Fear and feebleness," he says, "go straight to the +Heresies that God is Magic or that God is Providence" +(p. 27)—as though it were disgracefully +pusillanimous to prefer a well-governed to an ungoverned +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +world. God, in the ordinary sense of the +word, the sense we all understand, is unquestionably +magic, whether we like it or not. He is none +the less magic because he works through one great +spell, and not through a host of minor, petti-fogging +miracles. Upon the matter of fact we are +all agreed, Mr. Chesterton only dissenting; but Mr. +Wells writes as if it were an essentially godlike +thing, and greatly to the credit of any and every +God, to give Nature its head, and take no further +trouble about the matter. I cannot share that +view. My only objection to Providence is that it +manifestly does not exist. If it did exist, and +made the world an appreciably better place to live +in, why should we grudge it a few miracles? +There is a touch of the sour-grapes philosophy in +the rationalist attitude on this matter which Mr. +Wells attributes to his Invisible King. Because +we can't have any miracles, we say we don't want +them. Also, no doubt, we see that the alleged miracles +of the past were childish futilities, doing at +most a little temporary good to individuals, never +rendering any permanent service to a city or a +nation, and much less to mankind at large. They +were a sort of niggardly alms from omnipotence, +not a generous endowment or a liberal compensation. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +But is that any reason why an intelligent +Power should be unable to devise a really helpful +miracle? Another plausible objection is that, even +if we could admit the justice of a system of rewards +and punishments, good and evil are so inextricably +intermixed in this world that it is impossible to +distribute benefits on a satisfactory moral scheme. +It is impossible to manipulate the rainfall so that +the righteous farmer shall have just what he wants +at the appropriate seasons, while his wicked neighbour +suffers from alternate drought and floods; nor +can it be arranged that the midday express shall +convey all the good people safely, while the 4.15, +which is wrecked, carries none but undesirable characters. +To this it might be replied that the inconceivable +complexity of the chess-board of the +world exists only in relation to our human faculties; +but what is far more to the point is the indubitable +fact that many salutary miracles might be wrought +which would raise no question whatever as to the +moral merits or defects of the beneficiaries. Miracles +of alleged justice may reasonably be deprecated; +but where is the objection to miracles of +mercy, falling, like the blessed rain from heaven, +on both just and unjust?</p> + +<p>The haughty soul of Mr. Wells may prefer a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +deity who offers us no tangible bribes—who not +only does not work miracles, but will not even +utilize to material ends that great system of wireless +telegraphy between his mind and ours which +he has, by hypothesis, at his disposal. Mine, I +confess, is a humbler spirit. I should be perfectly +willing to accept even thaumaturgic benefits if only +they came in my way; and I cannot regard it as a +merit in a God that he should carefully abstain +from using even his powers of suggestion to do +some practical good in the world, and, incidentally, +to demonstrate his own existence.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is difficult, in the course of a long discussion, +to keep the attention fixed on the precise point at +issue. I therefore sum up in a few words the +argument of this chapter.</p> + +<p>In the first place, I have shown that, if words +mean anything, Mr. Wells does actually wish us +to believe that his God is not a figure of speech, +but a person, an individual, as real and independent +an entity as the Kaiser or President Wilson. +In the second place, I have enquired whether anything +he says enables us to conceive <i>à priori</i> the +possibility of such an entity disengaging itself from +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +the mind of the race, and have regretfully been +led to the conclusion that the genesis of this God +remains at least as insoluble a mystery as that of any +other God ever placed before a confiding public. +Thirdly, I have approached the question <i>à posteriori</i> +and enquired whether history or present experience +offers any evidence from which we can reasonably +infer the existence and activity of such a God—arriving +once more at a negative conclusion. With +the best will in the world, I can discover nothing in +this Invisible King but a sort of new liqueur—or +old liqueur with a new label—suited, no doubt, to +the constitutions of certain very exceptional people. +Mr. Wells avers that he himself finds it supremely +grateful and comforting, and further appeals +to the testimony of a number of other +(unnamed) believers—"English, Americans, Bengalis, +Russians, French ... Positivists, Baptists, +Sikhs, Mohammedans" (p. 4)—a quaint Pentecostal +gathering. It is true, of course, that the +proof of the pudding is in the eating, and of the +liqueur in the drinking. But some of us are inveterately +sceptical of the virtues of alcohol, even +in non-intoxicant doses, and are apt to think that +the man who discovers a remedy for sea-sickness +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +or a prophylactic against typhoid is a greater benefactor +of the race than a God whose special characteristic +it is to be not only invisible himself but +equally imperceptible in his workings.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> +<h3>FOR AND AGAINST PERSONIFICATION</h3> + +<p>For those of us who cannot accept Mr. +Wells's Invisible King as a God in any +useful or even comprehensible sense of +the term, there remains the question whether he is +a useful figure of speech. Metaphors and personifications +are often things of great potency, whether +for good or evil. It might quite well happen that, +if we wholly rejected Mr. Wells's gospel, on account +of a mere squabble as to the meaning of the +word "God," we should thereby lose something +which might have been of the utmost value to us. +Let us not run the risk of throwing out the baby with +the bath-water.</p> + +<p>Take the case of a very similar personification +with which we are all familiar—to wit, John Bull. +Is he a helpful or a detrimental "synthesis"? It +is not quite easy to say. There is a certain +geniality, a bluff wholesomeness, a downright honesty +about him, which has doubtless its value; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +but on the other hand he is the incarnation of +Philistinism and Toryism, the perfect expression +of the average sensual man. I am told that in +one of his avatars he has something like two million +worshippers, on whom his influence is of the +most questionable, precisely because they have implicit +"faith" in him, and regard him as a "Friend +behind phenomena," a "great brother," a "strongly +marked and knowable personality, loving, inspiring, +and lovable." That is an illustration of the +dangers which may lurk in prosopopœia. But in +the main we can regard John Bull without too much +misgiving, because we cannot regard him seriously. +His worship will always be seasoned with the saving +grace of humor. He can do service in two +capacities—sometimes as an ideal, often as a deterrent. +Whatever religious revolutions may await +us, we are not likely to see St. Paul's Cathedral +solemnly re-dedicated to the worship of John Bull. +He and his sister divinity, Mrs. Grundy, have never +lacked adorers in that basilica; but their cult is +probably not on the increase.</p> + +<p>The Invisible King, on the other hand, is a personage +to be taken with the utmost seriousness. +If he has anything like the success Mr. Wells anticipates +for him, it is quite on the cards that he +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +might oust the present Reigning Family from one +or all of the cathedrals. It is true that Mr. Wells +deprecates any ritual worship; but "religious +thought finely expressed" would always be in order; +and he "does not see why there should not +be, under God, associations for building cathedrals +and such like great still places urgent with beauty, +into which men and women may go to rest from +the clamor of the day's confusions" (p. 168). If +cathedrals may be built, all the more clearly may +they be appropriated—if you can convert or evict +the dean and chapter. If the Invisible King should +take the fancy of the nation and the world, as Mr. +Wells would have us think that he is already doing, +he is bound to become the object of a formal cult. +We shall very soon see a prayer-book of the "modern +religion" with marriage, funeral and perhaps +baptismal services, with daily lessons, and with +suitable forms of prayer for persons who cannot +trust themselves to extempore communings even +with a "great brother."</p> + +<p>Well, there might be no great harm in this. +Some solemn form for the expression of cosmic, +and even of mundane or political, emotion would +doubtless be useful; and if the "modern religion" +could be saved from degenerating into a hysterical +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +superstition on the one hand, or a petrified, persecuting +orthodoxy on the other, it would certainly be +a vast improvement on many of the religions of +to-day.</p> + +<p>But the ambitions of the Invisible King go far +beyond the mere presidency of an Ethical Church +on an extended scale. He is to be a King and no +mistake; not even a King of Kings, but "sole +Monarch of the universal earth." Autocracies, +oligarchies, and democracies are alike to be swept +out of his path. The "implicit command" of the +modern religion "to all its adherents is to make +plain the way to the world theocracy" (p. 97). +How the fiats of the Invisible King are to be issued, +we are not informed. If through the ballot-box—"vox +populi, vox dei"—then the distinction between +theocracy and democracy will scarcely be +apparent to the naked eye. And one does not see +how, in the transition stage at any rate, recourse to +the ballot-box is to be avoided, if only as a lesser +evil than recourse to howitzers, tanks and submarines. +We read that "if you do not feel God then +there is no persuading you of him"; but if you +do, "you will realize more and more clearly, that +thus and thus and no other is his method and intention" +(p. 98). Now, assuming (no slight assumption) +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +that the oracles of God, the message of +the still small voice, will be identically interpreted +by all believers, the unbelievers, those who "do not +feel God," have still to be dealt with; and, as +they are not open to persuasion, it would seem that +the faithful must be prepared either to shoot them +down or to vote them down—whereof the latter +seems the humaner alternative. It is true that Mr. +Wells's God is a man of war; like that other whom +he disowns but strangely resembles, "he brings +mankind not rest but a sword" (p. 96). But we +may confidently hold that this, at any rate, is but +a manner of speaking. Even if the God is real, +his sword is metaphoric. Mr. Wells is not seriously +proposing to take his cue from his Mohammedan +friends, raise the cry of "Allahu Akbar!" +and propagate his gospel scimitar in hand. It is +hard to see, then, what other method there can be of +dealing with the heathen, except the method of the +ballot-box—of course with proportional representation. +When there are no more heathen—when the +whole world can read the will of God by direct intuition, +as though it were written in letters of fire +across the firmament—then, indeed, the ballot-box +may join the throne, sceptre and crown in the historical +museum. But even the robust optimism of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +the <i>gottestrunken</i> Mr. Wells can scarcely conceive +this millennium to be at hand. So that in the +meantime it seems unwise to speak slightingly of +democracy, lest we thereby help the Powers, both +here and elsewhere, which are fighting for something +very much worse. For I take it that the worst +enemy of the Wellsian God is the Superman, who +has quite a sporting chance of coming out on top, +if not actually in this War, at least in the welter +that will succeed it.</p> + +<p>But seriously, is any conceivable sort of theocracy +a desirable ideal? Or, to put the same question +in more general terms, is it wise of Mr. Wells +to make such play with the word "God"? He +himself admits that "God trails with him a thousand +misconceptions and bad associations: his alleged +infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange preferences, +his vindictive Old Testament past" (p. 8)—and, +it may fairly be added, his blood-boltered, +Kultur-stained present. Is it possible to deodorize +a word which comes to us redolent of "good, thick +stupefying incense-smoke," mingled with the reek +of the auto-da-fé? Can we beat into a ploughshare +the sword of St. Bartholomew, and a thousand +other deeds of horror? God has been by far +the most tragic word in the whole vocabulary of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +the race—a spell to conjure up all the worst fiends +in human nature: arrogance and abjectness, fanaticism, +hatred and atrocity. Religious reformers—with +Jesus at their head—have time and again +tried to divest it of some, at least, of its terrors, +but they have invariably failed. Will Mr. Wells +succeed any better? Is it not apparent in the foregoing +discussion that, even if the word had no +other demerits, it leads us into regions in which +the mind can find no firm foothold? I have done +my best to accept Mr. Wells's definitions, but I +am sure he feels that I have constantly slipped +from the strait and narrow path. Has he himself +always kept to it? I think not. And, waiving +that point, is it at all likely that people in general +will be more successful than I have been in grasping +and holding fast to the differentiating attributes +of Mr. Wells's divinity? If the word is at +best a confusion and at worst a war-whoop, should +we not try to dispense with it, to avoid it, to find +a substitute which should more accurately, if less +truculently, express our idea? Is it wise or kind +to seek to impose on the future an endless struggle +with its sinister ambiguities?</p> + +<p>There are, no doubt, regions of thought from +which it is extremely difficult to exclude the word; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +but these, fortunately, are regions in which it is +almost necessarily divested of its historical associations. +As a term of pure philosophy, if safeguarded +by careful definition, it is a convenient +piece of shorthand, obviating the necessity for a +constant recourse to cumbrous formulas. But politics +is not one of these regions of thought; and it is +precisely in politics that the intervention of God +has from of old been most disastrous. "Theocracy" +has always been the synonym for a bleak +and narrow, if not a fierce and blood-stained, +tyranny. Why seek to revive and rehabilitate a +word of such a dismal connotation? I suggest that +even if the Invisible King <i>were</i> a God, it would be +tactful to pretend that he was not. As he is <i>not</i> a +God, in any generally understood sense of the +term, it seems a curious perversity to pretend that +he is.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Even in the region of morals it is a backward +step to restore God to the supremacy from which +he has with the utmost difficulty been deposed. I +am sure Mr. Wells does not in his heart believe +that any theological sanction is required for the +plain essentials of social well-doing, or any theological +stimulus for the rare sublimities of virtue. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +Incalculable mischief has been wrought by the +clerical endeavour to set up a necessary association +between right conduct and orthodoxy, between +heterodoxy and vice. This Mr. Wells knows as +well as I do; yet he can use such phrases as "Without +God, the 'Service of Man' is no better than a +hobby or a sentimentality or a hypocrisy." No +doubt he has carefully explained that he does not +mean by God or religion what the clergy mean; +but can he be sure that by imitating their phrases +he may not imperceptibly slide into their frame of +mind? or at any rate tempt the weaker brethren +to do so? In using such an expression he comes +perilously near the attitude adopted by the Bishop +of London in a recent address to the sailors of the +Grand Fleet. His Lordship told his hearers—we +have it on his own authority—that "there was in +everyone a good man and a bad man. And I have +not known a case," he added, "where the good +man conquered the bad man without religion." +Can there be any doubt that the Bishop was either +telling—well, not the truth—or shamelessly playing +with words? Of course it may be said that +any man who keeps his lower instincts in control +does so by aid of a feeling that there are higher +values in life than sensual gratification or direct +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +self-gratification of any sort; and we may, if we +are so minded, call this feeling religion. But it +is a very inconvenient meaning to attach to the +word, and we cannot take it to be the meaning +the Bishop had in view. What he meant, in all +probability—what he desired his simple-minded +hearers to understand—was that he had never +known a good man who did not believe, if not in +all the dogmas of the Church of England, at any +rate in the Christian Trinity, the fall of man, redemption +from sin, and the inspiration of the +Scriptures. He meant that no man could be good +who did not believe that God has given us in writing +a synopsis of his plan of world-government, +and has himself sojourned on earth and submitted +to an appearance of death, some two thousand +years ago, in fulfilment of the said plan. If he did +<i>not</i> mean that, he was, I repeat, playing with +words and deceiving his hearers, who would certainly +understand him to mean something to that +effect; and if he <i>did</i> mean that, he departed very +palpably from the truth. The Bishop of London +is no recluse, shut up in a monastery among men +of his own faith. He is a man of the modern +world, and he must know, and know that he knows, +scores of men as good as himself who have no belief +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +in anything that he would recognize as religion. +Perhaps he was not directly conscious of +telling a falsehood, for "faith" plays such havoc +with the intellect that men cease to attach any living +meaning to words, and come to deal habitually in +those unrealized phrases which we call cant. But +whatever may have been his excuses to his conscience, +he was saying a very noxious thing to the +simple, gallant souls who heard him. Many of +them must have been well aware that they had no +faith that would have satisfied the Bishop of London, +and that whatever religious ideas lurked in +their minds were of very little use to them in struggling +with the temptations of a sailor's life. +Where was the sense in telling them that the ordinary +motives which make for good conduct—prudence, +self-respect, loyalty, etc., etc.—are of no +avail, and that they must inevitably be bad men if +they had not "found religion"? If such talk does +no positive harm, it is only because men have learnt +to discount the patter of theology. Yet here we +find Mr. Wells, after vigorously disclaiming any +participation in the Bishop's beliefs, falling into +the common form of episcopal patter, and telling +me, for example—a benighted but quite well-intentioned +heathen—that I can do no good in my +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +generation unless I believe in a God whom he and +a number of Eastern sages, Parthians, Medes, +Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia, have recently +"synthetized" out of their inner consciousnesses! +It is not Mr. Wells's fault if I do not abandon +the steep and thorny track of austerity which I +have hitherto pursued, invest all my spare cash +either in whiskey or in whiskey shares, and go for +my philosophy in future to the inspiring author of +<i>Musings without Method</i> in "Blackwood."</p> + +<p>It is not quite clear why Mr. Wells should accept +so large a part of the Christian ethic and yet refuse +to identify his Invisible King with Christ. +One would have supposed it quite as easy to divest +the Christ-figure of any inconvenient attributes as +to eliminate omniscience and omnipotence from +the God-idea. Mr. Wells constantly allows his +thoughts to run into the stereotype moulds of +biblical phraseology. We have seen how he talks +of "the still small voice," of "the light of the +world," "taking the sting from death" and of God +coming "in his own time" and bringing "not rest +but a sword." To those instances may be added +such phrases as "death will be swallowed up in +victory" (p. 39), "by the grace of the true God" +(p. 44), "God is Love" (p. 65), "the Son of Man" +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +(p. 86), "I become my brother's keeper" (p. 97), +"he it is who can deliver us 'from the body of this +death'" (p. 99). But the clearest indication of +Christian influence is to be found in Mr. Wells's +unhesitating and emphatic adoption of the idea that +"Salvation is indeed to lose oneself" (p. 73). +"The difference," he says, "between ... the unbeliever +and the servant of the true God is this ... +that the latter has experienced a complete turning +away from self. This only difference is all the +difference in the world" (p. 84). It is curious +what a fascination this turn of phrase has exercised +upon many and diverse intelligences. Mr. Bernard +Shaw, for instance, adopts it with enthusiasm. +Henrik Ibsen—if it is ever possible to tie a true +dramatist down to a doctrine—preaches in <i>Peer +Gynt</i> that "to be thyself is to slay thyself." Mr. +Wells has a cloud of witnesses to back him up; and +yet it is very doubtful whether the turn of phrase +is a really helpful one—whether it does not rather +get in the way of the natural man in his quest for a +sound rule of life.</p> + +<p>It is a commonplace that the entirely self-centred +man—the Robinson Crusoe of a desert island of +egoism—is unhappy. At least if he is not he +belongs to a low intellectual and moral type: the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +proof being that all development above the level of +the oyster and the slug has involved more or less +surrender of the immediate claims of "number +one" to some larger unity. Progress has always +consisted, and still consists, in the widening of the +ideal concept which appeals to our loyalty. Is it +not Mr. Wells's endeavour in this very book to claim +our devotion for the all-embracing and ultimate +ideal—the human race? So far, we are all at one. +But when we are told that "conversion" or "salvation" +consists in a "<i>complete</i> turning away from +self," common sense revolts. It is not true either +in every-day life or in larger matters of conduct. +In every-day life the incurably "unselfish" person +is an intolerable nuisance. Here the common-sense +rule is very simple: you have no right to seek your +own "salvation," or, in non-theological terms, your +own self-approval, at the cost of other people's; you +have no business to offer sacrifices which the other +party ought not to accept. It is true that in the +application of this simple rule difficult problems +may arise; but a little tact will generally go a long +way towards solving them. In these matters an +ounce of tact is worth a pound of casuistry. And +in our every-day England, in all classes, it is my +profound conviction that a reasonable selflessness +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +is very far from uncommon, very far from being +confined to the "converted" of any religion. For +forty years I have watched it growing and spreading +before my very eyes. Reading the other way +<i>The Roundabout Papers</i>, I was greatly struck by +the antiquated cast of the manners therein described. +Of course Thackeray, in his day, was reputed +a cynic, and supposed to have an over-partiality +for studying the seamy side of things. But +even if that had been true (which I do not believe) +it would not have accounted for all the difference +between the world he saw and that in which we +move to-day. I suggest, then, that so far as the +minor moralities are concerned, no new religion is +required, and we have only to let things pursue their +natural trend.</p> + +<p>And what of the great selflessnesses? What of +the ideal loyalties? What of the long-accumulated +instincts which tell a man, in tones which brook +no contradiction, that the shortest life and the +cruellest death are better than the longest life of +sensual self-contempt? Here, as it seems to me, +Mr. Wells's apostolate of a new religion is very +conspicuously superfluous—much more so than it +would have been five years ago. For have not he +and I been privileged to witness one of the most +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +beautiful sights that the world ever saw—the flocking +of Young England, in its hundreds upon hundreds +of thousands, to endure the extremity of +hardship and face the high probability of a cruel +death, not for England alone, not even for England, +France and Belgium, but for what they obscurely +but very potently felt to be the highest interests +of the very same ideal entity which Mr. +Wells proposes to our devotion—the human race? +I am sure he would be the last to minimize the +significance of that splendid uprising. No doubt +there were other motives at work: in some, the mere +love of change and adventure; in others, the pressure +of public opinion. But my own observation +assures me that, on the whole, these unideal motives +played a very small part. The young men simply +felt that he who held back was unfaithful to his +fathers and unworthy of his sons; and they "turned +away from self" without a moment's hesitation, +and streamed to the colors with all the more eagerness +the longer the casualty-lists grew, and the more +clearly the horrors they had to face were brought +home to them. Has there been any voluntary +"slaying of self" on so huge a scale since the world +began? I have not heard of it. And Mr. Wells +will scarcely tell me that these young men went +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +through the experiences he describes as "conversion," +and escaped from the burden of "over-individuation" +by throwing themselves into the arms of +a synthetic God! Many of them, no doubt, would +have expressed their idealism, had they expressed +it at all, in terms of Christianity; but that, we are +told, is a delusion, and the only true God is the Invisible +King. If that be so, the conclusion would +seem to be that, in the present stage of the evolution +of human character, no God at all is needed to +enable millions of men, in whom the blood runs +high and the joy of life is at its keenest, to achieve +the conquest of self in one of its noblest forms. +Or (what comes to the same thing) any sort of God +will serve the purpose. Your God (divested of +metaphysical attributes) is simply a name for your +own better instincts and impulses. Many people, +perhaps most, share Mr. Wells's tendency to externalize, +objectivate, personify these impulses; and +there may be no harm in doing so. But when it +comes to asserting that your own personification is +the only true one, then—I am not so sure.</p> + +<p>Finally there arises the question whether the +personification of the Invisible King can really, in +any comprehensible sense, and for any considerable +number of normal human beings, rob death +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +of its sting, the grave of its victory? On this +point discussion cannot possibly be conclusive, for +the ultimate test is necessarily a personal one. If +any sane and sincere person tells me that a certain +idea, or emotion, or habit of mind, or even any +rite or incantation, has deprived death of its terrors +for him, I can only congratulate him, even if I +have to confess that my own experience gives me +no clue to his meaning. It is not even very profitable +to enquire whether a man can be confident +of his own attitude towards death unless he has +either come very close to its brink himself, or +known what it means to witness the extinction of +a life on which his whole joy in the present and +hope for the future depended. All one can do is +to try to ascertain as nearly as possible what the +contemner of death really means, and to consider +whether his individual experience or feeling is, or +is likely to become, typical.</p> + +<p>One thing we must plainly realize, and that is +that, for the purposes of his present argument, +Mr. Wells conceives death to be a real extinction +of the individual consciousness. He does not +formally commit himself to a denial of personal +immortality, but it is a contingency which he declines +to take into account. Oddly enough, in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +trying to acclimatize our minds to the idea of such +an absolutely incorporeal and immaterial, yet +really existent, being as his Invisible King, he +comes near to clearing away the one great obstacle +to belief in survival after death. "From the +earliest ages," he says, "man's mind has found +little or no difficulty in the idea of something essential +to the personality, a soul or a spirit or both, +existing apart from the body and continuing after +the destruction of the body, and being still a person +and an individual" (p. 59). He does not actually +say that there <i>is</i> no difficulty about this conception: +he only says that, as a matter of history, the great +mass of men have found it easy and natural to believe +in ghosts. But it is hard to see any force in +his argument at this point unless he means to +imply that he himself finds "little or no difficulty" +in conceiving the continued existence of a +spiritual consciousness and individuality after the +dissolution of the body to which it has been attached; +and if he does mean this, it is hard to +see why he does not take his stand beside Sir +Oliver Lodge on the spiritist platform. To many +of us, the extreme difficulty of such a conception +is the one great barrier to the acceptance of the +spiritist theory, for which remarkable evidence can +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +certainly be adduced. This, however, is a digression. +So far as <i>God the Invisible King</i> is concerned, +Mr. Wells must be taken as ignoring, if +not rejecting, the idea of personal immortality.</p> + +<p>The victory over death, then, which the Invisible +King is said to achieve, does not consist in its abolition. +It may probably be best defined as the perfect +reconcilement of the believer to the extinction +of his individual consciousness. And what are +the grounds of that reconcilement? Let us search +the scriptures. Where the steps are described by +which the catechumen approaches the full realization +of God, it is said that at that stage he +feels that "if there were such a being he would +supply the needed consolation and direction, his +continuing purpose would knit together the scattered +effort of life, <i>his immortality would take the +sting from death</i>" (p. 21-22). A little further on, +the idea is elaborated in a high strain of mysticism. +God, who "captains us but does not coddle us" (p. +42), will by no means undertake to hold the believer +scatheless among the pitfalls and perils that +beset our earthly pilgrimage. "But God will be +with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane, or +the dark ice-cave, God will be your courage. +Though you suffer or are killed, it is not an end. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +He will be with you as you face death; he will die +with you as he has died already countless myriads +of brave deaths. He will come so close to you that +at the last you will not know whether it is you or +he who dies, and the present death will be swallowed +up in his victory" (p. 39). The passage +has already been quoted in which it is written that, +at the end of the fight for God's Kingdom, "we +are altogether taken up into his being" (p. 68). +In a discussion of "the religion of atheists" we are +told that unregenerate man is "acutely aware of +himself as an individual and unawakened to himself +as a species," wherefore he "finds death frustration." +His mistake is in not seeing that his +own frustration "may be the success and triumph of +his kind" (p. 72). At the point where we are told +that "the first purpose of God is the attainment of +clear knowledge," we are further informed that +"he will apprehend more fully as time goes on" +the purpose to which this knowledge is to be applied. +But already it is possible to define "the +broad outlines" of his purpose. "It is the conquest +of death; first the overcoming of death in the +individual <i>by the incorporation of the motives of +his life into an undying purpose</i>" (p. 99), and +then, as we saw before, the defeat of the threatened +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +extinction of life through the cooling of the +planet. These, I think, are the chief texts bearing +directly on this particular matter; but there is one +other remark which must not be overlooked. "A +convicted criminal, frankly penitent," we are told, +"... may still die well and bravely on the gallows, +to the glory of God. He may step straight +from that death into the immortal being of God."</p> + +<p>To what, now, does all this amount? Is there +any more substantial solace in it than in the "Oh, +may I join the Choir Invisible" aspiration of mid-nineteenth-century +positivism? Far be it from +me to speak contemptuously of that aspiration. +It gives a new orientation and consistency to +thought and effort during life; and to the man +who feels that his little note will melt into the +world-harmony that is to be, that thought may +impart a certain serenity under the shadow of the +end. It is certainly better to feel at night, "I +have done a fair day's work," than to lie down +with the confession, "My day has been wasted, +and worse." No one wants, I suppose, to say +with Peer Gynt:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I trampled thy grasses to no avail;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Thy glory of light in an empty hut.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beautiful sun and beautiful earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You were foolish to bear and give light to my mother.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But there is also another side to the question. +The more surely you believe that "through the +ages one increasing purpose runs"—the more +intimately you have merged your individual will +in what Mr. Wells would call the will of the Invisible +King—the less do you relish the thought +that you can never see that will worked out. The +intenser your interest in the play, the greater your +disinclination to leave the theatre just as the plot +is thickening. Nor does it afford much consolation +to know that the Producer is just (as it were) +getting into his stride, and that, if the house +should become too cold for comfort, arrangements +will be made for the transference of the production +to another theatre, with a better heating-apparatus.</p> + +<p>Is there any real escape from the fact that for +each of us the one thing that actually exists is our +individual consciousness? It is our universe; and +if its trembling flame is blown out, that particular +universe is no more. If its limits of "individuation" +are irrecoverably lost, what avails it to tell +us that the flame is absorbed into the light of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +world or the dayspring on high? Is it possible +to imagine that the rain-drop which falls in the +Atlantic thrills with a great rapture as its molecules +disperse in the moment of coalescence, because +it is now part of an infinite and immortal +entity? Yes, it is possible to imagine it rejoicing +that its "chagrins of egotism," as an individual +drop, are now over; in fact, this is precisely the +sort of thing that some poets love to imagine; but +has it any real relevance to our sublunary lot? +Can it minister any substantial comfort or fortification +to the normal man in the moment of peril +or agony? I ask; I do not answer. Can Mr. +Wells put in the witness-box any flight-lieutenant +who will swear that in his reeling aeroplane, as +death seemed on the point of engulfing him, he felt +uncertain whether it was God or he that was about +to die, and gloriously certain that in any case he +was about to "step straight into the immortal +being of God"? And even if, in the excitement of +violent action, such hallucinations do mean something +to a peculiar type of mind, has any one dying +of pneumonia or Bright's disease been known to +declare that, though his mortal spark was on the +point of extinction, he felt that "by the incorporation +of the motives of his life into an undying +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +purpose" he had triumphed over death and the +grave? The simple soul who says "We shall meet +in Heaven" no doubt enjoys such a triumph—and +even if he fails to keep the appointment, no one +is any the worse. But where are the men and +women who feel the immortality of God, however +we define or construct him, a rich compensation +for their own mortality?</p> + +<p>It may be said that I am applying shockingly +terrestrial tests to Mr. Wells's soaring transcendentalisms. +I am simply asking: "Will they +work?" A world-religion cannot be what I have +called a luxury for the intellectually wealthy. It +must be within the reach of plain men and women; +and plain men and women cannot, as the French +say, "pay themselves with words." Take them +all round, they do not make too much of death. +With or without the aid of religion, they generally +meet it with tolerable fortitude. But it will be +hard to persuade them that annihilation is a thing +to be faced with rapture, because a synthetic God +is indestructible; or that death is not death because +other people will be alive a hundred or a thousand +years hence. Even if you cannot offer them +another life, you may tell them of the grave as a +place where the wicked cease from troubling and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +the weary are at rest, and they will understand. +But will they understand if you tell them that we +triumph over the grave because God dies with us +and yet never dies? I fear it will need something +clearer and more credible than this to make the +undertaker a popular functionary.</p> + +<p>The doctrines of "the modern religion" may +give us a new motive for living; but how can they +at the same time diminish our distaste for dying? +That might be their effect, no doubt, in cases +where we felt that our death was promoting some +great and sacred cause more than our life could +have done; but such cases must always be extremely +rare. Even the soldier on the battlefield +will help his country more by living than by dying, +if he can do so without failing in his duty. His +death is not a triumph, but only a lesser evil than +cowardice and disgrace. And what shall we say, +for example, of the case of a young biologist who +dies of blood-poisoning on the eve of a great and +beneficent discovery? Is not this a case in which +the modern God might with advantage have +swerved from his principles and (for once) played +the part of Providence? It is better, no doubt, +to die in a good cause than to throw away life +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +in the pursuit of folly or vice; but is it not playing +with words to say that even the end of a martyr +to science like Captain Scott, or a martyr to +humanity like Edith Cavell, is a triumph over +death and the grave? It is a triumph over +cowardice, baseness, the love of ease and safety, +all the paltrier aspects of our nature; but a +triumph over death it is not. If it be true (which +I do not believe) that German soldiers sign a declaration +devoting the glycerine in their dead +bodies to their country's service, one may imagine +that some of them feel a species of satisfaction in +resolving upon this final proof of patriotism; but +it will be a gloomy satisfaction at best; there will +be a lack of exhilaration about it; if the Herr +Hauptmann who witnesses their signatures congratulates +them on having triumphed over death, +they will be apt to think it a rather empty form +of words. If they had had the advantage of reading +Jane Austen, they would probably say with +Mr. Bennet, "Let us take a more cheerful view +of the subject, and suppose that I survive."</p> + +<p>I fear that not even the companionship offered +by the modern God in the act of dissolution will +make death a cheerful experience, or induce +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +ordinary, unaffected mortals to glory in their mortality. +It is too much the habit of Gods to pretend +to die when they don't really die at all—when, in +fact, the whole idea is a mere intellectual hocus-pocus.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> +<h3>BACK TO THE VEILED BEING</h3> + +<p>Why has Mr. Wells partly goaded and +partly hypnotized himself into the belief +that he is the predestined prolocutor +of a new hocus-pocus? Rightly or wrongly, +I diagnose his case thus: What he really cares +for is the future of humanity, or, in more concrete +language, social betterment. He suffers more than +most of us from the spectacle of the world of to-day, +because he has the constructive imagination +which can place alongside of that chaos of cupidities +and stupidities a vision of a rational world-order +which seems easily attainable if only some +malignant spell could be lifted from the spirit of +man. But he finds himself impotent in face of +the crass inertia of things-as-they-are. Except the +gift of oratory, he has all possible advantages for +the part of a social regenerator. He has the pen +of a ready and sometimes very impressive writer; +he has a fair training in science; he has a fertile +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +and inventive brain; his works of fiction have won +for him a great public, both in Europe and America; +yet he feels that his social philosophy, his +ardent and enlightened meliorism, makes no more +impression than the buzzing of a gnat in the ear +of a drowsy mastodon. At the same time he has +persuaded himself, whether on internal or on external +evidence—partly, I daresay, on both—that +men cannot thrive, either as individuals or as +world-citizens, without some relation of reverence +and affection to something outside and above themselves. +He foresees that Christianity will come +bankrupt out of the War, and yet that the huge, +shattering experience will throw the minds of men +open to spiritual influences. At the same time (of +this one could point to several incidental evidences) +he has come a good deal in contact with Indian +religiosity, and learnt to know a type of mind to +which God, in one form or another, is indeed an +essential of life, while the particular form is a +matter of comparative indifference. Then the idea +strikes him: "Have we not here a great opportunity +for placing the motive-power of spiritual fervor +behind, or within, the sluggish framework of social +idealism? Here it lies, well thought-out, carefully +constructed, but inert, like an aeroplane without an +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +engine. By giving the glow of supernaturalism, of +the worship of a personal God, to the good old +Religion of Humanity, may we not impart to our +schemes for a well-ordered world precisely the uplift +they at present lack? It was all very well for +chilly New England transcendentalism to 'hitch its +waggon to a star,' but the result is that Boston is +governed by a Roman Catholic Archbishop. It is +really much easier and more effective to hitch our +waggon to God, who, being a synthesis of our +own higher selves, will naturally pull it in whatever +direction we want. Thus the mass of mankind +will escape from that spiritual loneliness which is +so discomfortable to them, and will find, in one +and the same personification, a deity to listen to +their prayers, and a 'boss,' in the Tammany sense +of the term, to herd them to the polling-booths. +What we want is collectivism touched with emotion. +By proclaiming it to be the will of God, and +identifying sound politics with ecstatic piety, we +may shorten by several centuries the path to a +new world-order."</p> + +<p>This is a translation into plain English of the +thoughts which would seem to have possessed Mr. +Wells's mind during the past year or so. I do not +for a moment mean that he put them to himself +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +in plain English. That would be to accuse him of +insincerity—a thought which I most sincerely disclaim. +I have not the least doubt that the Invisible +King does actually supply a "felt want" +in his spiritual outfit, and that he is perfectly convinced +that most other people are similarly constituted +and will welcome this new object of loyalty +and devotion. Time will show whether his psychology +is correct. If it is, then he has indeed made +an important discovery. To use a very homely +illustration: a carrot dangled from the end of a +stick before a donkey's nose makes no mechanical +difference in the problem of traction presented by +the costermonger's barrow. If anything, it adds +to the weight to be drawn. But if the sight of it +cheers, heartens, and inspires the donkey, helping +him to overcome those fits of lethargy so characteristic +of his race, then the carrot may quite +appreciably accelerate the general rate of progress. +It all depends on the psychology of the +donkey.</p> + +<p>Moses doubtless did very wisely in going up +into Mount Sinai and abiding there forty days and +forty nights. Whatever he may have seen and +heard, the semblance of communion with a Higher +Power unquestionably lent a prestige to his scheme +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +of social reform which it could never have attained +had he offered it on its inherent merits, as the project +of a mere human legislator, or (still worse) +of a man of letters. Moses, in fact, knew his +Children of Israel. Does Mr. Wells know his +modern Englishmen or Anglo-Americans?</p> + +<p>That is the question.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bernard Shaw has made a similar and very +ingenious attempt, not exactly to found a new +religion, but to place his ideas in a religious atmosphere. +In the preface to <i>Androcles and the Lion</i> +(a disquisition just about as long as <i>God the Invisible +King</i>) he propounds the question, "Why +not give Christianity a trial?" and opens the discussion +thus: "The question seems a hopeless one +after 2,000 years of resolute adherence to the old +cry of 'Not this man, but Barabbas.' Yet it is +beginning to look as if Barabbas was a failure, in +spite of his strong right hand, his victories, his +empires, his millions of money, and his moralities +and churches and political constitutions. 'This +man' has not been a failure yet; for nobody has +ever been sane enough to try his way." Then he +goes on to shew, by a course of very plausible +reasoning, that the teaching of Jesus was, in all +essentials, an exact anticipation of the economic +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +and social philosophy of G. B. S.; so that, in +giving political expression to that philosophy, we +should be, for the first time, establishing the Kingdom +of Christ upon earth. It is true that there +are passages in the Gospels which no more accord +with Mr. Shaw's sociology than do omnipotence +and omniscience with the theology of Mr. Wells. +But these passages do not embarrass Mr. Shaw. +He simply points out that, at Matthew xvi, 16, +where Peter hailed him as "the Christ, the Son of +the living God," Jesus went mad. Up to that +fatal moment "his history is that of a man sane +and interesting apart from his special gifts as +orator, healer and prophet"; but from that point +onward he set to work to live up to "his destiny +as a god," part of which was to be killed and to +rise again. Many other prophets have gone mad—for +instance, Ruskin and Nietzsche. Therefore we +can have no difficulty in simply eliminating as a +morbid aberration whatever is un-Shavian in the +message of Jesus, and accepting the rest as the +sincere milk of the word. Mr. Shaw's attempt to +place his philosophy under divine patronage is not +so serious as Mr. Wells's; for Mr. Shaw can never +take himself quite seriously for five pages together. +But the motive, in each case, in manifestly +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +the same—to obtain for a system of ideas +the prestige, the power of insinuation, penetration, +and stimulation, that attaches to the very name of +religion.</p> + +<p>The notion is a very tempting one. What every +prophet wants, in the babel of latter-day thought, +is a magic sounding-board which shall make his +voice carry to the ends of the earth and penetrate +to the dullest understanding. The more he believes +in his own reason, the more he yearns for +some method of out-shouting the unreason of his +neighbours. German philosophy thought it had +discovered the ideal reverberator in the artillery +of Herr Krupp von Bohlen; but the world is +curiously indisposed to conversion by cannon, and +has retorted in a still louder roar of high-explosive +arguments. God, as a politico-philosophical ally, +is certainly cheaper than Herr Krupp; and, +divested of his mediæval sword and tinder-box, he +is decidedly humaner. But is the glamour of his +name quite what it once was? Or can it be restored +to its pristine potency?</p> + +<p>On a question, such as this, on which the evidence +is too vague, too voluminous and too complex +to be interpreted with any certainty, our +wishes are apt to take control of our thoughts. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +Making all allowance for this source of error, I +nevertheless venture to suggest to Mr. Wells that +we may perhaps be passing out of, not into, an +age of religiosity. May it not be that the time has +come to give the name of God a rest? Is it not +possible, and even probable, that, while the vast +apocalypse of the observatory and the laboratory +is proceeding with unexampled speed, thinking +people may prefer to await its developments, +rather than pin their faith to an interim, synthetic +God, whom his own still, small voice must, in +moments of candor, confess to be merely make-believe? +Is it the fact that men, or even women, +of our race are, as a rule, absolutely dependent for +courage, energy, self-control and self-devotion, +upon some "great brother" outside themselves, +"a strongly-marked personality, loving, inspiring +and lovable," whom they conceive to be always +within call? In making this assumption, is not +Mr. Wells ignoring the great mass of paganism +in the world around him—not all of it, or even +most of it, self-conscious and self-confessed, but +none the less real on that account? He makes a +curious remark as to the personage whom he calls +"the benevolent atheist," which is, I take it, his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +nickname for the man who is not much interested +in midway Gods between himself and the Veiled +Being. This hapless fellow-creature, says Mr. +Wells, "has not really given himself or got away +from himself. He has no one to whom he can +give himself. <i>He is still a masterless man</i>" (p. +83). As Mr. Wells has evidently read a good deal +about Japan, he no doubt takes this expression +from Japanese feudalism, which made a distinct +class of the "ronin" or masterless man, who had, +by death or otherwise, lost his feudal superior. +But is it really, to our Western sense, a misfortune +to be a masterless man? Does the healthy human +spirit suffer from having no one to bow down to, +no one to relieve it of the burden of choice, responsibility, +self-control? If our feudal allegiance +has terminated through the death of the Gods who +asserted a hereditary claim upon it, must we make +haste to build ourselves an idol, or synthetize a +mosaic ikon, to serve as the recipient of our +obeisances, genuflexions, osculations? I cannot +believe that this is a general, and much less a universal, +tendency. If any one is irked by the condition +of a "masterless man," the Roman Catholic +Church holds wide its doors for him. It seems very +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +doubtful whether any less ancient, dogmatic, +hieratic, spectacular form of make-believe will +serve his turn.</p> + +<p>It has sometimes seemed to me that the one +great advantage of Western Christianity lies in +the fact that nobody very seriously believes in it. +"Nobody" is not a mathematically accurate expression, +but it is quite in the line of the truth. +You have to go to Asia to find out what religion +means. If you cannot get so far, Russia will serve +as a half-way house; but to study religion on its +native heath, so to speak, you must go to India. +Of course there may be some illusion in the matter, +due to one's ignorance of the languages and inability +to estimate the exact spiritual significance +of outward manifestations; but I cannot believe +that, anywhere between Suez and Singapore, there +exists that healthy godlessness, that lack of any +real effective dependence on any outward Power +"dal tetto in su," which is so common in and +around all Christian churches. In China and +Japan it is another matter. There, I fancy, religious +"ronins" are common enough. But in the +lands of the Crescent and the land of "OM," +anything like freedom of the human spirit is probably +very rare and very difficult. The difference +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +does not arise from any lesser stringency in the +claims of Christianity to spiritual dominion, but +rather, I imagine, from a deep-seated divergence +in racial heredity. We Western Aryans have behind +us the serene and splendid rationalisms of +Greece and Rome. We are accustomed from childhood +to the knowledge that our civilization was +founded by two mighty aristocracies of intellect, +to whom the religions of their day were, as they +are to us, nothing but more or less graceful +fairy-tales.<a name="FNanchor_1_4" id="FNanchor_1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +We know that many of the greatest men +the world ever saw, while phrasing their relation +to the "deus absconditus" in various ways, were +utterly free from that penitential, supplicatory +abjectness which is the mark of Asian salvationism. +And though of course the conscious filiation +to Greece and Rome is rare, the habit of mind +which holds up its head in the world and feels no +childish craving to cling to the skirts of a God, is +not rare at all. Therefore I conceive that people +who are shaken out of their conventional, unrealized +Christianity by the earthquake of the war +will not, as a rule, be in any hurry to rush into +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +the arms of the "great brother" constructed for +them by Mr. Wells. It is easier to picture them +flocking to the banner of the Fabian Jesus—the +Christ uncrucified, and restored to sanity, of Mr. +Bernard Shaw.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_4" id="Footnote_1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Namque deos didici securum agere aevum,<br /> +nec, siquid miri faciat natura, deos id<br /> +tristes ex alto caeli demittere tecto.</p> +<p style='margin-left:10em;'><span class="smcap">Horace</span>, <i>Satires</i> I., 5.</p> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Does it really seem to Mr. Wells an arid and +damnable "atheism" that finds in the very mystery +of existence a subject of contemplation so +inexhaustibly marvellous as to give life the fascination +of a detective story? When Mr. Wells tells +us that "the first purpose of God is the attainment +of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a means +to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means +to power," he states what is, to many of us, the +first and last article of religion—only that we prefer +to steer clear of hocus-pocus and substitute +"Man" for "God." If we are almost, or even +quite, reconciled to the cruelties and humiliations +of life by the thought of its visual glories, its intellectual +triumphs, and the mysteries with which +it is surrounded, is that frame of mind wholly unworthy +to be called religious? If it is, I, for one, +shall not complain; for religion, like God, is a +word that has been—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">Defamed by every charlatan<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soil'd with all ignoble use.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But it will be difficult to persuade me of the loftier +spirituality, or even the more abiding solace, involved +in ecstatic devotion to a figure of speech.</p> + +<p>There are two elements of consolation in life: +the things of which we are sure, and the things +of which we are unsure. We are sure that man +has somehow been launched upon the most +romantic adventure that mind can conceive. He +has set forth to conquer and subdue the world, +including the stupidities and basenesses of his own +nature. At first his progress was incalculably +slow; then he came on with a rush in the great +sub-tropical river basins; and presently, where the +brine of the Ægean got into his blood, he achieved +such miracles of thought and art that his subsequent +history, for well-nigh two thousand years, +bore the appearance of retrogression. I have +already asked what the Invisible King was about +when he suffered the glory that was Athens to +sink in the fog-bank that was Alexandria. At all +events, that wonderful false-start came to nothing. +Rome succeeded to the world-leadership; and +Rome, though energetic and capable, was never +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +brilliant. With her, European free thought, investigation, +science flickered out, and Asian religion +took its place. Truly the slip-back from +antiquity to the dark ages offers a specious argument +to the atheists—the true and irredeemable +atheists—who deny the reality of progress. +Specious, but quite insubstantial; for we can +analyze the terrestrial conditions which led to that +catastrophe, and assure ourselves that the bugbear +of their recurrence is nothing more than a +bugbear. The printing-press alone is an inestimable +safeguard. If the Greeks had hit upon the +idea of movable types—and it is little to the credit +of the Invisible King that they did not—the onrush +of barbarism and Byzantinism would not have +been half so disastrous. And even through the +Dark Ages the bias towards betterment is still +perceptible, though its operation was terribly +hampered. Then, at last, the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries took up the thread of progress +where antiquity had dropped it. Science revived, +and bade defiance to dogma. The garnering of +knowledge began afresh; and true knowledge has +this to distinguish it from pseudo-sciences like +astrology, theology, and philately, that it is instinct +with procreative vigour. Knowledge breeds +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +knowledge with ever-increasing rapidity; and the +result is that the past hundred years have seen +additions to man's control over the powers of +nature which outstrip the wildest imaginings of +Eastern romance. When Mr. Gladstone first went +to Rome in 1832, his "transportation" was no +swifter and scarcely more comfortable than that +of Cæsar in the fifties before Christ. Today he +could fly over the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa, +and then cover the distance from Milan onwards +at the rate of seventy miles an hour in a limousine +as luxurious as an Empress's boudoir. We are +piling up the knowledge which is power at an +enormous rate—indeed rather too rapidly, since +we have not yet the sense to discriminate between +power for good and power for evil. But "burnt +bairns dread the fire," and after the present awful +experience, there is fair ground for hope that measures +will be taken to provide strait-waistcoats for +the criminal lunatics whose vanity and greed impel +them to let loose the powers of destruction.</p> + +<p>Can any thinking man say that the world is quite +the same to him since the invention of wireless +telegraphy? True it is only one among the multitude +of phenomena behind which the Veiled Being +dissembles himself. But is it not a phenomenon +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +of a new and perhaps an epoch-marking order? +It may not make the veil more diaphanous, but +it somehow suggests an alteration—perhaps a progressive +alteration—in its texture.</p> + +<p>When we say we are sure of the fact of progress, +the atheist comes down on us with the retort that +we thereby confess ourselves naïve and credulous +optimists. As well say that when we express our +confidence that the North Western Railway will +carry us to Manchester, we thereby imply the +belief that Manchester is the Earthly Paradise. It +is quite possible—any one who is so minded may +say it is quite probable—that progress means advance +towards disillusion. What we are sure of +is merely this: that life may be, and ought to be, +a very different thing from what it now is, and +that it is in our own power to make it so. We +have not the least doubt that the generations which +come after us will say:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We will not cease from mortal strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nor shall the sword slip from our hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till we have built Jerusalem<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In England's green and pleasant land.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But whether, when they have built it, they will +think Jerusalem worth the building is quite a +different matter. It may be that Leopardi was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +right when he said, "Men are miserable by necessity, +but resolute in believing themselves to be +miserable by accident." That is a proposition +which the individual can accept or reject so far as +his own little span is concerned, but on which the +race, as such, can pass no valid judgment. Life +has never had a fair chance. It has always been +so beset with accidental and corrigible evils that +no man can say what life, in its ultimate essence, +really is. All we know is that many of its miseries +are factitious, inessential, eminently curable; and +till these are eradicated, how are we to determine +whether there are other evils too deep-rooted for +our surgery? It may be, for example, that the +elimination of Pain would only leave a vacuum +for Tedium to rush in; but how are we to decide +this <i>à priori</i>? Let us learn what are the true +potentialities of life before we undertake to declare +whether it is worth living or not.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I may be allowed to quote at this point +some words of my own which express the idea I +am trying to convey as clearly as I am capable of +putting it. They are part of the last paragraph +of an address entitled <i>Knowledge and Character: +The Straight Road in Education</i>:<a name="FNanchor_1_5" id="FNanchor_1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The great, dominant, all-controlling fact of this life is the +innate bias of the human spirit, not towards evil, as the +theologians tell us, but towards good. But for this bias, man +would never have been man; he would only have been one more +species of wild animal ranging a savage, uncultivated globe, the +reeking battle-ground of sheer instinct and appetite. But +somehow and somewhere there germinated in his mind the idea +that association, co-operation, would serve his ends better than +unbridled egoism in the struggle for existence. Instead of +"each man for himself" his motto became "each man for his +family, or his tribe, or his nation, or—ultimately—for humankind." +And, at a very early stage, what made for association, +co-operation, brotherhood, came to be designated "good," while +that which sinned against these upward tendencies was stigmatized +as "evil." From that moment the battle was won, +and the transfiguration of human life became only a matter +of time. The prejudice in favour of the idea of good is the +fundamental fact of our moral nature. It has an irresistible, a +magical prestige. We have made, and are still making, a +myriad mistakes—tragic and horrible mistakes—in striving for +good things which are evils in disguise. A few of us (though +relatively not very many) try to overcome the prejudice altogether, +and say, "Evil, be thou my good!" But even these +recreants and deserters from the great army of humanity have +to express themselves in terms of good, and to take their stand +on a sheer contradiction. Evil, as such, has simply not a +fighting chance. The prestige of good is stupendous. We +are all hypnotized by it; and the reason we are slow in realizing +the ideal is, not that we are evil, but that we are stupid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_5" id="Footnote_1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> London: George Allen and Unwin, 1916.</p></div> + +<p>"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens"—no +one had a better right to say that +than a German poet. But though the Invisible +King has made a poor fight against human +stupidity, it is not really unconquerable. If Gods +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +cannot conquer it, men can. Its strongholds are +falling one by one, and, though a long fight is +before us, its end is not in doubt.</p> + +<p>We may even hope, not without some plausibility, +that moral progress may be all the more +rapid in the future because the limit of what may +be called mechanical progress cannot be so very far +off. The conquest of distance is the great material +fact that makes for world-organization; and +distance cannot, after all, be more than annihilated—it +cannot be reduced to a minus quantity. Now +that we can whisper round the globe as we whisper +round the dome of St. Paul's, we cannot get much +further on that line of advance, until immaterial +thought-transference shall enable us "to flash +through one another in a moment as we will." We +may before long have reduced the crossing of the +Atlantic from five days to one, or even less; but +in that direction, too, there is a limit to progress; +no invention will enable us to arrive before we +start. The conquest of physical disease seems to +be well within view; the possibilities of intensive +cultivation and selective breeding in plants and +animals are likely to be rapidly developed. When +such material problems cease to exercise the first +fascination upon the enquiring mind, the mental +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +sciences, psychology and sociology, with the great +neglected art of education, may come into their +kingdom. Then the atheism which avers that the +world stands still, or moves only in a circle, will +no longer be possible. Then all reasonable men +will feel themselves soldiers in "a mighty army +which has won splendid victories (though here and +there chequered with defeats) on its march out of +the dim and tragic past, and is clearly destined to +far greater triumphs in the future, if only each +man does, with unflinching loyalty, the duty +assigned to him." That loyalty will then be the +conscious and acknowledged rule of life, as it is +now in an instinctive and half-realized fashion. It +will help us, more than all the personifications in +the world, to "turn away from self." It will not +take the sting from death, but it will enable us to +feel that we have earned our rest, and brought no +disgrace upon the colors of our regiment.</p> + +<p>Is it necessary to protest once more that this +assurance of progress towards the good is not to +be confounded with optimism? For it is clear +that "good" is a question-begging word. The +only possible definition of "good" is "that which +makes for life"—for life, not only measured by +quantity, but by quality and intensity—"that ye +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +may have life more abundantly." Why is egoism +evil? Because a world in which it reigned supreme +would very soon come to an end, or at any rate +could not support anything like the abundance of +life which is rendered possible by mutual aid and +co-operation. Why are order, justice, courage, +humanity good? Because they enable more people +to lead fuller lives than would be possible in the +absence of such guiding principles. But in all this +we assume the validity of the standard—"life"—which +is precisely what pessimism denies. And +pessimism may quite conceivably be in the right +on't. It is quite conceivable that, having made +the best that can possibly be made of life, a world-weary +race might decide that the best was not +good enough, and deliberately turn away from it. +But that is a contingency, a speculation, which +no sane man would allow to affect his action here +and now, or to impair his loyalty to his comrades +in the great terrestrial adventure.</p> + +<p>And is not this question of the ultimate value +of life precisely one of the uncertainties which lend—if +the flippancy may be excused—a "sporting +interest" to our position? I have said that we +have two elements of consolation: the things which +are sure and the things which are unsure: in other +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +words, the axioms and the mysteries. Reason is +all very well so far as it goes, and we do right to +trust to it; but it may prove, after all, that the +things that are behind and beyond and above +reason are the things that really matter. Does +this seem a concession to obscurantism? Not at +all—for the things obscurantism glories in are +things beneath reason, which is quite another +affair. At the same time, we are too apt to think +that reason has drawn a complete outline-map of +its "sphere of influence," in which there are many +details to be filled in, but no boundaries to be +shifted, no regions wholly unexplored. It is, for +instance, very unreasonable to hold that we can +draw a hard and fast line between the materially +possible and impossible. There is certainly a +curious ragged edge to our purely scientific knowledge, +and it may well be that in following up the +frayed-out threads we may come upon things very +surprising and important. For example, the question +whether consciousness can exist detached from +organized matter, or attached to some form of +matter of which we have no knowledge, I regard +as purely a question of evidence; and I not only +admit but assert that the evidence pointing in that +direction is worthy of careful examination. The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +interpretation which sees in it a proof of personal +immortality may be wrong, but that does not +prove that the right interpretation is not worth +discovering. The spiritist voyagers may not have +reached the Indies of their hopes, yet may have +stumbled upon an unsuspected America. Nor does +the fact that they are eager and credulous invalidate +the whole, or anything like the whole, of +their evidence.</p> + +<p>After all, is it a greater miracle that consciousness +should exist <i>de</i>tached from matter than that +it should exist <i>at</i>tached to matter? Yet the latter +miracle nobody doubts, except in the nursery games +of the metaphysicians.</p> + +<p>To define, or rather to adumbrate, the realm of +mystery, which is yet as indisputably real as the +realm of reason and sense, we naturally turn to +the poets, the seers. Here is a glimpse of it +through the eyes of Francis Thompson, that creature +of transcendent vision who made a strange +pretence of wearing the blinkers of the Roman +Catholic Church. Thus he writes in his "Anthem +of Earth":—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i20">Ay, Mother! Mother!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is this Man, thy darling kissed and cuffed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou lustingly engender'st,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To sweat, and make his brag, and rot,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Crowned with all honour and all shamefulness?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From nightly towers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He dogs the secret footsteps of the heavens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sifts in his hands the stars, weighs them as gold-dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet is he successive unto nothing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But patrimony of a little mould,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And entail of four planks. Thou hast made his mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Avid of all dominion and all mightiness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All sorrow, all delight, all topless grandeurs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All beauty and all starry majesties,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dim transtellar things;—even that it may,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filled in the ending with a puff of dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Confess—"It is enough." The world left empty<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What that poor mouthful crams. His heart is builded<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For pride, for potency, infinity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All heights, all deeps, and all immensities,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Arras'd with purple like the house of kings,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To stall the grey rat, and the carrion-worm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Statelily lodge. Mother of mysteries!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sayer of dark sayings in a thousand tongues,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who bringest forth no saying yet so dark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As we ourselves, thy darkest!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Surely this is the very truth. Man is a hieroglyph +to which reason supplies no key—nay, +reason itself is the heart of the enigma. And does +not this lend a strange fascination to the adventure +of life?</p> + +<p>Another singer, in a very much simpler strain, +puts something of the same idea:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Marooned on an isle of mystery,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From a stupor of sleep we woke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gazed at each other wistfully,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A wondering, wildered folk.<br /></span> +</div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There were flowery valleys and mountains blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And pastures, and herds galore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fruits that were luscious to bite into,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Though bitter at the core.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So we plucked up heart, and we dree'd our weird<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Through flickering gleam and gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And still for rescue we hoped—or feared—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From our island home and tomb.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But never over the sailless sea<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Came messenger bark or schooner<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With news from the far-off realm whence we<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set sail for that isle of mystery,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or a whisper of apology<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From our mute, malign marooner.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The strain of pessimism in this is even more +marked than in Thompson's "Anthem"; and indeed +it is hard to deny that the resolute silence of +the "Veiled Being," the "Invisible King," and all +the Gods and godlings ever propounded to mortal +piety, is one of their most suspicious characteristics. +Yet it may be that this reproach, however +natural, does the Veiled Being—or the Younger +Power of our alternative myth—a measure of injustice. +It may be that the great Dramaturge +keeps his plot to himself precisely in order that the +interest may be maintained up to the fall of the +curtain. It may be that its disclosure would upset +the conditions of some vast experiment which he +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +is working out. Where would be the interest of +a race if its result were a foregone conclusion? +Where the passion of a battle if its issue were +foreknown? What if we should prove to be somnambulists +treading some dizzy edge between two +abysses, and able to reach the goal only on condition +that we are unconscious of the process? +Perhaps the sanest view of the problem is that presented +in Bliss Carman's haunting poem</p> + +<p style='text-align:center;'>THE JUGGLER</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Look how he throws them up and up,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The beautiful golden balls!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They hang aloft in the purple air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there never is one that falls.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He sends them hot from his steady hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He teaches them all their curves;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whether the reach be little or long,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There never is one that swerves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Some, like the tiny red one there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He never lets go far;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some he has sent to the roof of the tent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To swim without a jar.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So white and still they seem to hang,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You wonder if he forgot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To reckon the time of their return<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And measure their golden lot.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Can it be that, hurried or tired out,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hand of the juggler shook?<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +<span class="i0">O never you fear, his eye is clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He knows them all like a book.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And they will home to his hand at last,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For he pulls them by a cord<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Finer than silk and strong as fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That is just the bid of his word.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Was ever there such a sight in the world?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a wonderful winding skein,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The way he tangles them up together<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ravels them out again!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If I could have him at the inn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All by myself some night,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inquire his country, and where in the world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He came by that cunning sleight!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where do you guess he learned the trick<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hold us gaping here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till our minds in the spell of his maze almost<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have forgotten the time of year?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One never could have the least idea.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet why he disposed to twit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A fellow who does such wonderful things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the merest lack of wit?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Likely enough, when the show is done<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the balls all back in his hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'll tell us why he is smiling so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And we shall understand.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I am not, perhaps, very firmly assured of this +consummation. Yet I am much more hopeful +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +of one day understanding the Juggler and the Balls +than of ever getting into confidential relations with +Mr. Wells's Invisible King.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>One is conscious of a sort of churlishness in thus +rejecting the advances of so amiable a character +as the Invisible King. But is Mr. Wells, on his +side, quite courteous, or even quite fair, to the +Veiled Being? "Riddle me no riddles!" he +seems to say; "I am tired of your guessing games. +Let us have done with 'distressful enquiry into +ultimate origins,' and 'bring our minds to the +conception of a spontaneous and developing God'—one +of whose existence and benevolence we are +sure, since we made him ourselves. I want something +to worship, to take me out of myself, to +inspire me with brave phrases about death. How +can one worship an insoluble problem? Will an +enigma die with me in a reeling aeroplane? While +you lurk obstinately behind that veil, how can I +even know that your political views are sound? +Whereas the Invisible King gives forth oracles of +the highest political wisdom, in a voice which I +can scarcely distinguish from my own. You are +a remote, tantalizing entity with nothing comforting +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +or stimulating about you. But as for my Invisible +King, 'Closer is he than breathing, and +nearer than hands and feet.'"</p> + +<p>A little way back, I compared Mr. Wells to +Moses; but, looked at from another point of view, +he and his co-religionists may rather be likened +to the Children of Israel. Tired of waiting for +news from the God on the cloudy mountain-top, +did they not make themselves a synthetic deity, +finite, friendly, and very like the Invisible King, +inasmuch as he seems to have worked no miracles, +and done, in fact, nothing whatever? But the +God on the mountain-top was wroth, and accused +them of idolatry, surely not without reason. For +what is idolatry if it be not manufacturing a God, +whether out of golden earrings or out of humanitarian +sentiments, and then bowing down and worshipping +it?</p> + +<p>The wrath of the tribal God against his bovine +rival was certainly excessive—yet we cannot regard +idolatry as one of the loftier manifestations of the +religious spirit. The man who can bow down and +worship the work of his hands shows a morbid +craving for self-abasement. It is possible, no +doubt, to plead that the graven image is a mere +symbol of incorporeal, supersensible deity; and the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +plea is a good one, if, and in so far as, we can +believe that the distinction between the sign and +the thing signified is clear to the mind of the +devotee. The difficulty lies in believing that the +type of mind which is capable of focussing its devotion +upon a statuette is also capable of distinguishing +between the idea of a symbol and the +idea of a portrait. But when we pass from the +work of a man's hands to the work of his brain—from +an actual piece of sculpture to a mental +construction—the plea of symbolism can no longer +be advanced. This graven image of the mind, so +to speak, is the veritable God, or it is nothing; +and Mr. Wells, as we have seen, is profuse in his +assurances that it is the veritable God. That is +what makes his whole attitude and argument so +baffling. One can understand an idolater who +says "I believe that my God inhabits yonder image," +or "Yonder image is only a convenient point +of concentration for the reverence, gratitude, and +love which pass through it to the august and transcendent +Spirit whom it symbolizes." But how are +we to understand the idolater who adores, and +claims actual divinity for, an emanation from his +own brain and the brains of a certain number of +like-minded persons? Is it not as though a ventriloquist +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +were to prostrate himself before his own puppet?</p> + +<p>This craving for something to worship points to +an almost uncanny recrudescence of the spirit of +Asia in a fine European intelligence. For my own +part, as above stated, I cannot believe Mr. Wells's +case to be typical; but in that I may be mistaken. +It is possible that an epidemic of Asiatic religiosity +may be one of the sequels of the War. If that be +so—if there are many people who shrink from the +condition of the spiritual "ronin," and are in search +of a respectable "daimio" to whom to pay their devotion—I +beg leave strongly to urge the claims of +the Veiled Being as against the Invisible King.</p> + +<p>He has at the outset the not inconsiderable advantage +of being an entity instead of a non-entity. +Whoever or whatever he may be, we are compelled +by the very constitution of our minds to assume his +(or its) existence; whereas there is manifestly no +compulsion to assume the existence of the Invisible +King.</p> + +<p>Then, again, the Veiled Being is entirely unpretentious. +There is no bluster and no cant about +him. He does not claim our gratitude for the +doubtful boon of life. He does not pretend to be +just, while he is committing, or winking at, the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +most intolerable injustices. He does not set up to +be long-suffering, while in fact he is childishly +touchy. He does not profess to be merciful, while +the incurable ward, the battlefield—nay, even the +maternity home and the dentist's parlor—are +there to give him the lie. (Here, of course, I am +not contrasting him with the Invisible King, but +with more ancient and still more Asian divinities.) +It is the moral pretensions tagged on by the theologians +to metaphysical Godhead that revolt and +estrange reasonable men—Mr. Wells among the +rest. If you tell us that behind the Veil we shall +find a good-natured, indulgent old man, who +chastens us only for our good, is pleased by our +flatteries (with or without music), and is not more +than suitably vexed at our naughtinesses in the +Garden of Eden and elsewhere—we reply that this +is a nursery tale which has been riddled, time out +of mind, not by wicked sceptics, but by the spontaneous, +irrepressible criticism of babes and sucklings. +But if you divest the Veiled Being of all +ethical—or in other words of all human—attributes, +then there is no difficulty whatever in admiring, +and even adoring, the marvels he has +wrought. Tennyson went deeper than he realized +into the nature of things when he wrote—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For merit lives from man to man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But not from man, O Lord, to thee."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Once put aside all question of merit and demerit, +of praise and blame, and more especially (but this +will shock Mr. Wells) of salvation and damnation—and +nothing can be easier than to pay to the +works of the Veiled Being the meed of an illimitable +wonder. When we think of the roaring vortices +of flame that spangle the heavens night by +night, at distances that beggar conception: when we +think of our tiny earth, wrapped in its little film of +atmosphere, spinning safely for ages untold amid +all these appalling immensities: and when we +think, on the other hand, of the battles of claw +and maw going on, beneath the starry vault, in +that most miraculous of jewels, a drop of water: +we cannot but own that the Power which set all +this whirl of atoms agoing is worthy of all admiration. +And approbation? Ah, that is another matter; +for there the moral element comes in. It is +possible (and here lies the interest of the enigma) +that the Veiled Being may one day justify himself +even morally. Perhaps he is all the time doing +so behind the veil. But on that it is absolutely +useless to speculate. Light may one day come to +us, but it will come through patient investigation, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +not through idle pondering and guessing. In the +meantime, poised between the macrocosm and the +microcosm, ourselves including both extremes, and +being, perhaps, the most stupendous miracle of all, +we cannot deny to this amazing frame of things +the tribute of an unutterable awe. If that be +religion, I profess myself as religious as Mr. +Wells. I am even willing to join him in some outward, +ceremonial expression of that sentiment, if +he can suggest one that shall not be ridiculously +inadequate. What about kneeling through the C +Minor Symphony? That seems to me about as +near as we can get. Or I will go with him to Primrose +Hill some fine morning (like the Persian Ambassador +fabled by Charles Lamb) and worship +the Sun, chanting to him William Watson's magnificent +hymn:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"To thee as our Father we bow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Forbidden thy Father to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who is older and greater than thou, as thou<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Art greater and older than we."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The sun, at any rate, is not a figure of speech, +and is a symbol which runs no risk of being mistaken +for a portrait. If Mr. Wells would be content +with some such "bright sciential idolatry," +I would willingly declare myself a co-idolater. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +But alas! he is the hierophant of the Invisible King, +and prayer to that impotent potentate is to me +a moral impossibility. I would rather face damnation, +especially in the mild form threatened by +Mr. Wells, which consists (pp. 148-149) in not +knowing that you are damned.</p> + +<p>And if Mr. Wells maintains that in the worship +of the non-moral Veiled Being there is no practical, +pragmatic comfort, I reply that I am not so sure +of that. When all is said and done, is there not +more hope, more solace, in an enigma than in a +<i>façon de parler</i>? I should be quite willing to accept +the test of the reeling aeroplane. The aviator +can say to his soul: "Here am I, one of the most +amazing births of time, the culmination of an endless +series of miracles. Perhaps I am on the verge +of extinction—if so, what does it all matter? But +perhaps, on the contrary, I am about to plunge into +some new adventure, as marvellous as this. More +marvellous it cannot be, but it may perhaps be more +agreeable. At all events, there is something fascinating +in this leap in the dark. Good bye, my +soul! Good-bye, my memory!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'If we should meet again, why, we shall smile;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If not, why then this parting was well made.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +I cannot but think that there is as much religion and as much solace +in such a shaking-off of "the bur o' the world" as in the thought that +the last new patent God is going to die with you, and that you, +unconsciously and indistinguishably merged in him, are going to live +for ever.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="bbox"> +<h3>THE NEWEST BORZOI BOOKS</h3> + +<p> +LUSTRA<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By Ezra Pound</i></span><br /> +<br /> +DANDELIONS<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By Coulson T. Cade</i></span><br /> +<br /> +A CHASTE MAN<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By Louis Wilkinson</i></span><br /> +<br /> +GOD AND MR. WELLS<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By William Archer</i></span><br /> +<br /> +MARTIN RIVAS<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By Alberto Blest-Gana</i></span><br /> +<br /> +BEATING 'EM TO IT<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By Chester Cornish</i></span><br /> +<br /> +A BOOK OF PREFACES<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By H. L. Mencken</i></span><br /> +<br /> +THE THREE BLACK PENNYS<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By Joseph Hergesheimer</i></span><br /> +<br /> +INTERPRETERS AND INTERPRETATIONS<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By Carl Van Vechten</i></span><br /> +<br /> +MR. GEORGE JEAN NATHAN PRESENTS<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>By George Jean Nathan</i></span><br /> +<br /> +OTHERS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE NEW VERSE<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;"><i>Edited by Alfred Kreymborg</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;">1917 Issue</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="blockquot"> +<h4>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h4> +<p>Other than the corrections listed below, printer's inconsistencies in +spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained:<br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;">"blackslides" corrected to "backslides" (page 40)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left:2em;">"annhilated" corrected to "annihilated" (page 119)</span></p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of God and Mr. Wells, by William Archer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND MR. 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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: God and Mr. Wells + A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' + +Author: William Archer + +Release Date: January 7, 2010 [EBook #30882] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND MR. WELLS *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Ritu Aggarwal and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + GOD AND MR. WELLS + + A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF + "GOD THE INVISIBLE KING" + + + + + GOD AND MR. WELLS + + A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF + "GOD THE INVISIBLE KING" + + By WILLIAM ARCHER + + + NEW YORK . ALFRED A. KNOPF . 1917 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY + ALFRED A. KNOPF + _Published, September, 1917_ + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +FOREWORD + + +As I look through the proofs of this little treatise, a twinge of +compunction comes upon me. That humane philosopher Mr. Dooley has +somewhere a saying to this effect: "When an astronomer tells me that +he has discovered a new planet, I would be the last man to brush the +fly off the end of his telescope." Would not this have been a good +occasion for a similar exercise of urbanity? Nay, may it not be said +that my criticism of _God the Invisible King_ is a breach of +discipline, like duelling in the face of the enemy? I am proud to +think that Mr. Wells and I are soldiers in the same army; ought we not +at all costs to maintain a united front? On the destructive side +(which I have barely touched upon) his book is brilliantly effective; +on the constructive side, if unconvincing, it is thoughtful, +imaginative, stimulating, a thing on the whole to be grateful for. +Ought one not rather to hold one's peace than to afford the common +enemy the encouragement of witnessing a squabble in the ranks? + +But we must not yield to the obsession of military metaphor. It is not +what the enemy thinks or what Mr. Wells or I think that matters--it is +what the men of the future ought to think, as being consonant with +their own nature and with the nature of things. Ideas, like organisms, +must abide the struggle for existence, and if the Invisible King is +fitted to survive, my criticism will reinforce and not invalidate him. +Even if he should come to life in a way one can scarcely anticipate, +his proceedings will have to be carefully watched. He cannot claim the +reticences of a "party truce." He will be all the better for a candid, +though I hope not captious, Opposition. + +I thought of printing on my title-page a motto from Mr. Bernard Shaw; +but it will perhaps come better here. "The fact," says Mr. Shaw, "that +a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the +fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of +credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no +means a necessity of life. Whether Socrates got as much happiness out +of life as Wesley is an unanswerable question; but a nation of +Socrateses would be much safer and happier than a nation of Wesleys; +and its individuals would be higher in the evolutionary scale. At all +events, it is in the Socratic man and not in the Wesleyan that our +hope lies now." + +Besides, it has yet to be proved that the believer in the Invisible +King is happier than the sceptic. + + LONDON, _May_ 24, 1917. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I The Great Adventurer 1 + II A God Who "Growed" 3 + III New Myths for Old 8 + IV The Apostle's Creed 32 + V When Is a God Not a God? 47 + VI For and Against Personification 73 + VII Back to the Veiled Being 101 + + + + +GOD AND MR. WELLS + + + + +I + +THE GREAT ADVENTURER + + +When it was known that Mr. H. G. Wells had set forth to discover God, +all amateurs of intellectual adventure were filled with pleasurable +excitement and anticipation. For is not Mr. Wells the great Adventurer +of latter-day literature? No quest is too perilous for him, no +forlorn-hope too daring. He led the first explorers to the moon. He +it was who lured the Martians to earth and exterminated them with +microbes. He has ensnared an angel from the skies and expiscated a +mermaid from the deep. He has mounted a Time Machine (of his own +invention) and gone careering down the vistas of the Future. But these +were comparatively commonplace feats. After all, there had been a +Jules Verne, there had been a Gulliver and a Peter Wilkins, there had +been a More, a Morris and a Bellamy. It might be that he was fitted +for far greater things. "There remains," we said to ourselves, "the +blue ribbon of intellectual adventure, the unachieved North Pole of +spiritual exploration. He has had countless predecessors in the +enterprise, some of whom have loudly claimed success; but their +log-books have been full of mere hallucinations and nursery tales. +What if it should be reserved for Mr. Wells to bring back the first +authentic news from a source more baffling than that of Nile or +Amazon--the source of the majestic stream of Being? What if it should +be given him to sign his name to the first truly-projected chart of +the scheme of things?" + +We almost held our breath in eager anticipation, just as we did when +there came from America a well-authenticated rumor that the problem of +flying had at last been solved. Were we on the brink of another and +much more momentous discovery? Was Mr. Wells to be the Peary of the +great quest? Or only the last of a thousand Dr. Cooks? + + + + +II + +A GOD WHO "GROWED" + + +Our excitement, our suspense, were so much wasted emotion. Mr. Wells's +enterprise was not at all what we had figured it to be. + + GOD + THE INVISIBLE KING + +is a very interesting, and even stimulating disquisition, full of a +fine social enthusiasm, and marked, in many passages, by deep poetic +feeling. But it is not a work of investigation into the springs of +Being. Mr. Wells explicitly renounces from the outset any dealings +with "cosmogony." It is a description of a way of thinking, a system +of nomenclature, which Mr. Wells declares to be extremely prevalent in +"the modern mind," from which he himself extracts much comfort and +fortification, and which he believes to be destined to regenerate the +world. + +But Mr. Wells will not have it that what is involved is a mere system +of nomenclature. He avers that he, in common with many other +like-minded persons, has achieved, not so much an intellectual +discovery as an emotional realisation, of something actual and +objective which he calls God. He does not, so far as I remember, use +the term "objective"; but as he insists that God is "a spirit, a +person, a strongly marked and knowable personality" (p. 5), "a single +spirit and a single person" (p. 18), "a great brother and leader of +our little beings" (p. 24) with much more to the same purpose, it +would seem that he must have in his mind an object external to us, no +mere subjective "stream of tendency," or anything of that sort. It +would of course be foolish to doubt the sincerity of the conviction +which he so constantly and so eagerly asserts. Nevertheless, one +cannot but put forward, even at this stage, the tentative theory that +he is playing tricks with his own mind, and attributing reality and +personality to something that was in its origin a figure of speech. He +has been hypnotized by the word God: + + As when we dwell upon a word we know, + Repeating, till the word we know so well + Becomes a wonder, and we know not why. + +At all events, "God the Invisible King" is not the creator and +sustainer of the universe. As to the origin of things Mr. Wells +professes the most profound agnosticism. "At the back of all known +things," he says, "there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of +existence is a Veiled Being, which seems to know nothing of life or +death or good or ill.... The new religion does not pretend that the +God of its life is that Being, or that he has any relation of control +or association with that Being. It does not even assert that God knows +all, or much more than we do, about that ultimate Being" (p. 14). Very +good; but--here is the first question which seems to arise out of the +Wellsian thesis--are we not entitled to ask of "the new religion" some +more definite account of the relation between "God" and "the Veiled +Being"? Surely it is not enough that it should simply refrain from +"asserting" anything at all on the subject. If "God" is outside +ourselves ("a Being, not us but dealing with us and through us," p. 6) +we cannot leave him hanging in the void, like the rope which the +Indian conjurer is fabled to throw up into the air till it hooks +itself on to nothingness. If we are to believe in him as a lever for +the righting of a world that has somehow run askew, we want to know +something of his fulcrum. Is it possible thus to dissociate him from +the Veiled Being, and proclaim him an independent, an agnostic God? Do +we really get over any difficulty--do we not rather create new +difficulties,--by saying, as Mr. Wells practically does, "Our God is +no metaphysician. He does not care, and very likely does not know, how +this tangle of existence came into being. He is only concerned to +disentangle it a little, to reduce the chaos of the world to some sort +of seemliness and order"? Is it an idle and presumptuous curiosity +which enquires whether we are to consider him co-ordinate with the +Veiled Being, and in that case probably hostile, or subordinate, and +in that case instrumental? Are we, in a word, to consider the earth a +little rebel state in the gigantic empire of the universe, working out +its own salvation under its Invisible King? Or are we to regard God as +the Viceroy of the Veiled Being, to whom, in that case, our ultimate +allegiance is due? + +I talked the other day to a young Australian who had been breaking new +land for wheat-growing. "What do you do?" I asked, "with the stumps of +the trees you fell? It must be a great labour to clear them out." "We +don't clear them out," he replied. "We use ploughs that automatically +rise when they come to a stump, and take the earth again on the other +side." I cannot but conjecture that Mr. Wells's thinking apparatus is +fitted with some such automatic appliance for soaring gaily over the +snags that stud the ploughlands of theology. + + + + +III + +NEW MYTHS FOR OLD + + +Before examining the particular attributes and activities of the +Invisible King, let us look a little more closely into the question +whether a God detached alike from man below and (so to speak) from +heaven above, is a thinkable God in whom any satisfaction can be +found. Mr. Wells must not reply (he probably would not think of doing +so) that "satisfaction" is no test: that he asserts an objective truth +which exists, like the Nelson Column or the Atlantic Ocean, whether we +find satisfaction in it or not. Though he does not mention the word +"pragmatism," his standards are purely pragmatist. He offers no jot or +tittle of evidence for the existence of the Invisible King, except +that it is a hypothesis which he finds to work extremely well. +Satisfaction and nothing else is the test he applies. So we have every +right to ask whether the renunciation of all concern about the Veiled +Being, and concentration upon the thought of a finite God, practically +unrelated to the infinite, can bring us any reasonable sense of +reconciliation to the nature of things. For that, I take it, is the +essence of religion. + +It was in no spirit of irony that I began this essay by expressing the +lively interest with which I learned that Mr. Wells was setting out on +the quest for God. The dogmatic agnosticism which declares it +impossible ever to know anything about the whence, how and why of the +universe does not seem to me more rational than any other dogma which +jumps from "not yet" to "never." Mr. Wells himself disclaims that +dogma. He says: "It may be that minds will presently appear among us +of such a quality that the face of that Unknown will not be altogether +hidden" (p. 108). And in another place (p. 15) he suggests that "our +God, the Captain of Mankind," may one day enable us to "pierce the +black wrappings," or, in other words, to get behind the veil. There is +nothing, then, unreasonable or absurd in man's incurable +inquisitiveness as to God, in the non-Wellsian sense of the term. God +simply means the key to the mystery of existence; and though the keys +hitherto offered have all either jammed or turned round and round +without unlocking anything, it does not follow that no real key exists +within the reach of human investigation or speculation. Therefore one +naturally feels a little stirring of hope at the news that a fresh and +keen intellect, untrammelled by the folk-lore theologies of the past, +is applying itself to the problem. It is always possible, however +improbable, that we may be helped a little forwarder on the path +towards realization. One comes back to the before-mentioned analogy of +flying. We had been assured over and over again, on the highest +authority, that it was an idle dream. When we wanted to express the +superlative degree of the impossible, we said "I can no more do it +than I can fly." But the irrepressible spirit of man was not to be +daunted by _a priori_ demonstrations of impossibility. One day there +came the rumour that the thing had been achieved, followed soon by +ocular demonstration; and now we rub shoulders every day with men who +have outsoared the eagle, and--alas!--carried death and destruction +into the hitherto stainless empyrean. + +It would seem, then, that there is no reason absolutely to despair of +some advance towards a conception of the nature and reason of the +universe. And it is certain that Mr. Wells's God would stand a better +chance of satisfying the innate needs of the human intelligence if he +had not (apparently) given up as a bad job the attempt to relate +himself to the causal plexus of the All. Is he outside that causal +plexus, self-begotten, self-existent? Then he is the miracle of +miracles, a second mystery superimposed on the first. If, on the other +hand, he falls within the system, he might surely manage to convey to +his disciples some glimmering notion of his place in it. The +birth-stories of Gods are always grotesque and unedifying, but that is +because they belong to folk-lore. If this God does not belong to +folk-lore, surely his relation to the Veiled Being might be indicated +without impropriety. Mr. Wells, as we have seen, hints that his +reticence may be due to the fact that he does not know. In that case +this "modern" God is suspiciously like all the ancient Gods, whose +most unfortunate characteristic was that they never knew anything more +than their worshippers. The reason was not far to seek--namely, that +they were mere projections of the minds of these worshippers, +fashioned in their own image. But Mr. Wells assures us that this is +not the case of the Invisible King. + +Mr. Wells will scarcely deny that if it were possible to compress his +mythology and merge his Invisible King in his Veiled Being, the result +would be a great simplification of the problem. But this is not, in +fact, possible; for it would mean the positing of an all-good and +all-powerful Creator, which is precisely the idea which Mr. Wells +rebels against,[1] in common with every one who realizes the facts of +life and the meaning of words. Short of this, however, is no other +simplification possible? Would it not greatly clarify our thought if +we could bring the Invisible King into action, not, indeed, as the +creator of all things, but as the organizer and director of the +surprising and almost incredible epiphenomenon which we call life? Our +scheme would then take this shape: an inconceivable unity behind the +veil, somehow manifesting itself, where it comes within our ken, in +the dual form of a great Artificer and a mass of terribly recalcitrant +matter--the only medium in which he can work. In other words, the +Veiled Being would be as inscrutable as ever, but the Invisible King, +instead of dropping in with a certain air of futility, like a doctor +arriving too late at the scene of a railway accident, would be placed +at the beginning, not of the universe at large, but of the atomic +re-arrangements from which consciousness has sprung. Can we, on this +hypothesis (which is practically that of Manichaeanism) hazard any +guess at the motives or forces actuating the Invisible King,--or, to +avoid confusion, let us say the Artificer--which should acquit him of +the charge of being a callous and mischievous demon rather than a +well-willing God? Can we not only place pain and evil (a tautology) to +the account of sluggish, refractory matter, but also conjecture a +sufficient reason why the Artificer should have started the painful +evolution of consciousness, instead of leaving the atoms to whirl +insentiently in the figures imposed on them by the stupendous +mathematician behind the veil? + + [1] In _Mr. Britling Sees It Through_, which is in some sense + a prologue to _God the Invisible King_, we find an emphatic + renunciation of the all-good and all-powerful God. "The + theologians," says Mr. Britling, "have been extravagant about + God. They have had silly, absolute ideas--that he is all + powerful. That he's omni-everything.... Why! if I thought + there was an omnipotent God who looked down on battles and + deaths and all the waste and horror of this war--able to + prevent these things--doing them to amuse himself--I would + spit in his empty face" (p. 406). + +A complete answer to this question would be a complete solution of the +riddle of existence. That, if it be ever attainable, is certainly far +enough off. But there are some considerations, not always sufficiently +present to our minds, which may perhaps help us, not to a solution, +but to a rational restatement, of the riddle. + +It is possible to suppose, in the first place, that the Artificer, +though entirely well-meaning, was not a free agent. We can construct a +myth in which an Elder Power should announce to a Younger Power his +intention of setting a number of sentient puppets dancing for his +amusement, and regaling himself with the spectacle of their antics, in +utter heedlessness of the agonies they must endure, which would, +indeed, lend an additional savor to the diversion. This Elder Power, +with the "sportsman's" preference for pigeons as against clay balls, +would be something like the God of Mr. Thomas Hardy. Then we can +imagine the Younger Power, after a vain protest demanding, as it were, +the vice-royalty of the new kingdom, in order that he might shape its +polity to high and noble ends, educe from tragic imperfection some +approach to perfection, and, in short, make the best of a bad +business. We should thus have (let us say) Marcus Aurelius claiming a +proconsulate under Nero, and, with very limited powers, gradually +substituting order and humanity for oppression and rapine. This +fairy-tale is not unlike Mr. Wells's; but I submit that it has the +advantage of placing the Invisible King, or his equivalent, in a +conceivable relation to the whole mundane process. + +Now let us proceed to the alternative hypothesis. Let us suppose that +the Artificer was a free agent, and that he voluntarily, and in full +view of the consequences, engineered the conjunction of atoms from +which consciousness arose. He could have let it alone, he could have +suffered life to remain an abortive, slumbering potentiality, like the +fire in a piece of flint; yet he deliberately clashed the flint and +steel and kindled the torch which was to be handed on, not only from +generation to generation, but from species to species, through all the +stages of a toilsome, slaughterous, immeasurable ascent. If we accept +this hypothesis, can we acquit the Artificer of wanton cruelty? Can we +view his action with approval, even with gratitude? Or must we, like +Mr. Wells, if we wish to find an outlet for religious emotion, +postulate another, subsequent, intermeddling Power--like, say, an +American consul at the scene of the Turkish massacre--wholly guiltless +of the disaster of life, and doing his little best to mitigate and +remedy it? + +In the present state of our knowledge, it is certainly very difficult +to see how the kindler of the _vitai lampada_, supposing him to have +been responsible for his actions, can claim from a jury of human +beings a verdict of absolute acquittal. But we can, even now, see +certain extenuating circumstances, which evidence not yet available +may one day so powerfully reinforce as to enable him to leave the +Court without a stain on his character. + +For one thing, we are too much impressed and oppressed by the ideas of +magnitude and multitude. Since we have realized the unspeakable +insignificance of the earth in relation to the unimaginable vastness +of star-sown space, we have come to feel such a disproportion between +the mechanism of life and its upshot, as known in our own experience, +that we have a vague sense of maleficence, or at any rate of brutal +carelessness, in the responsible Power, whoever that may be. "What is +it all," we say, "but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million +million of suns?" We feel like insects whom the foot of a heedless +giant may at any moment crush. We dream of the swish of a comet's tail +wiping out organic life on the planet, and we see, as a matter of +fact, great natural convulsions, such as the earthquake of Lisbon or +the eruption of Mont Pelee, treating human communities just as an +elephant might treat an ant-hill. It is this sense of the immeasurable +disproportion in things that a pessimist poet has expressed in the +well-known sonnet:-- + + Know you, my friend, the sudden ecstasy + Of thought that time and space annihilates, + Creation in a moment uncreates, + And whirls the mind, from secular habit free, + Beyond the spheres, beyond infinity, + Beyond the empery of the eternal Fates, + To where the Inconceivable ruminates, + The unthinkable "To be or not to be?" + Then, as Existence flickers into sight, + A marsh-flame in the night of Nothingness-- + The great, soft, restful, dreamless, fathomless night-- + We know the Affirmative the primal curse, + And loathe, with all its imbecile strain and stress, + This ostentatious, vulgar Universe. + +The mood here recorded is one that must be familiar to most thinking +people. "The undevout astronomer is mad," said eighteenth-century +deism: to-day we are more apt to think that the uncritical astronomer +is dense. There is a sort of colossal stupidity about the stars in +their courses that overpowers and disquiets us. If (as Alfred Russel +Wallace has argued) the geocentric theory was not so far out after +all, and the earth, holding a specially favored place in the universe, +is the only home of life, then the disproportion of mechanism to +result seems absolutely appalling. If, on the other hand, all the +million million of suns are pouring out vital heat to a like number +of inhabited planetary systems, the sheer quantity of life, of +struggle, of suffering implied, seems a thought at which to shudder. +We are inclined to say to the inventor of sentience: "Since this +ingenious combination of yours was at best such a questionable boon, +surely you might have been content with one experiment." + +But all such criticism rests upon a fallacy, or rather a brace of +interrelated fallacies. There can be no disproportion between +consciousness and the unconscious, because they are absolutely +incommensurable; and number, in relation to consciousness, is an +illusion. Consciousness, wherever it exists, is single, indivisible, +inextensible; and other consciousnesses, and the whole external +universe, are, to the individual percipient, but shapes in a more or +less protracted dream. + +Why should we trouble about vastness--mere extension in space? There +is a sense in which the infinitesimally small is more marvellous, more +disquieting, than the infinitely great. The ant, the flea, nay, the +phagocyte in our blood, is really a more startling phenomenon than all +the mechanics and chemistry of the heavens. In worrying about the +bigness and the littleness of things, we are making the human body +our standard--the body whose dimensions are no doubt determined by +convenience in relation to terrestrial conditions, but have otherwise +no sort of sanctity or superiority, rightness or fitness. It happens +to be the object to which is attached the highest form of +consciousness we know; but consciousness itself has neither parts nor +magnitude. And consciousness itself is essentially greater than the +very vastness which appals us, seeing that it embraces and envelops +it. Enormous depths of space are pictured in my brain, through my +optic nerve; and what eludes the magic mirror of my retina, my mind +can conceive, apprehend, make its own. It is not even true to say that +the mind cannot conceive infinity--the real truth (if I may for once +be Chestertonian), the real truth is that it can conceive nothing +else. "When Berkeley said there was no matter"--it mattered greatly +what he said. Nothing can be more certain than that, apart from +percipience, there is no matter that matters. From the point of view +of pantheism (the only logical theism) God, far from being a Veiled +Being, or an Invisible King, is precisely the mind which translates +itself into the visible, sensible universe, and impresses itself, in +the form of a never-ending pageant, upon our cognate minds. It has +been thought that human consciousness may have come into being because +God wanted an audience. He was tired of being a cinematograph-film +unreeling before empty benches. Some people have even carried the +speculation further, and wondered whether the attachment of +percipience to organized matter, as in the case of human beings, may +not be a necessary stage in the culture of a pure percipience, capable +of furnishing the pageant of the universe with a permanent and +appreciative audience. In that case the Scottish Catechism would be +justified, which asks "What is the chief end of man?" and answers (as +Stevenson says) nobly if obscurely: "To glorify God and to enjoy Him +forever." But enough of these idle fantasies. What is certain is that +we can hold up our heads serenely among the immensities, knowing that +we are immenser than they. Even if they were malevolent--and that they +do not seem to be--they are no more terrible than the familiar dangers +of our homely earth. They cannot hurt us more than we can be hurt--an +obvious truism but one which is often overlooked. And this brings us +to the consideration of the second fallacy which sometimes warps our +judgment as to the responsibility of the Power which invented life. + +We are all apt to speak and think as though sentience were an article +capable of accumulation, like money or merchandise, in enormous +aggregates--as though pleasure, and more particularly pain, were +subject to the ordinary rules of arithmetic, so that minor quantities, +added together, might mount up to an indefinitely gigantic total. +Poets and philosophers, time out of mind, have been heartbroken over +the enormous mass of evil in the world, and have spoken as though +animated nature were one great organism, with a brain in which every +pang that afflicted each one of its innumerable members was piled up +into a huge, pyramidal agony. But this is obviously not so. That very +"individuation" which to some philosophies is the primal curse--the +condition by all means to be annulled and shaken off[2]--forbids the +adding up of units of sentience. If "individuation" is the source of +human misery (which seems a rather meaningless proposition) it is +beyond all doubt its boundary and limit. We are each of us his own +universe. With each of us the universe is born afresh; with each of us +it dies--assuming, that is to say, that consciousness is extinguished +at death. There never has been and never can be in the world more +suffering than a single organism can sustain--which is another way of +saying that nothing can hurt us more than we can be hurt. Is this an +optimistic statement? Far from it. The individual is capable of great +extremities of suffering; and though not all men, or even most, are +put to the utmost test in this respect, there are certainly cases not +a few in which a man may well curse the day he was born, and see in +the universe that was born with him nothing but an instrument of +torture. But such an one must speak for himself. It is evident that, +take them all round, men accept life as no such evil gift. It cannot +even be said that, in handing it on to others, they are driven by a +fatal instinct which they know in their hearts to be cruel, and would +resist if they could. The vast majority have been, and still are, +entirely light-hearted about the matter, thus giving the best possible +proof that they cherish no grudge against the source of being, but +find it, on the balance, acceptable enough. If it be said that this is +due to stupidity, then stupidity is one of the factors in the case +which the great Artificer must be supposed to have foreseen and +reckoned upon. All these considerations must be taken into account +when we try to sum up the responsibility of an organizer and director +of life, acting of his own free will, although he knew that the +conditions under which he had to work would make the achievement of +any satisfactory result a slow, laborious and painful business. + + [2] Mr. Wells himself is not far from this view. See _God the + Invisible King_, pp. 73, 76, and this book, pp. 39-40. + +"But sympathy!" it may be said--"You have left sympathy out of the +reckoning. Unless we are not only 'individuals' but iron-clad +egotists, we suffer with others more keenly, sometimes, than in our +own persons." Sympathy, no doubt, is, like the summer sun and the +frost of winter, a fact of common experience causing us alternate joy +and pain; but it means no sort of breach in the wall of +"individuation." Our nearest and dearest are simply factors in our +environment, most influential factors, but as external to us as the +trees or the stars. We cannot, in any real sense, draw away their +pains and add them to our own, any more than they, in their turn, can +relieve us of our toothache or our sciatica. They are the points, +doubtless, at which our environment touches us most closely, but +neither incantation nor Act of Parliament, neither priest nor +registrar, can make even man and wife really "one flesh." It was +necessary for the conservation of the species that a strict limit +should be set to the operation of sympathy. Had that emotion been +able to pierce the shell of individuality, so that one being could +actually add the sufferings of another, or of many others, to his own, +life would long ago have come to an end. As it is, sympathy implies an +imaginative extension of individuality, which is of enormous social +value. But we remain, none the less, isolated each in his own +universe, and our fellow-men and women are but shapes in the panorama, +the strange, fantastic dream, which the Veiled Showman unrolls before +us. + +In these post-Darwinian days, moreover, we are inclined to give way to +certain morbid and sentimental exaggerations of sympathy, which do +some injustice to the great Artificer whom we are for the moment +assuming to be responsible for sentient life. Many of us are much +concerned about "nature, red in tooth and claw." It is a sort of +nightmare to us to think of the tremendous fecundity of swamp and +jungle, warren and pond, and of the ruthless struggle for existence +which has made earth, air, and sea one mighty battle-ground. In this +we are again letting the fallacy of number take hold of us. There can +be no aggregate of suffering among lower, any more than among higher, +organisms; and the amount of pain which individual animals have to +endure--even animals of those species which we can suppose to possess +a certain keenness of sensibility--is probably, in the vast majority +of cases, very trifling. Half the anguish of humanity proceeds from +the power of looking before and after. The animal, though he may +suffer from fear of imminent, visible danger, cannot know the torture +of long-drawn apprehension. For most of his life he is probably aware +of a vague well-being; then of a longer or shorter--often a very +short--spell of vague ill-being; and so, the end. Nor is it possible +to doubt that the experience of some animals includes a great deal of +positive rapture. If the lark be not really the soul of joy, he is the +greatest hypocrite under the sun. Many insects seem to be pin-points +of vibrant vitality which we can scarcely believe to be unaccompanied +by pleasurable sensation. The mosquito which I squash on the back of +my hand, and which dies in a bath of my own blood, has had a short +life but doubtless a merry one. The moths which, in a tropic night, +lie in calcined heaps around the lamp, have probably perished in +pursuit of some ecstatic illusion. It does not seem, on the whole, +that we need expend much pity on the brute creation, or make its +destinies a reproach to the great Artificer. Which is not to say, of +course, that we ought not to detest and try with all our might to +abolish the cruelties of labor, commerce, sport and war. + +Again, as to the great calamities--the earthquakes, shipwrecks, +railway accidents, even the wars--which are often made a leading count +in the arraignment of the Author of Sentience, we must not let +ourselves be deceived by the fallacy of number. Their spectacular, +dramatic aspect naturally attracts attention; but the death-roll of a +great shipwreck is in fact scarcely more terrible than the daily bills +of mortality of a great city. It is true that a violent death, +overtaking a healthy man, is apt to involve moments, perhaps hours, of +acute distress which he might have escaped had he died of gradual +decay or of ordinary well-tended disease; and a very short space of +the agony sometimes attendant upon (say) a railway accident, probably +represents itself to the sufferer as an eternity. But there is also +another side to the matter. Instantaneous death in a great catastrophe +must be reckoned as mere euthanasia; and even short of this, the +attendant excitement has often the effect of an anodyne. In the +upshot, no doubt, such occurrences are rightly called disasters, since +their tendency is to cause needlessly painful death, under +circumstances, which in the main, enhance its terrors; but the +sufferings of the victims cannot be added together because they occur +within a limited area, any more than if they had been spread over an +indefinite tract of space. As for war, it increases the liability of +every individual who comes within its wide-flung net to intense bodily +and mental suffering, and to premature and painful death. Moreover, it +destroys social values which _can_ be added up. In this respect it +leaves the world face to face with an appalling deficit. But we must +not let it weigh upon us too heavily, or make it too great a reproach +to the Artificer of human destiny. For the soldier, like every other +sentient organism, is immured in his own universe, and his individual +debit-and-credit account with the Power which placed him there would +be no whit different if he were indeed the only real existence, and +the world around him were naught but a dance of shadows. + +If there were a country of a hundred million people, in which every +citizen was born to an allowance of five pounds, which in all his life +he could not possibly increase, or invest in joint-stock enterprises, +though he might leave some of it unexpended--we should not, in spite +of the L500,000,000 of its capital, call that a wealthy country. Its +effective wealth would be precisely a five-pound note. Similarly, +given a world in which every one is born with a limited capacity of +sentience, inalienable, incommunicable, unique, we should do wrong to +call that world a multi-millionaire in misery, even if it could be +proved that in each individual account the balance of sensation was on +the wrong side of the ledger. It is true that if, in one man's +account, the balance were largely to the bad, he would be entitled to +reproach the Veiled Banker, even though five hundred or five thousand +of his fellows declared themselves satisfied with the result of their +audit. But if the Banker, in opening business, had good reason to +think that, in the long run, the contents would largely outvote the +non-contents, we could scarcely blame him for going ahead. And what +if, for contents and malcontents alike, he had an uncovenanted bonus +up his sleeve? + + * * * * * + +In this disquisition, with its shifting personifications, its +Artificer, Author, Banker and the like, we may seem to have wandered +far away from Mr. Wells and his Invisible King; but I hope the reader +has not wholly lost the clue. Let us recapitulate. Starting from the +idea that its total renunciation of metaphysics, its incuriousness as +to causation, was a weakness in Mr. Wells's system, inasmuch as an +eager curiosity as to these matters is an inseparable part of our +intellectual outfit, we set about enquiring whether it might not be +possible to abandon the notions of omnipotence, omniscience and +omni-benevolence, and yet to conceive a doctrine of origins into which +a well-willing God should enter, not, like the Invisible King, as a +sort of remedial afterthought, but as a prime mover in this baffling +business of life. We put forward two hypotheses, each of which seemed +more thinkable, less in the air, so to speak, than Mr. Wells's scheme +of things. We imagined a wholly callous, unpitying Power, wantonly +setting up combinations in matter which it knew would work out in +cruelty and misery, and another co-ordinate though not quite equal +Power interfering from the first to introduce into the combinations of +the Elder Deity a slow but sure bias towards the good. Then we +proposed an alternative hypothesis, logically simpler, though more +difficult from the moral point of view. We conceived at the source of +organic life an intelligent and well-willing Power constrained, by +some necessity "behind the veil," to carry out his purposes through +the sluggish, refractory, hampering medium of matter. Supposing this +Power free to act or to refrain from acting, we asked whether he could +take the affirmative course--choose the "Everlasting Yea" as Carlyle +would phrase it--without forfeiting our esteem and disqualifying for +the post of Invisible King in the Wellsian sense of the term. In a +tentative way, not exempt, perhaps, from a touch of special pleading, +we advanced certain considerations which seemed to suggest that his +decision to kindle the torch of life might, after all, be justified. +Our provisional conclusion was that though, as at present advised, we +might not quite see our way to hail him as a beneficent Invisible +King, yet we need not go to the opposite extreme of writing him down a +mere Ogre God, indifferent to the vast and purposeless process of +groaning and travail, begetting and devouring, which he had wantonly +initiated. That is the point at which we have now arrived. + +I hope it need not be said I do not attribute any substantive value to +the hypothetical myths here put forward and discussed--that I do not +accept either of them, or propose that anyone else should accept it, +as a probable adumbration of what actually occurred "in the +beginning"--a first chapter in a new Book of Genesis. My purpose was +simply, since myth-making was the order of the day, to hint a +criticism of Mr. Wells's myth, by placing beside it one or two other +fantasies, perhaps as plausible as his, which had the advantage of not +entirely eluding the question of origins. I submit, with great +respect, that my Artificer comes a little less out of the blue than +his Invisible King--that is all I claim for him. + +But here Mr. Wells puts in a protest, not without indignation. +Myth-making, he declares, is _not_ the order of the day. Had he wanted +to indulge in myth-making, he could easily have found some +metaphysical affiliation for his Invisible King. What he has done is +to record a profound spiritual experience, common to himself and many +other good men and true, which has culminated in the recognition of an +actual Power, objectively extant in the world, to which he has felt it +a sacred duty to bear witness. Very good; so be it; let us now look +more in detail into the gospel according to Wells. + + + + +IV + +THE APOSTLE'S CREED + + +A gospel it is, in all literalness; an evangel; a message of glad +tidings. It is not merely _a_ truth, it is "the Truth" (p. 1). Let +there be no mistake about it: Mr. Wells's ambition is to rank with St. +Paul and Mahomet, as the apostle of a new world-religion. He does not +in so many words lay claim to inspiration, but it is almost inevitably +deducible from his premises. He is uttering the first clear and +definite tidings of a God who is endowed with personality, character, +will and purpose. To that Deity he has submitted himself in +enthusiastic devotion. If the God does not seize the opportunity to +speak through such a marvellously suitable, such an ideal, mouthpiece, +then practical common-sense cannot be one of his attributes. Which of +the other Gods who have announced themselves from time to time has +found such a megaphone to reverberate his voice? St. Paul was a poor +tent-maker, whose sermons were not even reported in the religious +press, while his letters probably counted their public by scores, or +at most by hundreds. Mr. Wells, from the outset of his mission, has +the ear of two hemispheres. + +What, then, does he tell us of his God? The first characteristic which +differentiates him from all the other Gods with a big G--for of course +we pay no heed to the departmental gods of polytheism--the first fact +we must grasp and hold fast to, is that he lays no claim to infinity. +"This new faith ... worships _a finite God_" (p. 5; Mr. Wells's +italics). "He has begun and he never will end" (p. 18). "He is within +time and not outside it" (p. 7). Nothing can be more definite than +that. There was a time when God did not exist; and then somehow, +somewhen, he came into being. + +Perhaps to ask "When?" would be to trespass on the department of +origins, from which we are explicitly warned off. It would be to +trench upon "cosmogony." Yet we are not quite without guidance. "The +renascent religion," we are told, "has always been here; it has always +been visible to those that had eyes to see" (p. 1). "Always," in this +context, can only mean during the whole course of human history. +Therefore God must have come into being some time between the issue +of the creative fiat and the appearance of man on the planet. This is +a pretty wide margin, but it is something to go upon. He may have been +contemporary with the amoeba, or with the ichthyosaurus, or haply +with the earliest quadrumana. At the very latest (if "always" is +accurate) he must have made his appearance exactly at the same time as +man; and if I were to give my opinion, I should say that was extremely +probable. At all events, even if he preceded man by a few thousand or +million years, we are compelled to assume that he came in preparation +for the advent of the human species, determined to be on hand when +wanted. For we do not gather that the lower animals stand in need of +his services, or are capable of benefiting by them. One might be +tempted to conceive him as guiding the course of evolution and +hastening its laggard process; but (as we shall see) he scorns the +role of Providence, and resolutely abstains from any intromission in +organic or meteorological concerns. It would be pleasant to think that +he had something to do with (for instance) the retreat of the ice-cap +in the northern hemisphere; but we are not encouraged to indulge in +any such speculation. It would appear that the activity of God is +purely psychical and moral--that he has no interest in biology, except +as it influences, and is influenced by, sociology. In short, from all +that one can make out, this God is strictly correlative to Man; and +that is a significant fact which we shall do well to bear in mind. + +As we have already seen, the Infinite (or Veiled) Being is not God (p. +13); nor is God the Life Force, the "impulse thrusting through matter +and clothing itself in continually changing material forms ... the +Will to Be" (pp. 15-16). As we have also seen, Mr. Wells refuses to +define the relation of his God, this "spirit," this "single spirit and +single person," to either of these inscrutable entities. "God," he +says, "comes to us neither out of the stars nor out of the pride of +life, but as a still small voice within" (p. 18). It is by "faith" +that we "find" him (p. 13); but Mr. Wells "doubts if faith can be +complete and enduring if it is not secured by the definite knowledge +of the true God" (p. 135). What, then, is "faith" in this context? It +would be too much to say, with the legendary schoolboy, that it is +"believing what you know isn't true." The implication seems rather to +be that if you begin by believing on inadequate grounds, you will +presently attain to belief on adequate grounds, or, in other words, +knowledge. Thus, when you go to a spiritual seance in a sceptical +frame of mind, the chill of your aura frightens the spirits away, and +you obtain no manifestations; but if you go in a mood of faith, which +practically means confident expectation, the phenomena follow, and you +depart a convert. I use this illustration in no scoffing spirit. The +presupposition is not irrational. It amounts, in effect, to saying +that you must go some way to meet God before God can or will come to +you. This seems a curious coyness; but as God is finite and +conditioned, a bit of a character ("a strongly marked and knowable +personality," p. 5), there is nothing contradictory in it. Even when +we read that "the true God goes through the world like fifes and drums +and flags, calling for recruits along the street" (p. 40), we must not +seize upon the letter of a similitude, and talk about inconsistency. +You must go out to meet even the Salvation Army. It offers you +salvation in vain if you obstinately bolt your door, and insist that +an Englishman's house is his castle. + +The finding of this God is very like what revivalists call +"conversion" (p. 21). You are oppressed by "the futility of the +individual life"; you fall into "a state of helpless self-disgust" +(p. 21); you are, in short, in the condition described by Hamlet when +he says: "It goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly +frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent +canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this +majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appears no other +thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." The +condition may result, as in Hamlet's case, from an untoward +conjunction of outward circumstances; or it may be of physiological +(liverish) origin. The methods of treatment are many--some of them +(such as the administration of alcohol in large doses) disastrously +unwise. In some states of society and periods of history, religion is +the popular specific; and there have been, and are, forms of religion +to which alcohol would be preferable. Fortunately, one can say without +a shadow of hesitancy that "the modern religion" lies under no such +suspicion. As dispensed by Mr. Wells, it is entirely wholesome. If it +is found to cheer, it will certainly not inebriate. Indeed, the doubt +one feels as to its popular success lies in the very fact that it +contains but an innocuous proportion of alcohol. + +You find yourself, then, in the distressful case described by Hamlet +and Mr. Wells. "Man delights you not, no, nor woman neither." You +cannot muster up energy even to kill King Claudius. You go about +gloomily soliloquizing on suicide and kindred topics. Then, "in some +way the idea of God comes into the distressed mind" (p. 21). It +develops through various stages, outlined by Mr. Wells in the passage +cited. In the modern man, it would seem, one great difficulty lies in +"a curious resistance to the suggestion that God is truly a person" +(p. 22). It is here, no doubt, that faith comes in; at all events, you +ultimately get over this stumbling-block. "Then suddenly, in a little +while, in his own time, God comes. The cardinal experience is an +undoubting immediate sense of God. It is the attainment of an absolute +certainty that one is not alone in oneself" (p. 23). You have come, in +fact, to the gate of Damascus. You have found salvation. + +Yes, salvation!--there is no other word for it. Mr. Wells does not +hesitate to use both that word and its correlative, damnation. From +what, then, are you saved? Why, from quite a number of things. You are +saved "from the purposelessness of life" (p. 18). God's immortality +has "taken the sting from death" (p. 22). You have escaped "from the +painful accidents and chagrins of individuation" (p. 73). "Salvation +is to lose oneself" (p. 73); it is "a complete turning away from self" +(p. 84). "Damnation is really over-individuation, and salvation is +escape from self into the larger being of life" (p. 76). In another +place we are told that salvation is "escape from the individual +distress at disharmony and the individual defeat by death, into the +Kingdom of God, and damnation can be nothing more and nothing less +than the failure or inability or disinclination to make that escape" +(p. 148). On the next page we have another definition of damnation +(borrowed, it would seem, from Mr. Clutton Brock), with which I hasten +to express my cordial and enthusiastic agreement: "_Satisfaction with +existing things is damnation._" I have always thought that hell was +the headquarters of conservatism, and am delighted to find such +influential backing for that pious opinion. + +As for sin, it seems to be a falling away from the state of grace +attained through conversion. You can and do sin while you are still +unconverted; for we are told that "repentance is the beginning and +essential of the religious life" (p. 165). Probably (though this is +not clear) your unregenerate condition is in itself sinful, +"individuation" being not very different from the Original Sin of the +theologians. But it is sin after regeneration that really matters. +"Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, and adds not one inch to our +spiritual and moral nature" (p. 146). "It is the amazing and +distressful discovery of every believer so soon as the first +exaltation of belief is past, that one does not remain always in touch +with God" (p. 149). One backslides. One reverts to one's unregenerate +type. The old Adam makes disquieting resurgences in the swept and +garnished mansion from which he seemed to have been for ever cast out. +"This is the personal problem of Sin. _Here prayer avails; here God +can help us_" (p. 150). And what is still more consoling, "though you +sin seventy times seven times, God will still forgive the poor rest of +you.... There is no sin, no state that, being regretted and repented +of, can stand between God and man" (p. 156). + +We shall have to consider later what useful purpose (if any) is served +by this free-and-easy use of the dialect of revivalism. In the +meantime, one would be sorry to seem to write without respect of the +depth of conviction which Mr. Wells throws into his account of the +supreme spiritual experience of finding God. "Thereafter," he says, +"one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has found a +lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution" (pp. +23-24). God is a "huge friendliness, a great brother and leader of our +little beings" (p. 24). "He is a stimulant; he makes us live +immortally and more abundantly. I have compared him to the sensation +of a dear strong friend who comes and stands quietly beside one, +shoulder to shoulder" (p. 39). It certainly takes some courage for a +modern Englishman, not by profession a licensed dealer in spiritual +sentimentality, to write like this. + +And now comes the question, What does God do? What does he aim at? And +how does he effect his purposes? The answer seems to be that, in a +literal, tangible sense, he does nothing. He operates solely in and +through the mind of man; and even through the mind of man he does not +influence external events. This, it may be said, is impossible, since +all those external events which we call human conduct flow from the +mind of man. Perhaps it would be correct to say (for here Mr. Wells +gives us no explicit guidance) that external events are only a +by-product of the influence of God: that, having begotten a certain +spiritual state which he feels to be generally desirable, he takes no +responsibility for the particular consequences that are likely to flow +from it. So, at least, one can best interpret Mr. Wells's repeated +disclaimer of the idea that "God is Magic or God is Providence" (p. +27), that "all the time, incalculably, he is pulling about the order +of events for our personal advantages" (p. 35-6). Commenting on Mr. +Edwyn Bevan's phrase for God, "the Friend behind phenomena," Mr. Wells +insists that the expression "carries with it no obligation whatever to +believe that this Friend is in control of the phenomena" (p. 87). +Perhaps not; but it is a question for after consideration whether +lucidity is promoted by giving the name God to a Power which has no +power--which does not seem even to make directly purposive use of the +influence which it possesses over the minds of believers. Once, in a +coasting steamer on the Pacific, I nearly died of sea-sickness. A +friend was with me, the soul of kindness, such a lovable old man that +I write this down partly for the pleasure of recalling him. He used to +come to my cabin every hour or so, shake his head mournfully, and go +away again. I felt his good will and was grateful for it; but it would +be affectation to pretend that I would not have been still more +grateful had he possessed some "control of phenomena"--had he brought +with him a remedy. Since those days, more than one efficacious +preventive of sea-sickness has been discovered; and I own to counting +the nameless chemists who have achieved this marvel among the most +authentic friends to poor humanity of whom we have any knowledge. +Where is the God (as Mr. Zangwill has pertinently enquired) who will +give us a cure for cancer? + +This, however, is a digression, or at any rate an anticipation. What +the Invisible King actually does, without meddling with phenomena, is +to assume the "captaincy" of the "racial adventure" in which we are +engaged (p. 76). "God must love his followers as a great captain loves +his men ... whose faith alone makes him possible. It is an austere +love. The Spirit of God will not hesitate to send us to torment and +bodily death" (p. 67). And what is this "racial adventure"? It is, in +the first place, the achievement of Mr. Wells's political ideals--an +object which has all my sympathy, since they happen to be, generally +speaking, my own. "As a knight in God's service," says Mr. Wells, "I +take sides against injustice, disorder, and against all those +temporal kings, emperors, princes, landlords, and owners, who set +themselves up against God's rule and worship" (p. 97). By all means! +Only one does not see how, if the kings, emperors and landlords +declare that they, too, have found God, and found him on the side of +monarchy and landlordism, this contention of theirs is to be confuted. +If God does not control phenomena, the actual controllers of events +will be able to maintain in the future, as in the past, that he is on +the side of the big battalions--an argument which it will be hard to +meet, except by raising bigger battalions. In the meantime we have to +note that God's political opinions are only provisional, and that he +himself is open to conviction. "The first purpose of God is the +attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a means to more +knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power" (p. 98-9). And the +object to which he will apply this power is "the conquest of death: +first the overcoming of death in the individual by the incorporation +of the motives of his life into an undying purpose, and then the +defeat of that death which seems to threaten our species upon a +cooling planet beneath a cooling sun" (p. 99). Ultimately, then, it +would seem that God does intend to undertake the control of +phenomena. Dealing with ice-caps is not so entirely outside his +province as one had hastily assumed. The Invisible King is not, after +all, a _roi faineant_. He will begin to do things as soon as he knows +how: any other course would be obviously rash. One would like to live +a few hundred thousand years, to see him come into overt action. Yet, +in this far-reaching program, there seems to lurk a certain +contradiction, or at least an ambiguity. If, for the believer in God, +death has, here and now, lost its sting--if "we come staggering +through into the golden light of his kingdom, to fight for his kingdom +henceforth, until, at last, we are altogether taken up into his being" +(p. 68)--one does not quite see the reason for this long campaign +against death. Surely the logical consummation would be an ultimate +racial euthanasia, an absorption of humanity into God, a vast +apotheosis-nirvana, after which the earth and sun could go on cooling +at their leisure. + + * * * * * + +Apart from one or two irrepressible "asides," I have attempted in this +chapter to let Mr. Wells speak for himself, proclaim the faith that is +in him, and draw the portrait of his God. Many details are of course +omitted, for which the reader must turn to the original text. He will +find it a pleasant and profitable task. The remainder of my present +undertaking falls into three parts. First I must ask the reader to +consider with me whether Mr. Wells's gospel can be accepted as a real +addition to knowledge, like (say) the discovery of radium, or whether +it is only a re-description in new language (or old language slightly +refurbished) of familiar facts of spiritual experience. In the second +place, assuming that we have to fall back on the latter alternative, +we shall enquire whether anything would be gained by the general +acceptance of this new-old, highly emotionalized terminology. Thirdly, +I shall venture to suggest that when Mr. Wells says "The first purpose +of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a means +to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power," he is only +choosing a mythological way of expressing the fact that if God (in the +ordinary, non-Wellsian sense of the word) is ever to be found, it must +be through patient investigation of the phenomena in which he clothes +himself. + + + + +V + +WHEN IS A GOD NOT A GOD? + + +Though many of Mr. Wells's asseverations of the substantive reality of +his Invisible King have been quoted above, it would be easy to +lengthen their array. There is nothing on which he is so insistent. +For example, "God is no abstraction nor trick of words....[3] He is as +real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace" (p. 56). And again, on the +same page: "He feels us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by +us. He hopes and attempts." There is no limit to the anthropomorphism +of the language which Mr. Wells currently employs. Or rather, there is +only one limit: he disclaims the notion that his God is actually +existent in space, that he has parts and dimensions, and inhabits a +form in any way analogous to ours. He is the Invisible King, not +merely, like the Spanish Fleet, because he "is not yet in sight," but +because he has no material or "astral" integument. Being outside space +(though inside time) he can be omnipresent (p. 61). But of course Mr. +Wells would not pretend that no deity can be called anthropomorphic +who is not actually conceived as incarnate in the visible figure of a +man. An anthropomorphic God is one who reflects the mental +characteristics of his worshippers; and that Mr. Wells's God does, if +ever God did in this world. + + [3] The words here omitted, "no Infinite," are nothing to the + present purpose. Mr. Wells has started by making this + declaration, which we accept without difficulty. No one will + suspect the Invisible King of being an "Infinite" in + disguise. + +Yet almost in the same breath in which he is claiming for his God the +fullest independent reality--thinking of him "as having moods and +aspects, as a man has, and a consistency we call his character" (p. +63)--he will use language implying that he is that very abstraction of +the better parts of human nature which has been proposed for worship +in all the various "religions of humanity," "ethical churches," and so +forth, for two or three generations past. Listen to this: "Though he +does not exist in matter or space, he exists in time, just as a +current of thought may do; he changes and becomes more even as a man's +thought gathers itself together; somewhere in the dawning of mankind +he had a beginning, an awakening, and as mankind grows he grows.... +_He is the undying human memory, the increasing human will_" (p. 61). +When, in the last chapter, I discussed the date of the divinity's +birth, I had overlooked this text. Here we have it in black and white +that he did not precede mankind--that, of course, would have implied +independence--but began with the "dawning" of the race, and has grown +with its growth. Moreover, the analogy of a "current of thought" is +expressly suggested--reinforcing the suspicion which has all along +haunted us that the God of Mr. Wells is nothing else than what is +known to less mythopoeic thinkers as a "stream of tendency." But Mr. +Wells will by no means have it so. Indeed he evidently regards this as +the most annoying, and perhaps damnable, of heresies. On the very next +page he proceeds to rule out the suggestion that "God is the +collective mind and purpose of the human race." "You may declare," he +says, "that this is no God, but merely the sum of mankind. But those +who believe in the new ideas very steadfastly deny that. God is, they +say, not an aggregate but a synthesis." And he goes on to suggest +various analogies: a temple is more than a gathering of stones, a +regiment more than an accumulation of men: we do not love the soil of +our back garden, or the chalk of Kent, or the limestone of Yorkshire; +yet we love England, which is made up of these things. So God is more +than the sum or essence of the nobler impulses of the race: he is a +spirit, a person, a friend, a great brother, a captain, a king: he "is +love and goodness" (p 80); and without him the Service of Man is "no +better than a hobby, a sentimentality or a hypocrisy" (p. 95). + +Let us reflect a little upon these analogies, and see whether they +rest on any solid basis. Why is a temple more than a heap of stones? +Because human intelligence and skill have entered into the stones and +organized them to serve a given purpose or set of purposes: to delight +the eye, to elevate the mind, to express certain ideas, to afford +shelter for worshippers against wind, rain and sun. Why is a regiment +more than a mob? Again because it has been deliberately and +elaborately organized to fulfil certain functions. Why is England more +than the mere rocks of which it is composed? Because these materials +have been grouped, partly by nature, but very largely by the labor of +untold generations of our fathers, into forms which give pleasure to +the eye and appeal to our most intimate and cherished associations. +Besides, when we speak of "England," we do not think only or mainly +of its physical aspects. We think of it as a great community, with an +ancient, and in some ways admirable, tradition of political life, with +a splendid record of achievement in both material and spiritual +things, with a great past, and (we hope) a greater future. In all +these cases the parts have been fused into a whole by human effort, +either consciously or instinctively applied; and it is in virtue of +this effort alone that the whole transcends its parts. But in the case +of a God "synthetized" out of the thought and feeling of untold +generations of men, the analogy breaks down at every point. To assume +that portions of psychic experience are capable of vital coalescence, +is to beg the whole question. We know that stone can be piled on +stone, that men can be trained to form a platoon, a cohort, a phalanx; +but that detached fragments of mind are capable of any sort of +cohesion and organization we do not know at all. And, even if this +point could be granted, where is the organizing power? We should have +to postulate another God to serve as the architect or the +drill-sergeant of our synthetic divinity. Nor would it help matters to +suggest that the God (as it were) crystallized himself; for that is to +assume structural potentialities in his component parts which must +have come from somewhere, so that again we have to presuppose another +God. It is true, no doubt, that portions of thought and feeling can be +collected, arranged, edited, in some sense organized, by human effort; +but the result is an encyclopaedia, a thesaurus, an anthology, a +liturgy, a bible--not a God. It may, like the Vedas, the Hebrew +Scriptures and the Koran, become an object of idolatry; but even its +idolaters see in it only an emanation from God, not the God himself. +All this argument may strike the reader as extremely nebulous, but I +submit that the fault is not mine. It was not I who sought to +demonstrate the reality of a figure of speech by placing it on all +fours with a cathedral and a regiment. The whole contention is so +baffling that reason staggers and flounders as in a quicksand. It +rests upon a mixture of categories, as palpable and yet as elusive as +anything in _The Hunting of the Snark_. + +If you tell me that Public Opinion is a God, I am quite willing to +consider whether the metaphor is a luminous and helpful one. But if +you protest that it is no metaphor at all, but a literal statement of +fact, like the statement that Mr. Woodrow Wilson is President of the +United States, I no longer know where we are. Mr. Wells's "undying +human memory and increasing human will" cannot exactly be identified +with Public Opinion, but it belongs to the same order of ideas. Here +there is an actual workable analogy. But there is no practicable +analogy between a purely mental concept and a physical construction. +You will not help me to believe in (say) the doctrine of Original Sin, +by assuring me that it is built, like the Tower Bridge, on the +cantilever principle. + +It is quite certain that, if passionate conviction and the free use of +anthropomorphic language can make a figure of speech a God, the +Invisible King is an individual entity, as detached from Mr. Wells as +Michelangelo's Moses from Michelangelo. Paradoxically enough, he has +put on "individuation" that his worshippers may escape from it. Mr. +Wells's book teems with expressions--I have given many examples of +them--which are wholly inapplicable to any metaphor, however +galvanized into a semblance of life by ecstatic contemplation in the +devotional mind. For example, when we are told that it is doubtful +whether "God knows all, or much more than we do, about the ultimate +Being," the mere assertion of a doubt implies the possibility of +knowledge of a quite different order from any that exists in the human +intelligence. Mr. Wells explicitly assures us that knowledge of the +Veiled Being is (for the present at any rate) inaccessible to our +faculties; but he implies that such knowledge _may_ be possessed by +the Invisible King; and as knowledge cannot possibly be a synthesis of +ignorances, it follows that the Invisible King has powers of +apprehension quite different from, and independent of, any operation +of the human brain. These powers may not, as a matter of fact, have +solved the enigma of existence; but it is clearly implied that they +might conceivably do so; and indeed the text positively asserts that +God knows _something_ more of the Veiled Being than we do, though +perhaps not "much." In view of this passage, and many others of a like +nature, we cannot fall back on the theory that Mr. Wells is merely +trying, by dint of highly imaginative writing, to infuse life into a +deliberate personification, like Robespierre's Goddess of Reason or +Matthew Arnold's Zeitgeist. However difficult it may be, we must +accustom ourselves to the belief that his assertions of the personal +existence of his God represent the efficient element in his thought, +and that if other passages seem inconsistent with that idea--seem to +point to mere abstraction or allegorization of the mind of the +race--it is these passages, and not the more full-blooded +pronouncements, that must be cancelled as misleading or inadequate. +There can be no doubt that the God to whom Mr. Wells seeks to convert +us is (in his apostle's conception) much more of a President Wilson +than of a Zeitgeist. + + * * * * * + +It would be possible, of course, for a God, however dubious and even +inconceivable the method of his "synthesis," to manifest himself in +his effects--to prove his existence by his actions. But this, as we +have seen, the Invisible King scorns to do. His adherents, we are +told, "advance no proof whatever of the existence of God but their +realization of him" (p. 98). There is a sort of implication that the +Deity will not descend to vulgar miracle-working. "An evil and +adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be +given to it"--not even "the sign of Jonah the prophet." + +But to ask for some sort of visible or plausibly conjecturable effect +is not at all the same thing as to ask for miracles. Mr. Wells +proclaims with all his might that the Invisible King works the most +marvellous and beneficent changes in the minds of his devotees; why, +then, do these changes produce no recognizable effect on the course of +events? The God who can work upon the human mind has the key to the +situation in his hands--why, then, does he make such scant use of it? +Is God only a luxury for the intellectually wealthy? The champagne of +the spiritual life? A stimulant and anodyne highly appreciated in the +best circles, but inaccessible to the man of small spiritual means, +whether he be a dweller in palaces or in the slums? + +To say that a given Power can and does potently affect the human mind, +and yet cannot, or at least does not, produce any appreciable or +demonstrable effect on the external aspects of human life, is like +asking us to believe that a man is a heaven-born conductor who can get +nothing out of his orchestra but discords and cacophonies. + +Mr. Wells may perhaps reply that his God _does_ recognizably influence +the course of events--indeed, that everything in history which we see +to be good and desirable is the work of the Invisible King--but that +he does not advance this fact as a proof of God's existence, because +it is discernible only to the eye of faith and cannot be brought home +to unregenerate reason. I do not imagine that he will take this line, +for it would come dangerously near to identifying God with +Providence--a heresy which he abhors. But supposing some other adept +in "modern religion" were to make this claim on behalf of the +Invisible King, would it go any way towards persuading us that we owe +him our allegiance? + +The assumption would be, as I understand it, that of a finite God, +unable to modify the operations of matter, but with an unlimited, or +at any rate a very great, power of influencing the workings of the +human mind. He would have no control over meteorological conditions: +he could not "ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm"; he could +not subdue the earthquake or prevent the Greenland glacier from +"calving" icebergs into the Atlantic. He could not release the human +body from the rhythms of growth and decay; he could not eradicate that +root of all evil, the association of consciousness with a mechanism +requiring to be constantly stoked with a particular sort of fuel which +exists only in limited quantities. If God could arrange for life to be +maintained on a diet of inorganic substances--if he could enable +animals, like plants, to go direct to minerals and gases for their +sustenance, instead of having it, so to speak, half-digested in the +vegetable kingdom--or even if, under the present system, he could make +fecundity, in any given species, automatically proportionate to the +supply of food--he would at one stroke refashion earthly life in an +extremely desirable sense. But this we assume to be beyond his +competence: the Veiled Being has autocratically imposed the struggle +for existence as an inexorable condition of the Invisible King's +activities, except in so far as it can be eluded by and through the +human intelligence. His problem, then, will be to guide the minds of +men towards a realization that their higher destiny lies in using +their intelligence to substitute ordered co-operation for the +sanguinary competition above which merely instinctive organism are +incapable of rising. + +Observe that in exercising this power of psychical influence there +would be no sort of miracle-working, no interference with the order of +nature. The influence of mind upon mind, even without the intervention +of words or other symbols, is a part of the order of nature which no +one to-day dreams of questioning. Hypnotic suggestion is a department +of orthodox medical practice, and telepathy is more and more widely +admitted, if only as a refuge from the hypothesis of survival after +death. If, then, we have a divine mind applying itself to the problems +of humanity, and capable of suggesting ideas to the mind of +man--appealing, as a "still small voice" (p. 18), to his +intelligence, his emotions and his will--one cannot but figure its +power for good as almost illimitable. What is to prevent it from +achieving a very rapid elimination of the ape and the tiger, the +Junker and the Tory, and substituting social enthusiasms for +individual passions as the motive-power of human conduct? We may admit +that the brain of man must first be developed up to a certain point +before divine suggestion could effectively work upon it. But we know +that men and races of magnificent brainpower must have existed on the +planet thousands and thousands of years ago. What, then, has the +Invisible King made of his opportunities? + +Frankly, he has made a terrible hash of them. It is hard to see how +the progress of the race could possibly have been slower, more +laborious, more painful than in fact it has been. No doubt there have +been a few splendid spurts, which we may, if we please, trace to the +genial goading of the Invisible King. But all the great movements have +dribbled away into frustration and impotence. There was, for example, +the glorious intellectual efflorescence of Greece. There, you may say, +the Invisible King was almost visibly at work. But, after all, what a +flash-in-the-pan it was! Hellas was a little island of light +surrounded by gloomy immensities of barbarism; yet, instead of +stablishing and fortifying a political cosmos, its leading men had +nothing better to do than to plunge into the bloody chaos of the +Peloponnesian War, and set back the clock of civilization by untold +centuries. What was the Invisible King about when that catastrophe +happened? Similarly, the past two centuries, and especially the past +seventy-five years, have witnessed a marvellous onrush in man's +intellectual apprehension of the universe and mastery over the latent +energies of matter. But because moral and political development has +lagged hopelessly behind material progress, the world is plunged into +a war of unexampled magnitude and almost unexampled fury, wherein the +heights of the air and depths of the sea are pressed into the service +of slaughter. Where was the Invisible King in July, 1914? Or, for that +matter, what has he been doing since July, 1870? "Either he was +musing, or he was on a journey, or peradventure he slept." Truly it +would seem that he might have advised Mr. Wells to wait for the "Cease +fire!" before proclaiming his godhead. + +Of course Mr. Wells will remind me that he claims for him no material +potency; and I must own that no happier moment could have been chosen +for the annunciation of an impotent God. But the plea does not quite +tally with the facts. In the first place (as we have seen) the +Invisible King is _going_ to do things--he is going to do very +remarkable things as soon as he knows how. And in the second place it +is impossible to conceive that the tremendous psychical influence +which is claimed for this God can be exercised without producing +external reactions. Why, he is actually stated to be--like another +God, his near relative, whom he rather unkindly disowns--he is stated +to be "the light of the world" (p. 18). Is there any meaning in such a +statement if it be not pertinent to ask what sort of light has led the +world into the ghastly quagmire in which it is to-day agonizing? The +truth is that Mr. Wells attributes to his God powers which, even if he +had no greater knowledge than Mr. Wells himself possesses, could be +used to epoch-making advantage. Fancy an omnipresent H. G. Wells, able +to speak in a still small voice to all men of good-will throughout the +world! What a marvellous revolution might he not effect! Mr. Wells +himself has outlined such a revolution in one of his most thoughtful +romances, _In the Days of the Comet_. From the fact that it does not +occur, may we not fairly suspect that the Invisible King is a creation +of the same mythopoeic faculty which engendered the wonder-working +comet with its aura of sweet-reasonableness? + +If we turn to Mr. Britling, we find that that eminent publicist was +distressed by a sense of the difficulty of conveying God's message to +the world; only he modestly attributed it to defects in his own +equipment rather than to powerlessness on the part of God. We read on +page 427:--"Never had it been so plain to Mr. Britling that he was a +weak, silly, ill-informed and hasty-minded writer, and never had he +felt so invincible a conviction that the Spirit of God was in him, and +that it fell to him to take some part in the establishment of a new +order of living upon the earth.... Always he seemed to be on the verge +of some illuminating and beautiful statement of his cause; always he +was finding his writing inadequate, a thin treachery to the impulse of +his heart." Have we not in such an experience an irrefutable proof of +the inefficacy of Mr. Britling's God? Always the world has been all +ears for a clear, convincing, compulsive message from God; always, or +at any rate for many thousands of years, there have been men who +seemed the predestined mouthpieces of such a message; always what +purported to be the word of God has proved to be either powerless to +make itself heard, or powerful only to the begetting of hideous moral +and social corruptions. God spoke (it is said) through the Vedic +_rishis_, the sages of the Himalayas--and the result has been caste, +cow-worship, suttee, abominations of asceticism, and nameless orgies +of sensuality. God spoke through Moses, and the result was--Judaism! +God spoke through Jesus, and the result was Arianism and +Athanasianism, the Papacy, the Holy Office, the Thirty Years' War, +massacres beyond computation, and the slowly calcined flesh of an +innumerable army of martyrs. All this, no doubt, was due to gross and +palpable misunderstanding of the message delivered through Jesus; but +since it was so fatally open to misunderstanding, would it not better +have remained undelivered? Could the world have been appreciably worse +off without it? The question is rather an idle one, since it turns on +"might have beens." That the element of good in the message of Jesus +has been to some extent efficient, no one would deny. But the alloy of +potential evil has made itself so overpoweringly actual that to strike +a balance between the two forces is impossible, and the question is +generally decided by throwing a solid chunk of prejudice into one +scale or the other. + +There has never been a time when a really well-informed revelation, +uttered with charm and power, might not have revolutionized the world. +"A well-informed revelation!" the reader may cry: "What terrible +bathos!" Mr. Wells, moreover, speaks slightingly of revelation (pp. +19, 163) in a tone that seems to imply that "modern religion" would +have nothing to do with it even if it could. But the demand for a +revelation is eminently reasonable and justified; and the only trouble +about the historic revelations is that they have all been so +shockingly ill-informed, and have revealed nothing to the purpose. +Robert Louis Stevenson anticipated Mr. Wells's view of the matter when +he wrote ironically:-- + + It's a simple thing that I demand, + Though humble as can be-- + A statement fair in my Maker's hand + To a gentleman like me-- + + A clean account, writ fair and broad, + And a plain apologee-- + Or deevil a ceevil word to God + From a gentleman like me. + +But why this irony? What an infinity of trouble and pain would have +been saved if such a "clean account, writ fair and broad," had been +vouchsafed, and had been found to tally with the facts! Nor have the +reputedly wise and good of this world seen any presumption in desiring +such a _communique_. Most of them thought they had received it, and +many wasted half their lives in attempting to reconcile new knowledge +with old ignorance, promulgated under the guarantee of God. I cannot +but think that the poet got nearer the heart of the matter who +wrote:-- + + Was Moses upon Sinai taught + How Sinai's mighty ribs were wrought? + Did Buddha, 'neath the bo-tree's shade, + Learn how the stars were poised and swayed? + + Did Jesus still pain's raging storm, + And dower the world with chloroform? + Or Mahomet a jehad decree + 'Gainst microbe-harboring gnat and flea? + + Has revelation e'er revealed + Aught from its age and hour concealed? + Or miracle, since time began, + Conferred a single boon on Man? + +Truly, we may agree with Mr. Wells that the Invisible King was +probably not in the secrets of the Veiled Being, else he could +scarcely have kept them so successfully. But have we any use for a God +who can teach us nothing? who has to be taught by us before he can do +anything worth mentioning? The old Gods who professed to teach were +much more rational in theory, if only their teaching had not been all +wrong. Man has built up his knowledge of the universe he lives in by +slow, laborious degrees, not helped, but constantly and cruelly +hindered, by his Gods. Yet Mr. Wells will surely not deny that an +approximately true conception of the process of nature, and of his own +origin and history, was an indispensable basis for all right and +lasting social construction. What colossal harm has been wrought, for +instance, by the fairy-tale of the Fall, and all its theological +consequences! Yet, age after age, the Invisible King did nothing to +shake its calamitous prestige. Of late it is true that the progress of +knowledge has seemed no longer slow, but amazingly rapid; but that is +because the amount of energy devoted to it has been multiplied a +hundredfold. Each new step is still a very short one: it is generally +found that several investigators have independently arrived at the +verge of a new discovery, and it is often a matter of chance which of +them first crosses the line and is lucky enough to associate his name +with the completed achievement. All this means that to-day, as from +the beginning, man has to wring her secrets from Nature in the sweat +of his brain, and without the smallest assistance from any Invisible +King or other potentate. To-day there are doubtless beneficent secrets +under our very noses, so to speak, which one word of a still small +voice might enable us to grasp, but which may remain undiscovered, to +our great detriment, for centuries to come. There is, in short, no +single point, either in history or in contemporary life, where "the +light of the world" can be shown, or plausibly conjectured, to have +lighted us to any practical purpose. And it is futile to urge, I +repeat, that it could not have done so without a miraculous +disturbance of the order of nature. The influence of mind upon mind, +however conveyed, is the most natural thing in the world; and, short +of transplanting mountains, inhibiting earthquakes, and teaching +people to subsist on air, there is nothing that mind cannot do. + +Besides, when we come to think of it, why this prejudice against +miracles? Why is Mr. Wells so sternly opposed to the bare idea of +Providence? "Fear and feebleness," he says, "go straight to the +Heresies that God is Magic or that God is Providence" (p. 27)--as +though it were disgracefully pusillanimous to prefer a well-governed +to an ungoverned world. God, in the ordinary sense of the word, the +sense we all understand, is unquestionably magic, whether we like it +or not. He is none the less magic because he works through one great +spell, and not through a host of minor, petti-fogging miracles. Upon +the matter of fact we are all agreed, Mr. Chesterton only dissenting; +but Mr. Wells writes as if it were an essentially godlike thing, and +greatly to the credit of any and every God, to give Nature its head, +and take no further trouble about the matter. I cannot share that +view. My only objection to Providence is that it manifestly does not +exist. If it did exist, and made the world an appreciably better place +to live in, why should we grudge it a few miracles? There is a touch +of the sour-grapes philosophy in the rationalist attitude on this +matter which Mr. Wells attributes to his Invisible King. Because we +can't have any miracles, we say we don't want them. Also, no doubt, we +see that the alleged miracles of the past were childish futilities, +doing at most a little temporary good to individuals, never rendering +any permanent service to a city or a nation, and much less to mankind +at large. They were a sort of niggardly alms from omnipotence, not a +generous endowment or a liberal compensation. But is that any reason +why an intelligent Power should be unable to devise a really helpful +miracle? Another plausible objection is that, even if we could admit +the justice of a system of rewards and punishments, good and evil are +so inextricably intermixed in this world that it is impossible to +distribute benefits on a satisfactory moral scheme. It is impossible +to manipulate the rainfall so that the righteous farmer shall have +just what he wants at the appropriate seasons, while his wicked +neighbour suffers from alternate drought and floods; nor can it be +arranged that the midday express shall convey all the good people +safely, while the 4.15, which is wrecked, carries none but undesirable +characters. To this it might be replied that the inconceivable +complexity of the chess-board of the world exists only in relation to +our human faculties; but what is far more to the point is the +indubitable fact that many salutary miracles might be wrought which +would raise no question whatever as to the moral merits or defects of +the beneficiaries. Miracles of alleged justice may reasonably be +deprecated; but where is the objection to miracles of mercy, falling, +like the blessed rain from heaven, on both just and unjust? + +The haughty soul of Mr. Wells may prefer a deity who offers us no +tangible bribes--who not only does not work miracles, but will not +even utilize to material ends that great system of wireless telegraphy +between his mind and ours which he has, by hypothesis, at his +disposal. Mine, I confess, is a humbler spirit. I should be perfectly +willing to accept even thaumaturgic benefits if only they came in my +way; and I cannot regard it as a merit in a God that he should +carefully abstain from using even his powers of suggestion to do some +practical good in the world, and, incidentally, to demonstrate his own +existence. + + * * * * * + +It is difficult, in the course of a long discussion, to keep the +attention fixed on the precise point at issue. I therefore sum up in a +few words the argument of this chapter. + +In the first place, I have shown that, if words mean anything, Mr. +Wells does actually wish us to believe that his God is not a figure of +speech, but a person, an individual, as real and independent an entity +as the Kaiser or President Wilson. In the second place, I have +enquired whether anything he says enables us to conceive _a priori_ +the possibility of such an entity disengaging itself from the mind of +the race, and have regretfully been led to the conclusion that the +genesis of this God remains at least as insoluble a mystery as that of +any other God ever placed before a confiding public. Thirdly, I have +approached the question _a posteriori_ and enquired whether history or +present experience offers any evidence from which we can reasonably +infer the existence and activity of such a God--arriving once more at +a negative conclusion. With the best will in the world, I can discover +nothing in this Invisible King but a sort of new liqueur--or old +liqueur with a new label--suited, no doubt, to the constitutions of +certain very exceptional people. Mr. Wells avers that he himself finds +it supremely grateful and comforting, and further appeals to the +testimony of a number of other (unnamed) believers--"English, +Americans, Bengalis, Russians, French ... Positivists, Baptists, +Sikhs, Mohammedans" (p. 4)--a quaint Pentecostal gathering. It is +true, of course, that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and +of the liqueur in the drinking. But some of us are inveterately +sceptical of the virtues of alcohol, even in non-intoxicant doses, and +are apt to think that the man who discovers a remedy for sea-sickness +or a prophylactic against typhoid is a greater benefactor of the race +than a God whose special characteristic it is to be not only invisible +himself but equally imperceptible in his workings. + + + + +VI + +FOR AND AGAINST PERSONIFICATION + + +For those of us who cannot accept Mr. Wells's Invisible King as a God +in any useful or even comprehensible sense of the term, there remains +the question whether he is a useful figure of speech. Metaphors and +personifications are often things of great potency, whether for good +or evil. It might quite well happen that, if we wholly rejected Mr. +Wells's gospel, on account of a mere squabble as to the meaning of the +word "God," we should thereby lose something which might have been of +the utmost value to us. Let us not run the risk of throwing out the +baby with the bath-water. + +Take the case of a very similar personification with which we are all +familiar--to wit, John Bull. Is he a helpful or a detrimental +"synthesis"? It is not quite easy to say. There is a certain +geniality, a bluff wholesomeness, a downright honesty about him, which +has doubtless its value; but on the other hand he is the incarnation +of Philistinism and Toryism, the perfect expression of the average +sensual man. I am told that in one of his avatars he has something +like two million worshippers, on whom his influence is of the most +questionable, precisely because they have implicit "faith" in him, and +regard him as a "Friend behind phenomena," a "great brother," a +"strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, inspiring, and +lovable." That is an illustration of the dangers which may lurk in +prosopopoeia. But in the main we can regard John Bull without too +much misgiving, because we cannot regard him seriously. His worship +will always be seasoned with the saving grace of humor. He can do +service in two capacities--sometimes as an ideal, often as a +deterrent. Whatever religious revolutions may await us, we are not +likely to see St. Paul's Cathedral solemnly re-dedicated to the +worship of John Bull. He and his sister divinity, Mrs. Grundy, have +never lacked adorers in that basilica; but their cult is probably not +on the increase. + +The Invisible King, on the other hand, is a personage to be taken with +the utmost seriousness. If he has anything like the success Mr. Wells +anticipates for him, it is quite on the cards that he might oust the +present Reigning Family from one or all of the cathedrals. It is true +that Mr. Wells deprecates any ritual worship; but "religious thought +finely expressed" would always be in order; and he "does not see why +there should not be, under God, associations for building cathedrals +and such like great still places urgent with beauty, into which men +and women may go to rest from the clamor of the day's confusions" (p. +168). If cathedrals may be built, all the more clearly may they be +appropriated--if you can convert or evict the dean and chapter. If the +Invisible King should take the fancy of the nation and the world, as +Mr. Wells would have us think that he is already doing, he is bound to +become the object of a formal cult. We shall very soon see a +prayer-book of the "modern religion" with marriage, funeral and +perhaps baptismal services, with daily lessons, and with suitable +forms of prayer for persons who cannot trust themselves to extempore +communings even with a "great brother." + +Well, there might be no great harm in this. Some solemn form for the +expression of cosmic, and even of mundane or political, emotion would +doubtless be useful; and if the "modern religion" could be saved from +degenerating into a hysterical superstition on the one hand, or a +petrified, persecuting orthodoxy on the other, it would certainly be a +vast improvement on many of the religions of to-day. + +But the ambitions of the Invisible King go far beyond the mere +presidency of an Ethical Church on an extended scale. He is to be a +King and no mistake; not even a King of Kings, but "sole Monarch of +the universal earth." Autocracies, oligarchies, and democracies are +alike to be swept out of his path. The "implicit command" of the +modern religion "to all its adherents is to make plain the way to the +world theocracy" (p. 97). How the fiats of the Invisible King are to +be issued, we are not informed. If through the ballot-box--"vox +populi, vox dei"--then the distinction between theocracy and democracy +will scarcely be apparent to the naked eye. And one does not see how, +in the transition stage at any rate, recourse to the ballot-box is to +be avoided, if only as a lesser evil than recourse to howitzers, tanks +and submarines. We read that "if you do not feel God then there is no +persuading you of him"; but if you do, "you will realize more and more +clearly, that thus and thus and no other is his method and intention" +(p. 98). Now, assuming (no slight assumption) that the oracles of +God, the message of the still small voice, will be identically +interpreted by all believers, the unbelievers, those who "do not feel +God," have still to be dealt with; and, as they are not open to +persuasion, it would seem that the faithful must be prepared either to +shoot them down or to vote them down--whereof the latter seems the +humaner alternative. It is true that Mr. Wells's God is a man of war; +like that other whom he disowns but strangely resembles, "he brings +mankind not rest but a sword" (p. 96). But we may confidently hold +that this, at any rate, is but a manner of speaking. Even if the God +is real, his sword is metaphoric. Mr. Wells is not seriously proposing +to take his cue from his Mohammedan friends, raise the cry of "Allahu +Akbar!" and propagate his gospel scimitar in hand. It is hard to see, +then, what other method there can be of dealing with the heathen, +except the method of the ballot-box--of course with proportional +representation. When there are no more heathen--when the whole world +can read the will of God by direct intuition, as though it were +written in letters of fire across the firmament--then, indeed, the +ballot-box may join the throne, sceptre and crown in the historical +museum. But even the robust optimism of the _gottestrunken_ Mr. Wells +can scarcely conceive this millennium to be at hand. So that in the +meantime it seems unwise to speak slightingly of democracy, lest we +thereby help the Powers, both here and elsewhere, which are fighting +for something very much worse. For I take it that the worst enemy of +the Wellsian God is the Superman, who has quite a sporting chance of +coming out on top, if not actually in this War, at least in the welter +that will succeed it. + +But seriously, is any conceivable sort of theocracy a desirable ideal? +Or, to put the same question in more general terms, is it wise of Mr. +Wells to make such play with the word "God"? He himself admits that +"God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and bad associations: +his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange preferences, +his vindictive Old Testament past" (p. 8)--and, it may fairly be +added, his blood-boltered, Kultur-stained present. Is it possible to +deodorize a word which comes to us redolent of "good, thick stupefying +incense-smoke," mingled with the reek of the auto-da-fe? Can we beat +into a ploughshare the sword of St. Bartholomew, and a thousand other +deeds of horror? God has been by far the most tragic word in the whole +vocabulary of the race--a spell to conjure up all the worst fiends in +human nature: arrogance and abjectness, fanaticism, hatred and +atrocity. Religious reformers--with Jesus at their head--have time and +again tried to divest it of some, at least, of its terrors, but they +have invariably failed. Will Mr. Wells succeed any better? Is it not +apparent in the foregoing discussion that, even if the word had no +other demerits, it leads us into regions in which the mind can find no +firm foothold? I have done my best to accept Mr. Wells's definitions, +but I am sure he feels that I have constantly slipped from the strait +and narrow path. Has he himself always kept to it? I think not. And, +waiving that point, is it at all likely that people in general will be +more successful than I have been in grasping and holding fast to the +differentiating attributes of Mr. Wells's divinity? If the word is at +best a confusion and at worst a war-whoop, should we not try to +dispense with it, to avoid it, to find a substitute which should more +accurately, if less truculently, express our idea? Is it wise or kind +to seek to impose on the future an endless struggle with its sinister +ambiguities? + +There are, no doubt, regions of thought from which it is extremely +difficult to exclude the word; but these, fortunately, are regions in +which it is almost necessarily divested of its historical +associations. As a term of pure philosophy, if safeguarded by careful +definition, it is a convenient piece of shorthand, obviating the +necessity for a constant recourse to cumbrous formulas. But politics +is not one of these regions of thought; and it is precisely in +politics that the intervention of God has from of old been most +disastrous. "Theocracy" has always been the synonym for a bleak and +narrow, if not a fierce and blood-stained, tyranny. Why seek to revive +and rehabilitate a word of such a dismal connotation? I suggest that +even if the Invisible King _were_ a God, it would be tactful to +pretend that he was not. As he is _not_ a God, in any generally +understood sense of the term, it seems a curious perversity to pretend +that he is. + + * * * * * + +Even in the region of morals it is a backward step to restore God to +the supremacy from which he has with the utmost difficulty been +deposed. I am sure Mr. Wells does not in his heart believe that any +theological sanction is required for the plain essentials of social +well-doing, or any theological stimulus for the rare sublimities of +virtue. Incalculable mischief has been wrought by the clerical +endeavour to set up a necessary association between right conduct and +orthodoxy, between heterodoxy and vice. This Mr. Wells knows as well +as I do; yet he can use such phrases as "Without God, the 'Service of +Man' is no better than a hobby or a sentimentality or a hypocrisy." No +doubt he has carefully explained that he does not mean by God or +religion what the clergy mean; but can he be sure that by imitating +their phrases he may not imperceptibly slide into their frame of mind? +or at any rate tempt the weaker brethren to do so? In using such an +expression he comes perilously near the attitude adopted by the Bishop +of London in a recent address to the sailors of the Grand Fleet. His +Lordship told his hearers--we have it on his own authority--that +"there was in everyone a good man and a bad man. And I have not known +a case," he added, "where the good man conquered the bad man without +religion." Can there be any doubt that the Bishop was either +telling--well, not the truth--or shamelessly playing with words? Of +course it may be said that any man who keeps his lower instincts in +control does so by aid of a feeling that there are higher values in +life than sensual gratification or direct self-gratification of any +sort; and we may, if we are so minded, call this feeling religion. But +it is a very inconvenient meaning to attach to the word, and we cannot +take it to be the meaning the Bishop had in view. What he meant, in +all probability--what he desired his simple-minded hearers to +understand--was that he had never known a good man who did not +believe, if not in all the dogmas of the Church of England, at any +rate in the Christian Trinity, the fall of man, redemption from sin, +and the inspiration of the Scriptures. He meant that no man could be +good who did not believe that God has given us in writing a synopsis +of his plan of world-government, and has himself sojourned on earth +and submitted to an appearance of death, some two thousand years ago, +in fulfilment of the said plan. If he did _not_ mean that, he was, I +repeat, playing with words and deceiving his hearers, who would +certainly understand him to mean something to that effect; and if he +_did_ mean that, he departed very palpably from the truth. The Bishop +of London is no recluse, shut up in a monastery among men of his own +faith. He is a man of the modern world, and he must know, and know +that he knows, scores of men as good as himself who have no belief in +anything that he would recognize as religion. Perhaps he was not +directly conscious of telling a falsehood, for "faith" plays such +havoc with the intellect that men cease to attach any living meaning +to words, and come to deal habitually in those unrealized phrases +which we call cant. But whatever may have been his excuses to his +conscience, he was saying a very noxious thing to the simple, gallant +souls who heard him. Many of them must have been well aware that they +had no faith that would have satisfied the Bishop of London, and that +whatever religious ideas lurked in their minds were of very little use +to them in struggling with the temptations of a sailor's life. Where +was the sense in telling them that the ordinary motives which make for +good conduct--prudence, self-respect, loyalty, etc., etc.--are of no +avail, and that they must inevitably be bad men if they had not "found +religion"? If such talk does no positive harm, it is only because men +have learnt to discount the patter of theology. Yet here we find Mr. +Wells, after vigorously disclaiming any participation in the Bishop's +beliefs, falling into the common form of episcopal patter, and telling +me, for example--a benighted but quite well-intentioned heathen--that +I can do no good in my generation unless I believe in a God whom he +and a number of Eastern sages, Parthians, Medes, Elamites and dwellers +in Mesopotamia, have recently "synthetized" out of their inner +consciousnesses! It is not Mr. Wells's fault if I do not abandon the +steep and thorny track of austerity which I have hitherto pursued, +invest all my spare cash either in whiskey or in whiskey shares, and +go for my philosophy in future to the inspiring author of _Musings +without Method_ in "Blackwood." + +It is not quite clear why Mr. Wells should accept so large a part of +the Christian ethic and yet refuse to identify his Invisible King with +Christ. One would have supposed it quite as easy to divest the +Christ-figure of any inconvenient attributes as to eliminate +omniscience and omnipotence from the God-idea. Mr. Wells constantly +allows his thoughts to run into the stereotype moulds of biblical +phraseology. We have seen how he talks of "the still small voice," of +"the light of the world," "taking the sting from death" and of God +coming "in his own time" and bringing "not rest but a sword." To those +instances may be added such phrases as "death will be swallowed up in +victory" (p. 39), "by the grace of the true God" (p. 44), "God is +Love" (p. 65), "the Son of Man" (p. 86), "I become my brother's +keeper" (p. 97), "he it is who can deliver us 'from the body of this +death'" (p. 99). But the clearest indication of Christian influence is +to be found in Mr. Wells's unhesitating and emphatic adoption of the +idea that "Salvation is indeed to lose oneself" (p. 73). "The +difference," he says, "between ... the unbeliever and the servant of +the true God is this ... that the latter has experienced a complete +turning away from self. This only difference is all the difference in +the world" (p. 84). It is curious what a fascination this turn of +phrase has exercised upon many and diverse intelligences. Mr. Bernard +Shaw, for instance, adopts it with enthusiasm. Henrik Ibsen--if it is +ever possible to tie a true dramatist down to a doctrine--preaches in +_Peer Gynt_ that "to be thyself is to slay thyself." Mr. Wells has a +cloud of witnesses to back him up; and yet it is very doubtful whether +the turn of phrase is a really helpful one--whether it does not rather +get in the way of the natural man in his quest for a sound rule of +life. + +It is a commonplace that the entirely self-centred man--the Robinson +Crusoe of a desert island of egoism--is unhappy. At least if he is not +he belongs to a low intellectual and moral type: the proof being that +all development above the level of the oyster and the slug has +involved more or less surrender of the immediate claims of "number +one" to some larger unity. Progress has always consisted, and still +consists, in the widening of the ideal concept which appeals to our +loyalty. Is it not Mr. Wells's endeavour in this very book to claim +our devotion for the all-embracing and ultimate ideal--the human race? +So far, we are all at one. But when we are told that "conversion" or +"salvation" consists in a "_complete_ turning away from self," common +sense revolts. It is not true either in every-day life or in larger +matters of conduct. In every-day life the incurably "unselfish" person +is an intolerable nuisance. Here the common-sense rule is very simple: +you have no right to seek your own "salvation," or, in non-theological +terms, your own self-approval, at the cost of other people's; you have +no business to offer sacrifices which the other party ought not to +accept. It is true that in the application of this simple rule +difficult problems may arise; but a little tact will generally go a +long way towards solving them. In these matters an ounce of tact is +worth a pound of casuistry. And in our every-day England, in all +classes, it is my profound conviction that a reasonable selflessness +is very far from uncommon, very far from being confined to the +"converted" of any religion. For forty years I have watched it growing +and spreading before my very eyes. Reading the other way _The +Roundabout Papers_, I was greatly struck by the antiquated cast of the +manners therein described. Of course Thackeray, in his day, was +reputed a cynic, and supposed to have an over-partiality for studying +the seamy side of things. But even if that had been true (which I do +not believe) it would not have accounted for all the difference +between the world he saw and that in which we move to-day. I suggest, +then, that so far as the minor moralities are concerned, no new +religion is required, and we have only to let things pursue their +natural trend. + +And what of the great selflessnesses? What of the ideal loyalties? +What of the long-accumulated instincts which tell a man, in tones +which brook no contradiction, that the shortest life and the cruellest +death are better than the longest life of sensual self-contempt? Here, +as it seems to me, Mr. Wells's apostolate of a new religion is very +conspicuously superfluous--much more so than it would have been five +years ago. For have not he and I been privileged to witness one of the +most beautiful sights that the world ever saw--the flocking of Young +England, in its hundreds upon hundreds of thousands, to endure the +extremity of hardship and face the high probability of a cruel death, +not for England alone, not even for England, France and Belgium, but +for what they obscurely but very potently felt to be the highest +interests of the very same ideal entity which Mr. Wells proposes to +our devotion--the human race? I am sure he would be the last to +minimize the significance of that splendid uprising. No doubt there +were other motives at work: in some, the mere love of change and +adventure; in others, the pressure of public opinion. But my own +observation assures me that, on the whole, these unideal motives +played a very small part. The young men simply felt that he who held +back was unfaithful to his fathers and unworthy of his sons; and they +"turned away from self" without a moment's hesitation, and streamed to +the colors with all the more eagerness the longer the casualty-lists +grew, and the more clearly the horrors they had to face were brought +home to them. Has there been any voluntary "slaying of self" on so +huge a scale since the world began? I have not heard of it. And Mr. +Wells will scarcely tell me that these young men went through the +experiences he describes as "conversion," and escaped from the burden +of "over-individuation" by throwing themselves into the arms of a +synthetic God! Many of them, no doubt, would have expressed their +idealism, had they expressed it at all, in terms of Christianity; but +that, we are told, is a delusion, and the only true God is the +Invisible King. If that be so, the conclusion would seem to be that, +in the present stage of the evolution of human character, no God at +all is needed to enable millions of men, in whom the blood runs high +and the joy of life is at its keenest, to achieve the conquest of self +in one of its noblest forms. Or (what comes to the same thing) any +sort of God will serve the purpose. Your God (divested of metaphysical +attributes) is simply a name for your own better instincts and +impulses. Many people, perhaps most, share Mr. Wells's tendency to +externalize, objectivate, personify these impulses; and there may be +no harm in doing so. But when it comes to asserting that your own +personification is the only true one, then--I am not so sure. + +Finally there arises the question whether the personification of the +Invisible King can really, in any comprehensible sense, and for any +considerable number of normal human beings, rob death of its sting, +the grave of its victory? On this point discussion cannot possibly be +conclusive, for the ultimate test is necessarily a personal one. If +any sane and sincere person tells me that a certain idea, or emotion, +or habit of mind, or even any rite or incantation, has deprived death +of its terrors for him, I can only congratulate him, even if I have to +confess that my own experience gives me no clue to his meaning. It is +not even very profitable to enquire whether a man can be confident of +his own attitude towards death unless he has either come very close to +its brink himself, or known what it means to witness the extinction of +a life on which his whole joy in the present and hope for the future +depended. All one can do is to try to ascertain as nearly as possible +what the contemner of death really means, and to consider whether his +individual experience or feeling is, or is likely to become, typical. + +One thing we must plainly realize, and that is that, for the purposes +of his present argument, Mr. Wells conceives death to be a real +extinction of the individual consciousness. He does not formally +commit himself to a denial of personal immortality, but it is a +contingency which he declines to take into account. Oddly enough, in +trying to acclimatize our minds to the idea of such an absolutely +incorporeal and immaterial, yet really existent, being as his +Invisible King, he comes near to clearing away the one great obstacle +to belief in survival after death. "From the earliest ages," he says, +"man's mind has found little or no difficulty in the idea of something +essential to the personality, a soul or a spirit or both, existing +apart from the body and continuing after the destruction of the body, +and being still a person and an individual" (p. 59). He does not +actually say that there _is_ no difficulty about this conception: he +only says that, as a matter of history, the great mass of men have +found it easy and natural to believe in ghosts. But it is hard to see +any force in his argument at this point unless he means to imply that +he himself finds "little or no difficulty" in conceiving the continued +existence of a spiritual consciousness and individuality after the +dissolution of the body to which it has been attached; and if he does +mean this, it is hard to see why he does not take his stand beside Sir +Oliver Lodge on the spiritist platform. To many of us, the extreme +difficulty of such a conception is the one great barrier to the +acceptance of the spiritist theory, for which remarkable evidence can +certainly be adduced. This, however, is a digression. So far as _God +the Invisible King_ is concerned, Mr. Wells must be taken as ignoring, +if not rejecting, the idea of personal immortality. + +The victory over death, then, which the Invisible King is said to +achieve, does not consist in its abolition. It may probably be best +defined as the perfect reconcilement of the believer to the extinction +of his individual consciousness. And what are the grounds of that +reconcilement? Let us search the scriptures. Where the steps are +described by which the catechumen approaches the full realization of +God, it is said that at that stage he feels that "if there were such a +being he would supply the needed consolation and direction, his +continuing purpose would knit together the scattered effort of life, +_his immortality would take the sting from death_" (p. 21-22). A +little further on, the idea is elaborated in a high strain of +mysticism. God, who "captains us but does not coddle us" (p. 42), will +by no means undertake to hold the believer scatheless among the +pitfalls and perils that beset our earthly pilgrimage. "But God will +be with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane, or the dark +ice-cave, God will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, +it is not an end. He will be with you as you face death; he will die +with you as he has died already countless myriads of brave deaths. He +will come so close to you that at the last you will not know whether +it is you or he who dies, and the present death will be swallowed up +in his victory" (p. 39). The passage has already been quoted in which +it is written that, at the end of the fight for God's Kingdom, "we are +altogether taken up into his being" (p. 68). In a discussion of "the +religion of atheists" we are told that unregenerate man is "acutely +aware of himself as an individual and unawakened to himself as a +species," wherefore he "finds death frustration." His mistake is in +not seeing that his own frustration "may be the success and triumph of +his kind" (p. 72). At the point where we are told that "the first +purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge," we are further +informed that "he will apprehend more fully as time goes on" the +purpose to which this knowledge is to be applied. But already it is +possible to define "the broad outlines" of his purpose. "It is the +conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the individual _by +the incorporation of the motives of his life into an undying purpose_" +(p. 99), and then, as we saw before, the defeat of the threatened +extinction of life through the cooling of the planet. These, I think, +are the chief texts bearing directly on this particular matter; but +there is one other remark which must not be overlooked. "A convicted +criminal, frankly penitent," we are told, "... may still die well and +bravely on the gallows, to the glory of God. He may step straight from +that death into the immortal being of God." + +To what, now, does all this amount? Is there any more substantial +solace in it than in the "Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible" +aspiration of mid-nineteenth-century positivism? Far be it from me to +speak contemptuously of that aspiration. It gives a new orientation +and consistency to thought and effort during life; and to the man who +feels that his little note will melt into the world-harmony that is to +be, that thought may impart a certain serenity under the shadow of the +end. It is certainly better to feel at night, "I have done a fair +day's work," than to lie down with the confession, "My day has been +wasted, and worse." No one wants, I suppose, to say with Peer Gynt:-- + + Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me, + That I trampled thy grasses to no avail; + Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away + Thy glory of light in an empty hut. + Beautiful sun and beautiful earth, + You were foolish to bear and give light to my mother. + +But there is also another side to the question. The more surely you +believe that "through the ages one increasing purpose runs"--the more +intimately you have merged your individual will in what Mr. Wells +would call the will of the Invisible King--the less do you relish the +thought that you can never see that will worked out. The intenser your +interest in the play, the greater your disinclination to leave the +theatre just as the plot is thickening. Nor does it afford much +consolation to know that the Producer is just (as it were) getting +into his stride, and that, if the house should become too cold for +comfort, arrangements will be made for the transference of the +production to another theatre, with a better heating-apparatus. + +Is there any real escape from the fact that for each of us the one +thing that actually exists is our individual consciousness? It is our +universe; and if its trembling flame is blown out, that particular +universe is no more. If its limits of "individuation" are +irrecoverably lost, what avails it to tell us that the flame is +absorbed into the light of the world or the dayspring on high? Is it +possible to imagine that the rain-drop which falls in the Atlantic +thrills with a great rapture as its molecules disperse in the moment +of coalescence, because it is now part of an infinite and immortal +entity? Yes, it is possible to imagine it rejoicing that its "chagrins +of egotism," as an individual drop, are now over; in fact, this is +precisely the sort of thing that some poets love to imagine; but has +it any real relevance to our sublunary lot? Can it minister any +substantial comfort or fortification to the normal man in the moment +of peril or agony? I ask; I do not answer. Can Mr. Wells put in the +witness-box any flight-lieutenant who will swear that in his reeling +aeroplane, as death seemed on the point of engulfing him, he felt +uncertain whether it was God or he that was about to die, and +gloriously certain that in any case he was about to "step straight +into the immortal being of God"? And even if, in the excitement of +violent action, such hallucinations do mean something to a peculiar +type of mind, has any one dying of pneumonia or Bright's disease been +known to declare that, though his mortal spark was on the point of +extinction, he felt that "by the incorporation of the motives of his +life into an undying purpose" he had triumphed over death and the +grave? The simple soul who says "We shall meet in Heaven" no doubt +enjoys such a triumph--and even if he fails to keep the appointment, +no one is any the worse. But where are the men and women who feel the +immortality of God, however we define or construct him, a rich +compensation for their own mortality? + +It may be said that I am applying shockingly terrestrial tests to Mr. +Wells's soaring transcendentalisms. I am simply asking: "Will they +work?" A world-religion cannot be what I have called a luxury for the +intellectually wealthy. It must be within the reach of plain men and +women; and plain men and women cannot, as the French say, "pay +themselves with words." Take them all round, they do not make too much +of death. With or without the aid of religion, they generally meet it +with tolerable fortitude. But it will be hard to persuade them that +annihilation is a thing to be faced with rapture, because a synthetic +God is indestructible; or that death is not death because other people +will be alive a hundred or a thousand years hence. Even if you cannot +offer them another life, you may tell them of the grave as a place +where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest, and +they will understand. But will they understand if you tell them that +we triumph over the grave because God dies with us and yet never dies? +I fear it will need something clearer and more credible than this to +make the undertaker a popular functionary. + +The doctrines of "the modern religion" may give us a new motive for +living; but how can they at the same time diminish our distaste for +dying? That might be their effect, no doubt, in cases where we felt +that our death was promoting some great and sacred cause more than our +life could have done; but such cases must always be extremely rare. +Even the soldier on the battlefield will help his country more by +living than by dying, if he can do so without failing in his duty. His +death is not a triumph, but only a lesser evil than cowardice and +disgrace. And what shall we say, for example, of the case of a young +biologist who dies of blood-poisoning on the eve of a great and +beneficent discovery? Is not this a case in which the modern God might +with advantage have swerved from his principles and (for once) played +the part of Providence? It is better, no doubt, to die in a good cause +than to throw away life in the pursuit of folly or vice; but is it +not playing with words to say that even the end of a martyr to science +like Captain Scott, or a martyr to humanity like Edith Cavell, is a +triumph over death and the grave? It is a triumph over cowardice, +baseness, the love of ease and safety, all the paltrier aspects of our +nature; but a triumph over death it is not. If it be true (which I do +not believe) that German soldiers sign a declaration devoting the +glycerine in their dead bodies to their country's service, one may +imagine that some of them feel a species of satisfaction in resolving +upon this final proof of patriotism; but it will be a gloomy +satisfaction at best; there will be a lack of exhilaration about it; +if the Herr Hauptmann who witnesses their signatures congratulates +them on having triumphed over death, they will be apt to think it a +rather empty form of words. If they had had the advantage of reading +Jane Austen, they would probably say with Mr. Bennet, "Let us take a +more cheerful view of the subject, and suppose that I survive." + +I fear that not even the companionship offered by the modern God in +the act of dissolution will make death a cheerful experience, or +induce ordinary, unaffected mortals to glory in their mortality. It +is too much the habit of Gods to pretend to die when they don't really +die at all--when, in fact, the whole idea is a mere intellectual +hocus-pocus. + + + + +VII + +BACK TO THE VEILED BEING + + +Why has Mr. Wells partly goaded and partly hypnotized himself into the +belief that he is the predestined prolocutor of a new hocus-pocus? +Rightly or wrongly, I diagnose his case thus: What he really cares for +is the future of humanity, or, in more concrete language, social +betterment. He suffers more than most of us from the spectacle of the +world of to-day, because he has the constructive imagination which can +place alongside of that chaos of cupidities and stupidities a vision +of a rational world-order which seems easily attainable if only some +malignant spell could be lifted from the spirit of man. But he finds +himself impotent in face of the crass inertia of things-as-they-are. +Except the gift of oratory, he has all possible advantages for the +part of a social regenerator. He has the pen of a ready and sometimes +very impressive writer; he has a fair training in science; he has a +fertile and inventive brain; his works of fiction have won for him a +great public, both in Europe and America; yet he feels that his social +philosophy, his ardent and enlightened meliorism, makes no more +impression than the buzzing of a gnat in the ear of a drowsy mastodon. +At the same time he has persuaded himself, whether on internal or on +external evidence--partly, I daresay, on both--that men cannot thrive, +either as individuals or as world-citizens, without some relation of +reverence and affection to something outside and above themselves. He +foresees that Christianity will come bankrupt out of the War, and yet +that the huge, shattering experience will throw the minds of men open +to spiritual influences. At the same time (of this one could point to +several incidental evidences) he has come a good deal in contact with +Indian religiosity, and learnt to know a type of mind to which God, in +one form or another, is indeed an essential of life, while the +particular form is a matter of comparative indifference. Then the idea +strikes him: "Have we not here a great opportunity for placing the +motive-power of spiritual fervor behind, or within, the sluggish +framework of social idealism? Here it lies, well thought-out, +carefully constructed, but inert, like an aeroplane without an +engine. By giving the glow of supernaturalism, of the worship of a +personal God, to the good old Religion of Humanity, may we not impart +to our schemes for a well-ordered world precisely the uplift they at +present lack? It was all very well for chilly New England +transcendentalism to 'hitch its waggon to a star,' but the result is +that Boston is governed by a Roman Catholic Archbishop. It is really +much easier and more effective to hitch our waggon to God, who, being +a synthesis of our own higher selves, will naturally pull it in +whatever direction we want. Thus the mass of mankind will escape from +that spiritual loneliness which is so discomfortable to them, and will +find, in one and the same personification, a deity to listen to their +prayers, and a 'boss,' in the Tammany sense of the term, to herd them +to the polling-booths. What we want is collectivism touched with +emotion. By proclaiming it to be the will of God, and identifying +sound politics with ecstatic piety, we may shorten by several +centuries the path to a new world-order." + +This is a translation into plain English of the thoughts which would +seem to have possessed Mr. Wells's mind during the past year or so. I +do not for a moment mean that he put them to himself in plain +English. That would be to accuse him of insincerity--a thought which I +most sincerely disclaim. I have not the least doubt that the Invisible +King does actually supply a "felt want" in his spiritual outfit, and +that he is perfectly convinced that most other people are similarly +constituted and will welcome this new object of loyalty and devotion. +Time will show whether his psychology is correct. If it is, then he +has indeed made an important discovery. To use a very homely +illustration: a carrot dangled from the end of a stick before a +donkey's nose makes no mechanical difference in the problem of +traction presented by the costermonger's barrow. If anything, it adds +to the weight to be drawn. But if the sight of it cheers, heartens, +and inspires the donkey, helping him to overcome those fits of +lethargy so characteristic of his race, then the carrot may quite +appreciably accelerate the general rate of progress. It all depends on +the psychology of the donkey. + +Moses doubtless did very wisely in going up into Mount Sinai and +abiding there forty days and forty nights. Whatever he may have seen +and heard, the semblance of communion with a Higher Power +unquestionably lent a prestige to his scheme of social reform which +it could never have attained had he offered it on its inherent merits, +as the project of a mere human legislator, or (still worse) of a man +of letters. Moses, in fact, knew his Children of Israel. Does Mr. +Wells know his modern Englishmen or Anglo-Americans? + +That is the question. + +Mr. Bernard Shaw has made a similar and very ingenious attempt, not +exactly to found a new religion, but to place his ideas in a religious +atmosphere. In the preface to _Androcles and the Lion_ (a disquisition +just about as long as _God the Invisible King_) he propounds the +question, "Why not give Christianity a trial?" and opens the +discussion thus: "The question seems a hopeless one after 2,000 years +of resolute adherence to the old cry of 'Not this man, but Barabbas.' +Yet it is beginning to look as if Barabbas was a failure, in spite of +his strong right hand, his victories, his empires, his millions of +money, and his moralities and churches and political constitutions. +'This man' has not been a failure yet; for nobody has ever been sane +enough to try his way." Then he goes on to shew, by a course of very +plausible reasoning, that the teaching of Jesus was, in all +essentials, an exact anticipation of the economic and social +philosophy of G. B. S.; so that, in giving political expression to +that philosophy, we should be, for the first time, establishing the +Kingdom of Christ upon earth. It is true that there are passages in +the Gospels which no more accord with Mr. Shaw's sociology than do +omnipotence and omniscience with the theology of Mr. Wells. But these +passages do not embarrass Mr. Shaw. He simply points out that, at +Matthew xvi, 16, where Peter hailed him as "the Christ, the Son of the +living God," Jesus went mad. Up to that fatal moment "his history is +that of a man sane and interesting apart from his special gifts as +orator, healer and prophet"; but from that point onward he set to work +to live up to "his destiny as a god," part of which was to be killed +and to rise again. Many other prophets have gone mad--for instance, +Ruskin and Nietzsche. Therefore we can have no difficulty in simply +eliminating as a morbid aberration whatever is un-Shavian in the +message of Jesus, and accepting the rest as the sincere milk of the +word. Mr. Shaw's attempt to place his philosophy under divine +patronage is not so serious as Mr. Wells's; for Mr. Shaw can never +take himself quite seriously for five pages together. But the motive, +in each case, in manifestly the same--to obtain for a system of ideas +the prestige, the power of insinuation, penetration, and stimulation, +that attaches to the very name of religion. + +The notion is a very tempting one. What every prophet wants, in the +babel of latter-day thought, is a magic sounding-board which shall +make his voice carry to the ends of the earth and penetrate to the +dullest understanding. The more he believes in his own reason, the +more he yearns for some method of out-shouting the unreason of his +neighbours. German philosophy thought it had discovered the ideal +reverberator in the artillery of Herr Krupp von Bohlen; but the world +is curiously indisposed to conversion by cannon, and has retorted in a +still louder roar of high-explosive arguments. God, as a +politico-philosophical ally, is certainly cheaper than Herr Krupp; +and, divested of his mediaeval sword and tinder-box, he is decidedly +humaner. But is the glamour of his name quite what it once was? Or can +it be restored to its pristine potency? + +On a question, such as this, on which the evidence is too vague, too +voluminous and too complex to be interpreted with any certainty, our +wishes are apt to take control of our thoughts. Making all allowance +for this source of error, I nevertheless venture to suggest to Mr. +Wells that we may perhaps be passing out of, not into, an age of +religiosity. May it not be that the time has come to give the name of +God a rest? Is it not possible, and even probable, that, while the +vast apocalypse of the observatory and the laboratory is proceeding +with unexampled speed, thinking people may prefer to await its +developments, rather than pin their faith to an interim, synthetic +God, whom his own still, small voice must, in moments of candor, +confess to be merely make-believe? Is it the fact that men, or even +women, of our race are, as a rule, absolutely dependent for courage, +energy, self-control and self-devotion, upon some "great brother" +outside themselves, "a strongly-marked personality, loving, inspiring +and lovable," whom they conceive to be always within call? In making +this assumption, is not Mr. Wells ignoring the great mass of paganism +in the world around him--not all of it, or even most of it, +self-conscious and self-confessed, but none the less real on that +account? He makes a curious remark as to the personage whom he calls +"the benevolent atheist," which is, I take it, his nickname for the +man who is not much interested in midway Gods between himself and the +Veiled Being. This hapless fellow-creature, says Mr. Wells, "has not +really given himself or got away from himself. He has no one to whom +he can give himself. _He is still a masterless man_" (p. 83). As Mr. +Wells has evidently read a good deal about Japan, he no doubt takes +this expression from Japanese feudalism, which made a distinct class +of the "ronin" or masterless man, who had, by death or otherwise, lost +his feudal superior. But is it really, to our Western sense, a +misfortune to be a masterless man? Does the healthy human spirit +suffer from having no one to bow down to, no one to relieve it of the +burden of choice, responsibility, self-control? If our feudal +allegiance has terminated through the death of the Gods who asserted a +hereditary claim upon it, must we make haste to build ourselves an +idol, or synthetize a mosaic ikon, to serve as the recipient of our +obeisances, genuflexions, osculations? I cannot believe that this is a +general, and much less a universal, tendency. If any one is irked by +the condition of a "masterless man," the Roman Catholic Church holds +wide its doors for him. It seems very doubtful whether any less +ancient, dogmatic, hieratic, spectacular form of make-believe will +serve his turn. + +It has sometimes seemed to me that the one great advantage of Western +Christianity lies in the fact that nobody very seriously believes in +it. "Nobody" is not a mathematically accurate expression, but it is +quite in the line of the truth. You have to go to Asia to find out +what religion means. If you cannot get so far, Russia will serve as a +half-way house; but to study religion on its native heath, so to +speak, you must go to India. Of course there may be some illusion in +the matter, due to one's ignorance of the languages and inability to +estimate the exact spiritual significance of outward manifestations; +but I cannot believe that, anywhere between Suez and Singapore, there +exists that healthy godlessness, that lack of any real effective +dependence on any outward Power "dal tetto in su," which is so common +in and around all Christian churches. In China and Japan it is another +matter. There, I fancy, religious "ronins" are common enough. But in +the lands of the Crescent and the land of "OM," anything like freedom +of the human spirit is probably very rare and very difficult. The +difference does not arise from any lesser stringency in the claims of +Christianity to spiritual dominion, but rather, I imagine, from a +deep-seated divergence in racial heredity. We Western Aryans have +behind us the serene and splendid rationalisms of Greece and Rome. We +are accustomed from childhood to the knowledge that our civilization +was founded by two mighty aristocracies of intellect, to whom the +religions of their day were, as they are to us, nothing but more or +less graceful fairy-tales.[4] We know that many of the greatest men +the world ever saw, while phrasing their relation to the "deus +absconditus" in various ways, were utterly free from that penitential, +supplicatory abjectness which is the mark of Asian salvationism. And +though of course the conscious filiation to Greece and Rome is rare, +the habit of mind which holds up its head in the world and feels no +childish craving to cling to the skirts of a God, is not rare at all. +Therefore I conceive that people who are shaken out of their +conventional, unrealized Christianity by the earthquake of the war +will not, as a rule, be in any hurry to rush into the arms of the +"great brother" constructed for them by Mr. Wells. It is easier to +picture them flocking to the banner of the Fabian Jesus--the Christ +uncrucified, and restored to sanity, of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + + [4] Namque deos didici securum agere aevum, + nec, siquid miri faciat natura, deos id + tristes ex alto caeli demittere tecto. + HORACE, _Satires_ I., 5. + + * * * * * + +Does it really seem to Mr. Wells an arid and damnable "atheism" that +finds in the very mystery of existence a subject of contemplation so +inexhaustibly marvellous as to give life the fascination of a +detective story? When Mr. Wells tells us that "the first purpose of +God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a means to +more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power," he states what +is, to many of us, the first and last article of religion--only that +we prefer to steer clear of hocus-pocus and substitute "Man" for +"God." If we are almost, or even quite, reconciled to the cruelties +and humiliations of life by the thought of its visual glories, its +intellectual triumphs, and the mysteries with which it is surrounded, +is that frame of mind wholly unworthy to be called religious? If it +is, I, for one, shall not complain; for religion, like God, is a word +that has been-- + + Defamed by every charlatan + And soil'd with all ignoble use. + +But it will be difficult to persuade me of the loftier spirituality, +or even the more abiding solace, involved in ecstatic devotion to a +figure of speech. + +There are two elements of consolation in life: the things of which we +are sure, and the things of which we are unsure. We are sure that man +has somehow been launched upon the most romantic adventure that mind +can conceive. He has set forth to conquer and subdue the world, +including the stupidities and basenesses of his own nature. At first +his progress was incalculably slow; then he came on with a rush in the +great sub-tropical river basins; and presently, where the brine of the +AEgean got into his blood, he achieved such miracles of thought and art +that his subsequent history, for well-nigh two thousand years, bore +the appearance of retrogression. I have already asked what the +Invisible King was about when he suffered the glory that was Athens to +sink in the fog-bank that was Alexandria. At all events, that +wonderful false-start came to nothing. Rome succeeded to the +world-leadership; and Rome, though energetic and capable, was never +brilliant. With her, European free thought, investigation, science +flickered out, and Asian religion took its place. Truly the slip-back +from antiquity to the dark ages offers a specious argument to the +atheists--the true and irredeemable atheists--who deny the reality of +progress. Specious, but quite insubstantial; for we can analyze the +terrestrial conditions which led to that catastrophe, and assure +ourselves that the bugbear of their recurrence is nothing more than a +bugbear. The printing-press alone is an inestimable safeguard. If the +Greeks had hit upon the idea of movable types--and it is little to the +credit of the Invisible King that they did not--the onrush of +barbarism and Byzantinism would not have been half so disastrous. And +even through the Dark Ages the bias towards betterment is still +perceptible, though its operation was terribly hampered. Then, at +last, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took up the thread of +progress where antiquity had dropped it. Science revived, and bade +defiance to dogma. The garnering of knowledge began afresh; and true +knowledge has this to distinguish it from pseudo-sciences like +astrology, theology, and philately, that it is instinct with +procreative vigour. Knowledge breeds knowledge with ever-increasing +rapidity; and the result is that the past hundred years have seen +additions to man's control over the powers of nature which outstrip +the wildest imaginings of Eastern romance. When Mr. Gladstone first +went to Rome in 1832, his "transportation" was no swifter and scarcely +more comfortable than that of Caesar in the fifties before Christ. +Today he could fly over the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa, and then cover +the distance from Milan onwards at the rate of seventy miles an hour +in a limousine as luxurious as an Empress's boudoir. We are piling up +the knowledge which is power at an enormous rate--indeed rather too +rapidly, since we have not yet the sense to discriminate between power +for good and power for evil. But "burnt bairns dread the fire," and +after the present awful experience, there is fair ground for hope that +measures will be taken to provide strait-waistcoats for the criminal +lunatics whose vanity and greed impel them to let loose the powers of +destruction. + +Can any thinking man say that the world is quite the same to him since +the invention of wireless telegraphy? True it is only one among the +multitude of phenomena behind which the Veiled Being dissembles +himself. But is it not a phenomenon of a new and perhaps an +epoch-marking order? It may not make the veil more diaphanous, but it +somehow suggests an alteration--perhaps a progressive alteration--in +its texture. + +When we say we are sure of the fact of progress, the atheist comes +down on us with the retort that we thereby confess ourselves naive and +credulous optimists. As well say that when we express our confidence +that the North Western Railway will carry us to Manchester, we thereby +imply the belief that Manchester is the Earthly Paradise. It is quite +possible--any one who is so minded may say it is quite probable--that +progress means advance towards disillusion. What we are sure of is +merely this: that life may be, and ought to be, a very different thing +from what it now is, and that it is in our own power to make it so. We +have not the least doubt that the generations which come after us will +say:-- + + We will not cease from mortal strife, + Nor shall the sword slip from our hand, + Till we have built Jerusalem + In England's green and pleasant land. + +But whether, when they have built it, they will think Jerusalem worth +the building is quite a different matter. It may be that Leopardi was +right when he said, "Men are miserable by necessity, but resolute in +believing themselves to be miserable by accident." That is a +proposition which the individual can accept or reject so far as his +own little span is concerned, but on which the race, as such, can pass +no valid judgment. Life has never had a fair chance. It has always +been so beset with accidental and corrigible evils that no man can say +what life, in its ultimate essence, really is. All we know is that +many of its miseries are factitious, inessential, eminently curable; +and till these are eradicated, how are we to determine whether there +are other evils too deep-rooted for our surgery? It may be, for +example, that the elimination of Pain would only leave a vacuum for +Tedium to rush in; but how are we to decide this _a priori_? Let us +learn what are the true potentialities of life before we undertake to +declare whether it is worth living or not. + +Perhaps I may be allowed to quote at this point some words of my own +which express the idea I am trying to convey as clearly as I am +capable of putting it. They are part of the last paragraph of an +address entitled _Knowledge and Character: The Straight Road in +Education_:[5] + + The great, dominant, all-controlling fact of this life is the + innate bias of the human spirit, not towards evil, as the + theologians tell us, but towards good. But for this bias, man + would never have been man; he would only have been one more + species of wild animal ranging a savage, uncultivated globe, + the reeking battle-ground of sheer instinct and appetite. But + somehow and somewhere there germinated in his mind the idea + that association, co-operation, would serve his ends better + than unbridled egoism in the struggle for existence. Instead + of "each man for himself" his motto became "each man for his + family, or his tribe, or his nation, or--ultimately--for + humankind." And, at a very early stage, what made for + association, co-operation, brotherhood, came to be designated + "good," while that which sinned against these upward + tendencies was stigmatized as "evil." From that moment the + battle was won, and the transfiguration of human life became + only a matter of time. The prejudice in favour of the idea of + good is the fundamental fact of our moral nature. It has an + irresistible, a magical prestige. We have made, and are still + making, a myriad mistakes--tragic and horrible mistakes--in + striving for good things which are evils in disguise. A few + of us (though relatively not very many) try to overcome the + prejudice altogether, and say, "Evil, be thou my good!" But + even these recreants and deserters from the great army of + humanity have to express themselves in terms of good, and to + take their stand on a sheer contradiction. Evil, as such, has + simply not a fighting chance. The prestige of good is + stupendous. We are all hypnotized by it; and the reason we + are slow in realizing the ideal is, not that we are evil, but + that we are stupid. + + [5] London: George Allen and Unwin, 1916. + +"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens"--no one had a +better right to say that than a German poet. But though the Invisible +King has made a poor fight against human stupidity, it is not really +unconquerable. If Gods cannot conquer it, men can. Its strongholds +are falling one by one, and, though a long fight is before us, its end +is not in doubt. + +We may even hope, not without some plausibility, that moral progress +may be all the more rapid in the future because the limit of what +may be called mechanical progress cannot be so very far off. The +conquest of distance is the great material fact that makes for +world-organization; and distance cannot, after all, be more than +annihilated--it cannot be reduced to a minus quantity. Now that we can +whisper round the globe as we whisper round the dome of St. Paul's, we +cannot get much further on that line of advance, until immaterial +thought-transference shall enable us "to flash through one another in +a moment as we will." We may before long have reduced the crossing of +the Atlantic from five days to one, or even less; but in that +direction, too, there is a limit to progress; no invention will enable +us to arrive before we start. The conquest of physical disease seems +to be well within view; the possibilities of intensive cultivation and +selective breeding in plants and animals are likely to be rapidly +developed. When such material problems cease to exercise the first +fascination upon the enquiring mind, the mental sciences, psychology +and sociology, with the great neglected art of education, may come +into their kingdom. Then the atheism which avers that the world stands +still, or moves only in a circle, will no longer be possible. Then all +reasonable men will feel themselves soldiers in "a mighty army which +has won splendid victories (though here and there chequered with +defeats) on its march out of the dim and tragic past, and is clearly +destined to far greater triumphs in the future, if only each man does, +with unflinching loyalty, the duty assigned to him." That loyalty will +then be the conscious and acknowledged rule of life, as it is now in +an instinctive and half-realized fashion. It will help us, more than +all the personifications in the world, to "turn away from self." It +will not take the sting from death, but it will enable us to feel that +we have earned our rest, and brought no disgrace upon the colors of +our regiment. + +Is it necessary to protest once more that this assurance of progress +towards the good is not to be confounded with optimism? For it is +clear that "good" is a question-begging word. The only possible +definition of "good" is "that which makes for life"--for life, not +only measured by quantity, but by quality and intensity--"that ye may +have life more abundantly." Why is egoism evil? Because a world in +which it reigned supreme would very soon come to an end, or at any +rate could not support anything like the abundance of life which is +rendered possible by mutual aid and co-operation. Why are order, +justice, courage, humanity good? Because they enable more people to +lead fuller lives than would be possible in the absence of such +guiding principles. But in all this we assume the validity of the +standard--"life"--which is precisely what pessimism denies. And +pessimism may quite conceivably be in the right on't. It is quite +conceivable that, having made the best that can possibly be made of +life, a world-weary race might decide that the best was not good +enough, and deliberately turn away from it. But that is a contingency, +a speculation, which no sane man would allow to affect his action here +and now, or to impair his loyalty to his comrades in the great +terrestrial adventure. + +And is not this question of the ultimate value of life precisely one +of the uncertainties which lend--if the flippancy may be excused--a +"sporting interest" to our position? I have said that we have two +elements of consolation: the things which are sure and the things +which are unsure: in other words, the axioms and the mysteries. +Reason is all very well so far as it goes, and we do right to trust to +it; but it may prove, after all, that the things that are behind and +beyond and above reason are the things that really matter. Does this +seem a concession to obscurantism? Not at all--for the things +obscurantism glories in are things beneath reason, which is quite +another affair. At the same time, we are too apt to think that reason +has drawn a complete outline-map of its "sphere of influence," in +which there are many details to be filled in, but no boundaries to be +shifted, no regions wholly unexplored. It is, for instance, very +unreasonable to hold that we can draw a hard and fast line between the +materially possible and impossible. There is certainly a curious +ragged edge to our purely scientific knowledge, and it may well be +that in following up the frayed-out threads we may come upon things +very surprising and important. For example, the question whether +consciousness can exist detached from organized matter, or attached to +some form of matter of which we have no knowledge, I regard as purely +a question of evidence; and I not only admit but assert that the +evidence pointing in that direction is worthy of careful examination. +The interpretation which sees in it a proof of personal immortality +may be wrong, but that does not prove that the right interpretation is +not worth discovering. The spiritist voyagers may not have reached the +Indies of their hopes, yet may have stumbled upon an unsuspected +America. Nor does the fact that they are eager and credulous +invalidate the whole, or anything like the whole, of their evidence. + +After all, is it a greater miracle that consciousness should exist +_de_tached from matter than that it should exist _at_tached to matter? +Yet the latter miracle nobody doubts, except in the nursery games of +the metaphysicians. + +To define, or rather to adumbrate, the realm of mystery, which is yet +as indisputably real as the realm of reason and sense, we naturally +turn to the poets, the seers. Here is a glimpse of it through the eyes +of Francis Thompson, that creature of transcendent vision who made a +strange pretence of wearing the blinkers of the Roman Catholic Church. +Thus he writes in his "Anthem of Earth":-- + + Ay, Mother! Mother! + What is this Man, thy darling kissed and cuffed, + Thou lustingly engender'st, + To sweat, and make his brag, and rot, + Crowned with all honour and all shamefulness? + From nightly towers + He dogs the secret footsteps of the heavens, + Sifts in his hands the stars, weighs them as gold-dust, + And yet is he successive unto nothing + But patrimony of a little mould, + And entail of four planks. Thou hast made his mouth + Avid of all dominion and all mightiness, + All sorrow, all delight, all topless grandeurs, + All beauty and all starry majesties, + And dim transtellar things;--even that it may, + Filled in the ending with a puff of dust, + Confess--"It is enough." The world left empty + What that poor mouthful crams. His heart is builded + For pride, for potency, infinity, + All heights, all deeps, and all immensities, + Arras'd with purple like the house of kings,-- + To stall the grey rat, and the carrion-worm + Statelily lodge. Mother of mysteries! + Sayer of dark sayings in a thousand tongues, + Who bringest forth no saying yet so dark + As we ourselves, thy darkest! + +Surely this is the very truth. Man is a hieroglyph to which reason +supplies no key--nay, reason itself is the heart of the enigma. And +does not this lend a strange fascination to the adventure of life? + +Another singer, in a very much simpler strain, puts something of the +same idea:-- + + Marooned on an isle of mystery, + From a stupor of sleep we woke, + And gazed at each other wistfully, + A wondering, wildered folk. + + There were flowery valleys and mountains blue, + And pastures, and herds galore, + And fruits that were luscious to bite into, + Though bitter at the core. + + So we plucked up heart, and we dree'd our weird + Through flickering gleam and gloom, + And still for rescue we hoped--or feared-- + From our island home and tomb. + + But never over the sailless sea + Came messenger bark or schooner + With news from the far-off realm whence we + Set sail for that isle of mystery, + Or a whisper of apology + From our mute, malign marooner. + +The strain of pessimism in this is even more marked than in Thompson's +"Anthem"; and indeed it is hard to deny that the resolute silence of +the "Veiled Being," the "Invisible King," and all the Gods and +godlings ever propounded to mortal piety, is one of their most +suspicious characteristics. Yet it may be that this reproach, however +natural, does the Veiled Being--or the Younger Power of our +alternative myth--a measure of injustice. It may be that the great +Dramaturge keeps his plot to himself precisely in order that the +interest may be maintained up to the fall of the curtain. It may be +that its disclosure would upset the conditions of some vast experiment +which he is working out. Where would be the interest of a race if its +result were a foregone conclusion? Where the passion of a battle if +its issue were foreknown? What if we should prove to be somnambulists +treading some dizzy edge between two abysses, and able to reach the +goal only on condition that we are unconscious of the process? Perhaps +the sanest view of the problem is that presented in Bliss Carman's +haunting poem + + THE JUGGLER + + Look how he throws them up and up, + The beautiful golden balls! + They hang aloft in the purple air, + And there never is one that falls. + + He sends them hot from his steady hand, + He teaches them all their curves; + And whether the reach be little or long, + There never is one that swerves. + + Some, like the tiny red one there, + He never lets go far; + And some he has sent to the roof of the tent + To swim without a jar. + + So white and still they seem to hang, + You wonder if he forgot + To reckon the time of their return + And measure their golden lot. + + Can it be that, hurried or tired out, + The hand of the juggler shook? + O never you fear, his eye is clear, + He knows them all like a book. + + And they will home to his hand at last, + For he pulls them by a cord + Finer than silk and strong as fate, + That is just the bid of his word. + + Was ever there such a sight in the world? + Like a wonderful winding skein,-- + The way he tangles them up together + And ravels them out again! + + * * * * * + + If I could have him at the inn + All by myself some night,-- + Inquire his country, and where in the world + He came by that cunning sleight! + + Where do you guess he learned the trick + To hold us gaping here, + Till our minds in the spell of his maze almost + Have forgotten the time of year? + + One never could have the least idea. + Yet why he disposed to twit + A fellow who does such wonderful things + With the merest lack of wit? + + Likely enough, when the show is done + And the balls all back in his hand, + He'll tell us why he is smiling so, + And we shall understand. + +I am not, perhaps, very firmly assured of this consummation. Yet I am +much more hopeful of one day understanding the Juggler and the Balls +than of ever getting into confidential relations with Mr. Wells's +Invisible King. + + * * * * * + +One is conscious of a sort of churlishness in thus rejecting the +advances of so amiable a character as the Invisible King. But is Mr. +Wells, on his side, quite courteous, or even quite fair, to the Veiled +Being? "Riddle me no riddles!" he seems to say; "I am tired of your +guessing games. Let us have done with 'distressful enquiry into +ultimate origins,' and 'bring our minds to the conception of a +spontaneous and developing God'--one of whose existence and +benevolence we are sure, since we made him ourselves. I want something +to worship, to take me out of myself, to inspire me with brave phrases +about death. How can one worship an insoluble problem? Will an enigma +die with me in a reeling aeroplane? While you lurk obstinately behind +that veil, how can I even know that your political views are sound? +Whereas the Invisible King gives forth oracles of the highest +political wisdom, in a voice which I can scarcely distinguish from my +own. You are a remote, tantalizing entity with nothing comforting or +stimulating about you. But as for my Invisible King, 'Closer is he +than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.'" + +A little way back, I compared Mr. Wells to Moses; but, looked at from +another point of view, he and his co-religionists may rather be +likened to the Children of Israel. Tired of waiting for news from the +God on the cloudy mountain-top, did they not make themselves a +synthetic deity, finite, friendly, and very like the Invisible King, +inasmuch as he seems to have worked no miracles, and done, in fact, +nothing whatever? But the God on the mountain-top was wroth, and +accused them of idolatry, surely not without reason. For what is +idolatry if it be not manufacturing a God, whether out of golden +earrings or out of humanitarian sentiments, and then bowing down and +worshipping it? + +The wrath of the tribal God against his bovine rival was certainly +excessive--yet we cannot regard idolatry as one of the loftier +manifestations of the religious spirit. The man who can bow down and +worship the work of his hands shows a morbid craving for +self-abasement. It is possible, no doubt, to plead that the graven +image is a mere symbol of incorporeal, supersensible deity; and the +plea is a good one, if, and in so far as, we can believe that the +distinction between the sign and the thing signified is clear to the +mind of the devotee. The difficulty lies in believing that the type of +mind which is capable of focussing its devotion upon a statuette is +also capable of distinguishing between the idea of a symbol and the +idea of a portrait. But when we pass from the work of a man's hands to +the work of his brain--from an actual piece of sculpture to a mental +construction--the plea of symbolism can no longer be advanced. This +graven image of the mind, so to speak, is the veritable God, or it is +nothing; and Mr. Wells, as we have seen, is profuse in his assurances +that it is the veritable God. That is what makes his whole attitude +and argument so baffling. One can understand an idolater who says "I +believe that my God inhabits yonder image," or "Yonder image is only a +convenient point of concentration for the reverence, gratitude, and +love which pass through it to the august and transcendent Spirit whom +it symbolizes." But how are we to understand the idolater who adores, +and claims actual divinity for, an emanation from his own brain and +the brains of a certain number of like-minded persons? Is it not as +though a ventriloquist were to prostrate himself before his own +puppet? + +This craving for something to worship points to an almost uncanny +recrudescence of the spirit of Asia in a fine European intelligence. +For my own part, as above stated, I cannot believe Mr. Wells's case to +be typical; but in that I may be mistaken. It is possible that an +epidemic of Asiatic religiosity may be one of the sequels of the War. +If that be so--if there are many people who shrink from the condition +of the spiritual "ronin," and are in search of a respectable "daimio" +to whom to pay their devotion--I beg leave strongly to urge the claims +of the Veiled Being as against the Invisible King. + +He has at the outset the not inconsiderable advantage of being an +entity instead of a non-entity. Whoever or whatever he may be, we are +compelled by the very constitution of our minds to assume his (or its) +existence; whereas there is manifestly no compulsion to assume the +existence of the Invisible King. + +Then, again, the Veiled Being is entirely unpretentious. There is no +bluster and no cant about him. He does not claim our gratitude for the +doubtful boon of life. He does not pretend to be just, while he is +committing, or winking at, the most intolerable injustices. He does +not set up to be long-suffering, while in fact he is childishly +touchy. He does not profess to be merciful, while the incurable ward, +the battlefield--nay, even the maternity home and the dentist's +parlor--are there to give him the lie. (Here, of course, I am not +contrasting him with the Invisible King, but with more ancient and +still more Asian divinities.) It is the moral pretensions tagged on by +the theologians to metaphysical Godhead that revolt and estrange +reasonable men--Mr. Wells among the rest. If you tell us that behind +the Veil we shall find a good-natured, indulgent old man, who chastens +us only for our good, is pleased by our flatteries (with or without +music), and is not more than suitably vexed at our naughtinesses in +the Garden of Eden and elsewhere--we reply that this is a nursery tale +which has been riddled, time out of mind, not by wicked sceptics, but +by the spontaneous, irrepressible criticism of babes and sucklings. +But if you divest the Veiled Being of all ethical--or in other words +of all human--attributes, then there is no difficulty whatever in +admiring, and even adoring, the marvels he has wrought. Tennyson went +deeper than he realized into the nature of things when he wrote-- + + "For merit lives from man to man, + But not from man, O Lord, to thee." + +Once put aside all question of merit and demerit, of praise and blame, +and more especially (but this will shock Mr. Wells) of salvation and +damnation--and nothing can be easier than to pay to the works of the +Veiled Being the meed of an illimitable wonder. When we think of the +roaring vortices of flame that spangle the heavens night by night, at +distances that beggar conception: when we think of our tiny earth, +wrapped in its little film of atmosphere, spinning safely for ages +untold amid all these appalling immensities: and when we think, on the +other hand, of the battles of claw and maw going on, beneath the +starry vault, in that most miraculous of jewels, a drop of water: we +cannot but own that the Power which set all this whirl of atoms agoing +is worthy of all admiration. And approbation? Ah, that is another +matter; for there the moral element comes in. It is possible (and here +lies the interest of the enigma) that the Veiled Being may one day +justify himself even morally. Perhaps he is all the time doing so +behind the veil. But on that it is absolutely useless to speculate. +Light may one day come to us, but it will come through patient +investigation, not through idle pondering and guessing. In the +meantime, poised between the macrocosm and the microcosm, ourselves +including both extremes, and being, perhaps, the most stupendous +miracle of all, we cannot deny to this amazing frame of things the +tribute of an unutterable awe. If that be religion, I profess myself +as religious as Mr. Wells. I am even willing to join him in some +outward, ceremonial expression of that sentiment, if he can suggest +one that shall not be ridiculously inadequate. What about kneeling +through the C Minor Symphony? That seems to me about as near as we can +get. Or I will go with him to Primrose Hill some fine morning (like +the Persian Ambassador fabled by Charles Lamb) and worship the Sun, +chanting to him William Watson's magnificent hymn:-- + + "To thee as our Father we bow, + Forbidden thy Father to see, + Who is older and greater than thou, as thou + Art greater and older than we." + +The sun, at any rate, is not a figure of speech, and is a symbol which +runs no risk of being mistaken for a portrait. If Mr. Wells would be +content with some such "bright sciential idolatry," I would willingly +declare myself a co-idolater. But alas! he is the hierophant of the +Invisible King, and prayer to that impotent potentate is to me a moral +impossibility. I would rather face damnation, especially in the mild +form threatened by Mr. Wells, which consists (pp. 148-149) in not +knowing that you are damned. + +And if Mr. Wells maintains that in the worship of the non-moral Veiled +Being there is no practical, pragmatic comfort, I reply that I am not +so sure of that. When all is said and done, is there not more hope, +more solace, in an enigma than in a _facon de parler_? I should be +quite willing to accept the test of the reeling aeroplane. The aviator +can say to his soul: "Here am I, one of the most amazing births of +time, the culmination of an endless series of miracles. Perhaps I am +on the verge of extinction--if so, what does it all matter? But +perhaps, on the contrary, I am about to plunge into some new +adventure, as marvellous as this. More marvellous it cannot be, but +it may perhaps be more agreeable. At all events, there is something +fascinating in this leap in the dark. Good bye, my soul! Good-bye, +my memory! + + 'If we should meet again, why, we shall smile; + If not, why then this parting was well made.'" + +I cannot but think that there is as much religion and as much solace +in such a shaking-off of "the bur o' the world" as in the thought that +the last new patent God is going to die with you, and that you, +unconsciously and indistinguishably merged in him, are going to live +for ever. + + + + + THE NEWEST BORZOI BOOKS + + + LUSTRA + _By Ezra Pound_ + + DANDELIONS + _By Coulson T. Cade_ + + A CHASTE MAN + _By Louis Wilkinson_ + + GOD AND MR. WELLS + _By William Archer_ + + MARTIN RIVAS + _By Alberto Blest-Gana_ + + BEATING 'EM TO IT + _By Chester Cornish_ + + A BOOK OF PREFACES + _By H. L. Mencken_ + + THE THREE BLACK PENNYS + _By Joseph Hergesheimer_ + + INTERPRETERS AND INTERPRETATIONS + _By Carl Van Vechten_ + + MR. GEORGE JEAN NATHAN PRESENTS + _By George Jean Nathan_ + + OTHERS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE NEW VERSE + _Edited by Alfred Kreymborg_ + 1917 Issue + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + + +1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. + +2. The words amoeba, mythopoeic and prosopopoeia use "oe" ligature in +the original text. + +3. The following misprints have been corrected: + "blackslides" corrected to "backslides" (page 40) + "annhilated" corrected to "annihilated" (page 119) + +4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies +in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been +retained. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of God and Mr. Wells, by William Archer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND MR. 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