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diff --git a/77019-0.txt b/77019-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a17a99 --- /dev/null +++ b/77019-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10947 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77019 *** + + + + + + WALTER LIPPMANN + + + A + PREFACE + TO + MORALS + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK MCMXXIX + + + Copyright, 1929. + By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + + Set up and electrotyped. + Published May, 1929. + + _First printing_ + + _All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction + in whole or in part in any form._ + + + _Printed in the United States of America by_ + J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PART I + + THE DISSOLUTION OF THE ANCESTRAL ORDER + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. The Problem of Unbelief 3 + 1. Whirl is King 3 + 2. False Prophecies 5 + 3. Sorties and Retreats 10 + 4. Deep Dissolution 14 + + II. God in the Modern World 21 + 1. Imago Dei 21 + 2. An Indefinite God 23 + 3. God in More Senses Than One 25 + 4. The Protest of the Fundamentalists 30 + 5. In Man’s Image 35 + + III. The Loss of Certainty 37 + 1. Ways of Reading the Bible 37 + 2. Modernism: Immortality as an Example 40 + 3. What Modernism Leaves Out 48 + + IV. The Acids of Modernity 51 + 1. The Kingly Pattern 51 + 2. Landmarks 56 + 3. Barren Ground 61 + 4. Sophisticated Violence 63 + 5. Rulers 65 + + V. The Breakdown of Authority 68 + 1. God’s Government 68 + 2. The Doctrine of the Keys 71 + 3. The Logic of Toleration 74 + 4. A Working Compromise 76 + 5. The Effect of Patriotism 78 + 6. The Dissolution of a Sovereignty 82 + + VI. Lost Provinces 84 + 1. Business 84 + 2. The Family 88 + 3. Art 94 + a. The Disappearance of Religious Painting 94 + b. The Loss of a Heritage 96 + c. The Artist Formerly 98 + d. The Artist as a Prophet 101 + e. Art for Art’s Sake 104 + f. The Burden of Originality 106 + + VII. The Drama of Destiny 112 + 1. The Soul in the Modern World 112 + 2. The Great Scenario 115 + 3. Earmarks of Truth 118 + 4. On Reconciling Religion and Science 121 + 5. Gospels of Science 125 + 6. The Deeper Conflict 131 + 7. Theocracy and Humanism 133 + + + PART II + + THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMANISM + + Introduction 143 + + VIII. Golden Memories 145 + + IX. The Insight of Humanism 152 + 1. The Two Approaches to Life 152 + 2. Freedom and Restraint 153 + 3. The Ascetic Principle 158 + 4. Oscillation between Two Principles 164 + 5. The Golden Mean and Its Difficulties 166 + 6. The Matrix of Humanism 171 + 7. The Career of the Soul 175 + 8. The Passage into Maturity 183 + 9. The Function of High Religion 191 + + X. High Religion and the Modern World 194 + 1. Popular Religion and the Great Teachers 194 + 2. The Aristocratic Principle 197 + 3. The Peculiarity of the Modern Situation 200 + 4. The Stone Which the Builders Rejected 203 + + + PART III + + THE GENIUS OF MODERNITY + + XI. The Cure of Souls 213 + 1. The Problem of Evil 213 + 2. Superstition and Self-Consciousness 217 + 3. Virtue 221 + 4. From Clue to Practice 226 + + XII. The Business of the Great Society 232 + 1. The Invention of Invention 232 + 2. The Creative Principle in Modernity 235 + 3. Naive Capitalism 241 + 4. The Credo of Old-Style Business 244 + 5. Old-Style Reform and Revolution 247 + 6. The Diffusion of the Acquisitive Instinct 252 + 7. Ideals 257 + + XIII. Government in the Great Society 260 + 1. Loyalty 260 + 2. The Evolution of Loyalty 263 + 3. Pluralism 267 + 4. Live and Let Live 269 + 5. Government in the People 272 + 6. Politicians and Statesmen 279 + + XIV. Love in the Great Society 284 + 1. The External Control of Sexual Conduct 284 + 2. Birth Control 288 + 3. The Logic of Birth Control 293 + 4. The Use of Convention 299 + 5. The New Hedonism 301 + 6. Marriage and Affinity 307 + 7. The Schooling of Desire 311 + + XV. The Moralist in an Unbelieving World 314 + 1. The Declaration of Ideals 314 + 2. The Choice of a Way 320 + 3. The Religion of the Spirit 326 + + Appendix: Acknowledgments and Notes 331 + + Index 339 + + + + + PART I [p001] + + THE DISSOLUTION OF THE ANCESTRAL ORDER + + _“Whirl is King, having driven out Zeus.”_ + Aristophanes. + + + + + A PREFACE TO MORALS [p003] + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE PROBLEM OF UNBELIEF + + +1. _Whirl is King_ + +Among those who no longer believe in the religion of their fathers, +some are proudly defiant, and many are indifferent. But there are also +a few, perhaps an increasing number, who feel that there is a vacancy +in their lives. This inquiry deals with their problem. It is not +intended to disturb the serenity of those who are unshaken in the faith +they hold, and it is not concerned with those who are still exhilarated +by their escape from some stale orthodoxy. It is concerned with those +who are perplexed by the consequences of their own irreligion. It deals +with the problem of unbelief, not as believers are accustomed to deal +with it, in the spirit of men confidently calling the lost sheep back +into the fold, but as unbelievers themselves must, I think, face the +problem if they face it candidly and without presumption. + +When such men put their feelings into words they are likely to say +that, having lost their faith, they have lost the certainty that their +lives are significant, and that it matters what they do with their +lives. If they deal with young people they are likely to say that +they know of no compelling reason which certifies the moral code they +adhere to, and that, therefore, their own preferences, when tested by +the ruthless curiosity of their children, seem to have no [p004] sure +foundation of any kind. They are likely to point to the world about +them, and to ask whether the modern man possesses any criterion by +which he can measure the value of his own desires, whether there is any +standard he really believes in which permits him to put a term upon +that pursuit of money, of power, and of excitement which has created +so much of the turmoil and the squalor and the explosiveness of modern +civilization. + +These are, perhaps, merely the rationalizations of the modern man’s +discontent. At the heart of it there are likely to be moments of blank +misgiving in which he finds that the civilization of which he is a +part leaves a dusty taste in his mouth. He may be very busy with many +things, but he discovers one day that he is no longer sure they are +worth doing. He has been much preoccupied; but he is no longer sure he +knows why. He has become involved in an elaborate routine of pleasures; +and they do not seem to amuse him very much. He finds it hard to +believe that doing any one thing is better than doing any other thing, +or, in fact, that it is better than doing nothing at all. It occurs +to him that it is a great deal of trouble to live, and that even in +the best of lives the thrills are few and far between. He begins more +or less consciously to seek satisfactions, because he is no longer +satisfied, and all the while he realizes that the pursuit of happiness +was always a most unhappy quest. In the later stages of his woe he not +only loses his appetite, but becomes excessively miserable trying to +recover it. And then, surveying the flux of events and the giddiness +of his own soul, he comes to feel that Aristophanes must have been +thinking of him when he declared that “Whirl is King, having driven out +Zeus.” [p005] + + +2. _False Prophecies_ + +The modern age has been rich both in prophecies that men would at +last inherit the kingdoms of this world, and in complaints at the +kind of world they inherited. Thus Petrarch, who was an early victim +of modernity, came to feel that he would “have preferred to be born +in any other period” than his own; he tells us that he sought an +escape by imagining that he lived in some other age. The Nineteenth +Century, which begat us, was forever blowing the trumpets of freedom +and providing asylums in which its most sensitive children could +take refuge. Wordsworth fled from mankind to rejoice in nature. +Chateaubriand fled from man to rejoice in savages. Byron fled to an +imaginary Greece, and William Morris to the Middle Ages. A few tried +an imaginary India. A few an equally imaginary China. Many fled to +Bohemia, to Utopia, to the Golden West, and to the Latin Quarter, and +some, like James Thomson, to hell where they were + + gratified to gain + That positive eternity of pain + Instead of this insufferable inane. + +They had all been disappointed by the failure of a great prophecy. The +theme of this prophecy had been that man is a beautiful soul who in the +course of history had somehow become enslaved by + + Scepters, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes + Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance, + +and they believed with Shelley that when “the loathsome mask has +fallen,” man, exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king over himself, +would then be “free from guilt or [p006] pain.” This was the orthodox +liberalism to which men turned when they had lost the religion of their +fathers. But the promises of liberalism have not been fulfilled. We are +living in the midst of that vast dissolution of ancient habits which +the emancipators believed would restore our birthright of happiness. We +know now that they did not see very clearly beyond the evils against +which they were rebelling. It is evident to us that their prophecies +were pleasant fantasies which concealed the greater difficulties that +confront men, when having won the freedom to do what they wish—that +wish, as Byron said: + + which ages have not yet subdued + In man—to have no master save his mood, + +they are full of contrary moods and do not know what they wish to do. +We have come to see that Huxley was right when he said that “a man’s +worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.” + +The evidences of these greater difficulties lie all about us: in the +brave and brilliant atheists who have defied the Methodist God, and +have become very nervous; in the women who have emancipated themselves +from the tyranny of fathers, husbands, and homes, and with the +intermittent but expensive help of a psychoanalyst, are now enduring +liberty as interior decorators; in the young men and women who are +world-weary at twenty-two; in the multitudes who drug themselves with +pleasure; in the crowds enfranchised by the blood of heroes who cannot +be persuaded to take an interest in their destiny; in the millions, at +last free to think without fear of priest or policeman, who have made +the moving pictures and the popular newspapers what they are. [p007] + +These are the prisoners who have been released. They ought to be very +happy. They ought to be serene and composed. They are free to make +their own lives. There are no conventions, no tabus, no gods, priests, +princes, fathers, or revelations which they must accept. Yet the result +is not so good as they thought it would be. The prison door is wide +open. They stagger out into trackless space under a blinding sun. They +find it nerve-wracking. “My sensibility,” said Flaubert, “is sharper +than a razor’s edge; the creaking of a door, the face of a bourgeois, +an absurd statement set my heart to throbbing and completely upset me.” +They must find their own courage for battle and their own consolation +in defeat. They complain, like Renan after he had broken with the +Church, that the enchanted circle which embraced the whole of life is +broken, and that they are left with a feeling of emptiness “like that +which follows an attack of fever or an unhappy love affair.” Where is +my _home_? cried Nietzsche: “For it do I ask and seek, and have sought, +but have not found it. O eternal everywhere, O eternal nowhere, O +eternal in vain.” + +To more placid temperaments the pangs of freedom are no doubt less +acute. It is possible for multitudes in time of peace and security +to exist agreeably—somewhat incoherently, perhaps, but without +convulsions—to dream a little and not unpleasantly, to have only now +and then a nightmare, and only occasionally a rude awakening. It is +possible to drift along not too discontentedly, somewhat nervously, +somewhat anxiously, somewhat confusedly, hoping for the best, and +believing in nothing very much. It is possible to be a passable +citizen. But it is not possible to be wholly at peace. For serenity of +soul requires [p008] some better organization of life than a man can +attain by pursuing his casual ambitions, satisfying his hungers, and +for the rest accepting destiny as an idiot’s tale in which one dumb +sensation succeeds another to no known end. And it is not possible +for him to be wholly alive. For that depends upon his sense of being +completely engaged with the world, with all his passions and all the +faculties in rich harmonies with one other, and in deep rhythm with the +nature of things. + +These are the gifts of a vital religion which can bring the whole of +a man into adjustment with the whole of his relevant experience. Our +forefathers had such a religion. They quarrelled a good deal about the +details, but they had no doubt that there was an order in the universe +which justified their lives because they were a part of it. The acids +of modernity have dissolved that order for many of us, and there are +some in consequence who think that the needs which religion fulfilled +have also been dissolved. But however self-sufficient the eugenic +and perfectly educated man of the distant future may be, our present +experience is that the needs remain. In failing to meet them, it is +plain that we have succeeded only in substituting trivial illusions +for majestic faiths. For while the modern emancipated man may wonder +how anyone ever believed that in this universe of stars and atoms and +multitudinous life, there is a drama in progress of which the principal +event was enacted in Palestine nineteen hundred years ago, it is not +really a stranger fable than many which he so readily accepts. He does +not believe the words of the Gospel but he believes the best advertised +notion. The older fable may be incredible to-day, but when it [p009] +was credible it bound together the whole of experience upon a stately +and dignified theme. The modern man has ceased to believe in it but he +has not ceased to be credulous, and the need to believe haunts him. It +is no wonder that his impulse is to turn back from his freedom, and to +find someone who says he knows the truth and can tell him what to do, +to find the shrine of some new god, of any cult however newfangled, +where he can kneel and be comforted, put on manacles to keep his hands +from trembling, ensconce himself in some citadel where it is safe and +warm. + +For the modern man who has ceased to believe, without ceasing to be +credulous, hangs, as it were, between heaven and earth, and is at +rest nowhere. There is no theory of the meaning and value of events +which he is compelled to accept, but he is none the less compelled to +accept the events. There is no moral authority to which he must turn +now, but there is coercion in opinions, fashions and fads. There is +for him no inevitable purpose in the universe, but there are elaborate +necessities, physical, political, economic. He does not feel himself +to be an actor in a great and dramatic destiny, but he is subject to +the massive powers of our civilization, forced to adopt their pace, +bound to their routine, entangled in their conflicts. He can believe +what he chooses about this civilization. He cannot, however, escape +the compulsion of modern events. They compel his body and his senses +as ruthlessly as ever did king or priest. They do not compel his mind. +They have all the force of natural events, but not their majesty, all +the tyrannical power of ancient institutions, but none of their moral +certainty. Events are there, and they overpower [p010] him. But they +do not convince him that they have that dignity which inheres in that +which is necessary and in the nature of things. + +In the old order the compulsions were often painful, but there was +sense in the pain that was inflicted by the will of an all-knowing +God. In the new order the compulsions are painful and, as it were, +accidental, unnecessary, wanton, and full of mockery. The modern man +does not make his peace with them. For in effect he has replaced +natural piety with a grudging endurance of a series of unsanctified +compulsions. When he believed that the unfolding of events was a +manifestation of the will of God, he could say: Thy will be done.... In +His will is our peace. But when he believes that events are determined +by the votes of a majority, the orders of his bosses, the opinions of +his neighbors, the laws of supply and demand, and the decisions of +quite selfish men, he yields because he has to yield. He is conquered +but unconvinced. + + +3. _Sorties and Retreats_ + +It might seem as if, in all this, men were merely going through once +again what they have often gone through before. This is not the +first age in which the orthodox religion has been in conflict with +the science of the day. Plato was born into such an age. For two +centuries the philosophers of Greece had been critical of Homer and +of the popular gods, and when Socrates faced his accusers, his answer +to the accusation of heresy must certainly have sounded unresponsive. +“I do believe,” he said, “that there are gods, and in a higher sense +than that in which [p011] my accusers believe in them.” That is all +very well. But to believe in a “higher sense” is also to believe in a +different sense. + +There is nothing new in the fact that men have ceased to believe in the +religion of their fathers. In the history of Catholic Christianity, +there has always existed a tradition, extending from the authors of the +Fourth Gospel through Origen to the neo-Platonists of modern times, +which rejects the popular idea of God as a power acting upon events, +and of immortality as everlasting life, and translates the popular +theology into a symbolic statement of a purely spiritual experience. +In every civilized age there have been educated and discerning men who +could not accept literally and simply the traditions of the ancient +faith. We are told that during the Periclean Age “among educated men +everything was in dispute: political sanctions, literary values, moral +standards, religious convictions, even the possibility of reaching any +truth about anything.” When the educated classes of the Roman world +accepted Christianity they had ceased to believe in the pagan gods, +and were much too critical to accept the primitive Hebraic theories of +the creation, the redemption, and the Messianic Kingdom which were so +central in the popular religion. They had to do what Socrates had done; +they had to take the popular theology in a “higher” and therefore in a +different sense before they could use it. Indeed, it is so unusual to +find an age of active-minded men in which the most highly educated are +genuinely orthodox in the popular sense, that the Thirteenth Century, +the age of Dante and St. Thomas Aquinas, when this phenomenon is +reputed to have occurred, is regarded [p012] as a unique and wonderful +period in the history of the world. It is not at all unlikely that +there never was such an age in the history of civilized men. + +And yet, the position of modern men who have broken with the religion +of their fathers is in certain profound ways different from that of +other men in other ages. This is the first age, I think, in the history +of mankind when the circumstances of life have conspired with the +intellectual habits of the time to render any fixed and authoritative +belief incredible to large masses of men. The dissolution of the +old modes of thought has gone so far, and is so cumulative in its +effect, that the modern man is not able to sink back after a period +of prophesying into a new but stable orthodoxy. The irreligion of +the modern world is radical to a degree for which there is, I think, +no counterpart. For always in the past it has been possible for new +conventions to crystallize, and for men to find rest and surcease of +effort in accepting them. + +We often assume, therefore, that a period of dissolution will +necessarily be followed by one of conformity, that the heterodoxy of +one age will become the orthodoxy of the next, and that when this +orthodoxy decays a new period of prophesying will begin. Thus we say +that by the time of Hosea and Isaiah the religion of the Jews had +become a system of rules for transacting business with Jehovah. The +Prophets then revivified it by thundering against the conventional +belief that religion was mere burnt offering and sacrifice. A few +centuries passed and the religion based on the Law and the Prophets +had in its turn become a set of mechanical rites manipulated by the +Scribes and the Pharisees. As against this system Jesus and Paul +[p013] preached a religion of grace, and against the “letter” of +the synagogues the “spirit” of Christ. But the inner light which can +perceive the spirit is rare, and so shortly after the death of Paul, +the teaching gradually ceased to appeal to direct inspiration in the +minds of the believers and became a body of dogma, a “sacred deposit” +of the faith “once for all delivered to the saints.” In the succeeding +ages there appeared again many prophets who thought they had within +them the revealing spirit. Though some of the prophets were burnt, +much of the prophesying was absorbed into the canon. In Luther this +sense of revelation appeared once more in a most confident form. He +rejected the authority not only of the Pope and the clergy, but even of +the Bible itself, except where in his opinion the Bible confirmed his +faith. But in the establishment of a Lutheran Church the old difficulty +reappeared: the inner light which had burned so fiercely in Luther +did not burn brightly or steadily in all Lutherans, and so the right +of private judgment, even in Luther’s restricted use of the term, led +to all kinds of heresies and abominations. Very soon there came to be +an authoritative teaching backed by the power of the police. And in +Calvinism the revolt of the Reformation became stabilized to the last +degree. “Everything,” said Calvin, “pertaining to the perfect rule of +a good life the Lord has so comprehended in His law that there remains +nothing for man to add to that summary.” + +Men fully as intelligent as the most emancipated among us once believed +that, and I have no doubt that the successors of Mr. Darrow and Mr. +Mencken would come to believe something very much like it if conditions +permitted them to obey the instinct to retreat from the chaos [p014] +of modernity into order and certainty. It is all very well to talk +about being the captain of your soul. It is hard, and only a few +heroes, saints, and geniuses have been the captains of their souls for +any extended period of their lives. Most men, after a little freedom, +have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy +of effort which it brings. “If, outside of Christ, you wish by your +own thoughts to know your relation to God, you will break your neck. +Thunder strikes him who examines.” Thus spoke Martin Luther, and there +is every reason to suppose that the German people thought he was +talking the plainest commonsense. “He who is gifted with the heavenly +knowledge of faith,” said the Council of Trent, “is free from an +inquisitive curiosity.” These words are rasping to our modern ears, but +there is no occasion to doubt that the men who uttered them had made +a shrewd appraisal of average human nature. The record of experience +is one of sorties and retreats. The search for moral guidance which +shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the +acknowledgment of some new authority. + + +4. _Deep Dissolution_ + +This same tendency manifests itself in the midst of our modern +uneasiness. We have had a profusion of new cults, of revivals, and of +essays in reconstruction. But there is reason for thinking that a new +crystallization of an enduring and popular religion is unlikely in the +modern world. For analogy drawn from the experience of the past is +misleading. + +When Luther, for example, rebelled against the authority [p015] of +the Church, he did not suppose the way of life for the ordinary man +would be radically altered. Luther supposed that men would continue +to behave much as they had learned to behave under the Catholic +discipline. The individual for whom he claimed the right of private +judgment was one whose prejudgments had been well fixed in a Catholic +society. The authority of the Pope was to be destroyed and certain +evils abolished, but there was to remain that feeling for objective +moral certainties which Catholicism had nurtured. When the Anabaptists +carried the practice of his theory beyond this point, Luther denounced +them violently. For what he believed in was Protestantism for good +Catholics. The reformers of the Eighteenth Century made a similar +assumption. They really believed in democracy for men who had an +aristocratic training. Jefferson, for example, had an instinctive fear +of the urban rabble, that most democratic part of the population. The +society of free men which he dreamed about was composed of those who +had the discipline, the standards of honor and the taste, without the +privileges or the corruptions, that are to be found in a society of +well-bred country gentlemen. + +The more recent rebels frequently betray a somewhat similar inability +to imagine the consequences of their own victories. For the smashing of +idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible +for the iconoclast to look clearly into a future when there will not +be many idols left to smash. Yet that future is beginning to be our +present, and it might be said that men are conscious of what modernity +means insofar as they realize that they are confronted not so much with +the [p016] necessity of promoting rebellion as of dealing with the +consequences of it. The Nineteenth Century, roughly speaking the time +between Voltaire and Mencken, was an age of terrific indictments and +of feeble solutions. The Marxian indictment of capitalism is a case +in point. The Nietzschean transvaluation of values is another; it is +magnificent, but who can say, after he has shot his arrow of longing +to the other shore, whether he will find Caesar Borgia, Henry Ford, or +Isadora Duncan? Who knows, having read Mr. Mencken and Mr. Sinclair +Lewis, what kind of world will be left when all the boobs and yokels +have crawled back in their holes and have died of shame? + +The rebel, while he is making his attack, is not likely to feel the +need to answer such questions. For he moves in an unreal environment, +one might almost say a parasitic environment. He goes forth to destroy +Caesar, Mammon, George F. Babbitt, and Mrs. Grundy. As he wrestles +with these demons, he leans upon them. By inversion they offer him +much the same kind of support which the conformer enjoys. They provide +him with an objective which enables him to know exactly what he thinks +he wants to do. His energies are focussed by his indignation. He does +not suffer from emptiness, doubt, and division of soul. These are the +maladies which come later when the struggle is over. While the rebel is +in conflict with the established nuisances he has an aim in life which +absorbs all his passions. He has his own sense of righteousness and his +own feeling of communion with a grand purpose. For in attacking idols +there is a kind of piety, in overthrowing tyrants a kind of loyalty, +in ridiculing stupidities [p017] an imitation of wisdom. In the heat +of battle the rebel is exalted by a whole-hearted tension which is +easily mistaken for a taste of the freedom that is to come. He is +under the spell of an illusion. For what comes after the struggle is +not the exaltation of freedom but a letting down of the tension that +belongs solely to the struggle itself. The happiness of the rebel is as +transient as the iconoclasm which produced it. When he has slain the +dragon and rescued the beautiful maiden, there is usually nothing left +for him to do but write his memoirs and dream of a time when the world +was young. + +What most distinguishes the generation who have approached maturity +since the debacle of idealism at the end of the War is not their +rebellion against the religion and the moral code of their parents, +but their disillusionment with their own rebellion. It is common for +young men and women to rebel, but that they should rebel sadly and +without faith in their own rebellion, that they should distrust the +new freedom no less than the old certainties—that is something of a +novelty. As Mr. Canby once said, at the age of seven they saw through +their parents and characterized them in a phrase. At fourteen they saw +through education and dodged it. At eighteen they saw through morality +and stepped over it. At twenty they lost respect for their home towns, +and at twenty-one they discovered that our social system is ridiculous. +At twenty-three the autobiography ends because the author has run +through society to date and does not know what to do next. For, as Mr. +Canby might have added, the idea of reforming that society makes no +appeal to them. They have seen through all that. They cannot adopt any +of [p018] the synthetic religions of the Nineteenth Century. They have +seen through all of them. + +They have seen through the religion of nature to which the early +romantics turned for consolation. They have heard too much about +the brutality of natural selection to feel, as Wordsworth did, that +pleasant landscapes are divine. They have seen through the religion +of beauty because, for one thing, they are too much oppressed by the +ugliness of Main Street. They cannot take refuge in an ivory tower +because the modern apartment house, with a radio loudspeaker on the +floor above and on the floor below and just across the courtyard, +will not permit it. They cannot, like Mazzini, make a religion of +patriotism, because they have just been demobilized. They cannot make +a religion of science like the post-Darwinians because they do not +understand modern science. They never learned enough mathematics and +physics. They do not like Bernard Shaw’s religion of creative evolution +because they have read enough to know that Mr. Shaw’s biology is +literary and evangelical. As for the religion of progress, that is +pre-empted by George F. Babbitt and the Rotary Club, and the religion +of humanity is utterly unacceptable to those who have to ride in the +subways during the rush hour. + +Yet the current attempts to modernize religious creeds are inspired +by the hope that somehow it will be possible to construct a form of +belief which will fit into this vacuum. It is evident that life soon +becomes distracted and tiresome if it is not illuminated by communion +with what William James called “a wider self through which saving +experiences come.” The eager search for new religions, [p019] the +hasty adherence to cults, and the urgent appeals for a reconciliation +between religion and science are confessions that to the modern man +his activity seems to have no place in any rational order. His life +seems mere restlessness and compulsion, rather than conduct lighted by +luminous beliefs. He is possessed by a great deal of excitement amidst +which, as Mr. Santayana once remarked, he redoubles his effort when he +has forgotten his aim. + +For in the modern age, at first imperceptibly with the rise of the +towns, and then catastrophically since the mechanical revolution, there +have gone into dissolution not only the current orthodoxy, but the +social order and the ways of living which supported it. Thus rebellion +and emancipation have come to mean something far more drastic than +they have ever meant before. The earlier rebels summoned men from one +allegiance to another, but the feeling for certainty in religion and +for decorum in society persisted. In the modern world it is this very +feeling of certainty itself which is dissolving. It is dissolving not +merely for an educated minority but for everyone who comes within the +orbit of modernity. + +Yet there remain the wants which orthodoxy of some sort satisfies. The +natural man, when he is released from restraints, and has no substitute +for them, is at sixes and sevens with himself and the world. For in the +free play of his uninhibited instincts he does not find any natural +substitute for those accumulated convictions which, however badly +they did it, nevertheless organized his soul, economized his effort, +consoled him, and gave him dignity in his own eyes because he was part +of some greater whole. The acids of modernity are so powerful that they +do not [p020] tolerate a crystallization of ideas which will serve as +a new orthodoxy into which men can retreat. And so the modern world +is haunted by a realization, which it becomes constantly less easy to +ignore, that it is impossible to reconstruct an enduring orthodoxy, and +impossible to live well without the satisfactions which an orthodoxy +would provide. + + + + +CHAPTER II [p021] + +GOD IN THE MODERN WORLD + + +1. _Imago Dei_ + +By the dissolution of their ancestral ways men have been deprived of +their sense of certainty as to why they were born, why they must work, +whom they must love, what they must honor, where they may turn in +sorrow and defeat. They have left to them the ancient codes and the +modern criticism of these codes, guesses, intuitions, inconclusive +experiments, possibilities, probabilities, hypotheses. Below the level +of reason, they may have unconscious prejudice, they may speak with a +loud cocksureness, they may act with fanaticism. But there is gone that +ineffable certainty which once made God and His Plan seem as real as +the lamppost. + +I do not mean that modern men have ceased to believe in God. I do +mean that they no longer believe in him simply and literally. I mean +that they have defined and refined their ideas of him until they can +no longer honestly say that he exists, as they would say that their +neighbor exists. Search the writings of liberal churchmen, and when +you come to the crucial passages which are intended to express their +belief in God, you will find, I think, that at just this point their +uncertainty is most evident. + +The Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick has written an essay, called “How +Shall We Think of God?”, which illustrates [p022] the difficulty. +He begins by saying that “believing in God without considering how +one shall picture him is deplorably unsatisfactory.” Yet the old ways +of picturing him are no longer credible. We cannot think of him as +seated upon a throne, while around him are angels playing on harps +and singing hymns. “God as a king on high—our fathers, living under +monarchy, rejoiced in that image and found it meaningful. His throne, +his crown, his scepter, his seraphic retinue, his laws, rewards, and +punishments—how dominant that picture was and how persistent is the +continuance of it in our hymns and prayers! It was always partly +poetry, but it had a prose background: there really had been at first a +celestial land above the clouds where God reigned and where his throne +was in the heavens.” + +Having said that this picture is antiquated, Dr. Fosdick goes on to +state that “the religious man must have imaginations of God, if God +is to be real to him.” He must “picture his dealing with the Divine +in terms of personal relationship.” But how? “The place where man +vitally finds God ... is within his own experience of goodness, truth, +and beauty, and the truest images of God are therefore to be found in +man’s spiritual life.” I should be the last to deny that a man may, +if he chooses, think of God as the source of all that seems to him +worthy in human experience. But certainly this is not the God of the +ancient faith. This is not God the Father, the Lawgiver, the Judge. +This is a highly sophisticated idea of God, employed by a modern man +who would like to say, but cannot say with certainty, that there exists +a personal God to whom men must accommodate themselves. [p023] + + +2. _An Indefinite God_ + +It may be that clear and unambiguous statements are not now possible in +our intellectual climate. But at least we should not forget that the +religions which have dominated human history have been founded on what +the faithful felt were undeniable facts. These facts were mysterious +only in the sense that they were uncommon, like an eclipse of the sun, +but not in the sense that they were beyond human experience. No doubt +there are passages in the Scriptures written by highly cultivated men +in which the Divine nature is called mysterious and unknowable. But +these passages are not the rock upon which the popular churches are +founded. No one, I think, has truly observed the religious life of +simple people without understanding how plain, how literal, how natural +they take their supernatural personages to be. + +The popular gods are not indefinite and unknowable. They have a +definite history and their favorite haunts, and they have often been +seen. They walk on earth, they might appear to anyone, they are +angered, they are pleased, they weep and they rejoice, they eat and +they may fall in love. The modern man uses the word ‘supernatural’ +to describe something that seems to him not quite so credible as +the things he calls natural. This is not the supernaturalism of the +devout. They do not distinguish two planes of reality and two orders of +certainty. For them Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin and was raised +from the dead as literally as Napoleon was Emperor of the French and +returned from Elba. + +This is the kind of certainty one no longer finds in the [p024] +utterances of modern men. I might cite, for example, a typically modern +assertion about the existence of God, made by Mr. W. C. Brownell, a +critic who could not be reproached with insensitiveness to the value of +traditional beliefs. He wrote that “the influence of the Holy Spirit, +exquisitely called the Comforter, is a matter of actual experience, +as solid a reality as that of electro-magnetism.” I do not suppose +that Mr. Brownell meant to admit the least possible doubt. But he was +a modern man, and surreptitiously doubt invaded his certainty. For +electro-magnetism is not an absolutely solid reality to a layman’s +mind. It has a questionable reality. I suspect that is why Mr. +Brownell chose this metaphor; it would have seemed a little too blunt +to his modern intelligence to say that his faith was founded not on +electro-magnetism, but as men once believed, on a rock. + +The attempts to reconstruct religious creeds are beset by the +modern man’s inability to convince himself that the constitution of +the universe includes facts which in our skeptical jargon we call +supernatural. Yet as William James once said, “religion, in her fullest +exercise of function, is not a mere illumination of facts already +elsewhere given, not a mere passion, like love, which views things in +a rosier light.... It is something more, namely, a postulator of new +_facts_ as well.” James himself was strongly disposed toward what he so +candidly described as “overbeliefs”; he had sympathy with the beliefs +of others which was as large and charitable as any man’s can be. There +was no trace of the intellectual snob in William James; he was in the +other camp from those thin argumentative rationalists who find so much +satisfaction [p025] in disproving what other men hold sacred. James +loved cranks and naifs and sought them out for the wisdom they might +have. But withal he was a modern man who lived toward the climax of the +revolutionary period. He had the Will to Believe, he argued eloquently +for the Right to Believe. But he did not wholly believe. The utmost +that he could honestly believe was something which he confessed would +“appear a sorry underbelief” to some of his readers. “Who knows,” he +said, “whether the faithfulness of individuals here below to their +own poor overbeliefs may not actually help God in turn to be more +effectively faithful to his own greater tasks?” Who knows? And on that +question mark he paused and could say no more. + + +3. _God in More Senses Than One_ + +But even if there was some uncertainty as to the existence of the God +whom William James described, he was at least the kind of God with whom +human beings could commune. If they could jump the initial doubt they +found themselves in an exciting world where they might live for a God +who, like themselves, had work to do. James wrote the passage I have +quoted in 1902. A quarter of a century later Alfred North Whitehead +came to Harvard to deliver the Lowell Lectures. He undertook to define +God for modern men. + +Mr. Whitehead, like William James, is a compassionate man and on the +side of the angels. But his is a wholly modernized mind in full command +of all the conceptual instruments of scientific logic. By contrast with +the austerity of Mr. Whitehead’s thinking, James, with his [p026] +chivalrous offer of fealty to God, seems like one of the last of the +great romantics. There is a God in Mr. Whitehead’s philosophy, and a +very necessary God at that. Unhappily, I am not enough of a logician +to say that I am quite sure I understand what it means to say that +“God is not concrete, but He is the ground for concrete actuality.” +There have been moments when I imagined I had caught the meaning of +this, but there have been more moments when I knew that I had not. I +have never doubted, however, that the concept had meaning, and that I +missed it because it was too deep for me. Why then, it may be asked, do +I presume to discuss it? My answer is that a conception of God, which +is incomprehensible to all who are not highly trained logicians, is a +possible God for logicians alone. It is not presumptuous to say of Mr. +Whitehead’s God what he himself says of Aristotle’s God: that it does +“not lead him very far toward the production of a God available for +religious purposes.” + +For while this God may satisfy a metaphysical need in the thinker, he +does not satisfy the passions of the believer. This God does not govern +the world like a king nor watch over his children like a father. He +offers them no purposes to which they can consecrate themselves; he +exhibits no image of holiness they can imitate. He does not chastise +them in sin nor console them in sorrow. He is a principle with which +to explain the facts, if you can understand the explanation. He is +not himself a personality who deals with the facts. For the purposes +of religion he is no God at all; his universe remains stonily unaware +of man. Nothing has happened by accepting [p027] Mr. Whitehead’s +definition which changes the inexorable character of that destiny which +Bertrand Russell depicted when he wrote that + + we see, surrounding the narrow raft illumined by the flickering + light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling waves + we toss for a brief hour; from the great night without, a chill + blast breaks in upon our refuge; all the loneliness of humanity + amid hostile forces is concentrated upon the individual soul, which + must struggle alone, with what of courage it can command, against + the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and + fears. + +It is a nice question whether the use of God’s name is not misleading +when it is applied by modernists to ideas so remote from the God men +have worshiped. Plainly the modernist churchman does not believe in the +God of Genesis who walked in the garden in the cool of the evening and +called to Adam and his wife who had hidden themselves behind a tree; +nor in the God of Exodus who appeared to Moses and Aaron and seventy of +the Elders of Israel, standing with his feet upon a paved walk as if it +were a sapphire stone; nor even in the God of the fifty-third chapter +of Isaiah who in his compassion for the sheep who have gone astray, +having turned everyone to his own way, laid on the Man of Sorrows the +iniquity of us all. + +This, as Kirsopp Lake says, is the God of most, if not all, the +writings in the Bible. Yet “however much our inherited sentiments may +shrink from the admission, the scientists are to-day almost unanimous +in saying that the universe as they see it contains no evidence +of the existence [p028] of any anthropomorphic God whatever. The +experimentalist (_i.e._, modernist) wholly agrees that this is so. +Nevertheless he refuses as a rule, and I think rightly—to abandon the +use of the word ‘God.’” In justification of this refusal to abandon the +word ‘God,’ although he has abandoned the accepted meaning of the word, +Dr. Lake appeals to a tradition which reaches back at least to Origen +who, as a Christian neo-platonist, used the word ‘God’ to mean, not the +King and Father of creation, but the sum of all ideal values. It was +this redefinition of the word ‘God,’ he says, which “made Christianity +possible for the educated man of the third century.” It is this same +redefinition which still makes Christianity possible for educated +churchmen like Dr. Lake and Dean Inge. + +Dr. Lake admits that although this attractive bypath of tradition +“is intellectually adorned by many princes of thought and lords of +language” it is “ecclesiastically not free from reproach.” He avows +another reason for his use of the word ‘God’ which, if not more +compelling, is certainly more worldly. “Atheist” has meant since Roman +times an enemy of society; it gives a wholly false impression of the +real state of mind of those who adhere to the platonic tradition. They +have been wholly without the defiance which “atheism” connotes; on +the contrary they have been a few individuals in each age who lived +peaceably within the shelter of the church, worshiping a somewhat +different God inwardly and in their own way, and often helping to +refresh the more mundane spirit of the popular church. The term +“agnostic” is almost as unavailable. It was invented to describe a +tolerant unbelief in the anthropomorphic God. In popular usage it has +come [p029] to mean about the same thing as atheist, for the instinct +of the common man is sound in these matters. He feels that those who +claim to be open-minded about God have for all practical purposes +ceased to believe in him. The agnostic’s reply that he would gladly +believe if the evidence would confirm it, does not alter the fact that +he does not now believe. And so Dr. Lake concludes that the modernist +must use the word ‘God’ in his own sense, “endeavoring partly to +preserve Origen’s meaning of the word, and partly shrinking from any +other policy as open to misconstruction.” + +I confess that the notion of adopting a policy about God somehow shocks +me as intruding a rather worldly consideration which would seem to be +wholly out of place. But this feeling is, I am sure, an injustice to +Dr. Lake who is plainly and certainly not a worldling. He is moved, no +doubt, by the conviction that in letting ‘God’ mean one thing to the +mass of the devout and another to the educated minority, the loss of +intellectual precision is more than compensated by the preservation +of a community of feeling. This is not mere expediency. It may be the +part of wisdom, which is profounder than mere reasoning, to wish that +intellectual distinctions shall not divide men too sharply. + +But if it is wisdom, it is an aristocratic wisdom. And in Dean Inge’s +writings this is frankly avowed. “The strength of Christianity,” +he says, “is in transforming the lives of individuals—of a small +minority, certainly, as Christ clearly predicted, but a large number +in the aggregate. To rescue a little flock, here and there, from +materialism, selfishness, and hatred, is the task of the [p030] Church +of Christ in all ages alike, and there is no likelihood that it will +ever be otherwise.” + +But in other ages, one thing was otherwise. And in this one thing +lies the radical peculiarity of the modern difficulty. In other ages +there was no acknowledged distinction between the ultimate beliefs of +the educated and the uneducated. There were differences in learning, +in religious genius, in the closeness of a chosen few to God and his +angels. Inwardly there were even radical differences of meaning. But +critical analysis had not made them overt and evident, and the common +assumption was that there was one God for all, for the peasant who saw +him dimly and could approach him only through his patron saint, and for +the holy man who had seen God and talked with him face to face. It has +remained for churchmen of our era to distinguish two or more different +Gods, and openly to say that they are different. This may be a triumph +of candor and of intelligence. But this very consciousness of what they +are doing, these very honest admissions that the God of Dean Inge, for +example, is only in name the God of millions of other protestants—that +is an admission, when they understand it, which makes faith difficult +for modern men. + + +4. _The Protest of the Fundamentalists_ + +Fundamentalism is a protest against all these definitions and +attenuations which the modern man finds it necessary to make. It is +avowedly a reaction within the Protestant communions against what +the President of the World’s Christian Fundamentalist Association +rather accurately described as “that weasel method of sucking the +meaning [p031] out of words, and then presenting the empty shells in +an attempt to palm them off as giving the Christian faith a new and +another interpretation.” In actual practice this movement has become +entangled with all sorts of bizarre and barbarous agitations, with the +Ku Klux Klan, with fanatical prohibition, with the “anti-evolution +laws,” and with much persecution and intolerance. This in itself +is significant. For it shows that the central truth, which the +fundamentalists have grasped, no longer appeals to the best brains +and the good sense of a modern community, and that the movement is +recruited largely from the isolated, the inexperienced, and the +uneducated. + +Into the politics of the heated controversy between modernists and +fundamentalists I do not propose here to enter. That it is not merely +a dispute in the realm of the spirit is made evident by the President +of the Fundamentalist Association when he avers that “nothing” holds +modernists and fundamentalists together except “the billions of dollars +invested. Nine out of ten of these dollars, if not ninety-nine out of +every hundred of them, spent to construct the great denominational +universities, colleges, schools of second grade, theological +seminaries, great denominational mission stations, the multiplied +hospitals that bear denominational names, the immense publication +societies and the expensive societies were given by fundamentalists +and filched by modernists. It took hundreds of years to collect this +money and construct these institutions. It has taken only a quarter of +a century for the liberal bandits to capture them....” + +Not all the fundamentalist argument, however, is pitched at this +level. There is also a reasoned case against [p032] the modernists. +Fortunately this case has been stated in a little book called +_Christianity and Liberalism_ by a man who is both a scholar and a +gentleman. The author is Professor J. Gresham Machen of the Princeton +Theological Seminary. It is an admirable book. For its acumen, for its +saliency, and for its wit this cool and stringent defense of orthodox +Protestantism is, I think, the best popular argument produced by either +side in the current controversy. We shall do well to listen to Dr. +Machen. + +Modernism, he says, “is altogether in the imperative mood,” while +the traditional religion “begins with a triumphant indicative.” I +do not see how one can deny the force of this generalization. “From +the beginning Christianity was certainly a way of life. _But how was +the life to be produced?_ Not by appealing to the human will, but by +telling a story; not by exhortation, but by the narration of an event.” +Dr. Machen insists, rightly I think, that the historic influence of +Christianity on the mass of men has depended upon their belief that +an historic drama was enacted in Palestine nineteen hundred years +ago during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. The veracity of that +story was fundamental to the Christian Church. For while all the +ideal values may remain if you impugn the historic record set forth +in the Gospels, these ideal values are not certified to the common +man as inherent in the very nature of things. Once they are deprived +of their root in historic fact, their poetry, their symbolism, their +ethical significance depend for their sanction upon the temperament +and experience of the individual believer. There is gone that deep, +compulsive, organic faith in an external fact which is the essence of +religion for all but [p033] that very small minority who can live +within themselves in mystical communion or by the power of their +understanding. For the great mass of men, if the history of religions +is to be trusted, religious experience depends upon a complete belief +in the concrete existence, one might almost say the materialization, +of their God. The fundamentalist goes to the very heart of the matter, +therefore, when he insists that you have destroyed the popular +foundations of religion if you make your gospel a symbolic record of +experience, and reject it as an actual record of events. + +The liberals have yet to answer Dr. Machen when he says that “the +Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the +modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, +not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but on an +account of facts.” It was based on the story of the birth, the life, +the ministry, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That +story set forth the facts which certify the Christian experience. +Modernism, which in varying degree casts doubt upon the truth of that +story, may therefore be defined as an attempt to preserve selected +parts of the experience after the facts which inspired it have been +rejected. The orthodox believer may be mistaken as to the facts in +which he believes. But he is not mistaken in thinking that you cannot, +for the mass of men, have a faith of which the only foundation is +their need and desire to believe. The historic churches, without any +important exceptions, I think, have founded faith on clear statements +about matters of fact, historic events, or physical manifestations. +They have never been content [p034] with a symbolism which the +believer knew was merely symbolic. Only the sophisticated in their +private meditations and in esoteric writing have found satisfaction in +symbolism as such. + +Complete as was Dr. Machen’s victory over the Protestant liberals, +he did not long remain in possession of the field. There is a deeper +fundamentalism than his, and it is based on a longer continuous +experience. This is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. From +a priest of that church, Father Riggs, has come the most searching +criticism of Dr. Machen’s case. Writing in the _Commonweal_ Father +Riggs points out that “the fundamentalists are well-nigh powerless. +They are estopped, so to speak, from stemming the ravaging waters +of agnosticism because they cannot, while remaining loyal to the +(Protestant) reformers ... set limits to destructive criticism of the +Bible without making an un-Protestant appeal to tradition.” Father +Riggs, in other words, is asking the Protestant fundamentalists, like +Dr. Machen, how they can be certain that they know these _facts_ upon +which they assert that the Christian religion is founded. + +They must reply that they know them from reading the Bible. The +reply is, however, unsatisfying. For obviously there are many ways +of reading the Bible, and therefore the Protestant who demands the +right of private judgment can never know with absolute certainty that +his reading is the correct one. His position in a skeptical age is, +therefore, as Father Riggs points out, a weak one, because a private +judgment is, after all, only a private judgment. The history of +Protestantism shows that the exercise of private judgment as to the +meaning of Scripture [p035] leads not to universal and undeniable +dogma, but to schism within schism and heresy within heresy. From +the point of view, then, of the oldest fundamentalism of the western +world the error of the modernists is that they deny the facts on which +religious faith reposes; the error of the orthodox Protestants is +that although they affirm the facts, they reject all authority which +can verify them; the virtue of the Catholic system is that along with +a dogmatic affirmation of the central facts, it provides a living +authority in the Church which can ascertain and demonstrate and verify +these facts. + + +5. _In Man’s Image_ + +The long record of clerical opposition to certain kinds of scientific +inquiry has a touch of dignity when it is realized that at the core of +that opposition there is a very profound understanding of the religious +needs of ordinary men. For once you weaken the belief that the central +facts taught by the churches are facts in the most literal and absolute +sense, the disintegration of the popular religion begins. We may +confidently declare that Mr. Santayana is speaking not as a student of +human nature, but as a cultivated unbeliever, when he writes that “the +idea that religion contains a literal, not a symbolic, representation +of truth and life is simply an impossible idea.” The idea is +impossible, no doubt, for the children of the great emancipation. But +because it is impossible, religion itself, in the traditional popular +meaning of the term, has become impossible for them. + +If it is true that man creates God in his own image, it is no less true +that for religious devotion he must remain [p036] unconscious of that +fact. Once he knows that he has created the image of God, the reality +of it vanishes like last night’s dream. It may be that to anyone who is +impregnated with the modern spirit it is almost self-evident that the +truths of religion are truths of human experience. But this knowledge +does not tolerate an abiding and absorbing faith. For when the truths +of religion have lost their connection with a superhuman order, the +cord of their life is cut. What remains is a somewhat archaic, a +somewhat questionable, although a very touching, quaint medley of +poetry, rhetoric, fable, exhortation, and insight into human travail. +When Mr. Santayana says that “matters of religion should never be +matters of controversy” because “we never argue with a lover about +his taste, nor condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a +passion,” he expresses an ultimate unbelief. + +For what would be the plight of a lover, if we told him that his +passion was charming?—though, of course, there might be no such lady +as the one he loved. + + + + +CHAPTER III [p037] + +THE LOSS OF CERTAINTY + + +1. _Ways of Reading the Bible_ + +It is important to an understanding of this matter that we should not +confuse the modern practice of redefining God with the ancient use of +allegory. + +From the earliest days the words of the Bible have been embroidered +with luxuriant and often fantastic meanings. In Leviticus it says, +for example, that the meal offering may be baked in an oven, fried in +a pan, or toasted on a plate. This passage, says Origen, proves that +Scripture must have three meanings. It came to have any number of +meanings. Thus St. Augustine explained that Eden meant the life of the +blessed, and its four rivers the four virtues; farther on in the same +chapter he declares that Eden is the Church, and that its four rivers +are the four Gospels. + +In the same manner Wyclif in a later age preached a sermon explaining +the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man who went down from Jerusalem +to Jericho represents Adam and Eve; the robbers are the fiends of hell; +the priest and Levite who went by on the other side are the patriarchs, +saints, and prophets who failed to bring salvation; the Good Samaritan +is Jesus; the wine which he pours into his wounds is sharp words to +prick men from sin, and the oil is hope.... Savonarola, we are [p038] +told, preached during the whole of Lent, 1492, taking as his text +Noah’s Ark and “giving each day a different interpretation of the ten +planks of which the Ark was composed.” + +By this method of interpretation the devout adapted the Bible to +their own uses, smoothing away its contradictions and explaining +away passages, like the command in Genesis to kill uncircumcised +children, which, read literally, would have seemed to them barbarous +and immoral. We must be careful, however, not to misunderstand this +method of thought. When they said that the beautiful woman in the Song +of Solomon was the Church, they were not conscious, as we are, that +this is a figure of speech. There had not entered into their habits of +thought the kind of analytical precision in which one thing can mean +only one thing. It is no contradiction to say that the allegory was +taken literally; certainly there was no sense of unreality about it, +as there is for us. “These and similar allegorical interpretations may +be suitably put ...” says St. Augustine, speaking here to the educated +minority, “without giving offense to anyone, while yet we believe the +strict truth of the history confirmed by its circumstantial narrative +of facts.” + +But at last men became too analytical and too self-conscious to accept +the naive use of allegory. They realized that allegory was a loose +method of interpretation which lent itself easily to the citing of +scripture in order to justify heresy. If the ten planks in Noah’s Ark +could mean a different set of truths on each day in Lent, there was +no telling what they might come to mean in the end. It was clear, +therefore, that allegory was dangerous [p039] and might, as Luther +said, “degenerate into a mere monkey game”; it was wanton, like “a sort +of beautiful harlot who proves herself spiritually seductive to idle +men.” + +This danger was a result of the general loosening of organic +faith which was already evident in Luther’s day. To men who had +the unconscious certainties about God and his universe, allegory +was a perfectly safe method of interpreting the Bible because all +the interpretations, however fantastic, were inspired by the same +pre-judgments and tended therefore to confirm the same convictions. The +allegories of simple men are like many-colored flowers in one garden, +growing from the same soil, watered by the same rains, turning their +faces toward the same sun. But as men became emancipated from their +ancestral way of life, their convictions about God and destiny and +human morality changed. Then the method of allegory ceased to be the +merely exuberant expression of the same ancient truths, and became a +confusing method of rationalizing all kinds of new experiments. It +promoted heresy because men had become heretical, where once, while men +were devout, it had only embroidered their devotions. + +“To allegorize is to juggle with Scripture,” said Luther. The +Protestant Reformers could not tolerate that. For they lived in an +age when faith was already disintegrating, and they had themselves +destroyed the authority of an infallible source of religion. “We must,” +wrote Calvin, “entirely reject the allegories of Origen, and of others +like him, which Satan, with the deepest subtlety, has endeavored to +introduce into the Church, for the [p040] purpose of rendering the +doctrine of Scripture ambiguous and destitute of all certainty and +firmness.” + +The insistence of the Reformers on a literal interpretation of the +Bible had, as Dr. Fosdick points out, two unforeseen results. It led +to the so-called Higher Criticism which in substance is nothing but a +scientific attempt to find out what the Bible did mean literally to +those who wrote it. And this in turn made it practically impossible for +modern men to believe all that the Bible literally says. When they read +the Bible as allegory they found in it unending confirmation of what +they already believed. But when they read it literally, as history, as +astronomy, and biology, and as a code of laws, it contradicted at many +crucial points the practical working convictions of their daily lives. +“The consequence is,” says Dr. Fosdick, “that we face the Biblical +world made historically vivid over against the modern world presently +experienced, and we cannot use the old method (_i.e._ allegory) of +accommodating one to the other.” + + +2. _Modernism: Immortality as an Example_ + +This predicament forced modern churchmen to seek what Dr. Fosdick calls +“a new solution.” They could not believe that the Bible was taken down, +as John Donne put it, by “the Secretaries of the Holy Ghost.” Yet they +believed, as every sane man does, that the Bible contains wisdom which +bears deeply upon the conduct of human life. Their problem was to find +a way of picking and choosing passages in the Scriptures, and then of +interpreting those which were chosen in such a way as to make them +credible to modern men. They had to find some [p041] way of setting +aside the story that God made Eve out of Adam’s rib, that God commanded +the massacre of whole populations, and that he enjoyed the slaughter of +animals at the sacrifice; but they had at the same time to find a way +of preserving for the use of modern men the lessons of the ministry of +Jesus and the promise of life everlasting. + +The method they employ is based on a theory. It is a theory that the +Bible contains “abiding messages” placed in a “transient setting.” The +Bible, for example, is full of stories about devils and angels. Now, +modern men do not believe in devils and angels. These are “categories” +which they have outgrown. But what the devils and angels stood for +are evils and blessings which modern men still encounter. We have, +therefore, only to “decode” the Bible, and where it speaks of devils +to see temptations, sin, disease, pain, and suffering, which have a +psychic origin; where it speaks of angels to remember that sense of +unseen friendliness which may help us at a crisis in our lives. The old +wine is still good, but it needs to be put in new bottles. “The modern +preacher’s responsibility is thus to decode the abiding meanings of +Scripture from outgrown phraseology.” + +This is not so difficult a thing to do for the devils and the angels. +But a little reflection will show, I think, that in dealing with +the major themes of religion, the solution is not so easy. The real +difficulty appears when Dr. Fosdick attempts to decode the biblical +promise of immortal life. + +He begins by rejecting completely the resurrection of the flesh and +any kind of immortality which is imagined as the survival of the +physical person. Yet he believes [p042] in “the persistence of +personality through death.” For he maintains that without this belief +the final victory of death would signify “the triumphant irrationality +of existence”; not to believe in immortality is to submit to “mental +confusion.” Speaking quite frankly, however, he cannot easily imagine +“a completely disembodied existence.” Yet it is obviously not easy to +imagine the persistence of personality through death once you have made +up your mind not to imagine a concrete heaven inhabited by well-defined +persons. + +Modern churchmen, like Dean Inge for example, who have faced the +difficulty more boldly than Dr. Fosdick does, arrive at an intelligible +explanation of what they mean by immortality. But they mean something +which is not only very difficult to understand, but extremely difficult +for most men to enjoy when they have understood it. They inject +intelligible meaning into the word “eternal” by employing it in a sense +which is wholly different from that which the common man employs. +By immortality he means life that goes on age after age without +stopping. But the modern churchmen who have really clarified their +minds are platonists. They apply the word “eternal” to that which is +independent of time and existence. Between the two conceptions there +is the profoundest difference, for in the commonsense of the worldling +existence is so precious that he wishes it to continue for ever and +ever. But to the platonist existence, or embodiment, is transient, +accidental, irrational; only that is permanent which is timeless. +Commonsense demands that if we are immortal we should meet our friend +again later and continue our friendship; the platonist [p043] loves +the memory of his friend after death as he loved an ideal image of him +during his life. In communing with his memories and his ideals he knows +himself to be in touch with eternal things. For not even the gods, says +Homer, can undo the past; no accident of mortality can destroy anything +which can be represented in the mind. Heroes die, but that such heroic +deeds were done is a chapter forever, as Mr. Santayana says, in any +complete history of the universe. The thinker dies, but his thoughts +are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal; but ideas are +immortal. + +I do not know whether I have known how to state clearly what is meant +by this platonic view to which, in varying degrees of clarity, all +emancipated minds turn when they talk of immortality. But, at least, it +is clear that it is a conception which calls for a radically different +adjustment to life than that to which the worldling is accustomed. He +desires objects to love, goods and successes that are perishable, and +he wishes them not to perish. Before he can enter the platonic world, +before he can even attain to a hint of its meaning, he must abandon the +very desires of which his hope of immortality is the expression. He +must detach himself from his wish to acquire and possess objects that +die; he must learn what it means to possess things not by holding them, +but by understanding them, and to enjoy them as objects of reflection. +He must not only cease to desire immortality as he conceives it, but +the material embodiment of things as well. Then only, when he has +renounced his love of existence, can he begin to love the forms of +existence, and to live among imperishable ideas. [p044] Then, and in +this sense only, does he enter into eternal life. + +The ordinary man, when he hears this doctrine expounded, is almost +certain to say with the Indian sage: “the worship of the Impersonal +laid no hold upon my heart.” His heart is set on the enjoyment of +worldly goods, and the doctrine, for all but a few exceptional spirits, +requires a radical change of heart. It is forbidding except to the few +in whom “the intellect (is) passionate and the passions cold.” For it +demands a conversion of their natural desire to possess tangible things +into a passion to understand intangible and abstract things. This +philosophy is ascetic, unworldly, and profoundly disinterested. + +Now it can be argued that this is precisely what the Gospels teach as +to the meaning of salvation. Excellent authority can be cited from the +Gospel of John and the Epistles of St. Paul to justify this form of +the Christian tradition: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom +of God” ... “the things that are seen are temporal, but the things +that are not seen are eternal” ... “I see another law in my members, +warring against the law of my mind.” It can hardly be denied, as Dean +Inge says, that “we are able to carry back to the fountain-head that +Christian tradition” which may quite accurately be described as the +religion of the spirit. But mixed with it in the Scripture, there is +the other tradition, the popular tradition which may be called the +religion of commonsense. Out of this latter have grown the institutions +of the church and the faith of the mass of men. The religion of the +spirit has been reserved for a few, “a succession [p045] of lives +which have been sheltered rather than inspired by the machinery and +statecraft of a mighty institution,” and while the few who lived the +life of the spirit have undoubtedly done much to inspire the popular +religion with new insight, they have been, on the whole, a group apart. + +Yet those who belonged to these two distinct traditions did use the +same churches and the same symbolism. There was an even deeper bond of +unity between them. Both believed that renunciation and self-discipline +are the way of salvation—in the religion of the spirit as the way to +enter now into love of eternal things; in the religion of commonsense +as a rather heavy price paid to God in return for everlasting happiness +after death. It may be argued, therefore, by churchmen like Dr. +Fosdick, that the “abiding message” of the Bible about immortality is +that men must renounce the world in order to win eternity. That some +men mean by eternity a kind of perpetual motion and others a kind of +abstraction is merely a difference in their habits of thought, and does +not impair the validity or the importance of the central experience. If +they will renounce their worldly passions, they will find what the idea +of eternity has to give, no matter what they imagine it to mean. + +But although Dr. Fosdick implies that this solves the difficulty, it +can be shown, I believe, that it does not. What he has succeeded in +doing is to disentangle from the Bible a meaning for immortality which +has a noble tradition behind it and is at the same time intellectually +possible for a modern man. But the history of religion ought to put +us on guard against assuming too easily [p046] that a statement of +the purest truth is in itself capable of affecting the lives of any +considerable number of people. Dean Inge, who is a very much more +clear-headed churchman, says quite frankly that “a religion succeeds, +not because it is true, but because it suits the worshippers.” Merely +to tell men, however fervently, that they may conquer mortality by +renouncing the flesh, will not go far toward persuading many of them +to renounce the flesh. There must be, as there has been in all the +historic religions, something more than a statement of the moral law. +There must be a psychological machinery for enforcing the moral law. + +For those who are suited to the religion of the spirit no machinery is +needed. But for the mass of men who are not naturally suited to it, +a machinery which compels this conversion is indispensable. Jesus in +his time, and Gautama Buddha before him, taught a moral law which was +addressed to those who could receive it. They were not many. Buddhism +and Christianity became world religions centuries after the death of +their founders, and only when there had been added to the central +message a great organized method of teaching it. + +The essence of such an organization is the title to say with apostolic +certainty that the message is true. Churchmen, like Dr. Fosdick, can +make no such claim about their message. They reject revelation. They +reject the authority of any church to speak directly for God. They +reject the literal inspiration of the Bible. They reject altogether +many parts of the Bible as not only uninspired, but false and +misleading. They do not believe in God as a lawgiver, judge, father, +and spectator of human life. [p047] When they say that this or that +message in the Bible is “permanently valid,” they mean only that in +their judgment, according to their reading of human experience, it is +a well-tested truth. To say this is not merely to deny that the Bible +is authoritative in astronomy and biology; it is to deny equally that +it is authoritative as to what is good and bad for men. The Bible thus +becomes no more than a revered collection of hypotheses which each man +may reject or accept in the light of his own knowledge. + +The lessons may still be true. But they are robbed of their certainty. +Each man is thrown back upon his own resources; he is denied the +support which all popular religion offers him, the conviction that +outside himself there is a power on which he can and must lean for +guidance. In the ancient faith a man said: “I believe this on the +authority of an all-wise God.” In the new faith he is in effect +compelled to say: “I have examined the alleged pronouncements of an +all-knowing God; some of them are obviously untrue, some are rather +repulsive, others, however, if they are properly restated, I find to be +exceedingly good.” + +Something quite fundamental is left out of the modernist creeds. At +least something which has hitherto been quite fundamental is left +out. That something is the most abiding of all the experiences of +religion, namely, the conviction that the religion comes from God. +Suppose it were true, which it plainly is not, that Dr. Fosdick by his +process of selection and decoding has retained “precisely the thing +at which the Bible was driving.” Still he would be without the thing +on which popular religion [p048] has been founded. For the Bible to +our ancestors was not simply, as he implies, a book of wisdom. It was +a book of wisdom backed by the power of God himself. That is not an +inconsiderable difference. It is all the difference there is between a +pious resolution and a moral law. + +The Bible, as men formerly accepted it, contained wisdom _certified_ +by the powers that govern the universe. It did not merely contain many +well-tested truths, similar in kind to those which are to be found in +Plato, Aristotle, Montaigne, and Bernard Shaw. It contained truths +which could not be doubted because they had been spoken by God through +his prophets and his Son. They could not be wrong. But once it is +allowed that each man may select from the Bible as he sees fit, judging +each passage by his own notions of what is “abiding,” you have stripped +the Scriptures of their authority to command men’s confidence and to +compel their obedience. The Scriptures may still inspire respect. But +they are disarmed. + + +3. _What Modernism Leaves Out_ + +Many reasons have been adduced to explain why people do not go to +church as much as they once did. Surely the most important reason is +that they are not so certain that they are going to meet God when they +go to church. If they had that certainty they would go. If they really +believed that they were being watched by a Supreme Being who is more +powerful than all the kings of earth put together, if they really +believed that not only their actions but their secret thoughts were +known and would be remembered by the creator and ultimate judge of the +[p049] universe, there would be no complaint whatever about church +attendance. The most worldly would be in the front pews, and preachers +would not have to resort so often to their rather desperate expedients +to attract an audience. If the conviction were there that the creed +professed was invincibly true, the modern congregation would not come +to church, as they usually do to-day, to hear the preacher and to +listen to the music. They would come to worship God. + +Religious professions will not work when they rest merely on a kind of +passive assent; or on intricate reasoning, or on fierce exhortation, or +on a good-natured conspiracy to be vague and highflown. A man cannot +cheat about faith. Either he has it in the marrow of his bones, or in +a crisis, when he is distracted and in sorrow, there is no conviction +there to support him. Without complete certainty religion does not +offer genuine consolation. It is without the strength to compensate +our weakness. Nor can it sanction the rules of morality. Ethical codes +cannot lay claim to unhesitating obedience when they are based upon the +opinions of a majority, or on the notions of wise men, or on estimates +of what is socially useful, or on an appeal to patriotism. For they +depend then on the force which happens to range itself behind them at a +particular time; or on their convenience for a moment. They are felt to +be the outcome of human, and therefore quite fallible, decisions. They +are no necessary part of the government of the universe. They were not +given by God to Moses on Sinai. They are not the commandments of God +speaking through his Infallible Church. + +A human morality has no such sanction as a divine. [p050] The +sanction of a divine morality is the certainty of the believer that it +originated with God. But if he has once come to think that the rule of +conduct has a purely human, local, and temporal origin, its sanction is +gone. His obedience is transformed, as ours has been by knowledge of +that sort, from conviction to conformity or calculated expediency. + +Without certainty there can be no profound sense that a man’s own +purpose has become part of the purpose of the whole creation. It +is necessary to believe in a God who is active in the world before +a man can feel himself to be, as St. Paul said, “a fellow laborer” +with God. Yet this sense of partnership with a Person who transcends +the individual’s own life, his own ego, and his own capacities, is +fundamental in all popular religion. It underlies all the other +elements of religion. For in the certainty that he is enlisted with +God, man finds not only comfort in defeat, not only an ideal of +holiness which persuades him to renounce his immediate desires, but an +ecstatic mobilizing of all his scattered energies in one triumphant +sense of his own infinite importance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV [p051] + +THE ACIDS OF MODERNITY + + +1. _The Kingly Pattern_ + +What I have said thus far can be reduced to the statement that it is +difficult for modern men to conceive a God whom they can worship. Yet +it would be a crude misunderstanding of religious experience to assume +that it depends upon a clear conception of God. In truly religious +men the experience of God is much more intensely convincing than any +definition of his nature which they can put into words. They do not +insist on understanding that which they believe, for their belief +gives them a consciousness of divinity which transcends any conviction +they could reach by the understanding. They are not oppressed by the +conflict between reason and faith because the testimony of faith +is irresistible. It may become so irresistible that any attempt to +understand is finally held, as it was by John Chrysostom, to be an +impertinence. + +St. Chrysostom, who is described by the _Catholic Encyclopedia_ as the +most prominent doctor of the Greek Church and the greatest preacher +ever heard in a Christian pulpit, is a striking example of how in +other ages a man who was both learned and devout was able to surmount +the intellectual difficulties which to-day cause so much trouble for +modernists and fundamentalists alike. Chrysostom was born at Antioch +in the middle of the Fourth Century and grew up in a time when the +intellectual [p052] foundations of Christianity were intensely +disputed. The Catholic theology had not yet emerged victoriously, and +Antioch was the theatre of fierce struggles between Pagans, Manichæans, +Gnostics, Arians, Jews, and others. These struggles turned in +considerable measure upon just such attempts to define and comprehend +God as now confuse the teaching of the Protestant Church. Among the +sectarians there were some who claimed that it was possible “to know +God exactly” and it was against them that Chrysostom preached that +“he insults God who seeks to apprehend His essential being.” For “the +difference between the being of God and the being of man is of such a +kind that no word can express it and no thought can appraise it.... He +dwells, says St. Paul, in an unapproachable light.” Even the angels in +heaven are stupefied by the glory and majesty of God: “Tell me,” he +says, “wherefore do they cover their faces and hide them with their +wings? Why but that they cannot endure the dazzling radiance and its +rays that pour from the Throne?” + +Here in language so eloquent that the author became known as +Chrysostom, “the golden-mouthed,” we have the doctrine that “a +comprehended God is no God,” that “God is incomprehensible because He +is blessed and blessed because He is incomprehensible.” But if we look +more closely at what Chrysostom actually says, it is apparent that he +has a much clearer idea of God than he knows. He conceives of God as +the creator, the ruler, and the judge of the universe. When he says +that God is incomprehensible he means that it is impossible for a human +being to imagine what it would be like to be God. But [p053] that does +not prevent Chrysostom from knowing what it is like to be the creature +of the incomprehensible God. He is very definitely on his knees before +the throne of a divine king whose radiance is so dazzling that he +cannot look his Lord in the face. + +There is thus a very solid intellectual conception embedded in the +faith of this great teacher who staked everything on the assertion that +it is impossible to conceive God. The conception is there but it has +not been isolated and realized. It is unconsciously assumed. We find +the same thing in Luther when he said: “I venture to put my trust in +the one God alone, the invisible and incomprehensible, who hath created +Heaven and Earth and is alone above all creatures.” For in spite of +the fact that Luther calls God incomprehensible, he is able to make a +number of extremely important statements about him. He is able to say +that God is the only God, that he created the earth, that there is a +heaven, that God created heaven, and that God alone is above all his +creatures. To know that much about God is to comprehend the function of +God if not his nature. + +Now if we examine the religious difficulty of modern men, we find, +I think, that they do not lack the sense of mystery, of majesty, of +terror, and of wonder which overwhelm Chrysostom and Luther. The +emotional disposition is there. But it is somehow inhibited from +possessing them utterly. The will to believe is checked by something +in their experience which Chrysostom did not have. That something is +the sense that the testimony of faith is not wholly credible, that the +feeling of sanctity is no assurance of the existence of sacred powers, +that awe and [p054] wonder and terror in the breast of the believer +are not guarantees that there exist real objects that are awful and +wonderful. The modern man is not incapable of faith, but he has within +him a contrary passion, as instinctive and often as intense as faith, +which makes incredible the testimony of his faith. + +It is that contrary passion, and not the thin argumentation of atheists +and agnostics, which lies, I think, at the root of what churchmen call +modern irreligion. It is that passion which they must understand if +they are ever to understand the modern religious difficulty. For just +as men could surmount any intellectual difficulty when their passion to +believe was whole-hearted, so to-day, when the passion to disbelieve +is so strong, they are unable to believe no matter how perfectly their +theological dilemmas are resolved. + +We must ask ourselves, then, what there is in modern men which makes +the testimony of faith seem more or less incredible to them. We have +seen in the citations from Chrysostom and Luther that the testimony of +faith really contains a large number of unconscious statements of fact +about the universe and how it is governed. It is these statements of +fact which we are no longer able to assume unconsciously, and having +become conscious of them they are rather incredible. But why are they +no longer unconsciously assumed and why are they incredible? The answer +is, I think, that they have ceased to be consistent with our normal +experience in ordinary affairs. + +The faith of Chrysostom and Luther is entangled with, and supported +upon, the assumption that the universe [p055] was created and is +governed by a father and king. They had projected upon the universe +an imaginary picture which reflected their own daily experience of +government among men. These pictures of how the universe is governed +change with men’s political experience. Thus it would not have been +easy for an Asiatic people to imagine the divine government in any +other way but as a despotism, and Yahveh, as he appears in many +famous portraits in the Old Testament, is very evidently an Oriental +monarch inclined to be somewhat moody and very vain. He governs as he +chooses, constrained by no law, and often without mercy, justice, or +righteousness. The God of mediæval Christianity, on the other hand, +is more like a great feudal lord, supreme and yet bound by covenants +to treat his vassals on earth according to a well-established system +of reciprocal rights and duties. The God of the Enlightenment in the +Eighteenth Century is a constitutional monarch who reigns but does not +govern. And the God of Modernism, who is variously pictured as the +_élan vital_ within the evolutionary process, or as the sum total of +the laws of nature, is really a kind of constitutionalism deified. + +Provided that the picture is so consistent with experience that it +is taken utterly for granted, it will serve as a background for the +religious experience. But when daily experience for one reason or +another provides no credible analogy by which men can imagine that +the universe is governed by a supernatural king and father, then the +disposition to believe, however strong it may be at the roots, is like +a vine that reaches out and can find nothing solid upon which to grow. +It cannot support [p056] itself. If faith is to flourish, there must +be a conception of how the universe is governed to support it. + +It is these supporting conceptions—the unconscious assumption that +we are related to God as creatures to creator, as vassals to a king, +as children to a father—that the acids of modernity have eaten away. +The modern man’s daily experience of modernity makes instinctively +incredible to him these unconscious ideas which are at the core of the +great traditional and popular religions. He does not wantonly reject +belief, as so many churchmen assert. His predicament is much more +serious. With the best will in the world, he finds himself not quite +believing. + +In the last four hundred years many influences have conspired to make +incredible the idea that the universe is governed by a kingly person. +An account of all of these influences would be a history of the growth +of modern civilization. I am attempting nothing so comprehensive or +so ambitious. I should like merely to note certain aspects of that +revolutionary change which, as Lord Acton says, came “unheralded” +and “founded a new order of things ... sapping the ancient reign of +continuity.” For that new order of things has made it impossible for +us to believe, as plainly and literally as our forefathers did, that +the universe is a monarchy administered on this planet through divinely +commissioned, and, therefore, unimpeachably authoritative ministers. + + +2. _Landmarks_ + +In a famous passage at the beginning of _Heretics_, Mr. Chesterton +says that “nothing more strangely indicates the enormous and silent +evil of modern society than [p057] the extraordinary use which is +made nowadays of the word ‘orthodox.’ In former days the heretic was +proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdom of the world and the +police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. All the +tortures born out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he +was heretical. But a few modern phrases have made him boast of it. He +says with a conscious laugh, ‘I suppose I am very heretical,’ and looks +around for applause. The word ‘heresy’ not only means no longer being +wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous.” + +Mr. Chesterton goes on to explain that this change of attitude has come +about because “people care less for whether they are philosophically +right than they used to care.” It may be so. But if they cared as much +or more, it would not help them. To be orthodox is to believe in the +right doctrines and to follow the ancient rules of living deduced from +a divine revelation. The modern man finds that the doctrines do not fit +what he believes to be true, and that the rules do not show him how +to conduct his life. For he is confronted at every turn with radical +novelties about which his inherited dogma teaches him something which +is plainly unworkable, or, as is even more often the case, teaches him +nothing at all. + +In the old world there were, of course, novelties, too. But the pace +of change was so slow that it did not seem to cause radical change. +There was ample time to make subtle and necessary revisions of the +fundamental assumptions of right and wrong without seeming to challenge +the distinction between right and wrong. Looking back at it in long +perspective we can see now that there was [p058] a constant evolution +of the Christian faith from the Apostles to the later councils of the +Church. But in relation to the life of any individual the change was so +slow that men could honestly believe that the Catholicism of Hildebrand +was identical with the Christianity of Paul. Men had few means of +reconstructing the past, and few ways of knowing how great was the +variety of belief at any one time within the frontiers of Christendom. +Within their horizon, change came too slowly to seem like change, +because only that seems to move which moves rather fast. + +For that reason the large changes which took place were not vividly +realized. The small, quick changes, of which men were conscious, could +therefore easily be made to seem, especially since men were not too +exact and observant, as inevitable deductions from unchanging premises. +Even in the great arguments over the nature of Christ, the rights of +Church and Empire, the meaning of grace and transubstantiation, both +sides appealed in theory to the same premises. Each side asserted that +it was following the true revelation. And since ordinary men for the +most part never heard the other side, except from their own priests and +doctors, they had no reason for doubting that the side on which they +happened to find themselves was absolutely right. They did not have to +choose between competing creeds; they had merely to defend their creed, +which was the true one, against the enemies of God. And so if they were +disturbed by the quarrel, they were not disturbed much by doubt. + +The grand adjustments were taken for granted, and within that framework +men could make the minor adjustments patiently and elaborately, letting +them become [p059] habitual and well-worn. This, perhaps, is the +secret of the charm that an old civilization has for us to-day. We +feel that here is a way of life which men have had time to refine and +to embellish. The modern man in a progressive community has neither +the time nor the energy for this delightful superficiality. He is +too busy solving fundamental problems. He is so free to question his +premises that he is no longer free to work out his conclusions. His +philosophy of life is like the skyscraper; it is nine-tenths structure. +So much effort has gone into constructing it, and making it fit to +bear the strains, it is so new and yet it will so soon be out of +date, that nobody is much interested in the character of it. But a +mediæval cathedral, like the mediæval philosophy, was built slowly over +generations and was to last forever; it is decorated inside and out, +where it can be seen and where it cannot be seen, from the crypt to the +roof. + +The modern man is an emigrant who lives in a revolutionary society and +inherits a protestant tradition. He must be guided by his conscience. +But when he searches his conscience, he finds no fixed point outside of +it by which he can take his bearings. He does not really believe that +there is such a point, because he himself has moved about too fast to +fix any point long enough in his mind. For the sense of authority is +not established by argument. It is acquired by deep familiarity and +indurated association. The ancient authorities were blended with the +ancient landmarks, with fields and vineyards and patriarchal trees, +with ancient houses and chests full of heirlooms, with churchyards +near at hand and their ancestral graves, with old men who remembered +wise sayings they [p060] had heard from wise old men. In that kind of +setting it is natural to believe that the great truths are known and +the big questions settled, and to feel that the dead themselves are +still alive and are watching over the ancient faith. + +But when creeds have to be proved to the doubting they are already +blighted; arguments are for the unbelievers and the wavering, for +those who have never had, and for those who have lost these primordial +attachments. Faith is not a formula which is agreed to if the weight +of evidence favors it. It is a posture of man’s whole being which +predisposes him to assimilate, not merely to believe, his creed. +When the posture is native to him, in tune with the rhythm of his +surroundings, his faith is not dependent upon intellectual assent. It +is a serene and whole-hearted absorption, like that of the infant to +its mother, in the great powers outside which govern his world. When +that union of feeling is no longer there, as it is not there for a +large part of our talkative fundamentalist sects, we may be sure that +corrosive doubting has begun. The unlovely quality of much modern +religiosity is due to these doubts. So much of its belief is synthetic. +It is forced, made, insisted upon, because it is no longer simple and +inevitable. The angry absurdities which the fundamentalists propound +against “evolution” are not often due to their confidence in the +inspiration of the Bible. They are due to lack of confidence, to doubt +resisted like an annoying tune which a man cannot shake out of his +head. For if the militant fundamentalists were utterly sure they are +right, they would exhibit some of that composure which the truly devout +display. Did they [p061] really trust their God, they would trust +laws, politicians, and policemen less. But because their whole field of +consciousness is trembling with uncertainties they are in a state of +fret and fuss; and their preaching is frousy, like the seductions of an +old coquette. + + +3. _Barren Ground_ + +The American people, more than any other people, is composed of +individuals who have lost association with their old landmarks. They +have crossed an ocean, they have spread themselves across a new +continent. The American who still lives in his grandfather’s house +feels almost as if he were living in a museum. There are few Americans +who have not moved at least once since their childhood, and even if +they have staid where they were born, the old landmarks themselves +have been carted away to make room for progress. That, perhaps, is one +reason why we have so much more Americanism than love of America. It +takes time to learn to love the new gas station which stands where the +wild honeysuckle grew. Moreover, the great majority of Americans have +risen in the world. They have moved out of their class, lifting the +old folks along with them perhaps, so that together they may sit by +the steam pipes, and listen to the crooning of the radio. But more and +more of them have moved not only out of their class, but out of their +culture; and then they leave the old folks behind, and the continuity +of life is broken. For faith grows well only as it is passed on from +parents to their children amidst surroundings that bear witness, +because nothing changes radically, to a deep permanence in the order of +the world. It is true, [p062] no doubt, that in this great physical +and psychic migration some of the old household gods are carefully +packed up and put with the rest of the luggage, and then unpacked and +set up on new altars in new places. But what can be taken along is at +best no more than the tree which is above the ground. The roots remain +in the soil where first they grew. + +The sidewalks of a city would in any case be a stony soil in which to +transplant religion. Throughout history, as Spengler points out, the +large city has bred heresies, new cults, and irreligion. Now when we +speak of modern civilization we mean a civilization dominated by the +culture of the great metropolitan centers. Our own civilization in +America is perhaps the most completely urbanized of all. For even the +American farmers, though they live in the country, tend to be suburban +rather than rural. I am aware of how dominating a role the population +outside the great cities plays in American life. Yet it is in the +large cities that the tempo of our civilization is determined, and the +tendency of mechanical inventions as well as economic policy is to +create an irresistible suction of the country towards the city. + +The deep and abiding traditions of religion belong to the countryside. +For it is there that man earns his daily bread by submitting to +superhuman forces whose behavior he can only partially control. There +is not much he can do when he has ploughed the ground and planted his +seed except to wait hopefully for sun and rain from the sky. He is +obviously part of a scheme that is greater than himself, subject to +elements that transcend his powers and surpass his understanding. The +city is an acid that dissolves [p063] this piety. How different it is +from an ancient vineyard where men cultivate what their fathers have +planted. In a modern city it is not easy to maintain that “reverent +attachment to the sources of his being and the steadying of his life by +that attachment.” It is not natural to form reverent attachments to an +apartment on a two-year lease, and an imitation mahogany desk on the +thirty-second floor of an office building. In such an environment piety +becomes absurd, a butt for the facetious, and the pious man looks like +a picturesque yokel or a stuffy fool. + +Yet without piety, without a patriotism of family and place, without +an almost plant-like implication in unchangeable surroundings, there +can be no disposition to believe in an external order of things. The +omnipotence of God means something to men who submit daily to the +cycles of the weather and the mysterious power of nature. But the city +man puts his faith in furnaces to keep out the cold, is proudly aware +of what bad sewage his ancestors endured, and of how ignorantly they +believed that God, who made Adam at 9 A.M. on October 23 in the year +4004 B.C., was concerned with the behavior of Adam’s children. + + +4. _Sophisticated Violence_ + +Much effort goes into finding substitutes for this radical loss of +association. There is the Americanization movement, for example, +which in some of its public manifestations has as much resemblance to +patriotism as the rape of the Sabine women had to the love of Dante +for Beatrice. There is the vociferous nationalism of the [p064] +hundred percenters which is always most eloquent when it is about to +be most rowdy. There are the anxious outcries of the sectarians who +in their efforts to revive the religion of their fathers show the +utmost contempt for the aspirations of their sons. There is Mr. Henry +Ford hastily collecting American antiques before his cars destroy +the whole culture which produced them. There is Mr. Lothrop Stoddard +looking every man in the eye to see whether it is Nordic blue. There +are a thousand and one patently artificial, sometimes earnest, often +fantastic fundamentalist agitations. They are all attempts to impose +quickly by one kind of sophisticated violence or another a posture of +faith which can be genuine only when it belongs to the unquestioned +memories of the soul. They are a shrill insistence that men ought to +feel that which no man can feel who does not already feel it in the +marrow of his bones. + +Novelties crowd the consciousness of modern men. The machinery of +intelligence, the press, the radio, the moving picture, have enormously +multiplied the number of unseen events and strange people and queer +doings with which he has to be concerned. They compel him to pay +attention to facts that are detached from their backgrounds, their +causes and their consequences, and are only half known because they are +not seen or touched or actually heard. These experiences come to him +having no beginning, no middle, and no end, mere flashes of publicity +playing fitfully upon a dark tangle of circumstances. I pick up a +newspaper at the start of the day and I am depressed and rejoiced to +learn that: anthracite miners have struck in Pennsylvania; that a price +boost [p065] plot is charged; that Mr. Ziegfeld has imported a blonde +from England who weighs 112 pounds and has pretty legs; that the Pope, +on the other hand, has refused to receive women in low-necked dress and +with their arms bare; that airplanes are flying to Hawaii; and that the +Mayor says that the would-be Mayor is a liar.... + +Now in an ordered universe there ought to be place for all human +experiences. But it is not strange that the modern newspaper reader +finds it increasingly difficult to believe that through it all there is +order, permanence, and connecting principle. Such experience as comes +to him from the outside is a dissonance composed of a thousand noises. +And amidst these noises he has for inner guidance only a conscience +which consists, as he half suspects, of the confused echoes of earlier +tunes. + + +5. _Rulers_ + +He cannot look to his betters for guidance. The American social system +is migratory, revolutionary, and protestant. It provides no recognized +leaders and no clear standards of conduct. No one is recognized as the +interpreter of morals and the arbiter of taste. There is no social +hierarchy, there is no acknowledged ruling class, no well-known system +of rights and duties, no code of manners. There are smart sets, first +families, and successful people, to whom a good deal of deference is +paid and a certain tribute of imitation. But these leaders have no real +authority in morals or in matters of taste because they themselves have +few standards that are not the fashions of a season. They exercise, +therefore, an almost autocratic power over deportment at the country +club. [p066] But what they believe about God, salvation, or the +destiny of America nobody knows, not even they themselves. + +There have been perhaps three ruling classes in America, the Puritan +merchants, the Knickerbocker gentry, and the Cavalier planters of +the South. Each presided for a few generations over an ordered +civilization. But the New Englanders uprooted themselves and went west, +and those who have been left behind are marooned in a flood of aliens. +The Knickerbocker squirearchy dissolved in the commercial greatness of +New York, and the southern aristocracy was overthrown and ruined by a +social revolution which culminated in the Civil War. They have left no +successors, and unless and until American society becomes stabilized +once more somewhere for a few generations, they are not likely to have +any successors. + +Our rulers to-day consist of random collections of successful men and +their wives. They are to be found in the inner circles of banks and +corporations, in the best clubs, in the dominant cliques of trade +unions, among the political churchmen, the higher manipulating bosses, +the leading professional Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Irish, +Germans, Jews, and the grand panjandrums of the secret societies. +They give orders. They have to be consulted. They can more or less +effectively speak for, and lead some part of, the population. But none +of them is seated on a certain throne, and all of them are forever +concerned as to how they may keep from being toppled off. They do not +know how they happen to be where they are, although they often explain +what are the secrets of success. They have been educated to achieve +success; few of them have been educated to exercise power. Nor [p067] +do they count with any confidence upon retaining their power, nor of +handing it on to their sons. They live, therefore, from day to day, and +they govern by ear. Their impromptu statements of policy may be obeyed, +but nobody seriously regards them as having authority. + + + + +CHAPTER V [p068] + +THE BREAKDOWN OF AUTHORITY + + +1. _God’s Government_ + +The dissolution of the ancestral order is still under way, and much +of our current controversy is between those who hope to stay the +dissolution and those who would like to hasten it. The prime fact about +modernity, as it presents itself to us, is that it not merely denies +the central ideas of our forefathers but dissolves the disposition to +believe in them. The ancestral tradition still lives in many corners of +the world. But it no longer represents for us, as it did for Dante and +for St. Thomas Aquinas seven hundred years ago, the triumphant wisdom +of the age. A child born in a modern city may still learn to use the +images of the theological drama, but more or less consciously he is +made to feel that in using them he is not speaking of things that are +literally and exactly true. + +Its dogma, as Mr. Santayana once said, is insensibly understood to +be nothing but myth, its miracles nothing but legend, its sacraments +mere symbols, its bible pure literature, its liturgy just poetry, its +hierarchy an administrative convenience, its ethics an historical +accident, and its whole function simply to lend a warm mystical aureole +to human culture and ignorance. The modern man does not take his +religion as a real account of the constitution, the government, the +history, and the actual destiny of the [p069] universe. With rare +exceptions his ancestors did. They believed that all their activities +on this earth had a sequel in other activities hereafter, and that +they themselves in their own persons would be alive through all the +stretches of infinite time to experience this fulfilment. The sense of +actuality has gone out of this tremendous conception of life; only the +echoes of it persist, and in our memories they create a world apart +from the world in which we do our work, a noble world perhaps in which +it is refreshing to dwell now and then, and in anxiety to take refuge. +But the spaces between the stars are so great; the earth is now so +small a planet in the skies; man is so close, as St. Francis said, to +his brother the ass, that in the daylight he does not believe that a +great cosmic story is being unfolded of which his every thought and act +is a significant part. The universe may have a conscious purpose, but +he does not believe he knows just what it is; humanity may be acting +out a divine drama, but he is not certain that he knows the plot. + +There has gone out of modern life a working conviction that we are +living under the dominion of one supreme ideal, the attainment of +eternal happiness by obedience to God’s will on earth. This conviction +found its most perfect expression in the period which begins with St. +Augustine’s _City of God_ and culminates in the _Divine Comedy_ of +Dante. But the underlying intuitions are to be found in nearly all +popular religion; they are the creature’s feeling of dependence upon +his creator, a sense that his destiny is fixed by a being greater than +himself. At the bottom of it there is a conviction that the universe +is governed by superhuman persons, that the daily visible [p070] +life of the world is constitutionally subject to the laws and the +will of an invisible government. What the thinkers of the Middle Ages +did was to work out in elaborate detail and in grandiose style the +constitutional system under which supernatural government operates. It +is not fanciful, and I hope not irreverent, to suggest that the great +debates about the nature of the Trinity and the Godhead were attempts +to work out a theory of divine sovereignty; that the debates about +election and predestination and grace are attempts to work out a theory +of citizenship in a divine society. The essential idea which dominates +the whole speculation is man’s relation to a heavenly king. + +As this idea was finally worked out by the legists and canonists and +scholastics + + every ordering of a human community must appear as a component part + of that ordering of the world which exists because God exists, + and every earthly group must appear as an organic member of that + _Civitas Dei_, that God-State, which comprehends the heavens and + the earth. Then, on the other hand, the eternal and other-worldly + aim and object of every individual man must, in a directer or an + indirecter fashion, determine the aim and object of every group + into which he enters. + + But as there must, of necessity, be connection between the various + groups, and as all of them must be connected with the divinely + ordered Universe, we come by the further notion of a divinely + instituted Harmony which pervades the Universal Whole and every + part thereof. To every Being is assigned its place in that whole, + and to every link between Beings corresponds a divine decree.... + +There is no need to suppose that everyone in the Middle Ages +understood the theory, as Gierke describes it here, [p071] in all its +architectural grandeur. Nevertheless, the theory is implicit in the +feeling of simple men. It is the logical elaboration of the fundamental +belief that the God who governs the world is no mere abstraction made +up of hazy nouns and a vague adoration, but that, as Henry Adams says, +he is the feudal seigneur to whom Roland, when he was dying, could +proffer “his right-hand glove” as a last act of homage, such as he +might have made to Charlemagne, and could pray: + + O God the Father who has never lied, + Who raised up Saint Lazarus from death, + And Daniel from the lions saved, + Save my soul from all the perils + For the sins that in my life I did! + + +2. _The Doctrine of the Keys_ + +The theory of divine government has always presented some difficulties +to human reason, as we can see even in St. Augustine, who never clearly +made up his mind whether the City of God was the actual church presided +over by the Bishop of Rome or whether it was an ideal and invisible +congregation of the saved. But we may be sure that to plainer minds it +was necessary to believe that God governs mankind through the agency +of the visible church. The unsophisticated man may not be realistic, +but he is literal; he would be quite incapable, we may be sure, of +understanding what St. Thomas meant when he asked “why should not the +same sacred letter ... contain several senses founded on the literal?” +He would accept all the senses but he would accept them all literally. +And taking them literally he would have to believe that [p072] if God +governs the world, he governs it, not in some obscure meaning of the +term, but that he actually governs it, as a king who is mightier than +Charlemagne, but not essentially unlike Charlemagne. + +The disposition to believe in the rule of God depended, therefore, upon +the capacity to believe in a visible church upon earth which holds its +commission from God. In some form or another all simple people look +to a priestly caste who make visible the divine power. Without some +such actualization the human imagination falters and becomes vagrant. +The Catholic Church by its splendor and its power and its universality +during the Middle Ages must have made easily credible the conception +of God the Ruler. It was a government exercising jurisdiction over +the known world, powerful enough to depose princes, and at its head +was the Pope who could prove by the evidence of scripture that he was +the successor to Peter and was the Vice-gerent of God. To ask whether +this grandiose claim was in fact true is, from the point of view of +this argument, to miss the point. It was believed to be true in the +Middle Ages. Because it was believed, the Church flourished. Because +the Church flourished, it was ever so much easier to be certain that +the claim was true. When men said that God ruled the world, they had +evidence as convincing as we have when we say that the President is +head of the United States Government; they were convinced because they +came into daily contact with God’s appointees administering God’s laws. + +It is this concrete sense of divine government which modern men have +lost, and it may well be that this is where the Reformation has +exercised its most revolutionary [p073] effect. What Luther did was +to destroy the pretensions not only of the Roman Catholic Church, but +of any church and of any priestly class to administer God’s government +on earth. The Protestant reformers may not have intended to destroy +as deeply as they did; the theocracies established by Calvin and Knox +imply as much. But, nevertheless, when Luther succeeded in defying the +Holy See by rejecting its claim that it was the exclusive agent of God, +he made it impossible for any other church to set up the same claim and +sustain it for any length of time. + + Now Christ says that not alone in the Church is there forgiveness + of sins, but that where two or three are gathered together in His + name, they shall have the right and the liberty to proclaim and + promise to each other comfort and the forgiveness of sins.... We + are not only kings and the freest of all men, but also priests + forever, a dignity far higher than kingship, because by that + priesthood we are worthy to appear before God, to pray for others, + and to teach one another mutually the things which are of God. + +This denial of the special function of the priesthood did not, of +course, originate with Luther. Its historical antecedents go back to +the primitive Christians; there is quotable authority for it in St. +Augustine. It was anticipated by Wyclif and Huss and by many of the +mystics of the Middle Ages. But Luther, possibly because the times were +ripe for it, translated the denial of the authority of the priesthood +into a political revolution which divided Christendom. When the +Reformation was an accomplished fact, men looked out upon the world +and no longer saw a single Catholic Apostolic Church as the visible +embodiment of God’s government. A large part of [p074] mankind, and +that an economically and politically powerful part, no longer believed +that Christ gave to Simon Peter and his successors at the Roman See the +Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven with the promise that “whatsoever thou +shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt +loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” + + +3. _The Logic of Toleration_ + +As a result of the great religious wars the governing classes were +forced to realize that unless they consented to the policy of +toleration they would be ruined. There is no reason to suppose that +except among a few idealists toleration has ever been much admired +as a principle. It was originally, and in large measure it still is, +nothing but a practical necessity. For in its interior life no church +can wholly admit that its rivals may provide an equally good vehicle of +salvation. + +Martin Luther certainly had none of the modern notion that one church +is about as good as the next. To be sure he appealed to the right +of private judgment, but he made it plain nevertheless that in his +opinion “pagans or Turks or Jews or fake Christians” would “remain +under eternal wrath and an everlasting damnation.” John Calvin let +it be known in no uncertain tone that he did not wish any new sects +in Geneva. Milton, writing his beautiful essay on liberty, drew the +line at Papists. And in our own day the _Catholic Encyclopedia_ says +in the course of an eloquent argument for practical civic toleration +that “as the true God can tolerate no strange gods, the true Church +of Christ can tolerate no strange churches beside herself, [p075] +or, what amounts to the same, she can recognize none as theoretically +justified.” This is the ancient dogma that outside the church there is +no salvation—_extra ecclesiam nulla salus_. Like many another dogma +of the Roman church, it is not even in theory absolutely unbending. +Thus it appears from the allocution of Pope Pius IX, _Singulari quadam_ +(1854), that “those who are ignorant of the true religion, if their +ignorance is invincible (which means, if they have never had a chance +to know the true religion) are not, in this matter, guilty of any fault +in the sight of God.” + +As a consequence of the modern theory of religious freedom the +churches find themselves in an anomalous position. Inwardly, to +their communicants, they continue to assert that they possess the +only complete version of the truth. But outwardly, in their civic +relations with other churches and with the civil power, they preach +and practice toleration. The separation of church and state involves +more than a mere logical difficulty for the churchman. It involves a +deep psychological difficulty for the members of the congregation. +As communicants they are expected to believe without reservation +that their church is the only true means of salvation; otherwise the +multitude of separate sects would be meaningless. But as citizens +they are expected to maintain a neutral indifference to the claims of +all the sects, and to resist encroachments by any one sect upon the +religious practices of the others. This is the best compromise which +human wisdom has as yet devised, but it has one inevitable consequence +which the superficial advocates of toleration often overlook. It is +difficult to remain warmly convinced that the authority [p076] of any +one sect is divine, when as a matter of daily experience all sects have +to be treated alike. + +The human soul is not so divided in compartments that a man can be +indifferent in one part of his soul and firmly believing in another. +The existence of rival sects, the visible demonstration that none has +a monopoly, the habit of neutrality, cannot but dispose men against an +unquestioning acceptance of the authority of one sect. So many faiths, +so many loyalties, are offered to the modern man that at last none +seems to him wholly inevitable and fixed in the order of the universe. +The existence of many churches in one community weakens the foundation +of all of them. And that is why every church in the heyday of its power +proclaims itself to be catholic and intolerant. + +But when there are many churches in the same community, none can make +wholly good the claim that it is catholic. None has that power to +discipline the individual which a universal church exercises. For, as +Dr. Figgis puts it, when many churches are tolerated, “excommunication +has ceased to be tyrannical by becoming futile.” + + +4. _A Working Compromise_ + +If the rival churches were not compelled to tolerate each other, they +could not, consistently with their own teaching, accept the prevailing +theory of the public school. Under that theory the schools are silent +about matters of faith, and teachers are supposed to be neutral on the +issues of history and science which bear upon religion. The churches +permit this because they cannot agree on the dogma they would wish to +have taught. The Catholics would rather have no dogma in the schools +than [p077] Protestant dogma; the fundamentalists would rather have +none than have modernist. This situation is held to be a good one. But +that is only because all the alternatives are so much worse. No church +can sincerely subscribe to the theory that questions of faith do not +enter into the education of children. + +Wherever churches are rich enough to establish their own schools, or +powerful enough to control the public school, they make short work +of the “godless” school. Either they establish religious schools of +their own, as the Catholics and Lutherans have done, or they impose +their views on the public schools as the fundamentalists have done +wherever they have the necessary voting strength. The last fight of +Mr. Bryan’s life was made on behalf of the theory that if a majority +of voters in Tennessee were fundamentalists then they had the right +to make public education in Tennessee fundamentalist too. One of the +standing grievances of the Catholic Church in America is that Catholics +are taxed to support schools to which they cannot conscientiously send +their children. + +As a matter of fact non-sectarianism is a useful political phrase +rather than an accurate description of what goes on in the schools. If +there is teaching of science, that teaching is by implication almost +always agnostic. The fundamentalists point this out, and they are quite +right. The teaching of history, under a so-called non-sectarian policy, +is usually, in this country, a rather diluted Protestant version of +history. The Catholics are quite right when they point this out. +Occasionally, it may be, a teacher of science appears who has managed +to assimilate his science to his theology; now and then a Catholic +history teacher [p078] will depart from the standard textbooks to give +the Catholic version of disputed events during the last few hundred +years. But the chief effect of the non-sectarian policy is to weaken +sectarian attachment, to wean the child from the faith of his fathers +by making him feel that patriotism somehow demands that he shall not +press his convictions too far, that commonsense and good fellowship +mean that he must not be too absolute. The leaders of the churches +are aware of this peril. Every once in a while they make an effort +to combat it. Committees composed of parsons, priests, and rabbis +appear before the school boards and petition that a non-sectarian +God be worshipped and the non-controversial passages of the Bible be +read. They always agree that the present godless system of education +diminishes the sanctions of morality and the attendance at their +respective churches. But they disagree when they try to agree on the +nature of a neutral God, and they have been known to dispute fiercely +about a non-controversial text of the Ten Commandments. So, if the +sects are evenly balanced, the practical sense of the community turns +in the end against the reform. + + +5. _The Effect of Patriotism_ + +Modern governments are not merely neutral as between rival churches. +They draw to themselves much of the loyalty which once was given to the +churches. In fact it has been said with some truth that patriotism has +many of the characteristics of an authoritative religion. Certainly +it is true that during the last few hundred years there has been +transferred to government a considerable [p079] part of the devotion +which once sustained the churches. + +In the older world the priest was a divinely commissioned agent and +the prince a divinely tolerated power. But by the Sixteenth Century +Melanchthon, a friend of Luther’s, had denied that the church could +make laws binding the conscience. Only the prince, he said, could do +that. Out of this view developed the much misunderstood but essentially +modern doctrine of the divine right of kings. In its original historic +setting this doctrine was a way of asserting that the civil authority, +embodied in the king, derived its power not from the Pope, as God’s +viceroy on earth, but by direct appointment from God himself. The +divine right of kings was a declaration of independence as against +the authority of the church. This heresy was challenged not only by +the Pope, but by the Presbyterians as well. And it was to combat +the Presbyterian preachers who insisted on trying to dictate to the +government that King James I wrote his _True Law of Free Monarchy_, +asserting the whole doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. + +In the Religious Peace of Augsburg an even more destructive blow was +struck at the ancient claim of the church that it is a universal power. +It was agreed that the citizen of a state must adopt the religion of +his king. _Cuius regio ejus religio._ This was not religious liberty as +we understand it, but it was a supreme assertion of the civil power. +Where once the church had administered religion for the multitude, and +had exercised the right to depose an heretical king, it now became +the prerogative [p080] of the king to determine the religious duties +of his subjects. The way was open for the modern absolute state, a +conception which would have been entirely incomprehensible to men who +lived in the ages of faith. + +We must here avoid using words ambiguously. When I speak of the +absolute state, I do not refer to the constitutional arrangement of +powers within the state. It is of no importance in this connection +whether the absolute power of the state is exercised by a king, +a landed aristocracy, bankers and manufacturers, professional +politicians, soldiers, or a random majority of voters. It does not +matter whether the right to govern is hereditary or obtained with the +consent of the governed. A state is absolute in the sense which I +have in mind when it claims the right to a monopoly of all the force +within the community, to make war, to make peace, to conscript life, +to tax, to establish and disestablish property, to define crime, to +punish disobedience, to control education, to supervise the family, +to regulate personal habits, and to censor opinions. The modern state +claims all these powers, and in the matter of theory there is no real +difference in the size of the claim between communists, fascists, and +democrats. There are lingering traces in the American constitutional +system of the older theory that there are inalienable rights which +government may not absorb. But these rights are really not inalienable +because they can be taken away by constitutional amendment. There +is no theoretical limit upon the power of the ultimate majorities +which create civil government. There are only practical limits. They +are restrained by inertia, and by prudence, even by good will. But +ultimately [p081] and theoretically they claim absolute authority as +against all foreign states, as against all churches, associations, and +persons within their jurisdiction. + +The victory of the civil power was not achieved everywhere at the same +time. Spasmodically, with occasional setbacks, but in the long run +irresistibly, the state has attained supremacy. In the feudal age the +monarch was at no time sovereign. The Pope was the universal lawgiver, +not only in what we should call matters of faith, but in matters +of business and politics as well. As late as the beginning of the +Seventeenth Century, Pope Paul V insisted that the Doge of the Venetian +Republic had no right to arrest a canon of the church on the charge of +flagrant immorality. When, nevertheless, the canon was arrested, the +Pope laid Venice under an interdict and excommunicated the Doge and the +Senate. But the Venetian Government answered that it was founded on +Divine Right; its title to govern did not come from the church. In the +end the Pope gave way, and “the reign of the Pope,” says Dr. Figgis, +“as King of Kings was over.” + +It was as a result of the loss of its civil power that the Roman Church +evolved the modern doctrine of infallibility. This claim, as Dr. Figgis +points out, is not the culmination but the (implicit) surrender of +the notions embodied in the famous papal bull, _Unam Sanctam_. The +Pope could no longer claim the political sovereignty of the world; he +then asserted supreme rights as the religious teacher of the Catholic +communion. “The Pope, from being the Lord of Lords, has become the +Doctor of Doctors. From being the mother of states, the Curia [p082] +has become the authoritative organ of a teaching society.” + + +6. _The Dissolution of a Sovereignty_ + +Thus there has gradually been dissolving the conception that the +government of human affairs is a subordinate part of a divine +government presided over by God the King. In place of one church which +is sovereign over all men, there are now many rival churches, rival +states, voluntary associations, and detached individuals. God is no +longer believed to be a universal king in the full meaning of the +word king, and religious obedience is no longer the central loyalty +from which all other obligations are derived. Religion has become +for most modern men one phase in a varied experience; it no longer +regulates their civic duties, their economic activities, their family +life, and their opinions. It has ceased to have universal dominion, +and is now held to be supreme only within its own domain. But there +is much uncertainty as to what that domain is. In actual affairs, +the religious obligations of modern men are often weaker than their +social interests and generally weaker than the fiercer claims of +patriotism. The conduct of the churches and of churchmen during the +War demonstrated that fact overwhelmingly. They submitted willingly or +unwillingly to the overwhelming force of the civil power. Against this +force many men claim the right of revolution, or at least the right of +passive resistance and conscientious objection. Sometimes they base +their claims upon a religious precept which they hold sacred. But even +in their disobedience to Caesar they are forced to acknowledge that +loyalty in the modern world is complex, that it has become [p083] +divided and uncertain, and that the age of faith which was absolute +is gone for them. However reverent they may be when they are in their +churches, they no longer feel wholly assured when they listen to the +teaching that these are the words of the ministers of a heavenly king. + + + + +CHAPTER VI [p084] + +LOST PROVINCES + + +1. _Business_ + +In any scheme of things where the churches, as agents of God, assert +the right to speak with authority about the conduct of life they should +be able to lay down rules about the way business shall be carried on. +The churches once did just that. In some degree they still attempt to +do it. But the attempts have grown feebler and feebler. In the last +six hundred years the churches have fought a losing battle against the +emancipation of business from religious control. + +The early Christian writers looked upon business as a peril to the +soul. Although the church was in itself, among other things, a large +business corporation, they did not countenance business enterprise. +Money-making they called avarice and money-lending usury, just as they +spoke of lust when they meant sexual desire. They had sound reasons of +their own for this attitude. They knew from observation, perhaps even +from introspection, that the desire for riches is so strong a passion +that men possessed by it will devote only their odd moments to God. The +objection to a business career was like the objection to fornication; +it diverted the energies of the soul. + +There were, no doubt, worldly reasons as well which account for the +long resistance of the mediæval Church [p085] to what we now regard +as the highest form of capitalistic endeavor. The Church belonged to +the feudal system. The Pope and his bishops were in fact great feudal +lords. They thrived best in a social order where men lived upon the +land. They had a premonition that the rise of capitalism, with its +large cities, its financiers, merchants, and proletarian workers, was +bound to weaken the secular authority of the church and to dissolve the +influence of religion in men’s lives. They failed in their resistance, +but surely one can hardly say that their vision was not prophetic. +The drastic legislation of the church against business was enacted +in the early days of capitalism; it was inspired, like the English +corn laws and many another agrarian measure, by a determination to +preserve a landed order of society. Thus in discussing whether money +might properly be loaned out at interest Pope Innocent IV argued that +if this were permitted “men would not give thought to the cultivation +of their land, except when they could do naught else ... even if they +could get land to cultivate, they would not be able to get the beasts +and implements for cultivating it, since the poor themselves would not +have them, and the rich, both for the sake of profit and security, +would put their money into usury rather than into smaller and more +risky investments.” The argument is the same as that which the American +farmer makes when he complains that the bankers in Wall Street prefer +to lend money to business men and to speculators rather than to farmers. + +But the solid reasons which once inspired the church’s opposition to +business do not concern us here. The opposition was unsuccessful, the +reasons were forgotten, and [p086] the old pronouncements against +usury were looked upon as quaint and unworldly. For the new economic +order which displaced feudalism, the Catholic Church, at least, had no +program. It did not adapt itself readily to the spirit of commercial +enterprise which captured the active minds of Northern Europe. The +Protestant churches did adapt themselves and contrived to preach a +gospel which encouraged, where Roman Catholicism had discouraged, the +enterprising business man. They preached the divine duty of labor. “At +the day of doom,” said John Bunyan, “men shall be judged according to +their fruits. It will not be said then, Did you Believe? But, were you +Doers, or Talkers only?” As this preaching became more concrete, to +be a doer meant to do work and make money. Baxter in his _Christian +Directory_ wrote that “if God show you a way in which you may lawfully +get more than in another way (without wrong to your soul or to any +other), if you refuse this, and choose the less gainful way, you cross +one of the ends of your calling, and you refuse to be God’s steward.” +Richard Steele in _The Tradesman’s Calling_ pointed out that the +virtues enjoined on Christians—diligence, moderation, sobriety, and +thrift—are the very qualities which are most needed for commercial +success. For “godly wisdom ... comes in and puts due bounds” to his +expenses, “and teaches the tradesman to live rather somewhat below than +at all above his income.” + +However edifying such doctrine may have been, it was clearly an +abandonment of the right, once so eloquently asserted by the church, +that it had the authority to regulate business in the interest of man’s +spiritual welfare. That right is still sometimes asserted. Sermons are +still [p087] preached about business ethics; there are programs of +Christian socialism and Christian capitalism. Churchmen still interest +themselves, often very effectively, to reform some flagrant industrial +abuse like the sweating of women and children. But the modern efforts +to moralize business and to subordinate profit-seeking to humane ends +are radically different from those of the mediæval church. They are +admittedly experimental—that is to say, debatable—since they do not +derive their authority from revelation. And they are presented as an +appeal to reason, to conscience, to generosity, not as the commandments +of God. The Council of Vienna in 1312 declared that any ruler or +magistrate who sanctioned usury and compelled debtors to observe +usurious contracts would be excommunicated; all laws which sanctioned +money-lending at interest were to be repealed within three months. The +churches do not speak in that tone of voice to-day. + +Thus if an organization like the Federal Council of Churches of Christ +is distressed by, let us say, the labor policy of a great corporation, +it inquires courteously of the president’s secretary whether it would +not be possible for him to confer with a delegation about the matter. +If the churchmen are granted an interview, which is never altogether +certain, they have to argue with the business man on secular grounds. +Were they to say that the eight-hour day was the will of God, he +would conclude they were cranks, he would surreptitiously press the +buzzer under his desk, and in a few moments his secretary would appear +summoning him to an important board meeting. They have to argue with +him, if they are to obtain a hearing, about the effect on health, +efficiency, turnover, [p088] and other such matters which are worked +up for them by economists. As churchmen they have kindly impulses, but +there is no longer a body of doctrine in the churches which enables +them to speak with authority. + +The emancipation of business from religious control is perhaps even +more threatening to the authority of the churches than the rivalry of +sects or the rise of the civil power. Business is a daily occupation; +government meets the eye of the ordinary men only now and then. That +the main interest in the waking life of most people should be carried +on wholly separated from the faith they profess means that the churches +have lost one of the great provinces of the human soul. The sponsors +of the Broadway Temple in New York City put the matter in a thoroughly +modern, even if it was a rather coarse, way when they proclaimed a +campaign to sell bonds as “a five percent investment in your Fellow +Man’s Salvation—Broadway Temple is to be a combination of Church and +Skyscraper, Religion and Revenue, Salvation and 5 Percent—and the 5 +percent is based on ethical Christian grounds.” The five percent, they +hastened to add, was also based on a gilt-edged real-estate mortgage; +the salvation, however, was, we may suppose, a speculative profit. + + +2. _The Family_ + +The family is the inner citadel of religious authority and there the +churches have taken their most determined stand. Long after they had +abandoned politics to Caesar and business to Mammon, they continued +to insist upon their authority to fix the ideal of sexual relations. +But here, too, the dissolution of their authority has proceeded +[p089] inexorably. They have lost their exclusive right to preside +over marriages. They have not been able to maintain the dogma that +marriage is indissoluble. They are not able to prevent the remarriage +of divorced persons. Although in many jurisdictions fornication and +adultery are still crimes, there is no longer any serious attempt to +enforce the statutes. The churches have failed in their insistence that +sexual intercourse by married persons is a sin unless it is validated +by the willingness to beget a child. Except to the poorest and most +ignorant the means of preventing conception are available to all. There +is no longer any compulsion to regard the sexual life as within the +jurisdiction of the commissioners of the Lord. + +Religious teachers knew long ago what modern psychologists have +somewhat excitedly rediscovered: that there is a very intimate +connection between the sexual life and the religious life. Only men +living in a time when religion has lost so much of its inward vitality +could be shocked at this simple truth, for the churches, when their +inspiration was fresh, have always known it. That is why they have +laid such tremendous emphasis upon the religious control of sexual +experience, have extolled chastity, have preached continence after +marriage except where parenthood was in view, have inveighed against +fornication, adultery, divorce, and all unprocreative indulgence, have +insisted that marriages be celebrated within the communion, have upheld +the parental authority over children. They were not prudish. That is +a state of mind which marks the decay of vigorous determination to +control the sexual life. The early teachers did not avert their eyes. +They did not mince their words. For they knew what they were doing. +[p090] + +Men like St. Paul and St. Augustine knew in the most direct way what +sexual desire can do to distract the religious life; how if it is not +sternly regulated, and if it is allowed to run wild, it intoxicates +the whole personality to the exclusion of spiritual interests. They +knew, too, although perhaps not quite so explicitly, that these same +passions, if they are repressed and redirected, may come forth as +an ecstasy of religious devotion. They were not reformers. They did +not think of progress. They did not suppose that the animal in man +could somehow be refined until it was no longer animal. When Paul +spoke of the law of his members warring against the law of his mind, +and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin, he had made a +realistic observation which any candid person can verify out of his own +experience. There was no vague finical nonsense about this war of the +members against the inward man seeking delight in the law of God. + +If the sexual impulse were not deeply related to the religious life, +the preoccupation of churchmen with it throughout the ages would be +absurd. They have not been preoccupied in any comparable degree with +the other physiological functions of the body. They have concerned +themselves somewhat with eating and drinking, for gluttony and +drunkenness can also distract men from religion. But hunger and thirst +are minor passions, far more easily satisfied than lust, and in no way +so pervasive and imperious. The world, the flesh, and the devil may +usually be taken to mean sexual desire. Around it, then, the churches +have built up a ritual, to dominate it lest they be dominated by it. +Tenaciously and with good reason they have fought against surrendering +their authority. [p091] + +With equally great insight they have kept the closest possible +association with family life especially during the childhood of +the offspring. Here again they anticipated by many long ages the +discoveries of modern psychologists. They have always known that it is +in the earliest years, before puberty, that tradition is transmitted. +Much is learned after puberty, but in childhood education is more than +mere learning. There education is the growth of the disposition, the +fixing of the prejudices to which all later experience is cumulative. +In childhood men acquire the forms of their seeing, the prototypes of +their feeling, the style of their character. There presumably the very +pattern of authority itself is implanted by habit, fitted to the model +presented by the child’s parents. There the assumption is fixed that +there are wiser and stronger beings whom, in the nature of things, one +must obey. There the need to obey is fixed. There the whole drift of +experience is such as to make credible the idea that above the child +there is the father, above the father a king and the wise men, above +them all a heavenly Father and King. + +It is plain that any change which disturbs the constitution of the home +will tend profoundly to alter the child’s sense of what he may expect +the constitution of the universe to be. There are many disturbing +changes of which none is more important surely than the emancipation +of women. The God of popular religion has usually been an elderly +male. There have been some female divinities worshipped in different +parts of the world as there have been matriarchal societies. But by +and large the imagination of men has conceived God as a father. They +have magnified to a cosmic scale what they [p092] had seen at home. +It was the male who created the child. It was his seed that the mother +cherished in her womb. It was the male who provided for the needs of +the family, even if the woman did the hard work. It was the male who +fended off enemies. It was the male who laid down the law. It was +the name of the male parent which was preserved and passed on from +generation to generation. Everything conspired to fix the belief that +the true order of life was a hierarchy with a man at the apex. + +This general notion becomes less and less credible as women assert +themselves. The child of the modern household is soon made to see that +there are at least two persons who can give him orders, and that they +do not always give him the same ones. This does not educate him to +believe that there is one certain guide to conduct in the universe. +There are likely to be two guides to conduct in his universe, as women +insist that they are independent personalities with minds of their +own. This insistence, moreover, tends rather to disarrange the notion +that the father is the creator of the child. An observant youngster, +especially in these days of frank talk about sex, soon becomes aware of +the fact that the role of the male in procreation is a relatively minor +one. But most disturbing of all is the very modern household in which +the woman earns her own living. For here the child is deprived of the +opportunity, which is so conducive to belief in authority, of seeing +daily that even his mother is dependent upon a greater person for the +good things in life. + +Although women, by and large, are by no means able to earn as much +money as men, the fact which counts is that they can earn enough to +support themselves. They [p093] may not actually support themselves. +But the knowledge that they could, as it becomes an accepted idea in +society, has revolutionary consequences. In former times the woman was +dependent upon her husband for bed, board, shelter, and clothing. Her +whole existence was determined by her mating; her sexual experience was +an integral part of her livelihood and her social position. But once it +had become established that a woman could live without a husband, the +intimate connection between her sex and her career began to dissolve. + +The invention of dependable methods of preventing conception has +carried this dissolution much further. Birth control has separated the +sexual act from the whole series of social consequences which were +once probable if not inevitable. For with the discovery that children +need be born only when they are wanted, the sexual experience has +become increasingly a personal and private affair. It was once an +institutional affair—for the woman. For the man, from time immemorial, +there have been two sorts of sexual experience—one which had no public +consequences, and one which entailed the responsibilities of a family. +The effect of the modern changes, particularly of woman’s economic +independence and of birth control, is to equalize the freedom and the +obligations of men and women. + +That the sexual life has become separated from parenthood and that +therefore it is no longer subject to external regulation, is evident. +While the desires of men and women for each other were links in a chain +which included the family and the household and children, authority, +and by that token religious authority, could hope to fix the sexual +[p094] ideal. When the chain broke, and love had no consequences +which were not too subtle for the outsider to measure, the ideal of +love was fixed not by the church in the name of God, but by prudence, +convention, the prevailing rules of hygiene, by taste, circumstances, +and personal sensibility. + + +3. _Art_ + + +_(a) The Disappearance of Religious Painting_ + +To walk through a museum of Western European art is to behold a +peculiarly vivid record of how the great themes of popular religion +have ceased to inspire the imagination of modern men. One can visualize +there the whole story of the dissolution of the ancestral order and +of our present bewilderment. One can see how toward the close of +the Fifteenth Century the great themes illustrating the reign of a +heavenly king and of the drama of man’s salvation had ceased to be +naively believed; how at the close of the next century which witnessed +the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, the beginnings of modern +science, the growth of cities, and the rise of capitalism, religious +painting ceased to be the concern of the best painters; and finally +how in the last hundred years painters have illustrated by feverish +experimentation the modern man’s effort to find an adequate substitute +for the organizing principle of the religion which he has lost. + +It has been said by way of explanation that painters must sell their +work, and they must, therefore, paint what the rich and powerful +will buy. Thus it is pointed out that in the Middle Ages they worked +under the patronage of the Church; in the Renaissance their patrons +were paganized [p095] princes and popes, and artists made pictures +which, even when the theme was religious, were no longer Christian in +spirit. Later in the north of Europe the bourgeoisie acquired money and +station, and the Dutch painters did their portraits, and made faithful +representations of their kitchens and their parlors. A little later +French painters at the Court of Versailles made pictures for courtiers, +and in our time John Sargent painted the wives of millionaires. To say +all this is to say that the ruling classes in the modern world are no +longer interested in pictures which illustrate or are inspired by the +religion they profess. + +This attempt at an explanation in terms of supply and demand may or +may not be sound for the ordinary run of painters. It leaves out of +account, however, those very painters who are the most significant +and interesting. It leaves out of account the painters who, by heroic +refusal to supply the existing market, deserve universal respect, and +in many cases have won an ultimate public vindication. These men do not +fit into the theory of supply and demand, for they endured poverty and +derision in order to paint what they most wanted to paint. They are not +of the tribe, which Mr. Walter Pach calls Ananias, who betray the truth +that is in them. But for that truth they did not draw upon the themes +nor the sense of life which almost all of them must have been taught +when they were children. They did not paint religious pictures. They +painted landscapes, streets, interiors, still life, heads, persons, +nudes. Whatever else they perceived and tried to express, they did +not see their objects in the perspective of human destiny and divine +government. There is no reason, then, to say that religious painting, +even in the [p096] broadest sense of the term, has disappeared because +there is no effective demand for it. Obviously it has disappeared +because the will to produce it has disappeared. + + +_(b) The Loss of a Heritage_ + +In setting the religious tradition aside as something with which they +are not concerned when they are at work, artists are merely behaving +like modern men. It is plain that the religious tradition has become +progressively less relevant to anyone who as painter or sculptor is +engaged in making images. This is a direct result of that increasing +sophistication of religious thought which was signalized in Europe +by the iconoclasm of the Protestant reformers and the puritanism of +the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Before the acids of modernity had +begun to dissolve the organic reality of the ancient faith, there was +no difficulty about picturing God the Father as a patriarch and the +Virgin Mary as a young blonde Tuscan mother. There was no disposition +to disbelieve, and so the imagination was at once nourished by a great +heritage of ideas and yet free to elaborate it. But when the authority +of the old beliefs was challenged, a great literature of controversy +and definition was let loose upon the world. And from the point of +view of the artist the chief effect of this effort to argue and to +state exactly, to defend and to rebut, was to substitute concepts for +pictorial ideas. When the nature of God became a matter of definition, +it was obviously crude and illiterate to represent him as a benign +old man. Thus the more the theologians refined the dogmas of their +religion the more impossible they made it for painters to express its +significance. No painter who ever lived could [p097] make a picture +which expressed the religion of the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick. There +is nothing there which the visual imagination can use. + +Painters have, therefore, a rather better reason than most men for +having turned their backs upon the religious tradition. They can say +with a clear conscience that the contemporary churches have removed +from that tradition those very qualities which once made it an +inexhaustible source of artistic inspiration. They need only point to +modern religious writing in their own support: at its best it has the +qualities of an impassioned argument and more often it is intolerably +flat and vague because in our intellectual climate skepticism dissolves +the concreteness of the imagery and leaves behind sonorous adjectives +and opaque nouns. + +The full effects of this separation of the artist from the ancient +traditions of Christendom have been felt only in the last two or three +generations. It is no doubt true that the modern disbelief had its +beginnings many generations ago, perhaps in the Fifteenth Century, but +the momentum of the ancient faith was so great that it took a long +time, even after corrosive doubt had started, before its influence came +to an end. The artists of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries may +not have been devout, but they lived in a society in which the forms of +the old order, the hierarchy of classes, the sense of authority, and +the general fund of ideas about human destiny, still had vast prestige. +But in the Nineteenth Century that old order was almost completely +dissolved and the prestige of its ideas destroyed. The artist of the +last two or three generations has confronted the world without any +accepted understanding [p098] of human life. He has had to improvise +his own understanding of life. That is a new thing in the experience of +artists. + + +_(c) The Artist Formerly_ + +In 787 the Second Council of Nicæa laid down the rule which for nearly +five hundred years was binding upon the artists of Christendom: + + The substance of religious scenes is not left to the initiative + of the artists: it derives from the principles laid down by the + Catholic Church and religious tradition.... His art alone belongs + to the painter, its organization and arrangement belong to the + clergy. + +This was a reasonable rule, since the Church and not the individual was +held to be the guardian of those sacred truths upon which depended the +salvation of souls and the safety of society. The notion had occurred +to nobody that the artist was divinely inspired and knew more than +the doctors of the church. Therefore, the artist was given careful +specifications as to what he was to represent. + +Thus when the Church of St. Urban of Troyes decided to order a set of +tapestries illustrating the story of St. Valerian and of his wife, St. +Cecilia, a learned priest was deputed to draw up the contract for the +artist. In it he wrote among other specifications that: “there shall be +portrayed a place and a tabernacle in the manner of a beautiful room, +in which there shall be St. Cecilia, humbly on her knees with her hands +joined, praying to God. And beside her shall be Valerian expressing +great admiration and watching an angel which, being above their heads, +should be holding two crowns made of lilies and of roses, [p099] which +he will be placing the one on the head of St. Cecilia and the other on +the head of Valerian, her husband....” + +The rest, one might suppose, was left to the artist’s imagination. +But it was not. Having been given his subject matter and his theme, +he was bound further by strict conventions as to how sacred subjects +were to be depicted. Jesus on the Cross had to be shown with his mother +on the right and St. John on the left. The centurion pierced his left +side. His nimbus contained a cross, as the mark of divinity, whereas +the saints had the nimbus without a cross. Only God, the angels, +Jesus Christ, and the Apostles could be represented with bare feet; +it was heretical to depict the Virgin or the Saints with bare feet. +The purpose of these conventions was to help the spectator identify +the figures in the picture. Thus St. Peter was given a short beard +and a tonsure; St. Paul was bald and had a long beard. It is possible +that these conventions, which were immensely intricate, were actually +codified in manuals which were passed on from master to apprentice in +the workshops. + +As a general rule the ecclesiastics who drew up specifications did not +invent the themes. Thus the learned priest who drafted the contract for +the tapestry of St. Cecilia drew his material from the encyclopedia +of Vincent de Beauvais. This was a compendium of universal knowledge +covering the whole of history from Creation to the Last Judgment. It +was a source book to which any man could turn in order to find the +truth he happened to need. It contained all of human knowledge and the +answer to all human problems. By the Thirteenth Century there were a +number of these encyclopedias, of which the greatest was [p100] the +_Summa_ of St. Thomas Aquinas. From these books churchmen took the +themes which they employed their artists to embellish. The artist +himself had no concern as to what he would paint, nor even as to how +he would paint it. That was given, and his energies could be employed +without the travail of intellectual invention, upon the task of +expressing a clear conception in well-established forms. + +It must not be supposed, of course, that either doctrines, lore, or +symbolism were uniformly standardized and exactly enforced. In an age +of faith, contradictions and discrepancies are not evident; they are +merely variations on the same theme. Thus, while it may be true that +enthusiastic mediævalists like M. Mâle have exaggerated the order +and symmetry of the mediæval tradition, they are right, surely, on +the main point, which is that the organic character of the popular +religion provided a consensus of feeling about human destiny which, +in conjunction with the resources of the popular lore, sustained and +organized the imagination of mediæval artists. Because religious faith +was simple and genuine, it could absorb and master almost anything. +Thus the clergy ruled the artists with a relatively light hand, and +they were not disturbed if, in illuminating the pages of a Book of +Hours, the artist adorned the margins with a picture of Bacchus or the +love of Pyramus and Thisbe. + +It was only when the clergy had been made self-conscious by the +controversies which raged around the Reformation that they began in any +strict and literally-minded modern sense to enforce the rule laid down +at Nicæa in 787. At the Council of Trent in 1563 the great liberty of +the artist within the Christian tradition came to an end: [p101] + + The Holy Council forbids the placing in a church of any image + which calls to mind an erroneous dogma which might mislead the + simple-minded. It desires that all impurity be avoided, that + provocative qualities be not given to images. In order to insure + respect for its decisions, the Holy Council forbids anyone to place + or to have placed anywhere, and even in churches which are not open + to the public, any unusual image unless the bishop has approved it. + +In theory this decree at Trent is not far removed from the decree at +Nicæa nearly one thousand years earlier. But in fact it is a whole +world removed from it. For the dogmas at Nicæa rested upon naive faith +and the dogmas at Trent rested upon definition. The outcome showed the +difference, for within a generation Catholic scholars made a critical +survey of the lore which mediæval art had employed, and on grounds of +taste, doctrine, and the like, condemned the greater part of it. After +that, as M. Mâle says, there might still be artists who were Christians +but there was no longer a Christian art. + + +_(d) The Artist as Prophet_ + +Whether the necessity of creating his own tradition is a good or a bad +thing for the artist, there can be no doubt that it is a novel thing +and a burdensome one. Artists have responded to it by proclaiming one +of two theories: they have said that the artist, being a genius, was a +prophet; when they did not say that, they said that religion, morality, +and philosophy were irrelevant, and that art should be practiced for +art’s sake. Both theories are obviously attempts to find some personal +substitute for those traditions upon which artists in all other ages +have been dependent. [p102] + +The theory of the artist as prophet has this serious defect: there +is practically no evidence to support it. Why should there be? What +connection is there between the capacity to make beautiful objects and +the capacity to discover truth? Surely experience shows that it is +something of a marvel when a great artist appears who, like Leonardo +or Goethe, is also an original and important thinker. Indeed, it is +reasonable to ask whether the analysis and abstraction which thinking +involves are not radically different psychological processes from +the painter’s passionate appreciation of the appearance of things. +Certainly to think as physicists think is to strip objects of all +their secondary characters, not alone of their emotional significance, +but of their color, their texture, their fragrance, and even of their +superficial forms. The world as we know it through our senses has +completely disappeared before the physicist begins to think about +it. And in its place there is a collection of concepts which have no +pictorial value whatsoever. These concepts are by definition incapable +of being visualized, and when as a concession to human weakness, his +own or his pupil’s, the scientist constructs a mechanical model to +illustrate an idea, this model is at best a crude analogy, and in no +real sense the portrait of that idea. + +Thus when Shelley made Earth say: + + I spin beneath my pyramid of night, + Which points into the heavens ... + +he borrowed an image from astronomy. But this image, which is, I think, +superb poetry, radically alters the original scientific idea, for +it introduces into a realm of purely [p103] physical relations the +notion of a gigantic spectator with a vastly magnified human eye. There +are, no doubt, many other concepts in science which, if poets knew +more science, would lend themselves to translation into equally noble +images. But these images would not state the scientific truth. + +The current belief that artists are prophets is an inheritance from +the time when science had no critical method of its own, and poets, +being reflective persons, had at least as good a chance as anyone +else of stumbling upon truths which were subsequently verified. It is +due in some measure also to the human tendency to remember the happy +guesses of poets and to forget their unhappy ones, a tendency which +has gone far to sustain the reputations of fortune-tellers, oracles, +and stockbrokers. But above all, the reputation of the artist as one +who must have wisdom is sustained by a rather genial fallacy: he finds +expression for the feelings of the spectator, and the spectator rather +quickly assumes that the artist has found an explanation for the world. + +Yet unless I am greatly mistaken the modern painter has ceased not +only to depict any theory of destiny but has ceased to express any +important human mood in the presence of destiny. One goes to a museum +and comes out feeling that one has beheld an odd assortment of nude +bodies, copper kettles, oranges, tomatoes, and zinnias, babies, street +corners, apple trees, bathing beaches, bankers, and fashionable ladies. +I do not say that this person or that may not find a picture immensely +significant to him. But the general impression for anyone, I think, is +of a chaos of anecdotes, perceptions, fantasies, and little [p104] +commentaries, which may be all very well in their way, but are not +sustaining and could readily be dispensed with. + +The conclusive answer to the romantic theory of the artist as prophet +is a visit to a collection of modern paintings. + + +_(e) Art for Art’s Sake_ + +This brings us to the other theory, which is that art has nothing to do +with prophecy, wisdom, and the meaning of life, but has to do only with +art. This theory must command an altogether different kind of respect +than the sentimental theory of the artist as prophet. This indeed is +the theory which most artists now hold. “I am convinced,” says Mr. R. +H. Wilenski in his book _The Modern Movement in Art_, “that all the +most intelligent artists of Western Europe in recent centuries have +been tormented by this search for a justification of their work and a +criterion of its value; and that almost all such artists have attempted +to solve the problem by some consciously-held idea of art; or in other +words that in place of art justified by service to a religion they have +sought to evolve an art justified by service to an idea of art itself.” + +The instinct of artists in this matter is, I think, much sounder than +the rationalizations which they have constructed. As working artists +they do not think of themselves as seers, philosophers, or moralists. +They do not wish to be judged as thinkers, but as painters, and they +are justifiably impatient with the Philistines who are interested +primarily in the subject matter and its human significance. The painter +knows quite well that in the [p105] broadly human sense he has no +special qualifications as story-teller or wise man. What he is driving +at, therefore, in his expression of contempt for the subject matter of +art is the wish that he might again be in the position of the mediæval +artist who did not have to concern himself _as artist_ with the +significance of his themes. The intuition behind the theory of art for +art’s sake is the artist’s wish to be free of a responsibility which +he has never before had put upon him. The peculiar circumstances of +modernity have thrust upon him, much against his will and regardless of +his aptitudes, the intolerably heavy burden of doing for himself what +in other ages was done for him by tradition and authority. + +The philosophy which he has invented is an attempt to prove that +no philosophy is necessary. Carried to its conclusion, this theory +eventuates in the belief that painting must become an arrangement of +forms and colors which have no human connotation whatsoever for the +artist or the spectator. These arrangements represent nothing in the +real world. They signify nothing. They are an esthetic artifice in the +same sense that the more esoteric geometries are logical artifices. +This much can at least be said of them: they are a consistent effort +to practice the arts in a world where there is no human tradition upon +which the representative arts can draw. + +This absolute estheticism is not, however, art without philosophy. Some +sort of philosophy is implied in all human activity. The artist who +says that it is delightful above all other things to realize the pure +form of objects, regardless of whether this object is a saint, a lovely +woman, or a dish of fruit, has made a very important [p106] statement +about life. He has said that the ordinary meanings which men attach +to objects are of no consequence, that their order of moral values is +ultimately a delusion, that all facts are equally good and equally bad, +and that to contemplate anything, it does not matter what, under the +aspect of its esthetic form, is to realize all that the artist can give. + +This, too, is a philosophy and a very radical philosophy at that. It +is in fact just the philosophy which men were bound to construct for +themselves in an age when the traditional theory of the purpose of life +had lost its meaning for them. For they are saying that experience +has no meaning beyond that which each man can find in the intense +realization of each passing moment. He must fail, they would feel, if +he attempts to connect these passing moments into a coherent story +of his whole experience, let alone the whole experience of the human +race. For experience has no underlying significance, man himself has +no station in the universe, and the universe has no plan which is more +than a drift of circumstances, illuminated here and there by flashes of +self-consciousness. + + +_(f) The Burden of Originality_ + +As a matter of fact this doctrine is merely the esthetic version of the +rather crude mechanistic materialism which our grandfathers thought +was the final conclusion of science. The connection is made evident in +the famous “_Conclusions_” to “_The Renaissance_” which Walter Pater +wrote in 1868, and then omitted from the second edition because “it +might possibly mislead some of those young men into whose hands it +might fall.” In this [p107] essay there was the startling, though +it is now hackneyed, assertion that “to burn always with this hard, +gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life,” and +that “of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the +love of art for art’s sake, has most; for art comes to you professing +frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they +pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.” What is never quoted, and +is apparently forgotten, is the reasoning by which Pater arrived at +the conclusion that momentary ecstasy is the end and aim of life. It +is, if we turn back a few pages, that scientific analysis has reduced +everything to a mere swarm of whirling atoms, upon which consciousness +discerns impressions that are “unstable, flickering, inconsistent.” It +was out of this misunderstanding of the nature of scientific concepts +that Pater developed his theory of art for the moment’s sake. + +I dwell upon this only in order to show that what appeared to be an +estheticism divorced from all human concern was really a somewhat +casual by-product of a fashionable misunderstanding at the time +Pater was writing. We should find that to-day equally far-reaching +conclusions are arrived at by half-understood popularizations of +Bergson or Freud. I venture to believe that any theory of art is +inevitably implicated in some philosophy of life, and that the only +question is whether the artist is conscious or unconscious of the +theory he is acting upon. For unless the artist deals with purely +logical essences, provided he observes and perceives anything in +the outer world, no matter how he represents it or symbolizes it or +comments upon it, there must be implicit in it some attitude [p108] +toward the meaning of existence. If his conclusion is that human +existence has no meaning, that, too, is an attitude toward the meaning +of existence. The mediæval artist worked on much less tangled premises. +He painted pictures which illustrated the great hopes and fears of +Christendom. But he did not himself attempt to formulate those hopes +and fears. He accepted them more or less ready made, understanding +them and believing in them because, as a child of his age, they were +his hopes and fears. But because they existed and were there for +him to work upon, he could put his whole energy into realizing them +passionately. The modern artist would like to have the same freedom +from preoccupation, but he cannot have it. He has first to decide what +it is that he shall passionately realize. + +In effect the mediæval artist was reproducing a story that had often +been told before. But the modern artist has to undergo a whole +preliminary labor of inventing, creating, formulating, for which there +was almost no counterpart in the life of a mediæval artist. The modern +artist has to be original. That is to say, he has to seize experience, +pick it over, and drag from it his theme. It is a very exhausting task, +as anyone can testify who has tried it. + +That surely is why we hear so much of the storm and stress in the soul +of a modern artist. The craftsman does not go through agonies over the +choice of words, images, and rhythms. The agony of the modern artist +lies in the effort to give birth to the idea, to bring some intuition +of order out of the chaos of experience, to create the idea with which +his art can deal. We assume, [p109] quite falsely I think, that this +act of ‘creation’ is an inherent part of the artist’s task. But if we +refrain from using words loosely, and reserve the word creation to +mean the finding of the original intuition and idea, then creation is +plainly not a necessary part of the artist’s equipment. Creation is +an obligation which the artist has had thrust upon him as a result of +the dissolution of the great accepted themes. He is compelled to be +creative because his world is chaotic. + +This labor of creation has no connection with his gifts as a painter. +There is no more reason why a painter should be able to extemporize +a satisfactory interpretation of life than that he should be able to +govern a city or write a treatise on chemistry. Giotto surely was as +profoundly original a painter as the world is likely to see; it has +been said of him by Mr. Berenson, who has full title to speak, that he +had “a thoroughgoing sense for the significant in the visible world.” +But with all his genius, what would have been Giotto’s plight if, +in addition to exercising his sense of the significant, he had had +to create for himself all his standards of significance? For Giotto +those standards existed in the Catholic Christianity of the Thirteenth +Century, and it was by the measure of these standards, within the +framework of a great accepted tradition, that he followed his own +personal sense of the significant. But the modern artist, though he had +Giotto’s gifts, would not have Giotto’s freedom to use them. A very +large part of his energies, consciously or unconsciously, would have +to be spent in devising some sort of substitute for the traditional +view of life which Giotto took for granted. For there is no longer an +accepted view of [p110] life organized in stories which all men know +and understand. + +There is instead a profusion of creeds and philosophies, fads and +intellectual experiments among which the modern painter, like every +other modern man, finds himself trying to choose a philosophy of +life. Everybody is somewhat dithered by these choices: the business +of being a Shavian one year, a Nietzschean the next, a Bergsonian +the third, then of being a patriot for the duration of the war, and +after that a Freudian, is not conducive to the serene exercise of a +painter’s talents. For these various philosophies which the artist +picks up here and there, or by which he is oftener than not picked +up and carried along, are immensely in dispute. They are not clear. +They are rather personal and somewhat accidental visions of the world. +They are essentially unpictorial because they originate in science and +are incompleted, abstracted teachings for the meaning of things. As a +result the art in which they are implicit is often uninteresting, and +usually unintelligible, to those who do not happen to belong to the +same cult. + +The painter can hardly expect to invent for himself a view of life +which will bring order out of the chaos of modernity. Yet he is +compelled to try, for he is engaged in setting down a vision of the +world, and every vision of the world implies some sort of philosophy. +The effects of the modern emancipation are more clearly evident in the +history of painting during the last hundred years than in almost any +other activity, because in the galleries hang in frames the successive +attempts of men, who are deeply immersed in the modern scene, to set +down their [p111] statements about life. Mr. Wilenski, who is an +astute and well-informed critic, has estimated that during the last +hundred years in Paris a new movement in painting has been inaugurated +every ten years. That would correspond fairly accurately to the birth +and death of new philosophies in the advanced and most emancipated +circles. + +What was happening to painting is precisely what has happened to all +the other separated activities of men. Each activity has its own ideal, +indeed a succession of ideals, for with the dissolution of the supreme +ideal of service to God, there is no ideal which unites them all, and +sets them in order. Each ideal is supreme within a sphere of its own. +There is no point of reference outside which can determine the relative +value of competing ideals. The modern man desires health, he desires +money, he desires power, beauty, love, truth, but which he shall desire +the most since he cannot pursue them all to their logical conclusions, +he no longer has any means of deciding. His impulses are no longer +parts of one attitude toward life; his ideals are no longer in a +hierarchy under one lordly ideal. They have become differentiated. They +are free and they are incommensurable. + +The religious synthesis has dissolved. The modern man no longer holds a +belief about the universe which sustains a pervasive emotion about his +destiny; he no longer believes genuinely in any idea which organizes +his interests within the framework of a cosmic order. + + + + +CHAPTER VII [p112] + +THE DRAMA OF DESTINY + + +1. _The Soul in the Modern World_ + +The effect of modernity, then, is to specialize and thus to intensify +our separated activities. Once all things were phases of a single +destiny: the church, the state, the family, the school were means to +the same end; the rights and duties of the individual in society, the +rules of morality, the themes of art, and the teachings of science +were all of them ways of revealing, of celebrating, of applying the +laws laid down in the divine constitution of the universe. In the +modern world institutions are more or less independent, each serving +its own proximate purpose, and our culture is really a collection of +separate interests each sovereign within its own realm. We do not put +shrines in our workshops, and we think it unseemly to talk business +in the vestibule of a church. We dislike politics in the pulpit and +preaching from politicians. We do not look upon our scholars as priests +or upon our priests as learned men. We do not expect science to sustain +theology, nor religion to dominate art. On the contrary we insist with +much fervor on the separation of church and state, of religion and +science, of politics and historical research, of morality and art, of +business and love. This separation of activities has its counterpart +in a separation of selves; the life of a modern man is not so much +the [p113] history of a single soul; it is rather a play of many +characters within a single body. + +That may be why the modern autobiographical novel usually runs to two +volumes; the author requires more space to explain how his various +personalities came to be what they were at each little crisis of +adolescence and of middle age than St. Augustine, St. Thomas à Kempis, +and St. Francis put together needed in order to describe their whole +destiny in this world and the next. No doubt we are rather long-winded +and tiresome about the complexities of our souls. But from the +knowledge that we are complex there is no escape. + +The modern man is unable any longer to think of himself as a single +personality approaching an everlasting judgment. He is one man to-day +and another to-morrow, one person here and another there. He does not +feel he knows himself. He is sure that no one else knows him at all. +His motives are intricate, and not wholly what they seem. He is moved +by impulses which he feels but cannot describe. There are dark depths +in his nature which no one has ever explored. There are splendors which +are unreleased. He has become greatly interested in his moods. The +precise nuances of his likes and dislikes have become very important. +There is no telling just what he is or what he may become, but there +is a certain breathless interest in having one of his selves watch and +comment upon the mischief and the frustrations of his other selves. +The problems of his character have become dissociated from any feeling +that they involve his immortal destiny. They have become dissociated +from the feeling that they deeply matter. From the feeling that [p114] +they are deeply his own. From the feeling that there is any personality +to own them. There they are: his inferiority complex and mine, your +sadistic impulse and Tom Jones’s, Anna’s father fixation, and little +Willie’s pyromania. + +The thoroughly modern man has really ceased to believe that there is +an immortal essence presiding like a king over his appetites. The +word ‘soul’ has become a figure of speech, which he uses loosely, +sometimes to mean his tenderer aspirations, sometimes to mean the +whole collection of his impulses, sometimes, when he is in a hurry, +to mean nothing at all. It is certainly not the fashion any longer to +think of the soul as a little lord ruling the turbulent rabble of his +carnal passions; the constitutional form in popular psychology to-day +is republican. Each impulse may invoke the Bill of Rights, and have +its way if the others will let it. As Bertrand Russell has put it: “A +single desire is no better and no worse, considered in isolation, than +any other; but a group of desires is better than another group if all +of the first group can be satisfied, while in the second group some are +inconsistent with others,” but since, unhappily as is usually the case, +desires are extremely inconsistent, the uttermost that the modern man +can say is that the victory must go to the strongest desires. Morality +thus becomes a traffic code designed to keep as many desires as +possible moving together without too many violent collisions. When men +insist that morality is more than that, they are quickly denounced, in +general correctly, as Meddlesome Matties, as enemies of human liberty, +or as schemers trying to get the better of their fellow men. Morality, +conceived as a discipline [p115] to fit men for heaven, is resented; +morality, conceived as a discipline for happiness, is understood by +very few. The objective moral certitudes have dissolved, and in the +liberal philosophy there is nothing to take their place. + + +2. _The Great Scenario_ + +The modern world is like a stage on which a stupendous play has just +been presented. Many who were in the audience are still spellbound, +and as they pass out into the street, the scenario of the drama still +seems to them the very clue and plan of life. In the prologue the earth +was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. +Then at the command of God the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, its +plants and its animals, then man, and after him woman, were created. +And in the epilogue the blessed were living in the New Jerusalem, a +city of pure gold like clear glass, with walls laid on foundations of +precious stones. Between the darkness that preceded creation and the +glory of this heavenly city which had no need of the sun, a plot was +unfolded which constitutes the history of mankind. In the beginning man +was perfect. But the devil tempted him to eat the forbidden fruit, and +as a punishment God banished him from paradise, and laid upon him and +his descendants the curse of labor and of death. + +But in meting out this punishment, God in his mercy promised ultimately +to redeem the children of Adam. From among them he chose one tribe who +were to be the custodians of this promise. And then in due time he +sent his Son, born of a Virgin, to teach the gospel of salvation, and +to expiate the sin of Adam upon a cross. [p116] Those who believed +in this gospel and followed its commandments, would at the final day +of reckoning enter into the heavenly Jerusalem; the rest would be +consigned to the devil and his everlasting torments. + +Into this marvelous story the whole of human history and of human +knowledge could be fitted, and only in accordance with it could they +be understood. This was the key to existence, the answer to doubt, +the solace for pain, and the guarantee of happiness. But to many who +were in the audience it is now evident that they have seen a play, a +magnificent play, one of the most sublime ever created by the human +imagination, but nevertheless a play, and not a literal account of +human destiny. They know it was a play. They have lingered long enough +to see the scene shifters at work. The painted drop is half rolled +up; some of the turrets of the celestial city can still be seen, and +part of the choir of angels. But behind them, plainly visible, are the +struts and gears which held in place what under a gentler light looked +like the boundaries of the universe. They are only human fears and +human hopes, and bits of antique science and half-forgotten history, +and symbols here and there of experiences through which some in each +generation pass. + +Conceivably men might once again imagine another drama which was as +great as the epic of the Christian Bible. But like _Paradise Lost_ +or _Faust_, it would remain a work of the imagination. While the +intellectual climate in which we live is what it is, while we continue +to be as conscious as we are of how our own minds work, we could not +again accept naively such a gorgeous fable of our destiny. Yet only +five hundred years ago the whole [p117] of Christendom believed that +this story was literally and objectively true. God was not another +name for the evolutionary process, or for the sum total of the laws of +nature, or for a compendium of all noble things, as he is in modernist +accounts of him; he was the ruler of the universe, an omnipotent, +magical King, who felt, who thought, who remembered and issued his +commands. And because there was such a God, whose plan was clearly +revealed in all its essentials, human life had a definite meaning, +morality had a certain foundation, men felt themselves to be living +within the framework of a universe which they called divine because it +corresponded with their deepest desires. + +If we ask ourselves why it is impossible for us to sum up the meaning +of existence in a great personal drama, we have to begin by remembering +that every great story of this kind must assume that the universe +is governed by forces which are essentially of the same order as +the promptings of the human heart. Otherwise it would not greatly +interest us. A story, however plausible, about beings who had no human +qualities, a plot which unfolded itself as utterly indifferent to our +own personal fate, would not serve as a substitute for the Christian +epic. This is the trouble with the so-called religion of creative +evolution: even if it is true, which is far from certain, it is so +profoundly indifferent to our individual fate, that it leaves most men +cold. For there are very few who are so mystical as to be able to sink +themselves wholly in the hidden purposes of an unconscious natural +force. This, too, as the Catholic Church has always insisted, is the +trouble with pantheistic religion, for if everything is [p118] divine, +then nothing is peculiarly divine, and all the distinctions of good and +evil are meaningless. + +The story must not only assume that human ideals inspire the whole +creation, but it must contain guarantees that this is so. There must +be no doubt about it. Science must confirm the moral assumptions; the +highest and most certain available knowledge must clinch the conviction +that the story unfolded is the secret of life. + + +3. _Earmarks of Truth_ + +Religious teachers who were close to the people have always understood +that they must perform wonders if they were to make their God +convincing and their own title to speak for him valid. The writer of +Exodus, for example, was quite clear in his mind about this: + + And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, + nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not + appeared unto thee. + + And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he + said, A rod. + + And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, + and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. + + And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by + the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a + rod in his hand: + + That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God + of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared + unto thee. + +Even in the wildest flights of his fancy the common man is almost +always primarily interested in the prosaic consequences. If he believes +in fairies he is not likely [p119] to imagine them as spirits +inhabiting a world apart, but as little people who do things which +affect his own affairs. The common man is an unconscious pragmatist: +he believes because he is satisfied that his beliefs change the course +of events. He would not be inspired to worship a god who merely +contemplates the universe, or a god who created it once, and then +rested, while its destiny unfolds itself inexorably. To the plain +people religion is not disinterested speculation but a very practical +matter. It is concerned with their well-being in this world and in an +equally concrete world hereafter. They have wanted to know the will of +God because they had to know it if they were to put themselves right +with the king of creation. + +Those who professed to know God’s will had to demonstrate that they +knew it. This was the function of miracles. They were tangible evidence +that the religious teacher had a true commission. “Then those men, when +they had seen the miracle (of the loaves and the fishes) that Jesus +did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the +world.” When Jesus raised the dead man at the gate of the city of Nain, +“there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great +prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.” +The most authoritative Catholic theologians teach that miracles “are +not wrought to show the internal truth of the doctrines, but only to +give _manifest_ reasons why we should accept the doctrines.” They are +“essentially an appeal to knowledge,” demonstrations, one might almost +say divine experiments, by which men are enabled to know the glory and +the providence of God. [p120] + +The Catholic apologists maintain that God can be known by the exercise +of reason, but the miracle helps, as it were, to clinch the conviction. +The persistent attachment of the Catholic Church to miracles is +significant. It has a longer unbroken experience with human nature than +any other institution in the western world. It has adapted itself to +many circumstances, and under the profession of an unalterable creed it +has abandoned and then added much. But it has never ceased to insist +upon the need of a physical manifestation of the divine power. For with +an unerring instinct for realities, Catholic churchmen have understood +that there is a residuum of prosaic, matter-of-factness, of a need to +touch and to see, which verbal proofs can never quite satisfy. They +have resolutely responded to that need. They have not preached God +merely by praising him; they have brought God near to men by revealing +him to the senses, as one who is great enough and good enough and +sufficiently interested in them to heal the sick and to make the floods +recede. + +But to-day scientists are ever so much superior to churchmen at this +kind of demonstration. The miracles which are recounted from the pulpit +were, after all, few and far between. There are even theologians who +teach that miracles ceased with the death of the Apostles. But the +miracles of science seem to be inexhaustible. It is not surprising, +then, that men of science should have acquired much of the intellectual +authority which churchmen once exercised. Scientists do not, of course, +speak of their discoveries as miracles. But to the common man they have +much the same character as miracles. They are [p121] wonderful, they +are inexplicable, they are manifestations of a great power over the +forces of nature. + +It cannot be said, I think, that the people at large, even the +moderately educated minority, understand the difference between +scientific method and revelation, or that they have decided upon +reflection to trust science. There is at least as much mystery in +science for the common man as there ever was in religion; in a sense +there is more mystery, for the logic of science is still altogether +beyond his understanding, whereas the logic of revelation is the logic +of his own feelings. But if men at large do not understand the method +of science, they can appreciate some of its more tangible results. +And these results are so impressive that scientific men are often +embarrassed by the unbounded popular expectations which they have so +unintentionally aroused. + +Their authority in the realm of knowledge has become virtually +irresistible. And so when scientists teach one theory and the Bible +another, the scientists invariably carry the greater conviction. + + +4. _On Reconciling Religion and Science_ + +The conflicts between scientists and churchmen are sometimes ascribed +to a misunderstanding on both sides. But when we examine the proposals +for peace, it is plain, I think, that they are in effect proposals +for a truce. There is, for example, the suggestion first put out, I +believe, in the Seventeenth Century that God made the universe like +a clock, and that having started it running he will let it alone +till it runs down. By this ingenious metaphor, which can neither be +proved nor disproved, [p122] it was possible to reconcile for a time +the scientific notion of natural law with the older notion of God as +creator and as judge. The religious conception was held to be true for +the beginning of the world and for the end, the scientific conception +was true in between. Later, when the theatre of the difficulty was +transferred from physics and astronomy to biology and history, a +variation was propounded. God, it was said, created the world and +governs it; the way he creates and governs is the way described by +scientists as ‘evolution.’ + +Attempts at reconciliations like these are based on a theory that it +is feasible somewhere in the field of knowledge to draw a line and +say that on one side the methods of science shall prevail, on the +other the methods of traditional religion. It is acknowledged that +where experiment and observation are possible, the field belongs to +the scientists; but it is argued that there is a vast field of great +interest to mankind which is beyond the reach of practical scientific +inquiry, and that here, touching questions like the ultimate destiny +of man, the purpose of life, and immortality, the older method of +revelation, inspired and verified by intuition, is still reliable. + +In any truce of this sort there is bound to be aggression from both +sides. For it is a working policy rather than an inwardly accepted +conviction. Scientists cannot really believe that there are fields of +possible knowledge which they can never enter. They are bound to enter +all fields and to explore everything. And even if they fail, they +cannot believe that other scientists must always fail. Their essays, +moreover, create disturbance and doubt which orthodox churchmen are +forced to resent. For in [p123] any division of authority, there must +be some ultimate authority to settle questions of jurisdiction. Shall +scientists determine what belongs to science, or shall churchmen? The +question is insoluble as long as both claim that they have the right to +expound the nature of existence. + +And so while the policy of toleration may be temporarily workable, it +is inherently unstable. Therefore, among men who are at once devoted +to the method of science and sensitive to the human need of religion, +the hope has arisen that something better can be worked out than a +purely diplomatic division of the mind into spheres of influence. Mr. +Whitehead, for example, in his book called _Science and the Modern +World_, argues “there are wider truths and finer perspectives within +which a reconciliation of a deeper religion and a more subtle science +will be found.” He illustrates what he means in this fashion. Galileo +said the earth moves and the sun is fixed; the Inquisition said the +earth is fixed and the sun moves; the Newtonian astronomers said that +both the sun and the earth move. “But now we say that any one of these +three statements is equally true, provided you have fixed your sense of +‘rest’ and ‘motion’ in the way required by the statement adopted. At +the date of Galileo’s controversy with the Inquisition, Galileo’s way +of stating the facts was beyond question the fruitful procedure for the +sake of scientific research. But at that time the concepts of relative +motion were in nobody’s mind; so that the statements were made in +ignorance of the qualifications required for the more perfect truth.... +All sides had got hold of important truths.... [p124] But with the +knowledge of those times, the truths appeared to be inconsistent.” + +This is reconciliation through a higher synthesis. But I cannot help +feeling that the scientist has here produced the synthesis, and that +the churchmen have merely provided one of the ideas which are to be +synthesized. Mr. Whitehead argues in effect that a subtler science +would confirm many ideas that were once taken on faith. But he holds +unswervingly to the belief of the scientist that his method contains +the criterion of truth. In his illustration the reconciliation between +Galileo, the Inquisition, and the Newtonian physicists is reached if +all three parties accept “the modern concept of relative motion.” +But the modern concept of relative motion was reached by scientific +thought, and not by apostolic revelation. To Mr. Whitehead, therefore, +the ultimate arbiter is science, and what he means by reconciliation is +a scientific view of the universe sufficiently wide and sufficiently +subtle to justify many of the important, but hitherto unverified, +claims of traditional religion. Mr. Whitehead, it happens, is an +Englishman as well as a great logician, and it is difficult to resist +the suspicion that he conceives the church of the future as enjoying +the dignities of an Indian Maharajah, with a resident scientist behind +the altar. + +A reconciliation of this kind may soften the conflict for a while. +But it cannot for long disguise the fact that it is based on a denial +of the premises of faith. If the method of science has the last word, +then revelation is reduced from a means of arriving at absolute +certainty to a flash of insight which can be trusted if and when it +is verified by science. Under such terms of peace, the religious +[p125] experiences of mankind become merely one of the instruments of +knowledge, like the microscope and the binomial theorem, usable now +and then, but subject to correction, and provisional. They no longer +yield complete, ultimate, invincible truths. They yield an hypothesis. +But the religious life of most men has not, until this day at least, +been founded upon hypotheses which, when accurately stated, included a +coefficient of probable error. + + +5. _Gospels of Science_ + +Because its prestige is so great, science has been acclaimed as a new +revelation. Cults have attached themselves to scientific hypotheses +as fortune-tellers to a circus. A whole series of pseudo-religions +have been hastily constructed upon such dogmas as the laws of +nature, mechanism, Darwinian evolution, Lamarckian evolution, and +psychoanalysis. Each of these cults has had its own Decalogue of +Science founded at last, it was said, upon certain knowledge. + +These cults are an attempt to fit the working theories of science to +the ordinary man’s desire for personal salvation. They do violence +to the integrity of scientific thought and they cannot satisfy the +layman’s need to believe. For the essence of the scientific method is +a determination to investigate phenomena without conceding anything to +naive human prejudices. Therefore, genuine men of science shrink from +the attempts of poets, prophets, and popular lecturers to translate +the current scientific theory into the broad and passionate dogmas +of popular faith. As a matter of common honesty they know that no +theory has the kind of absolute verity which [p126] popular faith +would attribute to it. As a matter of prudence they fear these popular +cults, knowing quite well that freedom of inquiry is endangered when +men become passionately loyal to an idea, and stake their personal +pride and hope of happiness upon its vindication. In the light of human +experience, men of science have learned what happens when investigators +are not free to discard any theory without breaking some dear old +lady’s heart. Their theories are not the kind of revelation which the +old lady is seeking, and their beliefs are relative and provisional to +a degree which must seem utterly alien and bewildering to her. + +Here, for example, is the conclusion of some lectures by one of the +greatest living astronomers. I have italicized the words which the dear +old lady would not be likely to hear in a sermon: + + I have dealt mainly with two salient points—the problem of the + source of a star’s energy, and the change of mass which must + occur if there is any evolution of faint stars from bright stars. + I have shown how these _appear_ to meet in the _hypothesis_ of + the annihilation of matter. I _do not hold this as a secure + conclusion_. I _hesitate even to advocate it as probable_, because + there are many details which seem to me to throw _considerable + doubt_ on it, and I have formed a strong impression that there + must be _some essential point which has not yet been grasped_. + I _simply_ tell it you as the _clue_ which at the moment we are + _trying_ to follow up—_not knowing whether it is false scent or + true_. I should have liked to have closed these lectures by leading + up to some great climax. But perhaps it is more in accordance with + the true conditions of scientific progress that they should _fizzle + out_ with a glimpse of the _obscurity_ which marks the frontiers of + present knowledge. I do not apologize for the [p127] _lameness_ of + the conclusion, _for it is not a conclusion_. I _wish I could feel + confident that it is even a beginning_. + +This great climax, to which Dr. Eddington was unable to lead up, is +what the layman is looking for. We know quite well what the nature +of that great climax would be: it would be a statement of fact which +related the destiny of each individual to the destiny of the universe. +That is the kind of truth which is found in revelation. It is the kind +of truth which men would like to find in science. But it is the kind of +truth which science does not afford. The difficulty is deeper than the +provisional character of scientific hypothesis; it is not due merely to +the inability of the scientist to say that his conclusion is absolutely +secure. The layman in search of a dogma upon which to organize his +destiny might be willing to grant that the conclusions of science +to-day are as yet provisional. What he tends to misunderstand is that +even if the conclusions were guaranteed by all investigators now and +for all time to come, those conclusions would still fail to provide him +with a conception of the world of which the great climax was a prophecy +of the fate of creation in terms of his hopes and fears. + +The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection +of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that +the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the +preferences of the human heart. The science of Aristotle and of the +Schoolmen, on the other hand, was a truly popular science. It was in +its inspiration the instinctive science of the unscientific man. “They +read into the cause and goal of the universe,” as Dr. Randall has said, +“that which alone [p128] justifies it for man, its service of the +good.” They provided a conception of the universe which was available +for the religious needs of ordinary men, and in the _Divine Comedy_ we +can see the supreme example of what science must be like if it is to +satisfy the human need to believe. The purpose of the whole poem, said +Dante himself, “is to remove those who are living in this life from the +state of wretchedness, and to lead them to the state of blessedness.” +Mediæval science, which follows the logic of human desire, was such +that Dante could without violence either to its substance or its spirit +say at the summit of Paradise: + + To the high fantasy here power failed; but already my desire and + will were rolled—even as a wheel that moveth equally—by the Love + that moves the sun and the other stars. + +This is the great climax which men instinctively expect: the ability +to say with perfect assurance that when the truth is fully evident it +will be seen that their desire and will are rolled by the love that +moves the sun and the other stars. They hope not only to find the will +of God in the universe but to know that his will is fundamentally like +their own. Only if they could believe that on the basis of scientific +investigation would they really feel that science had ‘explained’ the +world. + +Explanation, in this sense, cannot come from modern science because +it is not in this sense that modern science attempts to explain the +universe. It is wholly misleading to say, for example, that the +scientific picture of the world is mechanical. All that can properly +be said is that many scientists have found it satisfying to think +about the universe as if it were built on a mechanical model. “If +I [p129] can make a mechanical model,” said Lord Kelvin, “I can +understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way +through, I cannot understand it.” But what does the scientist mean by +“understanding it”? He means, says Professor Bridgman, that he has +“reduced a situation to elements with which we are so familiar that we +accept them as a matter of course, so that our curiosity rests.” Modern +men are familiar with machines. They can take them apart and put them +together, so that even though we should all be a little flustered if +we had to tell just what we mean by a machine, our curiosity tends to +be satisfied if we hear that the phenomenon, say, of electricity or of +human behavior, is like a machine. + +The place at which curiosity rests is not a fixed point called ‘the +truth.’ The unscientific man, like the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, +really means by the truth an explanation of the universe in terms of +human desire. What modern science means by the truth has been stated +most clearly perhaps by the late Charles S. Peirce when he said +that “the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all +those who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object +represented in this opinion is the real.” When we say that something +has been ‘explained’ by science, we really mean only that our own +curiosity is satisfied. Another man, whose mind was more critical, +who commanded a greater field of experience, might not be satisfied +at all. Thus “the savage is satisfied by explaining the thunderstorm +as the capricious act of an angry God.... (But) even if the physicist +believed in the existence of the angry god, he would not be satisfied +with this explanation of the thunderstorm [p130] because he is not so +well acquainted with angry gods as to be able to predict when anger +is followed by a storm. He would have to know why the god had become +angry, and why making a thunderstorm eased his ire.” But even carrying +the explanation to this point would not be carrying it to its limit. +For there is no formal limit. The next scientist might wish to know +what a god was and what anger is. And when he had been told what their +elements are, the next man might be dissatisfied until he had found the +elements of these elements. + +The man who says that the world is a machine has really advanced no +further than to say that he is so well satisfied with this analogy that +he is through with searching any further. That is his business, as long +as he does not insist that he has reached a clear and ultimate picture +of the universe. For obviously he has not. A machine is something in +which the parts push and pull each other. But why are they pushing and +pulling, and how do _they_ work? Do they push and pull because of the +action of the electrons in their orbits within the atoms? If that is +true, then how does an electron work? Is it, too, a machine? Or is it +something quite different from a machine? Shall we attempt to explain +machines electrically, or shall we attempt to explain electricity +mechanically? + +It becomes plain, therefore, that scientific explanation is altogether +unlike the explanations to which the common man is accustomed. It does +not yield a certain picture of anything which can be taken naively as +a representation of reality. And therefore the philosophies which have +grown up about science, like mechanism or [p131] creative evolution, +are in no way guaranteed by science as the account of creation in +Genesis is guaranteed by the authority of Scripture. They are nothing +but provisional dramatizations which are soon dissolved by the progress +of science itself. + +That is why nothing is so dead as the scientific religion of yesterday. +It is far more completely dead than any revealed religion, because the +revealed religion, whatever may be the defects of its cosmology or its +history, has some human experience at its core which we can recognize +and to which we may respond. But a religion like scientific materialism +has nothing in it, except the pretension that it is a true account of +the world. Once that pretension is exploded, it is wholly valueless as +a religion. It has become a collection of discarded concepts. + + +6. _The Deeper Conflict_ + +It follows from the very nature of scientific explanation, then, that +it cannot give men such a clue to a plan of existence as they find +in popular religion. For that plan must suppose that existence is +explained in terms of human destiny. Now conceivably existence might +again be explained, as it was in the Middle Ages, as the drama of human +destiny. It does not seem probable to us; yet we cannot say that it +is impossible. But even if science worked out such an explanation, it +would still be radically different from the explanations which popular +religion employs. + +For if it were honestly stated, it would be necessary to say first, +that it is tentative, and subject to disproof by further experiment; +second, that it is relative, in that [p132] the same facts seen from +some other point and with some other purpose in mind could be explained +quite differently; third, that it is not a picture of the world, as +God would see it, and as all men must see it, but that it is simply +one among many possible creations of the mind into which most of the +data of experience can be fitted. When the scientist had finished +setting down his qualifications, the essence of the matter as a simple, +devout man sees it, would have evaporated. Certainty, as the devout +desire it, would be gone; verity, as they understand it, would be gone; +objectivity, as they imagine it, would be gone. What would remain +would be a highly abstracted, logical fiction, suited to disinterested +inquiry, but utterly unsuited to be the vehicle of his salvation. + +The difficulty of reconciling popular religion with science is far +deeper than that of reconciling Genesis with Darwin, or any statement +of fact in the Bible with any discovery by scientists. It is the +difficulty of reconciling the human desire for a certain kind of +universe with a method of explaining the world which is absolutely +neutral in its intention. One can by twisting language sufficiently +“reconcile” Genesis with “evolution.” But what no one can do is to +guarantee that science will not destroy the doctrine of evolution the +day after it has been triumphantly proved that Genesis is compatible +with the theory of evolution. As a matter of fact, just that has +happened. The Darwinian theory, which theologians are busily accepting, +is so greatly modified already by science that some of it is almost as +obsolete as the Babylonian myth in Genesis. The reconciliation which +theologians are attempting is an impossible one, because one of the +[p133] factors which has to be reconciled—namely, the scientific +theory, changes so rapidly that the layman is never sure at any one +moment what the theory is which he has to reconcile with religious +dogma. + +Yet the purpose of these attempts at reconciliation is evident enough. +It is to find a solid foundation for human ideals in the facts of +existence. Authority based on revelation once provided that foundation. +It gave an account of how the world began, of how it is governed, and +of how it will end, which made pain and joy, hope and fear, desire and +the denial of desire the central motives in the cosmic drama. This +account no longer satisfies our curiosity as to the nature of things; +the authority which certifies it no longer commands our complete +allegiance. The prestige, which once adhered to those who spoke by +revelation, has passed to scientists. But science, though it is the +most reliable method of knowledge we now possess, does not provide +an account of the world in which human destiny is the central theme. +Therefore, science, though it has displaced revelation, is not a +substitute for it. It yields a radically different kind of knowledge. +It explains the facts. But it does not pretend to justify the ways of +God to man. It enables us to realize some of our hopes. But it offers +no guarantees that they can be fulfilled. + + +7. _Theocracy and Humanism_ + +There is a revolution here in the realm of the spirit. We may describe +it briefly by saying that whereas men once felt they were living under +the eye of an all-powerful spectator, to-day they are watched only by +their neighbors [p134] and their own consciences. A few, perhaps, act +as if posterity were aware of them; the great number feel themselves +accountable only to their own consciences or to the opinion of the +society in which they live. Once men believed that they would be judged +at the throne of God. They believed that he saw not only their deeds +but their motives; there was no hole deep enough into which a man could +crawl to hide himself from the sight of God; there was no mood, however +fleeting, which escaped his notice. + +The moral problem for each man, therefore, was to make his will conform +to the will of God. There were differences of opinion as to how this +could be done. There were differing conceptions of the nature of God, +and of what he most desired. But there was no difference of opinion on +the main point that it was imperative to obey him. Whether they thought +they could serve God best by burnt offerings or a contrite heart, by +slaying the infidel or by loving their neighbors, by vows of poverty or +by the magnificence of their altars, they never doubted that the chief +duty of man, and his ultimate chance of happiness, was to discover and +then to cultivate a right relationship to a supreme being. + +This was the major premise upon which all human choices hinged. There +followed from it certain necessary conclusions. In determining what was +a right relationship to God, the test of rightness lay in a revelation +of the putative experience of God and not in the actual experience of +His creatures. It was God alone, therefore, who really understood the +reasons for righteousness and its nature. “The procedure of Divine +Justice,” said [p135] Calvin, “is too high to be scanned by human +measure or comprehended by the feebleness of human intellect.” That was +good which man understood was good in the eyes of God, regardless of +how it seemed to men. + +Thus the distinction between good and evil, including not only all +rules of personal conduct but the whole arrangement of rights and +duties in society, were laws established not by the consent of the +governed, but by a king in heaven. They were his commandments. By +obedience men could obtain happiness. But they obtained it not because +virtue is the cause of happiness but because God rewarded with +happiness those who obeyed his commandments. Men did not really know +why God preferred certain kinds of conduct; they merely professed to +know what kind of conduct he preferred. They could not really ask +themselves what the difference was between good and evil. That was a +secret locked in the nature of a being whose choices were ultimately +inscrutable. The only question was what he willed. Even Job had to be +content without fathoming his reasons. + +The moral commandments based upon divine authority were, in the nature +of things, rather broad generalizations. Obviously there could not be +special revelation as to the unique aspects of each human difficulty. +The divine law, like our ordinary human law, was addressed to typical +rather than to individual cases. Nevertheless, for much the greater +part of recorded history men have accepted such law without questioning +its validity. They could not have done so if the rules of morality had +not, at least in some rough way, worked. It is not difficult to see +why they worked. They were broad rules of conduct imposed [p136] upon +people living close to the soil, upon people, therefore, whose ways of +living changed little in the course of generations. The same situations +were so nearly and so often repeated that a typical solution would on +the whole be satisfactory. + +These typical solutions, such as we find in the Mosaic law or the +code of Hammurabi, were no doubt the deposits of custom. They had, +therefore, become perfected in practice, and were solidly based upon +human experience. In the society in which they originated, there was +nothing arbitrary or alien about them. When, therefore, the lawgiver +carried these immemorial usages up with him on to Sinai, and brought +them down again graven on tablets of stone, the rationality of the +revelation was self-evident. It appeared to be arbitrary only when a +radical change in the way of life dissolved the premises and the usages +upon which the authoritative code was established. + +That dissolution has proceeded to great lengths within the centuries +which we call modern. The crisis was reached, it seems, during the +Eighteenth Century, and in the teaching of Immanuel Kant it was made +manifest to the educated classes of the western world. Kant argued +in the _Critique of Pure Reason_ that the existence of God cannot be +demonstrated. He then insisted that without belief in God, freedom, and +immortality, there was no valid and true morality. So he insisted that +God must exist to justify morality. This highly sophisticated doctrine +marks the end of simple theism in modern thought. For Kant’s proof of +the existence of God was nothing but a plea that God ought to exist, +and the whole temper [p137] of the modern intellect is to deny that +what ought to be true necessarily is true. + +Insofar as men have now lost their belief in a heavenly king, they have +to find some other ground for their moral choices than the revelation +of his will. It follows necessarily that they must find the tests of +righteousness wholly within human experience. The difference between +good and evil must be a difference which men themselves recognize and +understand. Happiness cannot be the reward of virtue; it must be the +intelligible consequence of it. It follows, too, that virtue cannot be +commanded; it must be willed out of personal conviction and desire. +Such a morality may properly be called humanism, for it is centered not +in superhuman but in human nature. When men can no longer be theists, +they must, if they are civilized, become humanists. They must live +by the premise that whatever is righteous is inherently desirable +because experience will demonstrate its desirability. They must live, +therefore, in the belief that the duty of man is not to make his +will conform to the will of God but to the surest knowledge of the +conditions of human happiness. + +It is evident that a morality of humanism presents far greater +difficulties than a morality premised on theism. For one thing, it +is put immediately to a much severer test. When Kant, for example, +argued that theism was necessary to morality, his chief reason was that +since the good man is often defeated on earth, he must be permitted to +believe in a superhuman power which is “able to connect happiness and +morality in exact harmony with each other.” Humanism is not provided +with such [p138] reserves of moral credit; it cannot claim all +eternity in which its promises may be fulfilled. Unless its wisdom in +any sphere of life is demonstrated within a reasonable time in actual +experience, there is nothing to commend it. + +A morality of humanism labors under even greater difficulties. +It appears in a complex and changing society; it is an attitude +toward life to which rational men necessarily turn whenever their +circumstances have rendered a theistic view incredible. It is just +because the simpler rules no longer work that the subtler choices +of humanism present themselves. These choices have to be made under +conditions, like those which prevail in modern urban societies, where +the extreme complexity of rapidly changing human relations makes it +very difficult to foresee all the consequences of any moral decision. +The men who must make their decisions are skeptical by habit and +unsettled amidst the novelties of their surroundings. + +The teachers of a theistic morality, when the audience is devout, have +only to fortify the impression that the rules of conduct are certified +by God the invisible King. The ethical problem for the common man is +to recognize the well-known credentials of his teachers. In practice +he has merely to decide whether the priest, the prince, and the +elders, are what they claim to be. When he has done that, there are no +radical questions to be asked. But the teachers of humanism have no +credentials. Their teaching is not certified. They have to prove their +case by the test of mundane experience. They speak with no authority, +which can be scrutinized once and for all, and then forever accepted. +They can proclaim no rule of conduct with certainty, for they have no +inherent personal [p139] authority and they cannot be altogether sure +they are right. They cannot command. They cannot truly exhort. They +can only inquire, infer, and persuade. They have only human insight +to guide them and those to whom they speak must in the end themselves +accept the full responsibility for the consequences of any advice they +choose to accept. + +Yet with all its difficulties, it is to a morality of humanism that men +must turn when the ancient order of things dissolves. When they find +that they no longer believe seriously and deeply that they are governed +from heaven, there is anarchy in their souls until by conscious effort +they find ways of governing themselves. + + + + + PART II [p141] + + THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMANISM + + _The stone which the builders rejected, + The same is become the head of the corner?_ + Luke XX, 17. + + + + +INTRODUCTION [p143] + + +The upshot of the discussion to this point is that modernity destroys +the disposition to believe that behind the visible world of physical +objects and human institutions there is a supernatural kingdom from +which ultimately all laws, all judgments, all rewards, all punishments, +and all compensations are derived. To those who believe that this +kingdom exists the modern spirit is nothing less than treason to God. + +The popular religion rests on the belief that the kingdom is an +objective fact, as certain, as definite, and as real, in spite of +its invisibility, as the British Empire; it holds that this faith +is justified by overwhelming evidence supplied by revelation, +unimpeachable testimony, and incontrovertible signs. To the modern +spirit, on the other hand, the belief in this kingdom must necessarily +seem a grandiose fiction projected by human needs and desires. The +humanistic view is that the popular faith does not prove the existence +of its objects, but only the presence of a desire that such objects +should exist. The popular religion, in short, rests on a theory which, +if true, is an extension of physics and of history; the humanistic view +rests on human psychology and an interpretation of human experience. + +It follows, then, that in exploring the modern problem it is necessary +consciously and clearly to make a choice between these diametrically +opposite points of view. The [p144] choice is fundamental and +exclusive, and it determines all the conclusions which follow. For +obviously to one who believes that the world is a theocracy, the +problem is how to bring the strayed and rebellious masses of mankind +back to their obedience, how to restore the lost provinces of God the +invisible King. But to one who takes the humanistic view the problem is +how mankind, deprived of the great fictions, is to come to terms with +the needs which created those fictions. + +In this book I take the humanistic view because, in the kind of world I +happen to live in, I can do no other. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII [p145] + +GOLDEN MEMORIES + + +It will be granted, I suppose, that there would be no need for +certainty about the plan and government of the universe if, as a +matter of course, all our desires were regularly fulfilled. In a world +where no man desired what he could not have, there would be no need to +regulate human conduct and therefore no need for morality. In a world +where each man could have what he desired, there would be no need for +consolation and for reassuring guarantees that justice, mercy, and love +will ultimately prevail. In a world where there was perfect adjustment +between human desires and their environment, there would be no problem +of evil: we should not know the meaning of sin, sorrow, crime, fear, +frustration, pain, and emptiness. We do not live in such a well-ordered +world. But we can imagine it by making either of two assumptions: +that we have ceased to desire anything which causes evil, or that +omnipotence fulfills all our desires. The first of these assumptions +leads to the Nirvana of the Buddhists, where all craving has ceased and +there is perfect peace. The second leads to the heaven of all popular +religions, to some paradise like that of Mohammed perhaps where, as Mr. +Santayana says, men may “sit in well-watered gardens, clad in green +silks, drinking delicious sherbets, and transfixed by the gazelle-like +glance of some young girl, all innocence and fire.” [p146] + +Among educated men it has always been difficult to imagine a heaven +of fulfilled desires. For since no two persons have exactly the +same desires, one man’s imagination of heaven may not suit another +man’s. In general, the attempts which have been made to picture the +Christian heaven reflect the temperaments of highly contemplative +spirits, and it is customary nowadays to say that this heaven would +be a most uninteresting place. No doubt it would be to those who are +not contemplative. But the objectors have missed the main point, which +is that no one is supposed to pass through the pearly gates who is +not suited to dwell in Paradise. That is what St. Peter is there for, +to see that the unfit do not enter; the other places, Purgatory and +the Inferno, are available to those spirits who could not be happy in +Heaven. There are, by definition, no uncongenial spirits in Heaven. +There were once, but Satan and his followers were thrown out headlong, +and they now live in places which are suited to their temperaments. A +devout man may quite properly, therefore, advise those who do not think +they would enjoy Heaven to go to Hell. + +The attempt to imagine a heaven is an attempt to conceive a world in +which the disorders of human desire no longer exist. Now it is in their +prayers that men have sought to come to terms with their disorders, and +their prayers reveal most concretely how much the hunger for certainty +and for help is a hunger for the fulfillment of desire. For prayer, +says Father Wynne, is “the expression of our desires to God whether +for ourselves or for others.” In the higher reaches of religion “the +expression is not intended to instruct or direct God what to do, but to +[p147] appeal to His goodness for the things we need; and the appeal +is necessary, not because He is ignorant of our needs or sentiments, +but to give definite form to our desires, to concentrate our whole +attention on what we have to recommend to Him, to help us appreciate +our close personal relation with Him.” But in order to know what to +pray for, we need grace, that is to say, God Himself must teach us what +to ask Him for. We can be sure that we should pray for salvation, but +in particular we need guidance from God “to know the special means that +will most help us in any particular need.” But besides the spiritual +objects of prayer “we are to ask also for temporal things, our daily +bread and all that it implies, health, strength, and other worldly or +temporal goods ...”; we are to pray also for escape from evils, “the +penalty of our sins, the dangers of temptation, and every manner of +physical or spiritual affliction.” + +There has, however, always been a logical difficulty about offering +petitions to an all-wise and all-powerful Providence. Thus in the +_Dialogue of Dives and Pauper_, which was published in 1493, the +question is put: “Why pray we to God with oure mouth sithe he knowyth +alle oure thoughte, all our desire, al our wyl and what us nedeth?” +To this question the only answer which was not evasive came from the +mystics who led a life of contemplation. Prayer, they said, is not mere +petition; it is communion with God. It is not because prayer gives a +man what he wants, but because it “ones the soul to God,” that it is +rational and necessary. This, too, is the conception of prayer held by +a liberal pastor like Dr. Fosdick who looks with scorn upon “clamorous +petition to an [p148] anthropomorphic God” and says that “true prayer +... is to assimilate ... (the) spirit which is God (that) ... surrounds +our lives.” The same idea, stated in somewhat more precise language, +is set down by Mr. Santayana when he says that “in rational prayer the +soul may be said to accomplish three things important to its welfare: +it withdraws within itself and defines its good, it accommodates itself +to destiny, and it grows like the ideal which it conceives.” + +But, of course, this is not the way the common man through the ages +has conceived prayer. In fact he must have prayed before he had any +clear conception of what a prayer is or of whom it is addressed to. +Thus we are told that in Arcadia the girls invoked Hera by the title of +“Hera the Girl,” the married women prayed to “Hera the Married One,” +and the widows prayed to “Hera the Widow.” Sometimes the prayer is a +spontaneous expression of sorrow or of delight, a lyrical cry which +has no ulterior purpose and is addressed to no one. Sometimes prayer +is a magical formula which compels the deity to listen and to obey. +The subject is both complicated and obscure. But this much at least is +clear: along with elements which can be described only as spontaneous +and lyrical, with traces of magic, and at times with a purely +disinterested desire to commune with God, simple people have looked +upon prayer as “an instrument for applying God’s illimitable power to +daily life.” + +Popular discussion of prayer has often been extremely practical: “How +can prayer be made most efficient? Is it by ordinary Masses or by other +offices? Is it by the elaboration or the multiplication of services?” +Lady Alice [p149] West who died in 1395 ordered 4400 Masses “in the +most haste that it may be do, withynne xiiii nyght next after my +deces.” Thomas Walwayn who died in 1415 left orders for 10,000 Masses +“with oute pompe whyche may not profyt myn soule.” John Plot, however, +wished his Masses said “with solempne seruise that ys for to sayn +wyth Belle Ryngyng.” There was debate as to whether prayers were most +effective if said in Rome or in the Holy Land ... by certain priests +rather than by others ... by the friars rather than by the priests ... +whether there were more potent prayers than the _Pater_ ... whether +prayers should be addressed to the Father, the Son, or to St. Mary +... whether St. Mary could be approached best through her mother, St. +Anne.... + +It is not necessary to dogmatize by saying that prayer is magic, or +soliloquy, or communion, or petition for this and that, in order to +see that it is the expression of a human need. The quality of the need +varies. It may be anything from a desire for rain to a desire for +friendship with unseen spirits, but always it illustrates the saying +that “all men stand in need of God.” + +If we ask ourselves what we mean by ‘need,’ we must answer, I suppose, +that the resources of our own natures and the power we are able to +exercise over events are insufficient to satisfy the cravings of our +natures. We must eat, but we cannot be sure that drought will not +destroy the crops. We are beset by enemies, and we are not sure we +can conquer them. We are threatened by earthquake, storm, and disease +against which we cannot wholly protect ourselves. We become deeply +attached to other persons. But they must die and we must die, and we +cannot stay [p150] the doom. In brief, we find ourselves in a world in +which our hopes are defeated. + +Somehow we are so constituted that we demand the impossible. There is +in us somewhere an intimation that we ought not to be defeated. But +where did this intimation come from? How is it that we are not born +satisfied with our mortality, content with our fate? Why is it that the +normal fate of man seems to us abnormal? What is there in the back of +our heads which keeps telling us that life as we find it is not what it +ought to be? + +The biologist might answer, I suppose, that this craving for a +different kind of world is simply our own consciousness of that blind +push of natural forces which create the variations on which natural +selection works to produce the survival of the fittest. Nature, he +might say, is wholly indifferent to the outcries of the individual; +this vast process of which each of us is so insignificant a part, +keeps going because there is in all the parts a superabundant urging +to go on. There is no human economy in it and no human order. Man, for +example, has far more sexual desire than is needed for the rational +propagation of the species. But there is no rational plan in nature. It +works here, and everywhere, on the principle that by having too much +there will surely be enough; the seeds which do not germinate, the +seedlings which perish, the desires which are left over, are no concern +of nature’s. For nature has no concern. There is no concern except that +which we ourselves feel, and that is a mere flicker on the stream of +time, and will soon go out. + +While there is no way of gainsaying that this explanation is true, +it is true only if we look at life from the particular point of view +which the biologist adopts. If, however, [p151] we look inwardly +upon ourselves, instead of surveying our species from the outside, we +find, I think, that this sense that the world ought not to be what it +is seems to originate in a kind of dim memory that it once was what +we feel it ought to be. Indeed, so vivid is this memory that for ages +men took it to be an account of historical events; in absolute good +faith they constituted for themselves the picture of a Golden Age which +existed before evil came into the world. Hope was, therefore, a kind +of memory; the ideal was to achieve something which had been lost. The +memory of an age of innocence has haunted the whole of mankind. It has +been a light behind their present experience which cast shadows upon +it, and made it seem insubstantial and not inevitable. Before this +life, there had been another which was happier. And so they reasoned +that what once was possible must somehow be possible again. Having once +known the good, it was unbelievable that evil should be final. + +Even after criticism has dissolved the beautiful legends in which it +was embodied, this memory of a Golden Age persists. It persists as an +intimation of our own inward experience, and like an uneasy spirit it +intrudes itself upon our most realistic efforts to accept the world +as we find it. For it takes many shapes, which sometimes deceive us, +appearing then not as the memory of a happiness we have lost, but as +the anticipation of utopia to come. + +It is an intimation that man is entitled to live in the land of heart’s +desire. It is a deep conviction that happiness is possible, and all +inquiry into the foundations of morals turns ultimately upon whether +man can achieve this happiness by pursuing his desires, or whether he +must first learn to desire the kind of happiness which is possible. + + + + +CHAPTER IX [p152] + +THE INSIGHT OF HUMANISM + + +1. _The Two Approaches to Life_ + +The land of heart’s desire is a place in which no man desires what he +cannot have and each man can have what he desires. There have been +great differences of opinion among men as to how they could best enter +this happy land. + +If they thought their natural impulses were by way of being lecherous, +greedy, and cruel, they have accepted some form of the classical and +Christian doctrine that man must subdue his naive impulses, and by +reason, grace, or renunciation, transform his will. If they thought +that man was naturally innocent and good, they have accepted some one +of the many variants of liberalism, and concerned themselves not with +the reform of desire but with the provision of opportunities for its +fulfilment. + +There are differences of emphasis among liberals, but they all accept +the same premise, which is that if only external circumstances are +favorable the internal life of man will adjust itself successfully. +So completely does this theory of human nature dominate the field of +contemporary thought that modern men are rarely reminded, and then only +by those whom it is the fashion to ignore, that they are challenging +the testimony not merely of their maiden aunts, but of all the greatest +teachers of wisdom. [p153] Yet if the modern man is an optimist on +the subject of his impulses, the reason is to be found less in his own +self-confidence than in his distrust of men and in his intoxication +over things. + +Owing to the dissolution of the ancestral order he has learned to +distrust those who exercise authority. Owing to the progress of science +he has acquired an unbounded confidence in his capacity to create +desirable objects. He is so rebellious and so constructive that he has +still to ask himself whether the free and naive pursuit of desirable +objects can really produce a desirable world. Yet in all the books of +wisdom that is the question which confronts him. There it is written in +many languages and in the idiom of many different cultures that if man +is to find happiness, he must reconstruct not merely his world, but, +first of all, himself. + +Is this wisdom dead and done with, or has it a bearing upon the deep +uneasiness of the modern man? The answer depends upon what we must +conceive to be the nature of man. + + +2. _Freedom and Restraint_ + +It is significant that fashions in human nature are continually +changing. There are, as it were, two extremes: at the one is the belief +that our naive passions are evil, at the other that they are good, +and between these two poles, the prevailing opinion oscillates. One +might suppose that somewhere, perhaps near the center, there would be +a point which was the truth, and that on that point men would reach +an agreement. But experience shows that there is no agreement, and +that there is no known point [p154] where the two views are perfectly +balanced. The fact is that the prevailing view is invariably a rebound +from the excesses of the other, and one can understand it only by +knowing what it is a reaction from. + +It is impossible, for example, to do justice to Rousseau and +the romantics without understanding the dead classicism, the +conventionalities, and the tyrannies of the Eighteenth Century. It is +equally impossible to do justice to the Eighteenth Century without +understanding the licentiousness of the High Renaissance and the +political disorders resulting from the Reformation. These in their turn +become intelligible only when we have understood the later consequences +of the mediæval view of life. No particular view endures. When human +nature is wholly distrusted and severely repressed, sooner or later it +asserts itself and bursts its bonds; and when it is naively trusted, it +produces so much disorder and corruption that men once again idealize +order and restraint. + +We happen to be living in an age when there is a severe reaction +against the distrust and repression practiced by those whom it is +customary to describe as Puritans. It is, in fact, a reaction against a +degenerate form of Puritanism which manifested itself as a disposition +to be prim, prudish, and pedantic. For latter-day Puritanism had become +a rather second-rate notion that less obvious things are more noble +than grosser ones and that spirituality is the pursuit of rarefied +sensations. It had embraced the idea that a man had advanced in the +realm of the spirit in proportion to his concern with abstractions, and +cults of grimly spiritual persons devoted themselves to the worship of +sonorous generalities. All this associated itself [p155] with a rather +preposterous idealism which insisted that maidens should be wan and +easily frightened, that draperies and decorations should conceal the +essential forms of objects, and that the good life had something to do +with expurgated speech, with pale colors, and shadows and silhouettes, +with the thin music of harps and soprano voices, with fig leaves and +a general conspiracy to tell lies to children, with philosophies that +denied the reality of evil, and with all manner of affectation and +self-deception. + +Yet in these many attempts to grow wings and take off from the things +that are of the earth earthy, it is impossible not to recognize a +resemblance, somewhat in the nature of a caricature, to the teaching of +the sages. There is no doubt that in one form or another, Socrates and +Buddha, Jesus and St. Paul, Plotinus and Spinoza, taught that the good +life is impossible without asceticism, that without renunciation of +many of the ordinary appetites, no man can really live well. Prejudice +against the human body and a tendency to be disgusted with its habits, +a contempt for the ordinary concerns of daily experience is to be +found in all of them, and it is not surprising that men, living in an +age of moral confusion like that associated with the name of the good +Queen Victoria, should have come to believe that if only they covered +up their passions they had conquered them. It was a rather ludicrous +mistake as the satirists of the anti-Victorian era have so copiously +pointed out. But at least there was a dim recognition in this cult of +the genteel that the good life does involve some kind of conquest of +the carnal passions. + +That conception of the good life has become so repulsive [p156] to the +present generation that it is almost incapable of understanding and +appreciating the original insight of which the works of Dr. Bowdler and +Mrs. Grundy are a caricature. Yet it is a fact, and a most arresting +one, that in all the great religions, and in all the great moral +philosophies from Aristotle to Bernard Shaw, it is taught that one of +the conditions of happiness is to renounce some of the satisfactions +which men normally crave. This tradition as to what constitutes the +wisdom of life is supported by testimony from so many independent +sources that it cannot be dismissed lightly. With minor variations it +is a common theme in the teaching of an Athenian aristocrat like Plato, +an Indian nobleman like Buddha, and a humble Jew like Spinoza; in +fact, wherever men have thought at all carefully about the problem of +evil and of what constitutes a good life, they have concluded that an +essential element in any human philosophy is renunciation. They cannot +all have been so foolish as Anthony Comstock. They must have had some +insight into experience which led them to that conclusion. + +If asceticism in all its forms were as stupid and cruel as it is now +the fashion to think it is, then the traditions of saintliness and +of heroism are monstrously misleading. For in the legends of heroes, +of sages, of explorers, inventors and discoverers, of pioneers and +patriots, there is almost invariably this same underlying theme of +sacrifice and unworldliness. They are poor. They live dangerously. By +ordinary standards they are extremely uncomfortable. They give up ease, +property, pleasure, pride, place, and power to attain things which are +transcendent and rare. They live for ends which seem to yield them +[p157] no profit, and they are ready to die, if need be, for that +which the dead can no longer enjoy. And yet, though there is nothing +in our current morality to justify their unworldliness, we continue to +admire them greatly. + +In saying all this I am not trying to clinch an argument by appealing +to great names. There is much in the teaching of all the spiritual +leaders of the past which is wholly obsolete to-day, and there is no +compulsive authority in any part of their teaching. They may have been +as mistaken in their insight into the human soul as they usually were +in their notions of physics and history. To say, then, that there is +an ascetic element in all the great philosophies of the past is not +proof that there must be one in modern philosophy. But it creates a +presumption, I think, which cannot be ignored, for we must remember +that the least perishable part of the literature and thought of the +past is that which deals with human nature. Scientific method and +historical scholarship have enormously increased our competence in +the whole field of physics and history. But for an understanding of +human nature we are still very largely dependent, as they were, upon +introspection, general observation, and intuition. There has been no +revolutionary advance here since the hellenic philosophers. That is why +Aristotle’s ethics is still as fresh for anyone who accustoms himself +to the idiom as Nietzsche, or Freud, or Bertrand Russell, whereas +Aristotle’s physics, his biology, or his zoology is of interest only to +antiquarians. + +It is, then, as an insight into human nature, and not as a rule +authoritatively imposed or highly sanctioned by the prestige of great +men, that I propose now to inquire what meaning there is for us in the +fact that men in the [p158] past have so persistently associated the +good life with some form of ascetic discipline and renunciation. The +modern world, as it has emancipated itself from its ancestral regime, +has assumed almost as a matter of course that the human passions, if +thoroughly liberated from all tyrannies and distortions, would by their +fulfilment achieve happiness. All those who teach asceticism, deny +this major premise of modernity, and the result is that the prevailing +philosophy is at odds on the most fundamental of all issues with the +wisdom of the past. + + +3. _The Ascetic Principle_ + +The average man to-day, when he hears the word asceticism, is likely +to think of St. Simeon Stylites who sat on top of a pillar, of hermits +living in caves, of hair-shirts, of long fasts, chastity, strange +vigils, and even of tattooing, self-mutilation, and flagellation. Or +if he does not think of such examples, which the modern man regards as +pathological and for the psychiatrist to explain, the word asceticism +may connote some such attitude of mind as Herbert Asbury has recorded +in the biography of his kinsman, Bishop Asbury, the founder of American +Methodism, of whom a friend, who knew him well, wrote: “I never saw +him indulge in even innocent pleasantry. His was the solemnity of an +apostle; it was so interwoven with his conduct that he could not put +off the gravity of the bishop either in the parlour or the dining-room. +He was a rigid enemy to ease; hence the pleasures of study and the +charms of recreation he alike sacrificed to the more sublime work +of saving souls.... He knew nothing about pleasing the flesh at the +expense of duty; flesh [p159] and blood were enemies with whom he +never took counsel.” + +If asceticism meant only this sort of thing, it might be interesting +only as a curiosity. But apart from the asceticism of primitive peoples +and of the pathological, there is a sane and civilized asceticism which +presents a quite different face. There is, for example, the argument of +Socrates in the _Phædo_ that the body is a nuisance to a philosopher in +search of truth. It is, he says, “a source of endless trouble to us by +reason of the mere requirement of food; and is liable also to diseases +which overtake and impede us in the search after true being: it fills +us full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and +endless foolery, and in fact, as men say, takes away from us the power +of thinking at all. Whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? +Whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? Wars are occasioned +by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in +the service of the body; and by reason of all these impediments we have +no time to give to philosophy; and, last and worst of all, even if we +are at leisure and betake ourselves to some speculation, the body is +always breaking in upon us, causing us turmoil and confusion in our +inquiries, and so amazing us that we are prevented from seeing the +truth.” + +Plato, in pursuing the argument in this particular dialogue, concludes +that because the body is such a nuisance the only pure philosopher is +a dead one. It is, perhaps, a logical conclusion. But in other places, +particularly in the _Republic_, Plato described a system of education +which he thought would produce philosophers: the neophytes [p160] +were put through a stern discipline of hard living and gymnastics and +learning, were compelled to live in tents, to own nothing which they +could call their own, and to cut themselves off from all family ties. + +When the description of this regime provokes Adeimantus to remark +that “you are not making the men of this class particularly happy,” +Socrates is made to reply that while it is not his object to make any +class particularly happy, yet it would not surprise him if in the given +circumstances even this class were very happy. When we look further +for his meaning, we find it to be that the guardians are trained by +their ascetic discipline to abandon all private aims and to find their +happiness in an appreciation of a perfectly ordered commonwealth. If +we understand this we shall, I believe, understand what civilized +asceticism means. We shall have come back to the original meaning of +the word itself, which is derived from the Greek ἀσκέω, “I practice,” +and “embodies a metaphor taken from the ancient wrestling place or +palæstra, where victory rewarded those who had best trained their +bodies.” An ascetic in the original meaning of the term is an athlete; +and it was in this spirit that the early Christians trained themselves +deliberately as “athletes of Christ” to bear without flinching the +tortures of their martyrdom. + +When asceticism is irrational, it is a form of totemism or fetich +worship and derives from a belief that certain things are tabu or +that evil spirits can be placated by human suffering. Or without any +coherent belief whatsoever asceticism may be merely a perversion +arising out of that ambivalence of the human passions which often makes +pain, inflicted on others or self-inflicted, an exquisite [p161] +pleasure. But when asceticism is rational, it is a discipline of the +mind and body to fit men for the service of an ideal. Its purpose +is to harden and to purify, to suppress contrary passions, and thus +to intensify the passion for the ideal. “I chastise my body,” said +St. Paul, “and bring it into subjection.” The Church, especially in +the earlier centuries, was compelled to fight continually against +irrational asceticism, and as late as the Middle Ages, the Inquisition +pursued sects which regarded marriage as the “greater adultery” and +practiced self-emasculation. The rational view was the view of St. +Jerome: “Be on your guard when you begin to mortify your body by +abstinence and fasting, lest you imagine yourself to be perfect and a +saint; for perfection does not consist in this virtue. It is only a +help; a disposition; a means, though a fitting one, for the attainment +of true perfection.” + +Now when St. Paul said that he had to bring his body into subjection, +when Aristotle defined the barbarians’ ideal as “the living as one +likes,” when Plato made Socrates say that the soul is infected by +the body, when Buddha preached the extinction of all craving, when +Spinoza wrote that because we rejoice in virtue we are able to +control our lusts, they accepted a view of human nature which is +quite diametrically opposed to one which has had wide currency in our +civilization since the Renaissance. + +This contrary view was undoubtedly provoked by the evils which came +from the attempt to put the ascetic principle extensively into +practice. Rabelais is by all odds the most convincing of the moderns +who revolted, for [p162] Rabelais not only talked about the natural +man but actually knew him and delighted in him. Thus when Villers +writes to Madame de Staël that in her work “primitive, incorruptible, +naive, passionate nature” is “in conflict with the barriers and +shackles of conventional life,” we feel, I think, that neither Villers +nor the lady would really have cared very much for primitive nature in +all its naivete. The natural man that they were talking about lived +in Arcady and his passions were as violent as those of a lapdog; +throughout the romantic movement, with rare exceptions, the talk about +passion and impulse and instinct has this air of unreality and of +neurotic confusion. There is not in it, as there is in Rabelais, for +example, an honest gusto for the passions that are to be liberated +from the restraints imposed by that “rabble of squint-minded fellows, +dissembling and counterfeit saints, demure lookers, hypocrites, +pretended zealots, tough friars, buskin-monks, and other such sects of +men, who disguise themselves like masquers to deceive the world.” + +Rabelais advised his readers that if they desired to become good +Pantagruelists, “that is to say, to live in peace, joy, health, making +yourself always merry—never trust those men that always peep out +through a little hole.” And in establishing the Abbey of Theleme, +Gargantua furnished it magnificently and barred the gates against +bigots, hypocrites, dissemblers, attorneys, barristers, usurers, +drunkards, and cannibals; he invited in all noble blades and brisk +and handsome people, faithful expounders of the Scripture, and lovely +ladies, proper, fair, and mirthful. “Their life,” he says, “was spent +not in laws, statutes, or rules, but at their own free will and +pleasure. [p163] They rose from bed when they thought good, drank, +ate, worked, slept, when the desire came to them. None did awaken them, +none constrained them either to drink or eat, nor to do any other +thing: for so had Gargantua established it. The Rule of their order had +but one clause: _Do What Thou Wilt._” + +But there was a catch in this rule. Not only had drunkards and +cannibals been excluded in the first place, but Rabelais assures us +that those who were admitted, because they were “free, well born, well +educated, and accustomed to good company, have by nature an instinct +and spur which prompts them to virtuous acts and withdraws them from +vice. This they call honor.” And in another passage Rabelais limits the +propensities of the natural man even more radically when he speaks of +“a certain gaiety of spirit _cured_ in contempt of chance and fortune.” + +There is always a catch in any doctrine of the natural goodness of man. +For mere passive obedience to impulse as it comes and goes, without +effort to check it or direct it, ends in something like Alfred de +Musset’s Rolla, of whom it was said: + + It was not Rolla who ruled his life, + It was his passions; he let them go + As a drowsy shepherd watches the water flow. + +So even Dora Russell at the crisis of her assault upon the Christian +tradition advises us to “live by instinct _and_ intelligence,” which +must mean, if it means anything, that intelligence is to be in some +respects the master as well as the servant of instinct. That this is +what Mrs. Russell means is abundantly plain by her fury at capitalists, +imperialists, [p164] conservatives, and churchmen, whose instincts +lead them to do things of which she does not approve. For like her +distinguished husband she trusts those impulses which are creative and +beneficent, and distrusts those which are possessive and destructive. +That is to say, like every other moralist, she trusts those parts of +human nature which she trusts. + + +4. _Oscillation between Two Principles_ + +These cycles of action and reaction are disastrous to the establishment +of a stable humanism. A theocratic culture depends upon an assured +view of the way in which God governs the universe, and as long as +that view suits the typical needs of a society made stable by custom, +the theocratic culture is stable. But humanism arises in complex +and changing societies, and if it is to have any power to make life +coherent and orderly, it must hold an assured view of how man can +govern himself. If he oscillates aimlessly between the belief that he +must distrust his impulses and the belief that he may naively obey +them, it is impossible for him to fix any point of reference for +the development of his moral code, his educational plans, his human +relationships, his politics, and his personal ideals. + +It is not hard to see, I think, why he oscillates in this fashion +between trust and distrust. He cannot obey every impulse, for he has +conflicting impulses within himself. There are also his neighbors with +their impulses. They cannot all be satisfied, for the very simple +reason that the sum of their demands far outruns the available supply +of satisfactions. There is not room enough, there are not objects +[p165] enough in the world to fulfill all human desires. Desires are, +for all practical purposes, unlimited and insatiable, and therefore any +ethics which does not recognize the necessity of putting restraint upon +naive desire is inherently absurd. On the other hand, it is impossible +to distrust every impulse, for the only conclusion then is to commit +suicide. Buddha did, to be sure, teach that craving was the source +of all misery, and that it must be wholly extinguished. But it is +evident from an examination of what he actually advised his disciples +to renounce, that while they were to be poor, chaste, unworldly, and +incurious about the nature of things, they were to be rewarded with +the highest of all satisfactions, and were to be “like the broad +earth, unvexed; like the pillar of the city gate, unmoved; like a +pellucid lake, unruffled.” For Nirvana meant, as Rhys Davids says, the +extinction of a sinful, grasping condition of mind. + +Confronted by two opposed views of human nature, neither of which can +be taken unreservedly, moralists have had to pick and choose, deciding +how much or how little they would trust the different impulses. But +there is no measure by which they could decide how much of an impulse +is virtuous, how much more is intemperate, and how much more than +that is utterly sinful. The attempts to regulate the sexual impulse +illustrate the difficulty. Shall the moralist call the complete +absence of all conscious sexual desire virtue? Then he disobeys the +commandment to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Shall +he then limit virtuous desire to that which is felt for a lawful +mate? That implies that man and woman must mate with the first person +for whom they feel any sexual desire. [p166] But this cannot always +be arranged. The first person may be otherwise engaged. It becomes +necessary then to permit a certain amount of promiscuous, though +unfulfilled, sexual desire in the process of sexual selection. And +then having somehow gotten past that difficulty, and with two persons +safely mated, a whole new series of problems arise out of the question +of how far sexual satisfaction depends for its virtue upon its being +the successful means to, or more subtly still, the intended means +to, procreation. I shall not pursue the matter further. The attempt +to measure the degree in which impulse is to be permitted to express +itself is obviously full of difficulties. + +The moral problem remains utterly insoluble as long as men regard it as +an attempt to separate their good impulses from their bad ones, and to +decide how much their good impulses are to be encouraged. Morality, if +it is not fixed by custom and authority, becomes a mere matter of taste +determined by the idiosyncrasies of the moralist. + + +5. _The Golden Mean and Its Difficulties_ + +Aristotle faced this fundamental difficulty of humanism in the +_Ethics_. He had expounded the theory that happiness is due to virtue, +and that virtue is a mean between two extremes. There must, he said, be +neither defect nor excess of any quality. We must, in brief, go so far +but no further in obedience to our impulses. Thus between rashness and +cowardice the mean is courage; between prodigality and niggardliness +it is liberality; between incontinence and total abstinence it is +temperateness; between ostentation and meanness it is magnificence; +between empty boasting and little-mindedness it is magnanimity; between +[p167] flattery and moroseness it is friendliness; between bashfulness +and impudence it is modesty; between arrogance and false modesty, it is +truthfulness. + +So runs the Aristotelian catalogue, and probably no code ever described +so well the ideal of a gentleman. But having laid down his general +precepts, Aristotle, unlike most moralists, faced the difficulty of +applying them. He recognized that it is one thing to accept the theory +of a golden mean, and quite another to know where that mean lies. “For +in each case it is difficult to find the mean ... thus it is easy, and +in every man’s power to be angry, and to give and spend money; but to +determine the person to whom, and the quantity, and the time, and the +motive, and the manner, is no longer in every man’s power, nor is it +easy; therefore excellence is rare, and praiseworthy and honorable.” +For while the mean between excess and defect is excellent, “it is easy +to miss a mark, but difficult to hit it.” + +If we look at the matter more closely in order to find out why moral +codes are, as Aristotle says, so hit and miss, we must, I think, come +to the conclusion that there is an undetected fallacy in most moral +thinking which renders moral insight abortive. It is that fallacy which +I now propose to examine. + +A moral code like Aristotle’s, which we may fairly regard as the +rational prototype of all humanistic codes, consists of an inventory +of good and bad appetites and of good and bad satisfactions. All +conventional moralizing, which does not rest on the sheer fiat of +public opinion, custom, or God, assumes the existence of some such +inventory of permissible desires and permissible fulfilments. But what +[p168] does the making of such inventories mean? It means that good +and evil are believed to be objective qualities of the natural world +like weight, dimension, and motion, that certain desires are inherently +good, certain others are inherently bad, and that the same is true +of the different objects of desire. But this is nothing but what is +known as the pathetic fallacy. For surely each desire and each object +as such, taken separately without relation to anything else, is as +innocent and as neutral as the forces that move the planets. + +The categories of good and evil would not apply if there were no +sentient being to experience good and evil. In such a world no object +would be any better or any worse than any other object; nobody talks +about good and bad electrons. All electrons are morally alike because +no sentient being can tell them apart. Nor would the categories of +good and evil apply to a world in which each impulse was in a vacuum +of its own. In such a world all our impulses would be like our +digestive tracts on a day when we do not know we have a stomach. If +our impulses did not impinge upon each other and upon objects there +would be no problem of good and evil. Therefore the quality of good +and evil lies not in impulses as such, nor in objects as such, but in +the relationship between impulses and objects. Therefore the making of +inventories is fundamentally misleading. + +There is another fallacy which is closely associated with this one. +We make lists of our impulses. A standard list which is much used +comprises the following: flight, repulsion, curiosity, pugnacity, +self-abasement, self-assertion, parental, reproductive, gregarious, +acquisitive, constructive. [p169] Whether this is a good list or not +is neither here nor there. Through the ages men have been making such +lists in the fond belief that they were analyzing the human character. +No doubt these terms describe something; we all recognize that these +words are the names of impulses that move us. But if we consider them +further, we must also recognize that these impulses do not move all +persons the same way, nor any one person the same way at all times in +his life and under all circumstances. + +It is hardly necessary, I am sure, to labor the point very much. There +is the instinct to be curious: it disposes one man to measure the +diameter of Betelgeuse when he is forty years old; when he was a child +it disposed him to find out whether he could hang up a cat by its +tail; that curious child’s companion in the experiment on the cat was +disposed, when he grew up, to take much trouble in finding out how much +income tax his neighbor paid and whether his employer was faithful to +his wife. The parental instinct of one man is to launch his child on +the world as an independent human being; in another man the instinct +manifests itself as a determination to have children who will depend +upon him and cater to him all his days long. So when we make lists of +our impulses we really do not know enough about them to pass judgment. +For desires are complex, and their greatest complexity lies in the fact +that they change. + +The objects of desire are no less complex. Take, for example, a jade +goddess. To a Chinese coolie it is an object with mysterious powers, a +part of the mechanism which governs the universe. But the jade goddess +is now in a Fifth Avenue shop window, and a policeman on his beat +[p170] sees it. It is a green stone figure to him. The dealer inside +knows that it is rare and is worth a thousand dollars. The collector +could enjoy it immensely if he possessed it. The connoisseur finds +intricate pleasure in it as a work of art and an elaborate interest in +it as a memento of a whole culture. The objects of desire, then, are +not simple things. We help to create them. We say that this man desires +that woman. But what, in fact, does he desire? A few moments of ecstasy +from her body, something which a thousand women could give him equally +well, or an intimate union with so much of her whole being that for +that very reason she is unique to him? The quality of his passion and +the character of his mistress will depend in a very large degree on how +much of her being he takes into account. It depends also, I hasten to +add, on how much there is to take into account. + +At any moment in our lives we desire only those objects which we are +then capable of desiring and in the way we are then capable of desiring +them. But our desires do not remain fixed from the cradle to the grave. +They change. And as they change the desirability of objects about us +changes too. It is impossible, then, to make lists of good and evil +desires and of good and evil objects. For good and evil are qualities +in the relationship between variable desires and variable objects of +desire. + +The attempt to construct moral codes on the basis of an inventory +is an attempt to understand something which is always in process of +change by treating it as a still life and taking snapshots of it. That +is what moralists have almost always attempted to do. They have tried +to capture the essence of a changing thing in a collection [p171] of +fixed concepts. It cannot be done. The reality of human nature is bound +to elude us if we look only at a momentary cross-section of it. To +understand it, therefore, for the purposes of moralizing, we have to +revise our intellectual apparatus, and learn to look upon each moment +of behavior not as the manifestation of certain fixed elements in human +nature, but as a stage in the evolution of human nature. We grow up, +mature, and decline; being endowed with memory and the capacity to form +habits, our conduct is cumulative. We drag our past along with us and +it pushes us on. We do not make a new approach to each new experience. +We approach new experiences with the expectations and habits developed +by previous experience, and under the impact of novelty these +expectations and habits become modified. + + +6. _The Matrix of Humanism_ + +The conception of human nature as developing behavior is, of course, +accepted by all modern psychologists. If they study the child they are +bound to consider him as potentially an adult. If they study the adult +they are bound to regard him as originally a child. Abnormal psychology +makes sense only insofar as it can be understood as an abnormal +development of the personality, regardless of whether that abnormality +is traceable to pre-natal variations, to organic disease, or to +functional disturbance. Folk psychology, whether or not one accepts the +interesting but speculative hypothesis that there is a parallel between +the development of the individual and the development of the race, is +another mode of investigating the evolution of behavior. The concept +of development [p172] is thoroughly established in psychology as the +major clue to the understanding of human nature. + +The moralist, since he is concerned with human nature, is compelled +to employ this concept. But he employs it somewhat differently than +the scientist. Being a moralist, he is interested in understanding the +principles of behavior in order that he may understand the principles +of right behavior. The psychologist, as such, is interested in the +development of behavior, regardless of whether that development leads +to misery or to happiness. He studies the various processes no matter +where they lead. For in science the concept of development implies +no judgment as to whether there is a good or a bad development. The +development of an idiot and of a genius are on the same footing, and +are theoretically of equal interest. But to the moralist the study of +development is focussed on the effort to discover those processes of +development which can be made to produce right relationships between +the individual and his environment, and by a right relationship he is +bound to mean one in which there is an harmonious adjustment between +desires and the objects of desire. How often, and how nearly, it +is possible for human beings to approximate such perfection is an +unanswerable question. The proof of that pudding lies in the eating +of it, and it is not the function of the moralist under humanism to +guarantee the outcome. His function is to point out as clearly as it is +possible to do so the path which presumably leads toward the good life. + +In describing that path he is bound to depend upon the best available +insight into the processes by which good and bad adjustments are made. +In the present state of [p173] our knowledge this means that he must +rely to a very large degree upon his own intuitions, commonsense, and +sense of life. Great progress has been made in scientific psychology +within the last generation, enough progress, I think, to supplement +in important ways our own unanalyzed and intuitive wisdom about life. +But it would be idle to suppose that the science of psychology is +in a stage where it can be used as a substitute for experienced and +penetrating imaginative insight. We can be confident that on the whole +a good meteorologist can tell us more about the weather than even the +most weather-wise old sea captain. But we cannot have that kind of +confidence in even the best of psychologists. Indeed, an acquaintance +with psychologists will, I think, compel anyone to admit that, if they +are good psychologists, they are almost certain to possess a gift +of insight which is unaccounted for by their technical apparatus. +Doubtless it is true that in all the sciences the difference between +a good scientist and a poor one comes down at last, after all the +technical and theoretical procedure has been learned, to some sort of +residual flair for the realities of that subject. But in the study +of human nature that residual flair, which seems to be composed of +intuition, commonsense, and unconsciously deposited experience, plays a +much greater role than it does in the more advanced sciences. + +The uses of psychology to the moralist are, therefore, in confirming +and correcting, in broadening and organizing, his insight into human +nature. He is confronted, of course, with a great deal of confusion. +There is, to begin with, no agreed terminology, and therefore it is +often almost impossible to know whether two psychologists [p174] +using the same word mean the same thing. Anyone who has stumbled about +amidst words like instinct, impulse, consciousness, the unconscious, +will know how confusing it all is. Psychologists are still using a +literary language in which the connotations of words tend to overwhelm +their precise signification. To make the confusion greater there is +the elaborate system-making, the headstrong generalizing, and the +fierce dogmatism which have produced the psychological sects. But all +of this is characteristic of a young science, and if that is borne in +mind, there is nothing disconcerting about it. The Eighteenth Century +in dealing with the Newtonian physics, and the Nineteenth in dealing +with the Darwinian biology, went through a hullabaloo similar to +that which we are now going through in connection with behaviorism, +psychoanalysis, and the so-called _gestalt-theorie_. Our only concern +here is to ask whether underneath all the controversy there is not some +trustworthy common ground on which the moralist can stand. + +I have already said that there was common ground in the concept of +development. We can go further than that, however, and say, I think, +that with the help of psychology we are in position now to construct +reliable and useful pictures, which confirm and correct our own +intuitive understanding, of the infantile and of the mature approach +to experience. We can, as it were, fix these two poles and regard the +history of each soul as the history of its progress from infantilism +to maturity. We are by no means able as yet to describe all the phases +of development between these two poles; we know that progress is +often temporarily interrupted, often completely [p175] arrested, and +sometimes turned into a rout. But insofar as we are able to realize +clearly what a fully matured character is like, the word progress has +a meaning because we know what we mean by the goal of moral effort. +That goal is maturity. If we knew all the stages in the development to +maturity, and how to control them, we should have an adequate science +of education, we could deal successfully with functional disorders, we +should have a very great mastery of the art of life. For the problems +of education are at bottom problems in how to lead the child from one +stage of development to another until at last he becomes an harmonious +and autonomous personality; the functional disorders of the character +are problems in the fixations and repressions on the path to maturity; +the art of living is to pass gracefully from youth to old age, and, at +last, as Montaigne said, to learn to die. + +It is this progress which we have to understand and imaginatively to +conceive. For in conceiving it we conceive the matrix of humanism. In +this conception is to be found, I believe, the substitute for that +conception of divine government which gives shape and form to the +theocratic culture. To replace the conception of man as the subject of +a heavenly king, which dominates the whole ancestral order of life, +humanism takes as its dominant pattern the progress of the individual +from helpless infancy to self-governing maturity. + + +7. _The Career of the Soul_ + +If our scientific knowledge of human nature were adequate, we could +achieve in the humanistic culture that which all theologies have tried +to achieve: we could found [p176] our morality on tested truths. +They would be truths about the development of human nature, and not, +as in the popular religions, truth of physics and of history. But +our knowledge of human nature is inadequate, and therefore, like the +teachers of popular religion, we have in place of exact knowledge +to invent imaginative fictions in the hope that the progress of +science will confirm and correct, but will not utterly contradict, +our hypotheses. We can claim no more than this: for our understanding +of human nature we are compelled to use our insight and the best +available psychological science of our age, exactly as Dante, for his +understanding of the divine constitution of the universe, had to use +the accepted astronomy of his day. If our psychology turns out to be +wrong, the only difference will be that we shall have to discard an +hypothesis whereas our forefathers had to discard a revealed dogma. + +The sketch which I am about to make of the progress from infancy to +maturity is to be taken, then, not as tested scientific truth, but as +an imaginative construction. It will be, if you like, a modern fable +which symbolizes rather than describes, as the primitive legends of the +sun god symbolized, rather than described, the observed facts. Because +it is an imaginative construction, the same meaning might be expressed +in other ways and with many variations of detail. But though the +fiction itself is of no consequence, the meaning it conveys is of the +highest consequence, and it is confirmed, as I shall attempt to show, +not only by ordinary insight but by the deepest wisdom of the greatest +teachers. + +Freud, in a famous paper, has described the passage [p177] from +infancy to maturity as a transition from the dominion of momentary +pleasure and pain to the dominion of reality. This theory is not +peculiar to psychoanalysis in any of its several schools, and it does +not depend upon the controverted points of doctrine. It is, in fact, +more or less of a commonplace in psychological thought. I am employing +it here because a distinguished colleague of Freud’s, Dr. S. Ferenczi +of Budapest, has made an attempt to indicate the chief stages in the +development between these two poles of experience. It is a most useful +bit of speculation, and while I believe it could be duplicated in terms +either of behaviorism or of the _gestalt-theorie_, I do not happen to +have come across any portrait of the idea which is as vivid as Dr. +Ferenczi’s. + +The first stage of human development, says Ferenczi, takes place in +the womb where the embryo lives as a parasite of the mother’s body. +An outer world exists for it only in a very restricted degree; all it +needs for protection, warmth, and nourishment is assured by the mother. +Because everything is there which is necessary for the satisfaction +of the instincts, Ferenczi calls this the Period of Unconditional +Omnipotence. + +It is, therefore, rather disagreeable and perhaps terrifying to be +born, for with the detachment from the mother and the “rude disturbance +of the wish-less tranquillity he had enjoyed in the womb,” the trouble +of living begins, and evokes feelings which might perhaps be described +as a longing to recover the perfect pre-natal adjustment. Nurses +instinctively recognize this longing, says Ferenczi, and as soon as +the infant expresses his discomfort by struggling and crying, they +deliberately create a situation [p178] which resembles as closely +as possible the one he has just left. They lay him down by the warm +body of the mother, or wrap him up in soft, warm coverings, shield his +eyes from the light and his ears from noise. The illusion is more or +less complete, for, of course, the infant is unaware of the activities +of the nurse. For all he knows “his wishes are realized simply by +imagining the satisfaction of them.” Ferenczi calls this the Period of +Magical-Hallucinatory Omnipotence. + +But this period does not last very long, since the nurse is unable +to anticipate every desire that the growing infant feels. “The +hallucinatory representation of the wish-fulfilment soon proves +inadequate to bring about any longer a real wish-fulfilment.” So the +infant has to give signals, and the more complicated his wishes become +the more signals he has to give. He begins to use a gesture-language, +and if there is a willing nurse always at hand without too many +new-fangled notions, the child gets what he wants for the mere trouble +of expressing his wants. Ferenczi calls this the Period of Omnipotence +by the Help of Magic Gestures. + +But as time goes on and as the number of his wants increase these +gestures lose some of their magic. The number of the conditions +increase to which he has to submit. “The outstretched hand must often +be drawn back empty.... Indeed, an invincible hostile power may +forcibly oppose itself to this gesture and compel the hand to resume +its former position.” At this point his sense of reality begins; the +sense, that is to say, of something outside himself which does not +submit to his wishes. “Till now the ‘all-powerful’ being has been +able [p179] to feel himself one with the world that obliged him +and followed his every nod, but gradually there appears a painful +discordance in his experiences.” Because all experiences are no longer +incorporated in the ego, Ferenczi calls this the Projection Phase. + +But though the child has now begun to discern the existence of reality, +his sense of that reality is still quite imperfect. At first, perhaps, +he regards this outer world, though it opposes his wishes, as having +qualities like his own. Ferenczi calls this the Animistic Period. +The child then begins to talk and to substitute for gestures actual +statements of what he desires. Provided he lives in a household bent on +fulfilling his wants as soon as possible, he retains to a very great +degree the illusion that his wishes are sovereign. Ferenczi calls this +the Period of Magic Thoughts and Magic Words. + +Finally, if he matures successfully, he passes into the last period +where he is no longer under the domination of the pleasure-principle: +the feeling of omnipotence gives way to the full appreciation of the +force of circumstances. Now unfortunately neither Freud nor Ferenczi, +nor, so far as I know, any other psychoanalyst, devotes much attention +to this last phase of maturity in which the sense of reality has become +perfected. They are preoccupied with pathology; that is to say, with +the problems which arise out of a failure to attain this last stage in +which the adult makes a complete adjustment with his world because his +wishes are matured to accept the conditions which reality imposes. + +Yet it is this last stage which plainly constitutes the goal of moral +effect, for here alone the adult once again [p180] recovers that +harmony between himself and his environment which he lost in that +period of infancy when he first discovered that his wishes were no +longer sovereign. It is the memory of that earliest harmony which he +carries with him all his days. This is his memory of a golden age, +his intimation, as Wordsworth says, of immortality. But insofar as he +expects by an infantile philosophy to recover that heaven which lay +about him in his infancy, he is doomed to disappointment. In the womb, +and for a few years of his childhood, happiness was the gratification +of his naive desires. His family arranged the world to suit his wishes. +But as he grows up, and begins to be an independent personality, this +providence ministering to his wishes disappears. He can then no longer +hope that the world will be adjusted to his wishes, and he is compelled +by a long and difficult process of learning and training to adjust his +wishes to the world. If he succeeds he is mature. If he is mature, he +is once again harmonious with the nature of things. He has virtue. And +he is happy. + +The process of maturing consists then of a revision of his desires +in the light of an understanding of reality. When he is completely +infantile there is nothing in the world but his wishes. Therefore, he +does not need and does not have an understanding of the outer world. +It exists for him merely as gratification or denial. But as he begins +to learn that the universe is not composed of his wishes, he begins to +see his wishes in a context and in perspective. He begins to acquire +a sense of space and to learn how much there is beyond his reach, +until at last he realizes how small a figure he is on this earth, and +how small a part of the universe is the solar system of which [p181] +ours is one of the smaller planets. He has learned a lot from the +days when he put out his hand and reached for the moon. He begins, +also, to acquire a sense of time and to realize that the moment in +which he feels the intense desire to seize something is an instant +in a lifetime, an infinitesimal point in the history of the race. He +acquires a sense of birth and decay and death, a knowledge that that +which he craves, his craving itself, and he himself who feels that +craving, did not have this craving yesterday and will no longer have +it to-morrow. He acquires a sense of cause and effect, a knowledge, +that is to say, that the sequences of events are not to be interrupted +by his preferences. He begins to discern the existence of other beings +beside himself, and to understand that they too have their preferences +and their wishes, that these wishes are often contrary to his own, +and that there is not room enough in the world, nor are there things +enough, to gratify all the wishes of everybody. + +Thus to learn the lessons of experience is to undergo a transvaluation +of the values we bring with us from the womb and to transmute our +naive impulses. The breakdown of the infantile adjustment in which +providential powers ministered to every wish compels us either to flee +from reality or to understand it. And by understanding it we create new +objects of desire. For when we know a good deal about a thing, know how +it originated, how it is likely to behave, what it is made of, and what +is its place amidst other things, we are dealing with something quite +different from the simple object naively apprehended. + +The understanding creates a new environment. The more subtle and +discriminating, the more informed and [p182] sympathetic the +understanding is, the more complex and yet ordered do the things +about us become. To most of us, as Mr. Santayana once said, music is +a pleasant noise which produces a drowsy revery relieved by nervous +thrills. But the trained musician hears what we do not hear at all; he +hears the form, the structure, the pattern, and the significance of an +ideal world. A naturalist out of doors perceives a whole universe of +related life which the rest of us do not even see. A world which is +ordinarily unseen has become visible through the understanding. When +the mind has fetched it out of the flux of dumb sensations, defined +it and fixed it, this unseen world becomes more real than the dumb +sensations it supplants. When the understanding is at work, it is as if +circumstance had ceased to mutter strange sounds and had begun to speak +our language. When experience is understood, it is no longer what it is +wholly to the infant, very largely to youth, and in great measure to +most men, a succession of desirable objects at which they instinctively +grasp, interspersed with undesirable ones from which they instinctively +shrink. If objects are seen in their context, in the light of their +origin and destiny, with sympathy for their own logic and their own +purposes, they become interesting in themselves, and are no longer +blind stimuli to pleasant and unpleasant sensations. + +For when our desires come into contact with the world created by +the understanding, their character is altered. They are confronted +by a much more complex stimulus which evokes a much more complex +response. Instead of the naive and imperious lust of our infantile +natures which is to seize, to have and to hold, our lusts are offset +[p183] by other lusts and a balance between them is set up. That is +to say, they are made rational by the ordered variety with which the +understanding confronts them. We learn that there are more things in +heaven and earth than we dreamed of in our immature philosophy, that +there are many choices and that none is absolute, that beyond the +mountains, as the Chinese say, there are people also. The obviously +pleasant or unpleasant thus becomes less obviously what we felt it +was before our knowledge of it became complicated by anticipation and +memory. The immediately desirable seems not quite so desirable and the +undesirable less intolerable. Delight is perhaps not so intense nor +pain so poignant as youth and the romantics would have them. They are +absorbed into a larger experience in which the rewards are a sustained +and more even enjoyment, and serenity in the presence of inescapable +evil. In place of a world, where like children we are ministered to +by a solicitous mother, the understanding introduces us into a world +where delight is reserved for those who can appreciate the meaning and +purpose of things outside ourselves, and can make these meanings and +purposes their own. + + +8. _The Passage into Maturity_ + +The critical phase of human experience, then, is the passage from +childhood to maturity; the critical question is whether childish +habits and expectations are to persist or to be transformed. We grow +older. But it is by no means certain that we shall grow up. The human +character is a complicated thing, and its elements do not necessarily +march in step. It is possible to be a sage in some [p184] things and +a child in others, to be at once precocious and retarded, to be shrewd +and foolish, serene and irritable. For some parts of our personalities +may well be more mature than others; not infrequently we participate in +the enterprises of an adult with the mood and manners of a child. + +The successful passage into maturity depends, therefore, on a breaking +up and reconstruction of those habits which were appropriate only to +our earliest experience. + +In a certain larger sense this is the essence of education. For unless +a man has acquired the character of an adult, he is a lost soul no +matter how good his technical equipment. The world unhappily contains +many such lost souls. They are often in high places, men trained +to manipulate the machinery of civilization, but utterly incapable +of handling their own purposes in any civilized fashion. For their +purposes are merely the relics of an infancy when their wishes were +law, and they knew neither necessity nor change. + +When a childish disposition is carried over into an adult environment +the result is a radically false valuation of that environment. The +symptoms are fairly evident. They may appear as a disposition to feel +that everything which happens to a man has an intentional relation to +himself; life becomes a kind of conspiracy to make him happy or to make +him miserable. In either case it is thought to be deeply concerned with +his destiny. The childish pattern appears also as a deep sense that +life owes him something, that somehow it is the duty of the universe to +look after him, and to listen sharply when he speaks to it. The notion +that the universe is full of [p185] purposes utterly unknown to him, +utterly indifferent to him, is as outrageous to one who is imperfectly +matured as would be the conduct of a mother who forgot to give a hungry +child its lunch. The childish pattern appears also as a disposition to +believe that he may reach out for anything in sight and take it, and +that having gotten it nobody must ever under any circumstances take +it away. Death and decay are, therefore, almost an insult, a kind of +mischief in the nature of things, which ought not to be there, and +would not be there, if everything only behaved as good little boys +believe it should. There is indeed authority for the belief that we +are all being punished for the naughtiness of our first grandmother; +that work and trouble and death would not really be there to plague us +but for her unhappy transgression; that by rights we ought to live in +paradise and have everything we want for ever and ever. + +Here, too, is the source of that common complaint of the world-weary +that they are tired of their pleasures. They have what they yearned +for; yet having it they are depressed at finding that they do not care. +Their inability to enjoy what they can have is the obverse of the +desire to possess the unattainable: both are due to carrying over the +expectations of youth into adult life. They find themselves in a world +unlike the world of their youth; they themselves are no longer youths. +But they retain the criteria of youth, and with them measure the world +and their own deserts. + +Here, too, is the origin of the apparent paradox that as men grow older +they grow wiser but sadder. It is not a paradox at all if we remember +that this wisdom which [p186] makes them sadder is, after all, an +incompleted wisdom. They have grown wiser as to the character of the +world, wiser too about their own powers, but they remain naive as to +what they may expect of the world and themselves. The expectations +which they formed in their youth persist as deeply ingrained habits +to worry them in their maturity. They are only partially matured; +they have become only partially wise. They have acquired skill and +information, but the parts of them which are adult are embedded in +other parts of their natures which are childish. For men do not +necessarily mature altogether and in unison; they learn to do this +and that more easily than they learn what to like and what to reject. +Intelligence is often more completely educated than desire; our outward +behavior has an appearance of being grown up which our inner vanities +and hopes, our dim but powerful cravings, often belie. In a word, we +learn the arts and the sciences long before we learn philosophy. + +If we ask ourselves what is this wisdom which experience forces upon +us, the answer must be that we discover the world is differently +constituted than we had supposed it to be. It is not that we learn more +about its physical elements, or its geography, or the variety of its +inhabitants, or the ways in which human society is governed. Knowledge +of this sort can be taught to a child without in any fundamental way +disturbing his childishness. In fact, all of us are aware that we once +knew a great many things which we have since forgotten. The essential +discovery of maturity has little if anything to do with information +about the names, the locations, and the sequences of facts; it is the +acquiring of a different sense [p187] of life, a different kind of +intuition about the nature of things. + +A boy can take you into the open at night and show you the stars; +he might tell you no end of things about them, conceivably all that +an astronomer could teach. But until and unless he feels the vast +indifference of the universe to his own fate, and has placed himself +in the perspective of cold and illimitable space, he has not looked +maturely at the heavens. Until he has felt this, and unless he can +endure this, he remains a child, and in his childishness he will +resent the heavens when they are not accommodating. He will demand +sunshine when he wishes to play, and rain when the ground is dry, and +he will look upon storms as anger directed at him, and the thunder as a +personal threat. + +The discovery that our wishes have little or no authority in the world +brings with it experience of the necessity that is in the nature of +things. The lesson of this experience is one from which we shrink and +to which few ever wholly accommodate themselves. The world of the child +is a kind of enchanted island. The labor that went into procuring his +food, his clothes, his toys, is wholly invisible at first. His earliest +expectations are, therefore, that somehow the Lord will provide. Only +gradually does the truth come home to him how much effort it costs to +satisfy his wants. It takes even longer for him to understand that not +only does he not get what he wants by asking for it but he cannot be +sure to get what he wants by working for it. It is not easy to accept +the knowledge that desire, that prayer, that effort can be and often +are frustrated, that in the nature of things [p188] there is much +fumbling, trial and error, deadlock and defeat. + +The sense of evil is acquired late; by many persons it is never +acquired at all. Children suffer, and childhood is by no means so +unreservedly happy as some make it out to be. But childish suffering +is not inherently tragic. It is not stamped with the irrevocability +which the adult feels to be part of the essence of evil. Evil for the +child is something which can be explained away, made up for, done away +with. Pretentious philosophies have been built on this fancy purporting +somehow to absorb the evil of the world in an all-embracing goodness, +as a child’s tears are dried by its mother’s kisses. The discovery that +there is evil which is as genuine as goodness, that there is ugliness +and violence which are no less real than joy and love, is one of those +discoveries that the adult is forced somehow to accept in his valuation +of experience. + +And then there is the knowledge, which only experience can give, that +everything changes and that everything comes to an end. It is possible +to tell a child about mortality, but to realize it he must live long +enough to experience it. This knowledge does not come from words; it +comes in feeling, in the feeling that he himself is older, in the +death of kin and friends, in seeing well-known objects wear out, in +discarding old things, in awakening to the sense that there is a whole +new generation in the world which looks upon him as old. There is an +intimation of immortality in our youth because we have not yet had +experience of mortality. The persons and the things which surround us +seem eternal because [p189] we have known them too briefly to realize +that they change. We have seen neither their beginning nor their end. + +In the last analysis we have no right to say that the world of youth is +an illusion. For the child it is a true picture of the world in that +it corresponds to, and is justified in, his experience. If he did not +have to grow older, it would be quite sufficient because nothing in his +experience would contradict it. Our sense of life as we mature is quite +different, but there is no reason to think that it has any absolute +finality. Perhaps if we lived several hundred years we should acquire +a wholly different sense of life, compared with which all our adult +philosophy would seem quite callow. + +The child’s sense of life can be called an illusion only if it is +carried over into manhood, for then it ceases to fit his experience and +to be justified by events. The habits formed in a childish environment +become progressively unworkable and contradictory as the youth is +thrust out from the protection of his family into an adult environment. +Then the infantile conviction that his wants will somehow be met +collides with the fact that he must provide for himself. The world +begins to seem out of joint. The child’s notion that things are to be +had for the asking becomes a vast confusion in which words are treated +as laws, and rhetoric as action. The childish belief that each of us is +the center of an adoring and solicitous universe becomes the source of +endless disappointments because we cannot reconcile what we feel is due +us with what we must resign ourselves to. The sense of the unreality of +evil, which our earliest experience seemed to justify, [p190] becomes +a deep preference for not knowing the truth, an habitual desire to +think of the world as we should prefer it to be; out of this rebellion +against truth, out of this determination that the facts shall conform +to our wishes, are born all manner of bigotry and uncharitableness. +The child’s sense that things do not end, that they are there forever, +becomes, once it is carried over into maturity, a vain and anxious +effort to possess things forever. The incapacity to realize that +the objects of desire will last only a little while makes us put an +extravagant value upon them, and to care for them, not as they are and +for what they can actually give us, but for what we foolishly insist +they ought to be and ought always to give us. + +The child’s philosophy rests upon the assumption that the world outside +is in gear with his own appetites. For this reason an adult with a +childish character will ascribe an authority to his appetites which may +easily land him in fanaticism or frustration, in a crazy indulgence +or a miserable starvation. And to the environment he will ascribe a +willingness to conform to him, a capacity to be owned by him, which +land him in all sorts of delusions of grandeur. Only the extreme +cases are in the asylums. The world is full of semi-adult persons who +secretly nurse the notion that they are, or that by rights they ought +to be, Don Juan, Crœsus, Napoleon, or the Messiah. + +They have brought with them the notion that they are still as +intimately attached to nature and to society as the child is to its +household. The adult has to break this attachment to persons and +things. His world does not permit him to remain fused with it, but +compels him to stand away from things. For things no longer obey +[p191] his wishes. And therefore he cannot let his wishes become +too deeply involved in things. He can no longer count on possessing +whatever he may happen to want. And therefore he must learn to want +what he can possess. He can no longer hold forever the things at which +he grasps; for they change, and slip away. And therefore he must +learn to hold on to things which do not slip away and change, to hold +on to things not by grasping them, but by understanding them and by +remembering them. Then he is wholly an adult. Then he has conquered +mortality in the only way mortal men can conquer it. For he has ceased +to expect anything of the world which it cannot give, and he has +learned to love it under the only aspect in which it is eternal. + + +9. _The Function of High Religion_ + +In the light of this conception of maturity as the ultimate phase +in the development of the human personality, we are, I think, in +a position to understand the riddle which we set ourselves at the +beginning of this chapter. I asked what significance there was for us +in the fact that men have so persistently associated the good life +with some form of ascetic discipline and renunciation. The answer is +that asceticism is an effort to overcome immaturity. When men do not +outgrow their childish desires, they seek to repress them. The ascetic +discipline, if it is successful, is a form of education; if it is +unsuccessful, it is an agonized conflict due to an imperfect education +or an incapacity to grow up. By the same token, moral regulations +imposed on others, insofar as they are at all rational, and not methods +of exploitation or expressions of jealousy, are attempts to curb the +social disorders [p192] which result from the activities of grown-up +children. + +It follows that asceticisms and moralities are at best means to an +end; they are more or less inadequate substitutes for the educational +process and the natural growth of wisdom. They are often confused +with virtue, but they are not virtue. For virtue is the quality of +mature desire, and when desire is mature the tortures of renunciations +and of prohibitions have ceased to be necessary. “Blessedness,” says +Spinoza, “is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; nor should +we rejoice in it for that we restrain our lusts, but, on the contrary, +because we rejoice therein we can restrain our lusts.” The mature +character may be attained by growth and experience and insight, or by +ascetic discipline, or by that process of being reborn which is called +conversion; when it is attained, the moral problem of whether to yield +to impulse or to check it, and how much to check it and how much to +yield, has disappeared. A mature desire is innocent. This, I think, is +the final teaching of the great sages. “To him who has finished the +Path, and passed beyond sorrow, who has freed himself on all sides, +and thrown away every fetter, there is no more fever of grief,” says a +Buddhist writer. + + The Master said, + + “At fifteen I had my mind bent on learning. + + “At thirty, I stood firm. + + “At forty, I had no doubts. + + “At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. + + “At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. + + “At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without + transgressing what was right.” + +[p193] To be able, as Confucius indicates, to follow what the heart +desires without coming into collision with the stubborn facts of life +is the privilege of the utterly innocent and of the utterly wise. It is +the privilege of the infant and of the sage who stand at the two poles +of experience; of the infant because the world ministers to his heart’s +desire and of the sage because he has learned what to desire. Perhaps +this is what Jesus meant when he told his followers that they must +become like little children. + +If this is what he meant, and if this is what Buddha, Confucius, and +Spinoza meant, then we have here the clue to the function of high +religion in human affairs. I venture, at least, to suggest that the +function of high religion is to reveal to men the quality of mature +experience, that high religion is a prophecy and an anticipation of +what life is like when desire is in perfect harmony with reality. It +announces the discovery that men can enter into the realm of the spirit +when they have outgrown all childishness. + + + + +CHAPTER X [p194] + +HIGH RELIGION AND THE MODERN WORLD + + +1. _Popular Religion and the Great Teachers_ + +In popular thought it is taken for granted that to be religious is to +accept in some form or other the theocratic view that God governs the +universe. If that assumption is correct then the orthodox who inveigh +against the godlessness of contemporary thought and the militant +atheists who rejoice in this godlessness are both right when they +insist that religion is disappearing. Insofar as religion is identical +with a belief in theocracy, it has indeed lost much of its reality for +modern men. + +There is little doubt, I think, that popular religion has been +always and everywhere theocratic in principle. If, then, we are to +define as religion that which the overwhelming majority of mankind +have cherished, it would be necessary to concede at once that the +dissolution of the belief in a supernatural government of human affairs +is a dissolution of religion itself. But if that is conceded, then it +is necessary to concede also that many whom the world recognizes as +its greatest religious teachers were not themselves religious men. For +it could be demonstrated, I think, that in the central intuition of +Aristotle, of the author of the Fourth Gospel, of Buddha, of Spinoza, +to name only originating minds, the theocratic principle is irrelevant. +No one of these teachers held the belief, [p195] which is at the +heart of theocratic religion, that the relationship between God and +man is somehow analogous with that of a king to his subjects, that +the relationship is in any sense a transaction between personalities +involving, however subtly, a quid pro quo, that God’s will and the +human will are interacting forces. + +In place of the popular conception of religion as a matter of +commandments and obedience, reward and punishment, in a word, as a +form of government, these great teachers placed their emphasis upon +the conversion, the education, and the discipline of the human will. +Such beliefs as they had about God were not in the nature of oaths of +allegiance to a superior; their concern was not to placate the will of +God but to alter the will of man. This alteration of the human will +they conceived as good not because God commands it, but because it +is intrinsically good for man, because by the test of experience it +yields happiness, serenity, whole-heartedness. Belief is not, as it is +in popular religion, an act which by creating a claim upon divinity +insures man’s salvation; the force of belief, as Mr. Whitehead has put +it, is in “cleansing the inward parts.” Thus religion becomes “the art +and the theory of the internal life of man, so far as it depends on the +man himself and on what is permanent in the nature of things.” + +The difference between religion conceived as the art and theory of +the internal life of man and religion conceived as cosmic government +is the great difference between the religion of these great sages and +the religion of the multitude. Though in matters of this kind the +distinction is not always absolutely clear in every case, [p196] on +the whole it cannot be disputed, I believe, that the difference is real +and of fundamental importance. If we observe popular religions as they +are administered by ecclesiastical establishments, it is overwhelmingly +plain that their main appeal rests upon the belief that through their +offices the devout are able to obtain eternal salvation, and even +earthly favors, from an invisible king. But if we observe truly, I +think, we shall see also that side by side with the popular religion, +sometimes in open conflict with it, sometimes in outward conformity +with it, there is generally to be found in cultivated communities a +minority to whom religion is primarily a reconditioning of their own +souls. They may be mystics like Eckhart, they may be platonists like +Origen or Dean Inge, they may be protestants like St. Augustine and +Luther in certain phases of their thought, they may be humanists like +Erasmus and Montaigne; as of Confucius, it may be said of them that +“the subjects on which the Master did not talk were: extraordinary +things, feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings.” They may +be inside the churches or outside them, but in intention, in the inner +meaning of their religion, they are wholly at variance with the popular +creeds. For in one form or another they reject the idea of attaining +salvation by placating God; in one form or another they regard +salvation as a condition of the soul which is reached only by some kind +of self-discipline. + +It must be obvious that religion, conceived in this way, “as the art +and theory of the internal life of man,” is not dissolved by what I +have been calling the acids of modernity. It is the popular religion +which is dissolved. [p197] But just because this vast dissolution is +destroying the disposition to believe in a theocratic government of +the universe, just because men no longer find it wholly credible that +their affairs are subject to the ordinances of a heavenly king, just +because they no longer vividly believe in an invisible power which +regulates their lives, judges them, and sustains them, their only hope +of salvation lies in a religion which provides an internal discipline. + +The real effect of modernity upon religion, therefore, is to make the +religion which was once the possession of an aristocracy of the spirit +the only possible kind of religion for all modern men. + + +2. _The Aristocratic Principle_ + +To those who want salvation cheap, and most men do, there is very +little comfort to be had out of the great teachers. Spinoza might have +been speaking for all of them when he said: + + If the way which I have pointed out ... seems exceedingly hard, it + may nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is + so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready + to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should + be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as + difficult as they are rare. + +But why, we may ask, is salvation by almost all men neglected? The +answer is that they do not desire that which they have never learned to +desire. “One cannot,” as Voltaire said, “desire that which one does not +know.” Can a man love good wine when he has drunk nothing but ginger +beer? Did we have naturally and instinctively [p198] a taste for +that which constitutes the happiness of the saved, we should already +be saved, and their happiness would be ours. We lack the taste, which +is, I suppose, another way of saying what the theologians meant when +they spoke of original sin. To be saved, in the sense which the sages +had in mind, is by conversion, education, and self-discipline to have +achieved a certain quality and harmony of the passions. Then the good +life is possible. But although men have often heard this said, and have +read about it, unless in some measure they already desire it, the whole +teaching remains mere words and abstractions which are high, cold, +and remote. As long as they feel that the way to happiness is through +a will other than their own, and that somehow events can in this +fashion be made to yield to their unregenerate wishes, in this world or +another, the wisdom of the sages will not touch their hearts, and the +way which is pointed out will be neglected. + +Wisdom will seem inhuman. In a sense it is inhuman, for it is so +uncommon. Those who have it speak a strange language, of which the +words perhaps have a familiar sound, but the meaning is too high and +abstract; their delights are strange delights, and unfathomable, like +a passion which we have never known. And if we encounter them in their +lives or in their writings, they seem to us a mixture of grandeur +and queerness. For they are at once more deeply at home in the world +than the transients who make up most of mankind; yet, because of the +quality of their passions, they are not wholly of the world as the +worldling understands it. But unless the worldling is entirely without +the capacity to transcend himself, he is [p199] bound in such an +encounter to catch a glimpse now and then of an experience where there +is a serenity he himself has never known, a peace that passes his +understanding, an ecstasy exquisite and without regret, and happiness +so clarified that it seems like brilliant and kindly light. + +Yet no teacher has ever appeared in the world who was wise enough +to know how to teach his wisdom to all mankind. In fact, the great +teachers have attempted nothing so utopian. They were quite well aware +how difficult for most men is wisdom, and they have confessed frankly +that the perfect life was for a select few. It is arguable, in fact, +that the very idea of teaching the highest wisdom to all men is the +recent notion of a humanitarian and romantically democratic age, and +that it is quite foreign to the thought of the greatest teachers. +Gautama Buddha, for example, abolished caste within the religious +order which he founded, and declared that the path to Nirvana was open +to the lowest outcast as well as to the proudest Brahman. But it was +necessary to enter the order and submit to its stringent discipline. +It is obvious that Buddha never believed that very many could or would +do that. Jesus, whom we are accustomed to think of as wholly catholic +in his sympathies, spoke the bitter words: “Give not what is holy to +the dogs and cast not your pearls before swine.” In Mohammedanism that +which is mystical is esoteric: “all those emotions are meant only for +a small number of chosen ones ... even some of the noblest minds in +Islam restrict true religious life to an aristocracy, and accept the +ignorance of the multitude as an irremediable evil.” + +There is an aristocratic principle in all the religions [p200] which +have attained wide acceptance. It is significant that Jesus was content +to leave the governance of the mass of men to Caesar, and that he +created no organization during his lifetime beyond the appointment +of the Apostles. It is significant, because it shows how much more +he was concerned with the few who could be saved than with arranging +the affairs of the mass of mankind. Plato, who was a more systematic +teacher than either Jesus or Buddha, did work out an elaborate social +order which took account not only of the philosophers, but of all the +citizens of the state. But in that very attempt he rested upon the +premise that most men will not attain the good life, and that for +them it is necessary to institute the laws. “The worthy disciples of +philosophy will be but a small remnant,” he said, “... the guardian ... +must be required to take the longer circuit, and toil at learning as +well as at gymnastics, or he will never reach the highest knowledge of +all which is his proper calling.” + +Perhaps because they looked upon the attempts as hopeless, perhaps +because they did not know how to go about it, perhaps because they +were so wise, the greatest teachers have never offered their full +wisdom to the multitude. Like Mr. Valiant-for-truth in _The Pilgrim’s +Progress_ they said: “My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in +my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it.” + + +3. _The Peculiarity of the Modern Situation_ + +But because the teaching of the sages was incomprehensible, the +multitude, impressed but also bewildered, ignored them as teachers and +worshipped them as gods. [p201] In their wisdom the people were not +interested, but in the legends of their power, which rumor created, +there was something understandable. And thus, the religions which have +been organized around the names of great spiritual teachers have been +popular in proportion, one might almost say, to the degree in which the +original insight into the necessity for conversion and self-discipline +has been reduced to a system of commands and promises which the common +man can understand. + +For popular religion is suited to the capacities of the unconverted. +The adherents of a popular religion necessarily include an enormous +number of people who are too young, or too feeble, too dull or too +violent, too unstable or too incurious, to have any comprehension +whatsoever of anything but the simplest scheme of rewards and +punishments. An organized religion cannot neglect them if it has any +pretensions to being universal. The great ecclesiastical establishments +have often sheltered spiritual lives, and drawn new vitality from +them. But fundamentally the great churches are secular institutions; +they are governments preoccupied inevitably with the regulation of +the unregenerate appetites of mankind. In their scriptures there is +to be found the teaching that true salvation depends upon internal +reform of desire. But since this reform is so very difficult, in +practice the churches have devoted themselves not so much to making +real conversions, as to governing the dispositions of the unconverted +multitude. + +They are immensely engaged by the task of administering their moral +codes, persuading their congregations with promises, and threatening +them with punishments [p202] if they do not keep their childish +lusts within bounds. The fact that they use rewards and punishments, +and appeal even to Caesar, is evidence enough that they are dealing +with the unconverted. The fact that they invoke authority is in +itself evidence that they are speaking to the naive. The fact that +they pretend to have certain knowledge about the constitution of the +universe is evidence that they are interested in those who are not wise +enough to understand the limitations of knowledge. For to the few who +are converted, goodness is pleasant, and needs no sanctions. It needs +no authority, for it has been verified by experience. But when men have +to be coerced into goodness, it is plain that they do not care for it. + +Now although the great teachers saw clearly enough the difference +between the popular religion and their own insight, they were under +no great compulsion to try and overcome it. They accepted the fact +that the true religion was esoteric and for the few. They saw that it +demanded the re-education of desire, but they had no systematic and +tested knowledge of how new habits can be formed. Invincible as was +their insight into the principle of happiness, they were compelled +to depend upon introspection, and to generalize from a limited +observation. They understood that the good life was in some degree an +acquired disposition; they were aware that it is not easily or naively +acquired. + +For those who somehow had the disposition, the teachers instituted +stern disciplines which were really primitive experiments in the +re-education of desire. But there was no very urgent practical need +which impelled them to search for ways of making disciplines more +[p203] widely available. Those who submitted to them were in general +individuals who were already out of the ordinary. The mass of mankind +lived solidly within the framework of custom and the psychological +compulsions of theocracy. There was no pressing reason, as there is +to-day, now that this ancestral order is dissolved, why anyone should +seek to formulate a mode of life by which ordinary men, thrown upon +their own resources, can find their way without supernatural rules, +commands, punishments, and compensations. In the past there were a +few men here and there who had somehow, for reasons which we do not +understand, outgrown the ancestral society in which they lived. But the +society itself remained. It sheltered them. And it ruled the many. + +The peculiarity of our modern situation is that multitudes, instead of +a few, are compelled to make radical and original adjustments. These +multitudes, though they have lost the ancient certainties, have not +outgrown the needs to which they ministered. They need to believe, +but they cannot. They need to be commanded, but they cannot find a +commander. They need support, and there is none. Their situation is +adult, but their dispositions are not. The religion of the spirit would +suit their needs, but it would seem to be beyond their powers. + + +4. _The Stone Which the Builders Rejected_ + +The way of life which I have called high religion has in all ages +seemed so unapproachably high that it has been reserved for a voluntary +aristocracy of the spirit. It has, in fact, been looked upon not only +as a kind of splendid idiosyncrasy of a few men here and there, but +[p204] as incompatible, in essence, with the practical conditions +under which life is lived. It is for these reasons, no doubt, that +the practice of high religion has almost invariably been associated +either with a solitary asceticism or with a specially organized life in +monastic establishments. High religion has been regarded as something +separate from the main concerns of mankind. + +It is not difficult to see why this was so if we realize that the +insight into the value of disinterestedness, which is the core of high +religion, was not a sudden discovery nor a complete one, anywhere or +any time. Like all other things associated with evolutionary man, this +insight must have had very crude beginnings; it would be possible +to show, I think, that there have been many tentative and partial +perceptions of it which, under the clarifying power of men of genius, +have at times become coherent. When we remember that we are dealing +with an insight into the qualities of a matured personality, there is +no reason to suppose that the full significance of this insight has +ever been completely exhausted. It seems far more likely that the sages +demonstrated the existence of the realm of the spirit, but that it +still remains to be thoroughly explored. + +If that is true then the attempt to live by these partial insights +must necessarily have presented inordinate practical difficulties. +Pythagoras, for example, seems to have grasped the idea that the +disinterested study of mathematics and music was cleansing to the +passions and also that in order to be disinterested it was necessary +to have purity of mind. So when he established his society in Southern +Italy he evidently attempted to combine the [p205] serious pursuit +of science with an ascetic discipline. But the pursuit of science was +too much for the mass of the faithful who assumed that “to follow +Pythagoras meant to go barefoot and to abstain from animal flesh and +beans.” And this in turn was too much for the dignity of the learned +who proceeded to dissociate themselves from the disciplinary aspect of +the Pythagorean teaching. It is a fair conclusion, I think, that the +breakdown of this early experiment must have been due fundamentally to +the fact that Pythagoras could not have known any tested method either +of equipping his followers to appreciate science or anything beside a +crude asceticism as a means of moral discipline. If this is true, then +the reason for the failure lay in the fact that though the original +insight was marvelously good, it was not implemented with the necessary +technical knowledge for applying it. Only a few, we may suppose, who +were already by the accidents of nature and nurture suited to the +Pythagorean ideal, can ever have successfully applied it. + +In the Christian pursuit of the higher religious life the practical +difficulties presented themselves in a different way. In its beginning +Christianity was a sect of obscure men and women who were out of +touch with the intellectual interests of the Roman world. They were +persecuted aliens both in Palestine and elsewhere, and they came to +the conclusion that the Roman Empire and all its concerns was the +Kingdom of Satan. This, together with the widespread belief in the +Second Coming of Christ, dissociated the Christian life at the outset +from the life of the world. Later on, when Christianity became the +official religion of the Empire, and the Church a great [p206] secular +institution which concerned itself with government and property and +diplomacy and war, those who wished to live as nearly as possible +according to the original meaning of the Gospels were quite evidently +compelled to withdraw and live a separated life. “If any man love the +world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the +world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride +of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world +passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God +abideth forever.” + +Although for some centuries the monasteries were the centers of what +learning there was, the impressions left by monasticism on mankind +seems to have been that the highest type of religious life is not +disinterested in human affairs, but uninterested; that it requires not +merely the renunciation of worldly desires, but of the world itself. +The insight was imperfect, and therefore as an example to mankind the +practice was abortive and confusing. Yet only an uncomprehending person +can fail to see that the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience +proceeded from a profound, if partial, understanding of human nature +and its most perfect harmony. Plainly all manner of disorder both in +society and in the individual result from greed, uncontrollable sexual +desire, arrogance, and imperiousness. That was so plain to the early +Christians, and on the other hand it was so little plain how those +powerful passions could be civilized, that the monastics in effect gave +up and attempted to excise them entirely from their natures. In this +they did not succeed. + +Had they known any way of curing the fever of human [p207] passion +except by attempting to excise it, the insight of high religion would +have had some practicable meaning for those who did not withdraw from +the world. But no way was known, and therefore the practice of high +religion had to mean separation from human society and violence to +human nature. But why was there no other way known of overcoming the +chaos of the passions? Was it because there is no other way? If that +were so then the world is as hopeless as the early Christians thought +it was; indeed it is more hopeless because it does not show any signs, +as they believed, of coming to an end. Was it because the early +Christian Fathers were not wise enough to discover a way? It is always +a good rule, I think, to discard any idea based on the premise that the +best minds of another age were congenitally inferior to our own. My +conviction is that necessity is the mother of discovery and invention, +and that the reason why the insight of high religion and the methods +of practicing it were so imperfectly developed, is that there was no +practical necessity for developing them. + +The mass of men lived in an ancestral order which was regulated by +custom and authority, and made endurable by usage and compensatory +consolations. The organic quality of that society into which they +fitted took care of their passions; those who had outgrown such a +society, or were so constituted that they did not fit it, were the +exceptions. From them came the insight of high religion; for them a +separated life was a possible solution of their personal problems. +There was nothing in the nature of things to compel men to work out a +way of life, I won’t say for all men, but at least for many men, by +which [p208] they could govern their own natures. Behind any such +effort there would almost certainly have to be an urgent need. For the +inertia of the human race is immense. + +It is my thesis that because the acids of modernity have dissolved +the adjustments of the ancestral order, there exists to-day on a +scale never before experienced by mankind and of an urgency without a +parallel, the need for that philosophy of life of which the insight +of high religion is a prophecy. For it is immature and unregenerate +desire which creates the disorders and the frustrations that confound +us. The preoccupation of the popular religion has been to find a way of +governing these disorders and of compensating for their frustrations. +The preoccupation of high religion is with the regeneration of the +passions that create the disorders and the frustrations. Insofar as +modernity has dissolved the power of the popular religion to govern +and to compensate, the need for a high religion which regenerates +becomes imperative, and what was once a kind of spiritual luxury of the +few has, under modern conditions, become an urgent necessity of the +many. The insight of high religion which has hitherto indicated a kind +of bypath into rare experiences is now a trail which the leaders of +mankind are compelled to take. + +There is implied in this a radical displacement in the field of morals. +The main interest of the practical moralist in the past has been to +interpret, administer, and enforce a moral code. He knew what was +right. The populace acknowledged that he knew what was right. His +task was to persuade and compel them to do what was right. There was +a tacit assumption, which was [p209] quite correct, that very often +the populace and even the moralist himself would much rather have done +what was wrong. Very often they did it. Then they were punished in +this world or in the next. But to-day the moralist finds himself in +a different position. He is no longer absolutely sure that he knows +what is right. The populace, even if it respects him, is disinclined +to believe that a thing is right simply because he says it is. The +populace continues very frequently to prefer what was once regarded +as wrong. It no longer knows whether it is right or wrong, and of +course it gives itself the benefit of the doubt. The result is that +there no longer exists a moral code which the moralist can interpret, +administer, and enforce. The effect of that is moral anarchy within +and without. Since there is no principle under modern conditions which +authorizes the re-establishment of a moral code, the moralist, unless +he revises his premises, becomes entirely ineffectual. To revise his +premises can, under the circumstances, mean only one thing: that he +occupies himself with the problem of how to encourage that growth +into maturity, that outgrowing of naive desire, that cultivation of +disinterestedness, which render passion innocent and an authoritative +morality unnecessary. + +The novelty of all this lies in the fact that the guardians of morality +among the people are compelled at last to take seriously what the +teachers of wisdom have taught. The insight of high religion may +be said, then, to be a discovery in the field of human experience +comparable with those prophetic conceptions in the natural sciences +which, after being looked upon for long periods as a [p210] curiosity, +are at last, because circumstances are ripe, seen to be the clue +to otherwise insoluble perplexities. The concept of evolution was +discovered by sheer insight innumerable times before the time of +Darwin. Not much came of it until the rapid evolution of human affairs +after the industrial revolution had somehow brought this neglected +insight into focus with men’s interests. There are many conceptions in +the science of the Greeks which are true intimations of what modern +physicists have found. But an insight of this sort comes into its own +only when circumstances conspire to make it inevitably appropriate. +It is my contention that in the field of morals circumstances are +producing a somewhat analogous condition: that the insight of the sages +into the value of disinterestedness has become the clue to otherwise +insoluble perplexities. + + + + + PART III [p211] + + THE GENIUS OF MODERNITY + + _Where is the way where light dwelleth?_ + Job 38:19. + + + + +CHAPTER XI [p213] + +THE CURE OF SOULS + + +1. _The Problem of Evil_ + +The greatest of all perplexities in theology has been to reconcile the +infinite goodness of God with his omnipotence. Nothing puts a greater +strain upon the faith of the common man than the existence of utterly +irrational suffering in the universe, and the problem which tormented +Job still troubles every devout and thoughtful man who beholds the +monstrous injustices of nature. If there were no pain in the world +except that which was felt by responsible beings who had knowingly +transgressed some law of conduct, there would, of course, be no problem +of evil. Pain would be nothing but a rational punishment. But the pain +which is suffered by those who according to all human standards are +innocent, by children and by animals, for example, cannot be fitted +into any rational theory of reward and punishment. It never has been. +The classic attempts to solve the problem of evil invariably falsify +the premises. This falsification may for a time satisfy the inquirer, +but it does not settle the problem. That is why the problem is forever +presenting itself again. + +The solutions which have been proposed neglect one or the other of the +attributes of God: tacitly or otherwise either his infinite power or +his infinite love is denied. [p214] In the Old Testament, at least +in the older parts of it, the power of God is exalted at the expense +of his goodness. For it is simply impossible by any human standard +and within any intelligible meaning of the words to regard Yahveh as +wholly good. His cruelty is notorious and his capriciousness is that +of an Oriental despot. It is admitted, I believe, by all but the most +literally-minded of the fundamentalists that there are innumerable +incidents in the Old Testament which have to be expurgated if the Bible +is to be used as a source book of conduct for impressionable children. +Now for the ancient Hebrews who conceived God in their fashion, the +problem of evil did not exist because it had not occurred to them that +a ruler should be just and good as well as great and powerful. + +As men came to believe that God must be just, beneficent, and loving, +the problem soon presented itself. And in the Book of Job, which is +supposed to date from the Fifth or Fourth Century B.C., we have a +poignant effort to solve it. Job’s conclusion is that the goodness of +Jehovah is among the “things too wonderful for me.” He accepts the +judgments of God, and acknowledges their goodness by attributing to God +a kind of goodness which is unlike the human conception of goodness. +He holds fast to the premise that God is omnipotent—“I know that thou +canst do all things”—and the other premise that God is beneficent +he redefines. Job’s mind was satisfied, and it is reported that he +prospered greatly thereafter. What had really happened was that Job +gave up the attempt to prove that God was like Job, that the world was +as Job wished it to be, and so piously and with his mind at [p215] +rest he made the best of things, and went about his affairs. + +In Job the solution is reached by claiming that what seems evil to +us would really be recognized as goodness if our minds were not so +limited. To the naive this is no solution at all, for it depends +upon using the word ‘good’ in two senses; actually it was a perfect +solution, for Job had resigned himself to the fact that God and the +universe in which he was manifest are not controlled by human desires. +Those who refused to accept this solution involved themselves in +intricate theorizing. Some of them argued that evil is an illusion. +This theory has been widely held, though it is rather difficult to +see how, if evil is an illusion, good is not also an illusion. The +one seems as vividly real as the other. It has also been argued by +some that evil is not important. This, of course, does not solve the +theoretical problem. In fact it ignores the problem and is really +a piece of advice as to how men ought to conduct themselves in the +presence of God. Many have argued, also, that evil exists in the world +to test human character, that by bearing it and conquering it men prove +their worth. There is a core of truth in this observation as there is +in the theory that many things are not so bad as they seem. But it does +not explain why a good and all powerful Deity chose to make men go +through a school of suffering to achieve goodness, when he might have +created them good in the first place. + +These theoretical difficulties have furnished the material for endless +debate. I shall not pursue the matter in all its intricacies, but I +venture to point out that what is attempted in all these solutions is +ultimately to make plain [p216] why the ruler of the universe does +not order things as we should order them if we had his power. Once +we confess, as Job finally did, that the plan of the universe is not +what we naively wish it would be, there is no problem of evil. For the +whole difficulty arises because of our desire to impute to the universe +itself, or to the god who rules it, purposes like our own; failing to +find them, we are disappointed, and are plunged into elaborate and +interminable debate. + +The final insight of Job, though it seems to be consistent with the +orthodox popular religion, is really wholly inconsistent with the +inwardness of popular religion. The God of the Book of Job does not +minister to human desires, and the story of Job is really the story +of a man’s renunciation of the belief in such a God. It is the story +of how a man learned to accept life maturely. The God whose ways Job +finally acknowledges is no longer a projection of Job’s desires. He is +like the God of Spinoza who cannot be cajoled into returning the love +of his worshipper. He is, in short, the God of an impersonal reality. + +Whether God is conceived as a creator of that reality, who administers +it inexorably, or whether he is identified with reality and is +conceived as the sum total of its laws, or whether, as in the language +of modern science, the name of God is not employed at all, is a matter +of metaphysical taste. The great divide lies between those who think +their wishes are of more than human significance and those who do +not. For these latter the problem of evil does not arise out of the +difficulty of reconciling the existence of evil with their assumptions. +They do not assume that reality must conform to human desire. The +[p217] problem for them is wholly practical. It is the problem of how +to remove evil and of how to bear the evil which cannot be removed. + +Thus from the attempt to explain the ways of God in the world as it now +is, nature and human nature being what they are, the center of interest +is shifted to an attempt to discover ways of equipping man to conquer +evil. This displacement has in fact taken place in the modern world. +In their actual practice men do not try to account for evil in order +that they may accept it; they do not deny evil in order that they may +not have to account for it; they explain it in order that they may deal +with it. + + +2. _Superstition and Self-Consciousness_ + +This change of attitude toward evil is not, as at first perhaps it +may seem, merely a new way of talking about the same thing. It alters +radically the nature of evil itself. For evil is not a quality of +things as such. It is a quality of our relation to them. A dissonance +in music is unpleasant only to a musical ear. Pain is an evil only if +someone suffers, and there are those to whom pain is pleasure and most +men’s evil their good. For things are neutral and evil is a certain way +of experiencing them. + +To realize this is to destroy the awfulness of evil. I use the word +‘awful’ in its exact sense, and I mean that in abandoning the notion +that evil has to be reconciled with a theory of how the world is +governed, we rob it of universal significance. We deflate it. The +psychological consequences are enormous, for a very great part of all +human suffering lies not in the pain itself, but in the [p218] anxiety +contributed by the meaning which we attach to it. Lucretius understood +this quite well, and in his superb argument against the fear of death +he reasoned that death has no terror because nothing can be terrible to +those who no longer exist. Before we were born, he says, “we felt no +distress when the Poeni from all sides came together to do battle.... +For he whom evil is to befall, must in his own person exist at the +very time it comes, if the misery and suffering are haply to have any +place at all.” St. Thomas defines superstition as the vice of excess +in religion, and in this sense of the word it may be said that the +effect of the modern approach is to take evils out of the context of +superstition. + +They cease to be signs and portents symbolizing the whole of human +destiny and become specific and distinguishable situations which have +to be dealt with. The effect of this is not only to limit drastically +the meaning, and therefore the dreadfulness, of any evil, but to +substitute for a general sense of evil an analytical estimate of +particular evils. They are then seen to be of long duration and of +short, preventable, curable, or inevitable. As long as all evils are +believed somehow to fit into a divine, if mysterious, plan, the effort +to eradicate them must seem on the whole futile, and even impious. +The history of medical progress offers innumerable instances of how +men have resisted the introduction of sanitary measures because they +dreaded to interfere with the providence of God. It is still felt, I +believe, in many quarters, even in medical circles, that to mitigate +the labor pains in childbirth is to blaspheme against the commandment +that in pain children shall be brought forth. An aura of dread [p219] +surrounds evil as long as evil situations remain entangled with a +theory of divine government. + +The realization that evil exists only because we feel it to be +painful helps us not only to dissociate it from this aura of dread +but to dissociate ourselves from our own feelings about it. This is a +momentous achievement in the inner life of man. To be able to observe +our own feelings as if they were objective facts, to detach ourselves +from our own fears, hates, and lusts, to examine them, name them, +identify them, understand their origin, and finally to judge them, is +somehow to rob them of their imperiousness. They are no longer the same +feelings. They no longer dominate the whole field of consciousness. +They seem no longer to command the whole energy of our being. By +becoming conscious of them we in some fashion or other destroy their +concentration and diffuse their energy into other channels. We cease to +be possessed by one passion; contrary passions retain their vitality, +and an equilibrium tends to establish itself. + +Just what the psychological mechanism of all this is I do not pretend +to say. It is something to which psychologists are giving increasing +attention. But since Hellenic times the phenomenon which I have been +describing has been well known. It was undoubtedly what the Sophists +meant by the injunction: know thyself. It was in large measure to +achieve control through detachment that Socrates elaborated his +dialectic, for the Socratic dialectic is an instrument for making men +self-conscious, and therefore the masters of their motives. Spinoza +grasped this principle with great clarity. “An emotion,” he says, +“which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we [p220] form a +clear and distinct idea of it.” He goes on to say that “insofar as the +mind understands all things as necessary, it has more power over the +emotions, or is less passive to them.” + +The more recent discoveries in the field of psychoanalysis are an +elaboration of this principle. They are based on the discovery of +Freud and Breuer at the close of the last century that a catharsis of +emotion is often obtained if the patient can be made to recall, and +thus to relive by describing it, the emotional situation which troubles +him. The release of the psychic poison is known technically as an +abreaction. Where the new psychology supplements the insights of the +Sophists, of Socrates, and Spinoza, is in the demonstration that there +are powerful passions affecting our lives of which it is impossible by +ordinary effort of memory “to form a clear and distinct idea.” They are +said to be unconscious, or more accurately, I suppose, they are out +of the reach of the normal consciousness. Freud and his school have +invented an elaborate technic by which the analyst is able frequently +to help the patient thread his way back through a chain of associations +to the buried passion and fetch it into consciousness. + +The special technic of psychoanalysis can be tested only by scientific +experience. The therapeutic claims made by psychoanalysts, and their +theories of the functional disorders, lie outside the realm of this +discussion. But the essential principle is not a technical matter. +Anyone can confirm it out of his own experience. It has been discovered +and rediscovered by shrewd observers of human nature for at least +two thousand years. To become detached from one’s passions and to +understand them consciously [p221] is to render them disinterested. A +disinterested mind is harmonious with itself and with reality. + +This is the principle by which a humanistic culture becomes bearable. +If the principle of a theocratic culture is dependence, obedience, +conformity in the presence of a superhuman power which administers +reality, the principle of humanism is detachment, understanding, and +disinterestedness in the presence of reality itself. + + +3. _Virtue_ + +It can be shown, I think, that those qualities which civilized men, +regardless of their theologies and their allegiances, have agreed to +call virtues, have disinterestedness as their inner principle. I am not +talking now about the eccentric virtues which at some time or other +have been held in great esteem. I am not talking about the virtue of +not playing cards, or of not drinking wine, or of not eating beef, or +of not eating pork, or of not admitting that women have legs. These +little virtues are historical accidents which may or may not once +have had a rational origin. I am talking about the central virtues +which are esteemed by every civilized people. I am talking about such +virtues as courage, honor, faithfulness, veracity, justice, temperance, +magnanimity, and love. + +They would not be called virtues and held in high esteem if there were +no difficulty about them. There are innumerable dispositions which are +essential to living that no one takes the trouble to praise. Thus it is +not accounted a virtue if a man eats when he is hungry or goes to bed +when he is ill. He can be depended upon to take care of his immediate +wants. It is only those actions which [p222] he cannot be depended +upon to do, and yet are highly desirable, that men call virtuous. They +recognize that a premium has to be put upon certain qualities if men +are to make the effort which is required to transcend their ordinary +impulses. The premium consists in describing these desirable and rarer +qualities as virtues. For virtue is that kind of conduct which is +esteemed by God, or public opinion, or that less immediate part of a +man’s personality which he calls his conscience. + +To transcend the ordinary impulses is, therefore, the common element in +all virtue. Courage, for example, is the willingness to face situations +from which it would be more or less natural to run away. No one thinks +it is courageous to run risks unwittingly. The drunken driver of an +automobile, the boy playing with a stick of dynamite, the man drinking +water which he does not know is polluted, all take risks as great as +those of the most renowned heroes. But the fact that they do not know +the risks, and do not, therefore, have to conquer the fear they would +feel if they did know them, robs their conduct of all courage. The +test is not the uselessness or even the undesirability of their acts. +It is useless to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. But it is brave, +assuming the performer to be in his right mind. It is a wicked thing +to assassinate a king. But if it is not done from ambush, it is brave, +however wicked and however useless. + +Because courage consists in transcending normal fears, the highest kind +of courage is cold courage; that is to say, courage in which the danger +has been fully realized and there is no emotional excitement to conceal +the danger. The world instantly recognized this in Colonel Lindbergh’s +[p223] flight to Paris. He flew alone; he was not an impetuous fool, +but a man of the utmost sobriety of judgment. He had no companion to +keep his courage screwed up; he knew exactly what he was doing, yet +apparently he did not realize the rewards which were in store for him. +The world understood that here was somebody who was altogether braver +than the average sensual man. For Colonel Lindbergh did not merely +conquer the Atlantic Ocean; he conquered those things in himself which +the rest of us would have found unconquerable. + +The cold courage of a man like Noguchi who, though in failing health, +went into one of the unhealthiest parts of Africa to study a deadly +disease, could come only from a nature which was overwhelmingly +interested in objects outside itself. Noguchi must have known exactly +how dangerous it was for him to go to Africa, and exactly how horrible +was the disease to which he exposed himself. To have gone anyway is +really to have cared for science in a way which very few care for +anything so remote and impersonal. But even courage like Lindbergh’s +and Noguchi’s is more comprehensible than the kind of courage which +anonymous men have displayed. I am thinking of the four soldiers at +the Walter Reed Hospital who let themselves be used for the study +of typhoid fever. They did not even have Lindbergh’s interest in +performing a great feat or Noguchi’s interest in science to buoy them +up and carry them past the point where they might have faltered. Their +courage was as near to absolute courage as it is possible to imagine, +and I who think this cannot even recall their names. + +To understand the inwardness of courage would be, I [p224] think, to +have understood almost all the other important virtues. It is “not only +the chiefest virtue and most dignifies the haver,” but it embodies +the principle of all virtue, which is to transcend the immediacy of +desire and to live for ends which are transpersonal. Virtuous action +is conduct which responds to situations that are more extensive, +more complicated, and take longer to reach their fulfillment, than +the situations to which we instinctively respond. An infant knows +neither vice nor virtue because it can respond only to what touches it +immediately. A man has virtue insofar as he can respond to a larger +situation. + +He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is +inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so. He has veracity +if he says and believes what he thinks is true though it would be +easier to deceive others or himself. He is just if he acknowledges the +interests of all concerned in a transaction and not merely his own +apparent interest. He is temperate if, in the presence of temptation, +he can still prefer Philip sober to Philip drunk. He is magnanimous if, +as Aristotle says, he cares “more for truth than for opinion,” speaks +and acts openly, will not live at the will of another, except it be a +friend, does not recollect injuries, does not care that he should be +praised or that others should be blamed, does not complain or ask for +help in unavoidable or trifling calamities. For such a man, as the word +‘magnanimous’ itself implies, is “conversant with great matters.” + +A man who has these virtues has somehow overcome the inertia of his +impulses. Their disposition is to respond to the immediate situation, +and not merely to the situation [p225] at the moment, but to the most +obvious fragment of it, and not only to the most obvious fragment, +but to that aspect which promises instant pleasure or pain. To have +virtue is to respond to larger situations and to longer stretches of +time and without much interest in their immediate result in convenience +and pleasure. It is to overcome the impulses of immaturity, to +detach one’s self from the objects that preoccupy it and from one’s +own preoccupations. There are many virtues in the catalogues of +the moralists, and they have many different names. But they have a +common principle, which is detachment from that which is apparently +pleasant or unpleasant, and they have a common quality, which is +disinterestedness, and they spring from a common source, which is +maturity of character. + +Few men, if any, possess virtue in all its varieties because few men +are wholly matured to the core of their being. We are for the most part +like fruit which is partly ripened: there is sourness and sweetness in +our natures. This may be due to the casualness of our upbringing; it +may be due to unknown congenital causes; it may be due to functional +and organic disease, to partial inferiorities of mind and body. But +it is due also to the fact that we can give our full attention only +to a few phases of our experience. With the equipment at our disposal +we are forced to specialize and to neglect very much. Hence the +mature scientist with petty ambitions and ignoble timidities. Hence +the realistic statesman who is a peevish husband. Hence the man who +manages his affairs in masterly fashion and bungles every personal +relationship when he is away from his office. Hence the loyal friend +who is a [p226] crooked politician, the kind father who is a merciless +employer, the champion of mankind who is an intolerable companion. +If any of these could carry over into all their relationships the +qualities which have made them distinguished in some, they would be +wholly adult and wholly good. It would not be necessary to imagine the +ideal character, for he would already exist. + +It is out of these practical virtues that our conception of virtue has +been formed. We may be sure that no quality is likely to have become +esteemed as a virtue which did not somewhere and sometime produce +at least the appearance of happiness. The virtues are grounded in +experience; they are not idle suggestions inadvertently adopted because +somebody took it into his head one fine day to proclaim a new ideal. +There are, to be sure, certain residual and obsolete virtues which +no longer correspond to anything in our own experience and now seem +utterly arbitrary and capricious. But the cardinal virtues correspond +to an experience so long and so nearly universal among men of our +civilization, that when they are understood they are seen to contain a +deposited wisdom of the race. + + +4. _From Clue to Practice_ + +The wisdom deposited in our moral ideals is heavily obscured at the +present time. We continue to use the language of morality, having no +other which we can use. But the words are so hackneyed that their +meanings are concealed, and it is very hard, especially for young +people, to realize that virtue is really good and really relevant. +[p227] Morality has become so stereotyped, so thin and verbal, so +encrusted with pious fraud, it has been so much monopolized by the +tender-minded and the sentimental, and made so odious by the outcries +of foolish men and sour old women, that our generation has almost +forgotten that virtue was not invented in Sunday schools but derives +originally from a profound realization of the character of human life. + +This sense of unreality is, I believe, due directly to the widespread +loss of genuine belief in the premises of popular religion. Virtue is +a product of human experience: men acquired their knowledge of the +value of courage, honor, temperance, veracity, faithfulness, and love, +because these qualities were necessary to their survival and to the +attainment of happiness. But this human justification of virtue does +not carry conviction to the immature, and would not of itself break up +the inertia of their naive impulses. Therefore, virtue which derives +from human insight has to be imposed on the immature by authority; +what was obtained on Sinai was not the revelation of the moral law but +divine authority to teach it. + +Now the very thing which made moral wisdom convincing to our ancestors +makes it unconvincing to modern men. We do not live in a patriarchal +society. We do not live in a world which disposes us to a belief +in theocratic government. And therefore insofar as moral wisdom is +entangled with the premises of theocracy it is unreal to us. The +very thing which gave authority to moral insight for our forefathers +obscures moral insight for us. They lived in the kind of world which +disposed them to practice [p228] virtue if it came to them as a divine +commandment. A thoroughly modernized young man to-day distrusts moral +wisdom precisely because it is commanded. + +It is often said that this distrust is merely an aspect of the normal +rebellion of youth. I do not believe it. This distrust is due to a +much more fundamental cause. It is due not to a rebellion against +authority but to an unbelief in it. This unbelief is the result of +that dissolution of the ancient order out of which modern civilization +is emerging, and unless we understand the radical character of this +unbelief we shall never understand the moral confusion of this age. We +shall fail to see that morals taught with authority are pervaded with +a sense of unreality because the sense of authority is no longer real. +Men will not feel that wisdom is authentic if they are asked to believe +that it derives from something which does not seem authentic. + +We may be quite certain, therefore, that we shall not succeed in making +the traditional morality convincingly authentic to modern men. The +whole tendency of the age is to make it seem less and less authentic. +The effort to impose it, nevertheless, merely deepens the confusion by +converting the discussion of morals from an examination of experience +into a dispute over its metaphysical sanctions. The consequence of this +dispute is to drive men, especially the most sensitive and courageous, +further away from insight into virtue and deeper and deeper into mere +negation and rebellion. What they are actually rebelling against is the +theocratic system in which they do not believe. But because that system +appears to them to claim a vested interest in morality they empty out +the baby with the [p229] bath, and lose all sense of the inwardness of +deposited wisdom. + +For that reason the recovery of moral insight depends upon +disentangling virtue from its traditional sanctions and the +metaphysical framework which has hitherto supported it. It will be +said, I know, that this would rob virtue of its popular prestige. My +answer is that in those communities which are deeply under modern +influences the loss of belief in these very traditional sanctions and +this very metaphysical framework has robbed virtue of its relevance. +I should readily grant that for communities and for individuals which +are outside the orbit of modernity, it is neither necessary nor +desirable to disentangle morality from its ancient associations. It is +also impossible to do so, for when the ancestral order is genuinely +alive, there is no problem of unbelief. But where the problem exists, +when the ancient premises of morality have faded into mere verbal +acknowledgments, then these ancient premises obscure vision. They have +ceased to be the sanctions of virtue and have become obstructions to +moral insight. Only by deliberately thinking their way past these +obstructions can modern men recover that innocence of the eye, that +fresh, authentic sense of the good in human relations on which a living +morality depends. + +I have tried in these pages to do that for myself. I am under no +illusion as to the present value of the conceptions arrived at. +I regard them simply as a probable clue to the understanding of +modernity. If the clue is the correct one, the more we explore the +modern world the more coherence it will give to our understanding of +it. A true insight is fruitful; it multiplies insight, until at last +it not [p230] only illuminates a situation but provides a practical +guide to conduct. I believe the insight of high religion into the value +of disinterestedness will, if pursued resolutely, untangle the moral +confusion of the age and make plain, as it is not now plain, what we +are really driving at in our manifold activity, what we are compelled +to want, what, rather dimly now, we do want, and how to proceed about +achieving it. To say that is to say that I believe in the hypothesis. +I do believe in it. I believe that this valuation of human life, which +was once the possession of an élite, now conforms to the premises of a +whole civilization. + +The proof of that must lie in a detailed and searching examination +of the facts all about us. If the ideal of human character which +is prophesied in high religion is really suitable and necessary in +modern civilization, then an examination ought to show that events +themselves are pregnant with it. If they are not, then all this is +moonshine and cobwebs and castles in the air. Unless circumstance and +necessity are behind it, the insight of high religion is still, as it +has always been hitherto, a noble eccentricity of the soul. For men +will not take it seriously, they will not devote themselves to the +discovery and invention of ways of cultivating maturity, detachment, +and disinterestedness unless events conspire to drive them to it. + +The realization of this ideal is plainly a process of education in +the most inclusive sense of that term. But it will not do much good +to tell mothers that they should lead their children away from their +childishness; an actual mother, even if she understood so abstruse a +bit of advice, and did not reject it out of hand as a reflection upon +the [p231] glory of childhood, would insist upon being told very +concretely what this good advice means and how with a bawling infant in +the cradle you go about cultivating his capacity to be disinterested. +It is not much better to offer the advice to school teachers; they will +wish to know what they must not do that they now do, and what they must +do that they leave undone. But the answers to these questions are no +more to be had from the original concept than are rules for breeding +fine cattle to be had from the theory of evolution and Mendel’s law. By +the use of the concept, psychologists and educators may, if the concept +is correct and if they are properly encouraged, thread their way by +dialectic and by experiment to practical knowledge which is actually +usable as a method of education and as a personal discipline. + +If they are to do that they will have to see quite clearly just how +and in what sense the ideal of disinterestedness is inherent and +inevitable in the modern world. The remaining chapters of this book are +an attempt to do that by demonstrating that in three great phases of +human interest, in business, in government, and in sexual relations, +the ideal is now implicit and necessary. + + + + +CHAPTER XII [p232] + +THE BUSINESS OF THE GREAT SOCIETY + + +1. _The Invention of Invention_ + +One of the characteristics of the age we live in is that we are forever +trying to explain it. We feel that if we understood it better we should +know better how to live in it, and should cease to be aliens who do not +know the landmarks of a strange country. There is, however, a school +of philosophic historians who argue that this sense of novelty in the +modern world is an illusion, and that as a matter of fact mankind has +passed before through the same phase of the same inexorable cycle. The +boldest of them, like Oswald Spengler, cite chapter and verse to show +that there have been several of these great cycles of development from +incubation through maturity to decay, and that our western civilization +which began about 900 A.D. is now in the phase which corresponds with +the century after Pericles in the classical world. + +That the analogy is striking no reader of Spengler will deny who can +endure Spengler’s procrustean determination to make the evidence fit +the theory. We can see the growth of towns at the expense of the +farms, the rise of capitalism, the growth of international trade and +finance, a development of nationalism, of democracy, attempts at the +abolition of war through international organization, and with it all +a dissolution of the popular religion, of [p233] the traditional +morality, and vast and searching inquiry into the meaning of life. +There is little doubt that the speculation of the Greek philosophers +seems extraordinarily fresh to us, because they were confronted with a +situation in many respects remarkably like our own. + +But however nicely such analogies are worked out they are superficial +and misleading. There is something radically new in the modern world, +something for which there is no parallel in any other civilization. +This new thing is usually described as power-driven machinery. Thus +Mr. Charles A. Beard says that “what is called Western or modern +civilization by way of contrast with the civilization of the Orient or +Mediæval times is at bottom a civilization that rests upon machinery +and science as distinguished from one founded on agriculture or +handicraft commerce. It is in reality a technological civilization ... +and ... it threatens to overcome and transform the whole globe.” By way +of illustrating how deeply machinery affects human life, Mr. Beard says +that because they are untouched by this machine civilization “there +are more fundamental resemblances between the culture of a peasant in +a remote village in Spain and that of a peasant in a remote village +in Japan than between the culture of a Christian priest of the upper +Pyrenees and that of a Baptist clergyman in a thriving manufacturing +town in Illinois.” + +Mr. H. G. Wells uses much the same argument to show that in spite of +the apparent similarities there is an essential difference between our +civilization and the later phases of the classical. “The essential +difference,” he says, “between the amassing of riches, the extinction +of small farmers and small business men, and the phase of [p234] big +finance in the latter centuries of the Roman republic on the one hand, +and the very similar concentration of capital in the eighteenth and +nineteenth centuries on the other, lies in the profound difference in +the character of labor that the mechanical revolution was bringing +about. The power of the old world was human power; everything depended +ultimately upon the driving power of human muscle, the muscle of +ignorant and subjugated men. A little animal muscle, supplied by draft +oxen, horse traction, and the like contributed. Where a weight had to +be lifted, men lifted it; where a rock had to be quarried, men chipped +it out; where a field had to be ploughed, men and oxen ploughed it; +the Roman equivalent of the steamship was the galley with its banks of +sweating rowers.... The Roman civilization was built upon cheap and +degraded human beings; modern civilization is being rebuilt upon cheap +mechanical power.” + +These differences are genuine enough, and yet it is doubtful whether +Mr. Wells has described the really “new thing in human experience.” +After all a great deal of cheap man power is still used in conjunction +with cheap mechanical power; it is somewhat of an idealization to +talk as if the machine had supplanted the drudge. What Mr. Wells has +in mind, of course, is that in the Roman world a vast proportion of +mankind were doomed to “purely mechanical drudgery” whereas in the +modern world there is tangible hope that they will be released from it. +They are not yet released from it, however, and their hope of release +rests upon the really new element in human experience. + +The various mechanical inventions from James Watt’s [p235] steam +engine to the electric dishwasher and vacuum cleaner are not this new +element. All these inventions, singly or collectively, though they have +revolutionized the manner of human life, are not the ultimate reason +why men put such hope in machines. Their hope is not based on the +machines we possess. They are obviously a mixed blessing. Their hope is +based on the machines that are yet to be made, and they have reason to +hope because a really new thing has come into the world. That thing is +the invention of invention. + +Men have not merely invented the modern machines. There have been +machines invented since the earliest days, incalculably important, like +the wheel, like sailing ships, like the windmill and the watermill. +But in modern times men have invented a method of inventing, they have +discovered a method of discovery. Mechanical progress has ceased to +be casual and accidental and has become systematic and cumulative. We +know, as no other people ever knew before, that we shall make more +and more perfect machines. When Mr. Beard says that “the machine +civilization differs from all others in that it is highly dynamic, +containing within itself the seeds of constant reconstruction,” he is, +I take it, referring to this supreme discovery which is the art of +discovery itself. + + +2. _The Creative Principle in Modernity_ + +Although the disposition to scientific thought may be said to have +originated in remote antiquity, it was not until the Sixteenth Century +of our era that it ceased to appear spasmodically and as if by chance. +The Greeks had their schools on the shores of the Ægean, in Sicily, +[p236] and in Alexandria, and in them some of the conclusions and much +of the spirit of scientific inquiry was imaginatively anticipated. +But the conscious organized effort to relate “general principles to +irreducible and stubborn facts,” as Mr. Whitehead puts it, began about +three hundred years ago. The first society chiefly devoted to science +seems to have been founded by della Porta at Naples in 1560, but it +was closed by the ecclesiastical authorities. Forty years later the +_Accademia dei Lincei_ was founded at Rome with Galileo among its early +members. The Royal Society of London was chartered in 1662. The French +Academy of Sciences began its meetings in 1666, the Berlin Academy in +1700, the American Philosophical Association was proposed by Benjamin +Franklin in 1743 and organized in 1769. + +The active pursuit of science is a matter, then, of only a few hundred +years. The practical consequences in the form of useful inventions are +still more recent. Newcomen’s air-and-steam engine dates from 1705, +but it was not until 1764 that James Watt produced a practicable steam +engine. It was not until the beginning of the Nineteenth Century that +invention really got under way and began to transform the structure +of civilization. It was not until about 1850 that the importance of +invention had impressed itself upon the English people, yet they were +the first to experience the effects of the mechanical revolution. They +had seen the first railway, the first steamboat, the illumination +of towns by gas, and the application of power-driven machinery to +manufacture. Professor Bury fixes the Exhibition of London in 1851 as +the event which marks the public recognition of the role of science +[p237] in modern civilization. The Prince Consort who originated the +Exhibition said in his opening speech that it was designed “to give +us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at +which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task, and a new +starting-point from which the nations will be able to direct their +further exertions.” + +But this public recognition was at first rather sentimental and +gaping. The full realization of the place of science in modern life +came slowly, and only in our generation can it be said that political +rulers, captains of industry, and leaders of thought have actually +begun to appreciate how central is science in our civilization, and to +act upon that realization. In our time governments have begun to take +science seriously and to promote research and invention not only in +the art of war, but in the interest of trade, agriculture, and public +hygiene. Great corporations have established laboratories of their +own, not merely for the perfecting of their own processes, but for +the promotion of pure research. Money has become available in great +quantities for scientific work in the universities, and the educational +curriculum down to the lowest grades has begun to be reorganized not +only in order to train a minority of the population for research and +invention, but to train the great majority to understand and use the +machines and the processes which are available. + +The motives and the habits of mind which are thus brought into play at +the very heart of modern civilization are mature and disinterested. +That may not be the primary intention, but it is the inevitable +result. No doubt [p238] governments encourage research in order to +have powerful weapons with which to overawe their neighbors; no doubt +industries encourage research because it pays; no doubt scientists +and inventors are in some measure moved by the desire for wealth and +fame; no doubt the general public approves of science because of the +pleasures and conveniences it provides; no doubt there is an intuitive +sense in modern communities that the prospects of survival both for +nations and for individuals are somehow related to their command of +scientific knowledge. But nevertheless, whatever the motives which +cause men to endow laboratories, to work patiently in laboratories or +to buy the products, the fact remains that inside the laboratory, at +the heart of this whole business, the habit of disinterested realism in +dealing with the data is the indispensable habit of mind. Unless this +habit of mind exists in the actual research, all the endowments and +honorary degrees and prize awards will not produce the results desired. +This is an original and tremendous fact in human experience: that a +whole civilization should be dependent upon technology, that this +technology should be dependent upon pure science, and that this pure +science should be dependent upon a race of men who consciously refuse, +as Mr. Bertrand Russell has said, to regard their “own desires, tastes, +and interests as affording a key to the understanding of the world.” + +When I say that the refusal is conscious I do not mean merely that +scientists tell themselves that they must ignore their prejudices. +They have developed an elaborate method for detecting and discounting +their prejudices. It consists of instruments of precision, an accurate +vocabulary, [p239] controlled experiment, and the submission not only +of their results but of their processes to the judgment of their peers. +This method provides a body in which the spirit of disinterestedness +can live, and it might be said that modern science, not in its crude +consequences but in its inward principle, not, that is to say, as +manifested in automobiles, electric refrigerators, and rayon silk, but +in the behavior of the men who invent and perfect these things, is +the actual realization in a practicable mode of conduct which can be +learned and practiced, of the insight of high religion. The scientific +discipline is one way in which this insight, hitherto lyrical and +personal and apart, is brought down to earth and into direct and +decisive contact with the concerns of mankind. + +It is no exaggeration to say that pure science is high religion +incarnate. No doubt the science we have is not the whole incarnation, +but as far as it goes it translates into a usable procedure what in the +teaching of the sages has been an esoteric insight. Scientific method +can be learned. The learning of it matures the human character. Its +value can be demonstrated in concrete results. Its importance in human +life is indisputable. But the insight of high religion as such could be +appreciated only by those who were already mature; it corresponded to +nothing in the experience and the necessities of the ordinary man. It +could be talked about but not taught; it could inspire only the few who +were somehow already inspired. With the discovery of scientific method +the insight has ceased to be an intangible and somewhat formless idea +and has become an organized effort which moves mankind more profoundly +than anything else in human affairs. Therefore, [p240] what was once +a personal attitude on the part of a few who were somewhat withdrawn +and disregarded has become the central principle in the careers of +innumerable, immensely influential, men. + +Because the scientific discipline is, in fact, the creative element in +that which is distinctively modern, circumstances conspire to enhance +its prestige and to extend its acceptance. It is the ultimate source +of profit and of power, and therefore it is assured of protection and +encouragement by those who rule the modern state. They cannot afford +not to cultivate the scientific spirit: the nation which does not +cultivate it cannot hold its place among the nations, the corporation +which ignores it will be destroyed by its competitors. The training of +an ever increasing number of pure scientists, of inventors, and of men +who can operate and repair machinery is, therefore, a sheer practical +necessity. The scientific discipline has become, as Mr. Graham Wallas +would say, an essential part of our social heritage. For the machine +technology requires a population which in some measure partakes of the +spirit which created it. + +Naturally enough, however, the influence of the scientific spirit +becomes more and more diluted the further one goes from the work of the +men who actually conceive, discover, invent, and perfect the modern +machines. From Faraday, Maxwell, and Hertz who did the chief work +which made possible the wireless it is a long way to the broker who +sells radio stock or the householder with his six-tube set. I have not +been supposing that these latter partake in any way of the original +spirit which made the radio possible. But it is a fact of enormous +consequences, [p241] cumulative in its effect upon the education of +succeeding generations, that the radio, and all the other contrivances +around which modern civilization is constructed, should be possible +only by the increasing use of a scientific discipline. + + +3. _Naive Capitalism_ + +The application of science to the daily affairs of men was acclaimed +at first with more enthusiasm than understanding. “That early people,” +said Buffon, speaking of the Babylonians, “was very happy, because +it was very scientific.” Entranced with the success of the Newtonian +physics and by the dazzling effect of inventions, the intellectuals +of the Eighteenth Century persuaded themselves that science was a +messianic force which would liberate mankind from pain, drudgery, and +error. It was believed that science would somewhat mysteriously endow +mankind with invincible power over the forces of nature, and that men, +if they were released from the bondage of religious custom and belief, +could employ the power of science to their own consummate happiness. +The mechanical revolution, in short, was inaugurated on the theory +that the natural man must be liberated from moral conventions and that +nature must be subjugated by mechanical instruments. + +There are intelligible historical reasons why our great grandfathers +adopted this view. They found themselves in a world regulated by the +customs and beliefs of a landed society. They could not operate their +factories successfully in such a society, and they rebelled fiercely +against the customs which restricted them. That rebellion [p242] +was rationalized in the philosophy of _laissez-faire_ which meant in +essence that machine industry must not be interfered with by landlords +and peasants who had feudal rights, nor by governments which protected +those rights. On the positive side this rebellion expressed itself in +declarations of the rights of man. These declarations were a denial of +the vested rights of men under the old landed order and an assertion of +the rights of men, particularly the new middle-class men, who proposed +to make the most of the new industrial and mechanical order. By the +rights of men they meant primarily freedom of contract, freedom of +trade, freedom of occupation—those freedoms, that is to say, which +made it possible for the new employer to buy and sell, to hire and fire +without being accountable to anyone. + +The prophet of this new dispensation was Adam Smith. In the _Wealth of +Nations_ he wrote that + + All systems either of preference or of restraint ... being thus + completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural + liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as + he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to + pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry + and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order + of men. + +The employing class in the early days of capitalism honestly believed, +and indeed its less enlightened members still believe to this very +day, that somehow the general welfare will be served by trusting +naively to the acquisitive instincts of the employing capitalist. Thus +at the outset the machine technology was applied under the direction +of men who scorned as sentimental, when they [p243] did not regard +as subversive, that disinterestedness which alone makes possible the +machine technology itself. They did not understand science. They merely +exploited certain of the inventions which scientists produced. What +they believed, insofar as they had any philosophy, was that there +exists a preestablished harmony in the universe—an “obvious and +simple system of natural liberty,” in Adam Smith’s language, “which +establishes itself of its own accord”—by which if each man naively +pursued his primitive impulse to have and to hold in competition with +other men, peace, prosperity, and happiness would ensue. + +They did not ensue. And the social history of the last seventy-five +years has in large measure been concerned with the birth pains of an +industrial philosophy that will really suit the machine technology and +the nature of man. For the notion that an intricate and delicately +poised industrial mechanism could be operated by uneducated men +snatching competitively at profits was soon exposed as a simple-minded +delusion. + +It was discovered that if each banker was permitted to do what seemed +to him immediately most profitable, the result was a succession of +disastrous inflations and deflations of credit; that if natural +resources in oil, coal, lumber, and the like were subjected to the +competitive principle, the result was a shocking waste of irreplaceable +wealth; that if the hiring and firing of labor were carried on under +absolute freedom of contract, a whole chain of social evils in the form +of child labor, unsuitable labor for women, sweating, unemployment, +and the importation of cheap and unassimilable labor resulted; that if +business men were left to their own devices the consumer of necessary +[p244] goods was helpless when he was confronted with industries +in which there was an element of monopoly. There is no need here to +recount the well-known story of how in every modern community the +theory of free competition has in the course of the last generation +been modified by legislation, by organized labor, by organized business +itself. So little has _laissez-faire_ worked under actual experience +that all the powers of the government have actually had to be invoked +to preserve a certain amount of compulsory “free competition.” For the +industrial machine, as soon as it passes out of the early phase of +rough exploitation in virgin territory, becomes unmanageable by naively +competitive and acquisitive men. + + +4. _The Credo of Old-Style Business_ + +It was frequently pointed out by moralists like Ruskin and William +Morris, and by churchmen as well, that this “obvious and simple system +of natural liberty” by which “every man was left perfectly free to +pursue his own interest his own way,” was not only contrary to the +dogmas of the popular religion but irreconcilable with moral wisdom. +The credo of the unregenerate business man was utterly atheistical in +its premises, for it displaced the notion that there is any higher +will than his own to which the employer is accountable. It was more +than atheistical, however; it was, in Aristotle’s sense of the word, +barbarous in that it implied “the living as one likes” with virtually +complete acquiescence in the supremacy of the acquisitive instinct. + +There is no reason to suppose that such theoretical comments on the +credo of naive capitalism did more than [p245] rub off a little +of its unction. Capitalism may be, as Mr. Maynard Keynes has said, +“absolutely irreligious ... often, though not always, a mere congeries +of possessors and pursuers.” Were the credo workable in practice, some +way would have been found of anointing it with attractive phrases. The +real reason for the gradual abandonment of the credo, proclaimed by +Adam Smith and repeated so steadily since his day, is that the credo +of naive capitalism is deeply at variance with the real character +of modern industry. It rests upon false premises, is therefore +contradicted by experience, and has proved to be unworkable. + +The system of natural liberty assumes that if each man pursues his own +interest his own way, each man will promote his interest. There is an +unanalyzed fallacy in this theory which makes it utterly meaningless. +It is assumed that each man knows his own interest and can therefore +pursue it. But that is precisely what no man is certain to know, and +what few men can possibly know if they consult only their own impulses. +There is nothing in the natural equipment of man which enables him to +know intuitively whether it will be profitable to increase his output +or reduce it, to enter a new line of business, to buy or to sell, or to +make any of the other thousand and one decisions on which the conduct +of business depends. Since he is not born with this wisdom, since +he does not automatically absorb it from the air, to pursue his own +interest his own way is a fairly certain way to disaster. + +The fallacy of the theory of natural liberty is undetected in a +bonanza period of industrial development. Where the business man has +unexhausted natural resources to [p246] draw upon, where there is a +surplus of customers competing for his goods, he can with naive and +furious energy pursue his own interests his own way and reap enormous +profits. There is no real resistance from the outside; there are no +stubborn and irreducible facts to which he must adjust himself. He +can proceed with an infantile philosophy to achieve success. But this +bonanza period when the omnipotence of the capitalist is unthwarted, +and his omniscience therefore assumed, soon comes to an end. In +advanced communities the mere multiplication of industries produces +such a complicated environment that the business man is compelled to +substitute considered policies for his intuitions, objective surveys +for his guesses, and conferences world without end for his natural +liberties. + +What has upset the idea of the old-style business man that he knows +what’s what is that the relevant facts are no longer visible. The owner +of a primitive factory might have known all his working men and all +his customers; the keeper of a little neighborhood shop may still, to +a certain extent, know personally his whole business. But for most +men to-day the facts which matter vitally to them are out of sight, +beyond their personal control, intricate, subject to more or less +unpredictable changes, and even with highly technical reporting and +analysis almost unintelligible to the average man. + +It is, of course, the machine process itself which has created these +complications. Men are forced to buy and sell in markets that for many +commodities are world-wide: they do not buy and sell in one market +but in many markets, in markets for raw materials, in markets for +semi-finished goods, in wholesale and retail markets, in labor [p247] +markets, in the money market. They employ and are employed in corporate +organizations which are owned here, there, and everywhere. They compete +not only with their obvious competitors in the same line of business, +but with competitors in wholly different lines of business, automobiles +with railroads, railroads with ships, cotton goods with silk and silk +with artificial silk, pianos with furs and cigarettes with chewing gum. +The modern environment is invisible, complex, without settled plan, +subtly and swiftly changing, offering innumerable choices, demanding +great knowledge and imaginative effort to comprehend it. + +It is not a social order at all as the Greek city state or the feudal +society was a social order. It is rather a field for careers, an arena +of talents, an ordeal by trial and error, and a risky speculation. No +man has an established position in the modern world. There is no system +of rights and duties to which he is clearly subject. He moves among +these complexities which are shrouded in obscurity, making the best he +can out of what little it is possible for him to know. + + +5. _Old-Style Reform and Revolution_ + +Naive capitalism—that is to say, the theory of each for himself +according to such light as he might happen to possess—produced such +monstrous evils the world over that an anti-capitalist reaction was +the inevitable result. What had happened was that the most intricate +and consequential technology which man has ever employed on this +planet was given over to the direction of a class of enterprising, +acquisitive, uneducated, and undisciplined [p248] men. No doubt it +could not have been otherwise. The only discipline that was known was +the discipline of custom in a society of farmers, hand-workers, and +traders. The only education available was one based on the premises +of the past. The revolution in human affairs produced by the machine +began slowly, and no one could have anticipated its course. It would +be absurd, therefore, to complain in retrospect over the fact that +no one was prepared for the industrial changes which took place. +The only absurdity, and it is still a prevalent one, is to go on +supposing that the political philosophy and the “economic laws” which +were extemporized to justify the behavior of the first bewildered +capitalists have any real bearing upon modern industry. + +But it is almost equally absurd to take too seriously the “reforms” +and “solutions” which were devised by kindhearted men to alleviate +the pains suffered by those who were hurt by the results of this +early capitalist control of the machine. These proposals, when they +are examined, turn out almost invariably to have been proposals for +coercing or for abolishing the then masters of industry. I do not +mean to deny the utility of the long series of legislative enactments +which began about the middle of the Nineteenth Century and are still +being elaborated. The factory acts, the regulatory laws, the measures +designed to protect the consumers against fraud were, looked at singly, +good, bad, or indifferent. As a whole they were a necessary attempt +to police those who had been left free to pursue their own interest +their own way. But when it has been said that they were necessary, +and that they are still necessary, it is important to realize just +what they [p249] imply. They imply that the masters of industry are +unregenerate and will remain unregenerate. The whole effort to police +capitalism assumes that the capitalist can be civilized only by means +of the police. The trouble with this theory is that there is no way +to make sure that the policemen will themselves be civilized. It +presupposes that somehow politicians and office-holders will be wise +enough and disinterested enough to make business men do what they would +not otherwise do. The fundamental problem, which is to find a way of +directing industry wisely, is not solved. It is merely deposited on the +doorsteps of the politician. + +The revolutionary programs sponsored by the socialists in the half +century before the Great War were based on the notion that it is +impossible to police the capitalist-employers and that, therefore, they +should be abolished. In their place functionaries were to be installed. +The theory was that these functionaries, being hired by the state and +being deprived of all incentive for personal profit, would administer +the industrial machine disinterestedly. The trouble with this theory is +in its assumption that the removal of one kind of temptation, namely, +the possibility of direct personal pecuniary profit—will make the +functionaries mature and disinterested men. + +This is nothing but a new variant of the ascetic principle that it is +possible to shut off an undesirable impulse by thwarting it. Human +nature does not work that way. The mere frustration of an impulse like +acquisitiveness produces either some new expression of that impulse or +disorders due to its frustration. It produces, that is to say, either +corruption or the lethargy, the pedantry, and the [p250] officiousness +which are the diseases of bureaucracy the world over. The socialists +are right, as the early Christians were right, in their profound +distrust of the acquisitive instinct as the dominant motive in society. +But they are wrong in supposing that by transferring the command of +industry from business men to socialist officials they can in any +fundamental sense alter the acquisitive instinct. That can be done only +by refining the human character through a better understanding of the +environment. I do not mean to say that a revolution like the Russian +does not sweep away a vast amount of accumulated rubbish. I am talking +not about the salutary destruction which may accompany a revolution, +but of the problem which confronts the successful revolutionists when +they have to carry on the necessary affairs of men. + +When that time comes they are bound to find that the administration +of industry under socialism no less than under capitalism depends +upon the character of the administrators. Corrupt, stupid, grasping +functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as +stupid, selfish, and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism. +There is no escape from this elementary truth, and all social policies +which attempt to ignore it must come to grief. They are essentially +utopian. The early doctrine of _laissez-faire_ was utopian because it +assumed that unregenerate men were destined somehow to muddle their +way to a harmonious result. The early socialism was utopian because it +assumed that these same unregenerate men, once the laws of property had +been altered, would somehow muddle their way to a harmonious result. +Both ignored the chief lesson of human experience, which is [p251] the +insight of high religion, that unregenerate men can only muddle into +muddle. + +A dim recognition of this truth has helped to inspire the procedure of +the two most recent manifestations of the revolutionary spirit. I refer +to bolshevism and to fascism. It is proper, I believe, to talk of them +as one phenomenon for their fundamental similarities, as most everyone +but the bolshevists and the fascists themselves has noted, are much +greater than their superficial differences. They were attempts to cure +the evils resulting from the breakdown of a somewhat primitive form +of capitalism. In neither Russia nor Italy had modern industrialism +passed beyond its adolescent phase. In both countries the prevailing +social order for the great mass of people was still pre-machine and +pre-industrial. In both countries the acids of modernity had not yet +eaten deeply into the religious disposition of the people. In both +countries the natural pattern of all government was still the primitive +pattern of the hierarchy with an absolute sovereign at the top. The +bolshevik dictatorship and the fascist dictatorship, underneath all +their modernist labels and theories, are feudal military organizations +attempting to subdue and administer the machine technology. + +The theorists of the two dictatorships are, however, men educated under +modern influences, and the result is that their theories are an attempt +to explain the primitive behavior of the two dictatorships in terms +which are consistent with modern ideas. The formula reached in both +instances is the same one. The dictatorships are said to be temporary. +Their purpose, we are told, is to put the [p252] new social order +into effect, and to keep it going long enough by dictation from on top +to give time for a new generation to grow up which will be purged of +those vices which would make the new order unworkable. The bolshevists +and fascists regard themselves as ever so much more realistic than +the old democratic socialists and the _laissez-faire_ liberals whom +they have executed, exiled, or dosed with castor oil. In an important +sense they are more realistic. They have recognized that a substitute +for primitive capitalism cannot be inaugurated or administered by a +generation which has been schooled in the ways of primitive capitalism. +And therefore the oligarchy of dictators, as a conscious, enlightened, +superior, and heavily armed minority, propose to administer the +industrial machine as trustees until there is a generation ready to +accept the responsibilities. + +It would be idle to predict that they will not succeed. But it is +reasonable, I believe, to predict that if they succeed it will +be because they are administering relatively simple industrial +arrangements. It is precisely because the economic system of Russia is +still fundamentally pre-capitalist and pre-mechanical that the feudal +organization of the bolshevists is most likely to survive. Because +the economic system of Italy is more modern than Russia’s, the future +of the fascist dictatorship is much less assured. For insofar as the +machine technology is advanced, it becomes complex, delicate, and +difficult to manage by commands from the top. + + +6. _The Diffusion of the Acquisitive Instinct_ + +While both the bolshevists and the fascists look upon [p253] +themselves as pathfinders of progress, it is fairly clear, I think, +that they are, in the literal meaning of the term, reactionary. They +have won their victories among the people to whom modern large scale +industrial organization is still an unnatural and alien thing. It is no +accident that fascism or bolshevism took root in Italy and Spain, but +not in Germany and England, in Hungary but not in Austria, in Poland +but not in Czechoslovakia, in Russia but not in Scandinavia, in China +but not in Japan, in Central America but not in Canada or the United +States. Dictatorship, based on a military hierarchy, administering +the affairs of the community on behalf of the “nation” or of the +“proletariat,” is nothing but a return to the natural organization of +society in the pre-machine age. Some countries, like Russia, Mexico, +and China, for example, are still living in the pre-machine age. +Others, like Italy, had become only partially industrialized when they +were subjected to such strains by the War that they reverted to the +feudal pattern of behavior. Unable to master the industrial process by +methods which are appropriate to it, the fascists and the bolshevists +are attempting to master it by methods which antedate it. That is why +military dictatorship in a country like Mexico may be looked upon as +the normal type of social control, whereas in Italy it is regressive +and neurotic. Feudal habits are appropriate to a feudal society; in +a semi-industrialized nation they are a social disease. It is the +disease of frightened and despairing men who, having failed to adjust +themselves to the reality of the industrial process, try, by main +force and awkwardness, to adjust the machine process to a pre-machine +mentality. [p254] + +The more primitive the machine process is—that is, the more nearly it +resembles the petty handicrafts of earlier days—the better are the +chances for survival of a bolshevist or fascist dictatorship. Where +the machine technology is really established and advanced it is simply +unmanageable by militarized functionaries. For when the process has +become infinitely complicated, the subdivision of function is carried +so far, the internal adjustments are so numerous and so varied that +no collection of oligarchs in a capital city, however much they may +look like supermen, can possibly direct the industrial system. In its +advanced stages, as it now exists in England, Germany, or the United +States, nobody comprehends the system as a whole. One has only to +glance over the financial pages of an American newspaper, to look at +the list of corporations doing business, to try and imagine the myriad +daily decisions at a thousand points which their business involves, +in order to realize the bewildering complexity of modern industrial +society. To suppose that all that can be administered, or even +directed, from any central point by any human brain, by any cabinet of +officeholders or cabal of revolutionists, is simply to have failed to +take it in. Here is the essential reason why bolshevism and fascism +are, as we say, un-American. They are no less un-Belgian, un-German, +un-English. For they are unindustrial. + +The same reasons which make dictatorship unworkable are rapidly +rendering obsolete the attempts to reform industry by policing it. +Every year as the machine technology becomes more elaborated, the +legislative control for which the pre-war progressives fought becomes +less [p255] effective. It becomes more and more difficult for +legislatures to make laws to protect the workers which really fit the +rapidly changing conditions of work. Hence the tendency to put the real +law-making power in the hands of administrative officials and judges +who can adjust the general purpose of the law to the unclassifiable +facts of industry. The whole attempt to regulate public utilities in +the interest of the consumer is chaotic, for these organizations, by +their intricacies, their scale, and their constant revolutions in +technology, tend to escape the jurisdiction of officials exercising +a local jurisdiction. The current outcry against the multiplication +of laws and the meddling of legislatures is in part, but not wholly, +the outcry of old-fashioned business men demanding their old natural +liberty to pursue their own interest their own way. The outcry is +due no less to a recognition that the industrial process is becoming +too subtly organized to be policed successfully by the wholesale, +uninformed enactments of legislatures. + +Yet the very thing which makes an advanced industrial organization +too complex to be directed by a dictatorship, or to be policed by +democratic politicians, is forcing the leaders of industry to evolve +forms of self-control. When I say that they are being forced to do this +I am not referring to those ostentatiously benevolent things which are +done now and then as sops to Cerberus. There is a certain amount of +reform undertaken voluntarily by men who profess to fear ‘bolshevism,’ +and if not bolshevism, then Congress. That is relatively unimportant. +So also is the discovery that it pays to cultivate the good will of +the public. What I am referring to is the fact that the [p256] sheer +complexity of the industrial system would make it unmanageable to +business men, no less than to politicians or dictators, if business men +were not learning to organize its control. + +It is the necessity of stabilizing their own business, of directing +technical processes which are beyond the understanding of stockholders, +of adjusting the supply and demand of the multitudinous elements +they deal in, which is the compelling force behind that divorce +between management and ownership, that growing use of experts and of +statistical measurements, and that development of trade associations, +of conferences, committees, and councils, with which modern industry +is honeycombed. The captain of industry in the romantic sense tends to +disappear in highly evolved industrial organizations. His thundering +commands are replaced by the decisions of executives who consult with +representatives of the interests involved and check their opinions +by the findings of experts. The greater the corporation the more +the shareholders and the directors lose the actual direction of the +institution. They cannot direct the corporation because they do +not really know what it is and what it is doing. That knowledge is +subdivided among the executives and bureau chiefs and consultants, all +of them on salary; each of them is so relatively small a factor in the +whole that his personal success is in very large degree bound up with +the success of the institution. A certain amount of jealousy, intrigue, +and destructive pushing, of office politics, in short, naturally +prevails, men being what they are. But as compared with the old-style +business man, the ordinary executive in a great corporation is +something quite strange. He is [p257] so little the monarch of all he +surveys, his experience is so continually with stubborn and irreducible +facts, he is so much compelled to adjust his own preferences to the +preferences of others, that he becomes a relatively disinterested +person. The more clearly he realizes the nature of his position in +industry, the more he tends to submit his desires to the discipline of +objective information. And the more he does this the less dominated +he is by the acquisitiveness of immaturity. He may on the side gamble +acquisitively in the stock market or at the race track, but in relation +to his business his acquisitive instinct tends to become diffused and +to be absorbed in the job itself. + + +7. _Ideals_ + +It is my impression that when machine industry reaches a certain scale +of complexity it exerts such pressure upon the men who run it that they +cannot help socializing it. They are subject to a kind of economic +selection under which only those men survive who are capable of taking +a somewhat disinterested view of their work. A mature industry, because +it is too subtly organized to be run by naively passionate men, puts a +premium upon men whose characters are sufficiently matured to make them +respect reality and to discount their own prejudices. + +When the machine technology is really advanced, that is to say when it +has drawn great masses of men within the orbit of its influence, when +a corporation has become really great, the old distinction between +public and private interest becomes very dim. I think it is destined +largely to disappear. It is difficult even to-day to say [p258] +whether the great railways, the General Electric Company, the United +States Steel Corporation, the bigger insurance companies and banks are +public or private institutions. When institutions reach a point where +the legal owners are virtually disfranchised, when the direction is in +the hands of salaried executives, technicians, and experts who hold +themselves more or less accountable in standards of conduct to their +fellow professionals, when the ultimate control is looked upon by the +directors not as “business” but as a trust, it is not fanciful to say, +as Mr. Keynes has said, that “the battle of socialism against unlimited +private profit is being won in detail hour by hour.” + +Insofar as industry itself evolves its own control, it will regain its +liberty from external interference. To say that is to say simply that +the “natural liberty” of the early business man was unworkable because +the early business man was unregenerate: he was immature, and he was +therefore acquisitive. The only kind of liberty which is workable in +the real world is the liberty of the disinterested man, of the man who +has transformed his passions by an understanding of necessity. He can, +as Confucius said, follow what his heart desires without transgressing +what is right. For he has learned to desire what is right. + +The more perfectly we understand the implications of the machine +technology upon which our civilization is based, the easier it will be +for us to live with it. We shall discern the ideals of our industry in +the necessities of industry itself. They are the direction in which it +must evolve if it is to fulfill itself. That is what ideals are. They +are not hallucinations. They are not a collection [p259] of pretty and +casual preferences. Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that +which is desirable in that which is possible. As we discern the ideals +of the machine technology we can consciously pursue them, knowing that +we are not vainly trying to impose our casual prejudices, but that we +are in harmony with the age we live in. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII [p260] + +GOVERNMENT IN THE GREAT SOCIETY + + +1. _Loyalty_ + +The difficulty of discovering an industrial philosophy which fits +machine industry on a large scale has proved less trying than the +discovery of a political philosophy which fits the modern state. I do +not know why this should be so unless it be that, as compared with +politicians, business men have had a closer opportunity to observe +and more pressing reasons for trying to understand the transformation +wrought by machinery and scientific invention. Certainly even the best +political thinking is notably inferior in realism and in pertinence +to the economic thinking which now plays so important a part in the +direction of industry. To a very considerable degree the writer on +politics to-day is about where the economist was when all economic +theory began and for all practical purposes seemed to end with Robinson +Crusoe and his man Friday. Nobody takes political science very +seriously, for nobody is convinced that it is a science or that it has +any important bearing on politics. + +In very considerable measure political theory in the modern world +is sterilized by its own ideas. There have been passed down from +generation to generation a collection of concepts which are so hallowed +and so dense that their only use is to excite emotions and to obscure +insight. [p261] How many of us really know what we are talking +about when we use words like the state, sovereignty, independence, +democracy, representative government, national honor, liberty, and +loyalty? Very few of us, I think, could define any of these terms +under cross-examination, though we are prepared to shed blood, or at +least ink, in their behalf. These terms have ceased to be intellectual +instruments for apprehending the facts we have to deal with and have +become push buttons which touch off emotional reflexes. + +As good a way as any to raise the temperature of political debate is to +talk about loyalty. Everybody regards himself as loyal and resents any +imputation upon his loyalty, yet even a cursory inspection of this term +will show, I think, that it may mean any number of different things. +It is clearest when used in a military sense. A loyal soldier is one +who obeys his superior officer. A loyal officer is one who obeys his +commander-in-chief. But just exactly what is a loyal commander-in-chief +cannot be told so easily. He is loyal to the nation. He is loyal to the +best interests of the nation. But what those best interests may be, +whether they mean making peace or carrying the war into the enemy’s +country, is an exceedingly debatable question. When the citizen’s +loyalty is in question the whole matter becomes immensely subtle. Must +he be loyal to every law and every command issued by the established +authorities, kings, legislators, and aldermen? There are many who would +say that this is the definition of civic loyalty, to obey the law +without qualifications while it is a law. But such definition puts the +taint of disloyalty on almost all citizens [p262] of the modern state. +For the fact is that all the laws on the books are not even known, and +that a considerable portion are entirely disregarded, and many it is +impossible to obey. The definition, moreover, places outside the pale +many who rank as great patriots, men who defied the law out of loyalty +to some principle which the lawmakers have rejected. But what makes +matters even more complicated is the fact that in modern communities +the principle is accepted that the commands of the established +authorities not only may be criticized but that they ought to be. + +At this stage of political development the military element in +loyalty has virtually disappeared. The idea of toleration, of freedom +of speech, and above all the idea of organized opposition, alters +radically the attributes of the sovereign. For a sovereign who has to +be obeyed but not believed in, whose decisions are legitimate matters +of dispute, who may be displaced by his bitterest opponents, has lost +all semblance of omnipotence and omniscience. “He has sovereignty,” +wrote Jean Bodin, “who, after God, acknowledges no one greater than +himself.” Our governors command only for the time being—and within +strict limits. Their authority is only such as they can win and hold. +Political loyalty under these conditions, whatever else it may be, +is certainly not unqualified allegiance to those who hold office, to +the policies they pursue, or even to the laws they enact. Neither the +government as it exists, nor its conduct, nor even the constitution by +which it operates, exercises any ultimate claim upon the loyalty of the +citizen. The most one can say, I think, is that the loyal citizen is +one who loves his country and regards the status quo as an arrangement +which he [p263] is at liberty to modify only by argument, according to +well-understood rules, without violence, and with due regard for the +interests and opinions of his fellow men. If he is loyal to this ideal +of political conduct he is as loyal as the modern state can force him +to be, or as it is desirable that he should be. + + +2. _The Evolution of Loyalty_ + +Broadly speaking, the evolution of political loyalty passes through +three phases. In the earliest, the most primitive, and for almost all +men the most natural, loyalty is allegiance to a chieftain; in the +middle phase it tends to become allegiance to an institution—that is +to say, to a corporate, rather than to a human, personality; and in the +last phase it becomes allegiance to a pattern of conduct. The kind of +government which any community is capable of operating is very largely +determined by the kind of loyalty of which its members are capable. + +It is plain, for example, that among a people who are capable only of +loyalty to another human being the political system is bound to take +the shape of a hierarchy, in which each man is loyal to his superior, +and the man at the top is loyal to God alone. Such a society will be +feudal, military, theocratic. If it is successfully organized it will +be an ordered despotism, culminating, as the feudal system did, in +God’s Vice-gerent on earth. If it is unsuccessfully organized, as for +example, in the more backward countries of Central America to-day, +the system of personal allegiances will produce little factions each +with its chief, all of them contending for, without quite achieving, +absolute power. This type of organization is so fundamentally [p264] +human that it prevails even in communities which think they have +outgrown it. Thus it appears in what Americans call a political +machine, which is nothing but a hierarchy of professional politicians +held together by profitable personal loyalties. The political boss +is a demilitarized chieftain in the direct line of descent from his +prototypes. + +The modern world has come to regard organization on the basis of human +allegiances as alien and dangerous. Yet the political machine exists +even in the most advanced communities. The reason for that is obvious. +With the enfranchisement of virtually the whole adult population, +political power has passed into the hands of a great mass of people +most of whom are altogether incapable of loyalty to institutions, +much less to ideas. They do not understand them. For these voters +the only kind of political behavior is through allegiance to a human +superior, and modern democracies are considered fortunate if the +political leaders and bosses on whom these human allegiances converge +are relatively loyal to the institutions of the country. This, for +example, is the meaning of the dramatic speech in which President +Calles on September 1, 1928, voluntarily renounced the continuation of +his own dictatorship. “For the first time in Mexican history,” he said, +“the Republic faces a situation (owing to the assassination of General +Obregon) whose dominant note is the lack of a military leader, which +is going to make it finally possible for us to direct the policy of +the country into truly institutional channels, striving to pass once +for all from our historical condition of one-man rule to the higher, +more dignified, more useful, and more civilized condition of a nation +of laws and institutions.” It is [p265] hardly to be supposed that +President Calles thought that the Mexican people as a whole could pass +once for all from their historical condition of one-man rule. What he +meant was that the political chieftains to whom the people were loyal +ought thereafter to arrange the succession and to exercise power not +as seemed desirable to them, or as they might imagine that God had +privately commanded them, but in accordance with objective rules of +political conduct. + +The conceptions of sovereignty which we inherit are derived from the +primitive system of personal allegiances. That is why the conception +of sovereignty has become increasingly confused as modern civilization +has become more complex. In the Middle Ages the theory reached its +symmetrical perfection. Mankind was conceived as a great organism in +which the spiritual and temporal hierarchies were united as the soul +is united with the body in “an inseverable connection and an unbroken +interaction which must display itself in every part and also throughout +the whole.” But of course even in the Middle Ages the symmetry of this +conception was marred by the fierce disputes between the Emperors and +the Popes. After the Sixteenth Century the whole conception began to +disintegrate. There appeared a congeries of monarchs each claiming to +rule in his territory by divine right. But obviously when there are +many agents of the Lord ruling men, and when they do not agree, the +theory of sovereignty in its moral aspects is in grave difficulties. + +As time went on, limitations of all kinds began to be imposed upon +sovereigns. The existence at the same time of many sovereigns produced +the need of international law, for obviously there could have been no +international [p266] law in a world where all of mankind, barring +infidels who did not have to be considered, were under one sovereign +power. The limitations imposed by international law from without were +accompanied by limitations imposed from within. + +These limitations from within were based on quite practical +considerations. There grew up slowly in the Middle Ages the idea +that the State originated “in a contract of Subjection made between +People and Ruler.” The first modern writer to argue effectively that +government was based not on a warrant from the Lord, but on a “social +compact” is said to have been Richard Hooker, a clergyman of the +Established Church, who held, in 1594, that the royal authority was +derived from a contract between the king and the people. This idea +soon became popular, for it suited the needs of all those who did not +participate in the privileges of the absolute monarchy. It suited not +only the Church of England, when as in Hooker’s time it was assailed, +but also the dissenting churches, and then the rising middle class +whose ambitions were frustrated by the landed nobles with the king at +their head. The doctrine of the social compact was expounded in many +different forms in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries by men like +Milton, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. + +As an historical theory to explain the origin of human society it +is of course demonstrably false, but as a weapon for breaking up +the concentration of sovereign power and distributing it, the idea +has played a mighty role in history. It is almost certain to appear +wherever there is an absolutism which men feel the need of checking. +But the [p267] theory of the social compact disappears when power +has become so widely diffused that no one can any longer locate +the sovereign. That is what is happening in the advanced modern +communities. The sovereign, whom it was once desirable to put under +contract, has become so anonymous and diffuse that his very existence +to-day is a legal fiction rather than a political fact. And loyalty +by the same token is no longer provided with a personal superior of +indubitable prestige to which it can be attached. + + +3. _Pluralism_ + +The relationship between lord and vassals in which each man attaches +himself for better or worse to some superior person tends gradually to +disappear in the modern world. Its passing was somewhat prematurely +announced by the Declaration of the Rights of Man; it did not wholly +disappear by the dissolution of the bonds which bound one man to +another, for the psychological bonds are stronger than the legal. +Nevertheless the effect of modern civilization is to dissolve these +psychological bonds, to break up clannishness and personal dependence. +Men and women alike tend to become more or less independent persons +rather than to remain members of a social organism. + +The reason for this lies in the diversification of their interests. +Life in the ancestral order was not only simpler and contained within +narrower limits than it is to-day, but there was a far greater unity +in the activity of each individual. Working the land, fighting, +raising a family, worshipping, were so closely related that they could +be governed by a very simple allegiance to the chief of the tribe +[p268] or the lord of the manor. In the modern world this synthesis +has disintegrated and the activities of a man cannot be directed by a +simple allegiance. Each man finds himself the center of a complex of +loyalties. He is loyal to his government, he is loyal to his state, he +is loyal to his village, he is loyal to his neighborhood. He has his +own family. He has his wife’s family. His wife has her family. He has +his church. His wife may have a different church. He may be an employer +of thousands of men. He may be an employee. He must be loyal to his +corporation, to his trade union, or his professional society. He is +a buyer in many different markets. He is a seller in many different +markets. He is a creditor and a debtor. He owns shares in several +industries. He belongs to a political party, to clubs, to a social set. +The multiplicity of his interests makes it impossible for him to give +his whole allegiance to any person or to any institution. + +It may be, in fact for most men it must be, that in each of these +associations he follows a leader. In any considerable number of people +it is certain that they will group themselves in hierarchical form. +In every club, in every social circle, in every trade union, in every +stockholders’ meeting there are leaders and their lieutenants and the +led. But these allegiances are partial. Because a man has so many +loyalties each loyalty commands only a segment of himself. They are +not, therefore, whole-hearted loyalties like that of a good soldier +to his captain. They are qualified, calculated, debatable, and they +are sanctioned not by inherent authority but by expediency or inertia. +[p269] + +The outward manifestation of these complex loyalties of the modern man +is the multitude of institutions through which the affairs of mankind +are directed. Now since each of these corporate entities represents +only a part of any man’s interest, except perhaps in the case of the +paid executive secretary, none of these institutions can count to the +bitter end upon the undivided loyalty of all its members. The conflicts +between institutions are in considerable measure conflicts of interest +within the same individuals. There is a point where the activity of a +man’s trade union may so seriously affect the value of the securities +he owns that he does not know which way his interest lies. The +criss-crossing of loyalties is so great in an advanced community that +no grouping is self-contained. No grouping, therefore, can maintain a +military discipline or a military character. For when men strive too +fiercely as members of any one group they soon find that they are at +war with themselves as members of another group. + +The statement that modern society is pluralistic cannot, then, be +dismissed as a newfangled notion invented by theorists. It is a sober +description of the actual facts. Each man has countless interests +through which he is attached to a very complex social situation. +The complexity of his allegiance cannot fail to be reflected in his +political conduct. + + +4. _Live and Let Live_ + +One of the inevitable effects of being attached to many different, +somewhat conflicting, interdependent groupings is to blunt the edges +of partisanship. It is possible to [p270] be fiercely partisan only +as against those who are wholly alien. It is a fair generalization to +say that the fiercest Democrats are to be found where there are the +fewest Republicans, the most bloodthirsty patriots in the safest swivel +chairs. Where men are personally entangled with the groups that are +in potential conflict, where Democrats and Republicans belong to the +same country club and where Protestants and Catholics marry each other, +it is psychologically impossible to be sharply intolerant. That is +why astute directors of corporations adopt the policy of distributing +their securities as widely as they can; they know quite well that +even the most modest shareholder is in some measure insulated against +anti-corporate agitation. It is inherent in the complex pluralism of +the modern world that men should behave moderately, and experience +amply confirms this conclusion. + +There is little doubt that in the great metropolitan centers there +exists a disposition to live and let live, to give and take, to agree +and to agree to differ, which is not to be found in simple homogeneous +communities. In complex communities life quickly becomes intolerable if +men are intolerant. For they are in daily contact with almost everybody +and everything they could conceivably wish to persecute. Their victims +would be their customers, their employees, their landlords, their +tenants and perhaps their wives’ relations. But in a simple community +a kind of pastoral intolerance for everything alien adds a quaint +flavor to living. For the most part it vents itself in the open air. +The terrible indictments drawn up in a Mississippi village against the +Pope in Rome, the Russian nation, the vices of Paris, and the [p271] +enormities of New York are in the main quite lyrical. The Pope may +never even know what the Mississippi preacher thinks of him and New +York continues to go to, but never apparently to reach, hell. + +When an agitator wishes to start a crusade, a religious revival, an +inquisition, or some sort of jingo excitement, the further he goes from +the centers of modern civilization the more following he can attract. +It is in the backwoods and in the hill country, in kitchens and in +old men’s clubs, that fanaticism can be kindled. The urban crowd, if +it has been urban for any length of time and has become used to its +environment, may be fickle, faddish, nervous, unstable, but it lacks +the concentration of energy to become fiercely excited for any length +of time about anything. At its worst it is a raging mob, but it is +not persistently fanatical. There are too many things to attract its +attention for it to remain preoccupied for long with any one thing. + +To responsible men of affairs the complexity of modern civilization is +a daily lesson in the necessity of not pressing any claim too far, of +understanding opposing points of view, of seeking to reconcile them, of +conducting matters so that there is some kind of harmony in a plural +society. This accounts, I think, for the increasing use of political +devices which are wholly unknown in simpler societies. There is, for +example, the ideal of a civil service. It is wholly modern and it is +quite revolutionary. For it assumes that a great deal of the business +of the state can and must be carried on by a class of men who have no +personal and no party allegiance, who are in fact neutral in politics +and concerned only with the execution [p272] of a task. I know how +imperfectly the civil service works, but that it should exist at all, +and that the ideal it embodies should be generally acknowledged, +is profound testimony as to how inherent in the modern situation +is the concept of disinterestedness. The theory of an independent +judiciary arises out of the same need for disinterested judgment. +Even more significant, perhaps, is the use in all political debates +of the evidence of technicians, experts, and neutral investigators. +The statesman who imagined he had thought up a solution for a social +problem while he was in his bath would be a good deal of a joke; even +if he had stumbled on a good idea, he would not dare to commit himself +to it without elaborate preliminary surveys, investigations, hearings, +conferences, and the like. + +Men occupying responsible posts in the Great Society have become aware, +in short, that their guesses and their prejudices are untrustworthy, +and that successful decisions can be made only in a neutral spirit by +comparing their hypotheses with their understanding of reality. + + +5. _Government in the People_ + +It has been the cause of considerable wonder to many persons that the +most complex modern communities, where the old loyalties are most +completely dissolved, where authority has so little prestige, where +moral codes are held in such small esteem, should nevertheless have +proved to be far more impervious to the strain of war and revolution +than the older and simpler types of civilization. It has been Russia, +China, Poland, Italy, Spain, rather than England, Germany, Belgium, +and the United States which have been most disorderly in the post-war +[p273] period. The contrary might have been expected. It might well +have been anticipated that the highly organized, delicately poised +social mechanisms would disintegrate the most easily. + +Yet it is now evident why modern civilization is so durable. Its +strength lies in its sensitiveness. The effect of bad decisions is +so quickly felt, the consequences are so inescapably serious, that +corrective action is almost immediately set in motion. A simple society +like Russia can let its railroads go gradually to wrack and ruin, but +a complex society like London or New York is instantly disorganized +if the railroads do not run on schedule. So many persons are at once +affected in so many vitally important ways that remedies have to be +found immediately. This does not mean that modern states are governed +as wisely as they should be, or that they do not neglect much that they +cannot really afford to neglect. They blunder along badly enough in all +conscience. There is nevertheless a minimum of order and of necessary +services which they have to provide for themselves. They have to keep +going. They cannot afford the luxury of prolonged disorder or of a +general paralysis. Their own necessities are dependent on such fragile +structures, and everyone is so much affected, that when a modern state +is in trouble it can draw upon incomparable reserves of public spirit. + +“I made ninety-one local committees in ninety-one local communities to +look after the Mississippi flood,” Mr. Hoover once explained, “that’s +what I principally did.... You say: ‘a couple of thousand refugees are +coming. They’ve got to have accommodations. Huts. [p274] Water-mains. +Sewers. Streets. Dining-halls. Meals. Doctors. Everything.’... So +you go away and they go ahead and just simply do it. Of all those +ninety-one committees there was just one that fell down.” Mr. Hard, +who reports these remarks, goes on to make Mr. Hoover say that: “No +other Main Street in the world could have done what the American +Main Street did in the Mississippi flood; and Europe may jeer as it +pleases at our mass production and our mass organization and our mass +education. The safety of the United States is its multitudinous mass +leadership.” Allowing for the fact that these remarks appeared in a +campaign biography at a time when Mr. Hoover’s friends were rather +concerned about demonstrating the intensity of his patriotism, there +is nevertheless substantial truth in them. I am inclined to believe +that “multitudinous mass leadership” will be found wherever industrial +society is firmly established, that is to say, wherever a people has +lived with the machine process long enough to acquire the aptitudes +that it calls for. This capacity to organize, to administer affairs, +to deal realistically with necessity, can hardly be due to some +congenital superiority in the American people. They are, after all +only transplanted Europeans. That their aptitudes may be somewhat more +highly developed is not, however, inconceivable: the new civilization +may have developed more freely in a land where it did not have to +contend with the institutions of a military, feudal, and clerical +society. + +The essential point is that as the machine technology makes social +relations complex, it dissolves the habits of obedience and dependence; +it disintegrates the centralization [p275] of power and of leadership; +it diffuses the experience of responsible decision throughout the +population, compelling each man to acquire the habit of making +judgments instead of looking for orders, of adjusting his will to the +wills of others instead of trusting to custom and organic loyalties. +The real law under which modern society is administered is neither the +accumulated precedents of tradition nor a set of commands originating +on high which are imposed like orders in an army upon the rank and file +below. The real law in the modern state is the multitude of little +decisions made daily by millions of men. + +Because this is so, the character of government is changing radically. +This change is obscured for us in our theorizing by the fact that our +political ideas derive from a different kind of social experience. +We think of governing as the act of a person; for the actual king we +have tried to substitute a corporate king, which we call the nation, +the people, the majority, public opinion, or the general will. But +none of these entities has the attributes of a king, and the failure +of political thinking to lay the ghosts of monarchy leads to endless +misunderstanding. The crucial difference between modern politics and +that to which mankind has been accustomed is that the power to act and +to compel obedience is almost never sufficiently centralized nowadays +to be exercised by one will. The power is distributed and qualified so +that power is exerted not by command but by interaction. + +The prime business of government, therefore, is not to direct the +affairs of the community, but to harmonize the direction which the +community gives to its affairs. [p276] The Congress of the United +States, for example, does not consult the conscience and its God and +then decree a tariff law. It enacts the kind of tariff which at the +moment represents the most stable compromise among the interests which +have made themselves heard. The law may be outrageously unfair. But if +it is, that is because those whose interests are neglected did not at +that time have the power to make themselves felt. If the law favors +manufacturers rather than farmers, it is because the manufacturers +at that time have greater weight in the social equilibrium than the +farmers. That may sound hard. But it is doubtful whether a modern +legislature can make laws effective if those laws are not the formal +expression of what the persons actually affected can and wish to do. + +The amount of law is relatively small which a modern legislature can +successfully impose. The reason for this is that unless the enforcement +of the law is taken in hand by the citizenry, the officials as such +are quite helpless. It is possible to enforce the law of contracts, +because the injured party will sue; it is possible to enforce the law +against burglary, because almost everybody will report a burglary to +the police. But it is not possible to enforce the old-fashioned speed +laws on the highways because the police are too few and far between, +the pedestrians are uninterested, and motorists like to speed. There is +here a very fundamental principle of modern lawmaking: insofar as a law +depends upon the initiative of officials in detecting violations and in +prosecuting, that law will almost certainly be difficult to enforce. If +a considerable part of the population is hostile to the law, and if the +[p277] majority has only a platonic belief in it, the law will surely +break down. For what gives law reality is not that it is commanded by +the sovereign but that it brings the organized force of the state to +the aid of those citizens who believe in the law. + +What the government really does is not to rule men, but to add +overwhelming force to men when they rule their affairs. The passage +of a law is in effect a promise that the police, the courts, and the +officials will defend and enforce certain rights when citizens choose +to exercise them. For all practical purposes this is just as true when +what was once a private wrong to be redressed by private action in law +courts on proof of specific injury has been made by statute a public +wrong which is preventable and punishable by administrative action. +When the citizens are no longer interested in preventing or punishing +specific instances of what the statute declares is a public wrong, the +statute becomes a dead letter. The principle is most obviously true in +the case of a sumptuary law like prohibition. The reason prohibition +is unenforceable in the great cities is that the citizens will not +report the names and addresses of their bootleggers to the prohibition +officials. But the principle is no less true in less obvious cases, +as, for example, in tariffs or laws to regulate railroads. Thus it is +difficult to enforce the tariff law on jewels, for they are easily +smuggled. Insofar as the law is enforced it is because jewelers find +it profitable to maintain an organization which detects smuggling. +Because they know the ins and outs of the trade, and have men in all +the jewelry markets of the world who have an interest in catching +smugglers, it is possible for the United [p278] States Government to +make a fair showing in administering the law. The government cannot +from hour to hour inspect all the transactions of its people, and +any law which rests on the premise that government can do this is +a foolish law. The railroad laws are enforced because shippers are +vigilant. The criminal laws depend upon how earnestly citizens object +to certain kinds of crime. In fact it may be said that laws which make +certain kinds of conduct illicit are effective insofar as the breach +of these laws arouses the citizenry to call in the police and to take +the trouble to help the police. It is not enough that the mass of the +population should be law-abiding. A minority can stultify the law if +the population as a whole is not also law-enforcing. + +This is the real sense in which it can be said that power in the modern +state resides not in the government but in the people. As that phrase +is usually employed it alleges that ‘the people,’ as articulated by +elected officials, can govern by command as the monarch or tribal +chieftain once governed. In this sense government by the people is a +delusion. What we have among advanced communities is something that +might perhaps be described as government in the people. The naively +democratic theory was that out of the mass of the voters there arose a +cloud of wills which ascended to heaven, condensed into a thunderbolt, +and then smote the people. It was supposed that the opinion of masses +of persons somehow became the opinion of a corporate person called The +People, and that this corporate person then directed human affairs like +a monarch. But that is not what happens. Government is in the people +and stays there. Government is [p279] their multitudinous decisions in +concrete situations, and what officials do is to assist and facilitate +this process of governing. Effective laws may be said to register an +understanding among those concerned by which the law-abiding know +what to expect and what is expected of them; they are insured with +all the force that the state commands against the disruption of this +understanding by the recalcitrant minority. In the modern state a law +which does not register the inward assent of most of those who are +affected will have very little force as against the breakers of that +law. For it is only by that inward assent that power becomes mobilized +to enforce the law. The government in the person of its officials, its +paltry inspectors and policemen, has relatively little power of its +own. It derives its power from the people in amounts which vary with +the circumstances of each law. That is why the same government may act +with invincible majesty in one place and with ludicrous futility in +another. + + +6. _Politicians and Statesmen_ + +The role of the leader would be easier to define if it were agreed +to give separate meanings to two very common words. I mean the words +“politician” and “statesman.” In popular usage a vague distinction +is recognized: to call a man a statesman is eulogy, to call him a +politician is to be, however faintly, disparaging. The dictionary, in +fact, defines a politician as one who seeks to subserve the interests +of a political party _merely_; as an afterthought it defines him as +one skilled in political science: a statesman. And in defining a +statesman the [p280] dictionary says that he is a political leader of +distinguished ability. + +These definitions can, I think, be improved upon by clarifying the +meanings which are vaguely intended in popular usage. When we think +offhand of a politician we think of a man who works for a partial +interest. At the worst it is his own pocket. At the best it may be +his party, his class, or an institution with which he is identified. +We never feel that he can or will take into account all the interests +concerned, and because bias and partisanship are the qualities of +his conduct, we feel, unless we are naively afflicted with the same +bias, that he is not to be trusted too far. Now the word ‘statesman,’ +when it is not mere pomposity, connotes a man whose mind is elevated +sufficiently above the conflict of contending parties to enable him to +adopt a course of action which takes into account a greater number of +interests in the perspective of a longer period of time. It is some +such conception as this that Edmund Burke had in mind when he wrote +that the state “ought not to be considered as nothing better than a +partnership in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or +some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary +interest and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties.... It is a +partnership in a higher and more permanent sense—a partnership in all +science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in +all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained +in many generations it becomes a partnership not only between those +who are living, but between those who are dead and those who are to be +born.” [p281] + +The politician, then, is a man who seeks to attain the special objects +of particular interests. If he is the leader of a political party he +will try either to purchase the support of particular interests by +specific pledges, or if that is impracticable, he will employ some +form of deception. I include under the term ‘deception’ the whole art +of propaganda, whether it consists of half-truths, lies, ambiguities, +evasions, calculated silence, red herrings, unresponsiveness, slogans, +catchwords, showmanship, bathos, hokum, and buncombe. They are, one and +all, methods of preventing a disinterested inquiry into the situation. +I do not say that any one can be elected to office without employing +deception, though I am inclined to think that there is a new school of +political reporters in the land who with a kind of beautiful cruelty +are making it rather embarrassing for politicians to employ their old +tricks. A man may have to be a politician to be elected when there is +adult suffrage, and it may be that statesmanship, in the sense in which +I am using the term, cannot occupy the whole attention of any public +man. It is true at least that it never does. + +The reason for this is that in order to hold office a man must array in +his support a varied assortment of persons with all sorts of confused +and conflicting purposes. When then, it may be asked, does he begin to +be a statesman? He begins whenever he stops trying merely to satisfy or +to obfuscate the momentary wishes of his constituents, and sets out to +make them realize and assent to those hidden interests of theirs which +are permanent because they fit the facts and can be harmonized with the +interests of their neighbors. The politician says: “I [p282] will give +you what you want.” The statesman says: “What you think you want is +this. What it is possible for you to get is that. What you really want, +therefore, is the following.” The politician stirs up a following; the +statesman leads it. The politician, in brief, accepts unregenerate +desire at its face value and either fulfills it or perpetrates a fraud; +the statesman re-educates desire by confronting it with the reality, +and so makes possible an enduring adjustment of interests within the +community. + +The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions +is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which +converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate +from the naive self-interest of each group to its permanent and real +interest. It is a difficult art which requires great courage, deep +sympathy, and a vast amount of information. That is why it is so rare. +But when a statesman is successful in converting his constituents from +a childlike pursuit of what seems interesting to a realistic view of +their interests, he receives a kind of support which the ordinary glib +politician can never hope for. Candor is a bitter pill when first it is +tasted but it is full of health, and once a man becomes established in +the public mind as a person who deals habitually and successfully with +real things, he acquires an eminence of a wholly different quality from +that of even the most celebrated caterer to the popular favor. His hold +on the people is enduring because he promises nothing which he cannot +achieve; he proposes nothing which turns out to be a fake. Sooner or +later the politician, because he deals in unrealities, is found out. +Then he either goes to jail, or he is tolerated [p283] cynically as a +picturesque and amiable scoundrel; or he retires and ceases to meddle +with the destinies of men. The words of a statesman prove to have value +because they express not the desires of the moment but the conditions +under which desires can actually be adjusted to reality. His projects +are policies which lay down an ordered plan of action in which all the +elements affected will, after they have had some experience of it, +find it profitable to co-operate. His laws register what the people +really desire when they have clarified their wants. His laws have force +because they mobilize the energies which alone can make laws effective. + +It is not necessary, nor is it probable, that a statesmanlike policy +will win such assent when it is first proposed. Nor is it necessary +for the statesman to wait until he has won complete assent. There are +many things which people cannot understand until they have lived with +them for a while. Often, therefore, the great statesman is bound to +act boldly in advance of his constituents. When he does this he stakes +his judgment as to what the people will in the end find to be good +against what the people happen ardently to desire. This capacity to +act upon the hidden realities of a situation in spite of appearances +is the essence of statesmanship. It consists in giving the people +not what they want but what they will learn to want. It requires the +courage which is possible only in a mind that is detached from the +agitations of the moment. It requires the insight which comes only from +an objective and discerning knowledge of the facts, and a high and +imperturbable disinterestedness. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV [p284] + +LOVE IN THE GREAT SOCIETY + + +1. _The External Control of Sexual Conduct_ + +While the changes which modernity implies affect the premises of +all human conduct, the problem as a whole engages the attention of +relatively few persons. The larger number of men and women living +within the orbit of the Great Society are no doubt aware that their +inherited beliefs about religion, politics, business, and sex do not +square entirely with the actual beliefs upon which they feel compelled +to act. But the fundamental alterations in political and economic +ideals which the machine technology is inducing come home to each man +only indirectly and partially. The consequences are subtle, delayed, +and what is even more important, they are outside the scope of the +ordinary man’s personal decision. There is little that is urgent, +immediate, or decisive which he can do, even if he understands them, +about the changes in the structure and purpose of industry and the +state. Most men can manage, therefore, to live without ever attempting +to decide for themselves any fundamental question about business or +politics. But they can neither ignore changes in sexual relations nor +do they wish to. It is possible for a man to be a socialist or an +individualist without ever having to make one responsible decision +in which his theories play any part. But what he thinks [p285] +about divorce and contraception, continence and license, monogamy, +prostitution, and sexual experience outside of marriage, are matters +that are bound at some point in his life to affect his own happiness +immediately and directly. It is possible to be hypocritical about +sex. But it is not possible for any adult who is not anæsthetic to be +indifferent. The affairs of state may be regulated by leaders. But the +affairs of a man and a woman are inescapably their own. + +That obviously is the reason why in the popular mind it is immediately +assumed that when morals are discussed it is sexual morals that are +meant. The morals of the politician and the voter, of the shareholder +and executive and employee, are only moderately interesting to the +general public: thus they almost never supply the main theme of popular +fiction. But the relation between boy and girl, man and woman, husband +and wife, mistress and lover, parents and children, are themes which +no amount of repetition makes stale. The explanation is obvious. The +modern audience is composed of persons among whom only a comparatively +negligible few are serenely happy in their personal lives. Popular +fiction responds to their longings: to the unappeased it offers some +measure of vicarious satisfaction, to the prurient an indulgence, to +the worried, if not a way out, then at least the comfort of knowing +that their secret despair is a common, and not a unique, experience. + +Yet in spite of this immense preoccupation with sex it is +extraordinarily difficult to arrive at any reliable knowledge of what +actual change in human behavior it reflects. This is not surprising. +In fact this is the very [p286] essence of the matter. The reason it +is difficult to know the actual facts about sexual behavior in modern +society is that sexual behavior eludes observation and control. We know +that the old conventions have lost most of their authority because we +cannot know about, and therefore can no longer regulate, the sexual +behavior of others. It may be that there is, as some optimists believe, +a fine but candid restraint practiced among modern men and women. It +may be that incredible licentiousness exists all about us, as the +gloomier prophets insist. It may be that there is just about as much +unconventional conduct and no more than there has always been. Nobody, +I think, really knows. Nobody knows whether the conversation about +sex reflects more promiscuity or less hypocrisy. But what everybody +must know is that sexual conduct, whatever it may be, is regulated +personally and not publicly in modern society. If there is restraint it +is, in the last analysis, voluntary; if there is promiscuity, it can be +quite secret. + +The circumstances which have wrought this change are inherent in modern +ways of living. Until quite recently the main conventions of sex were +enforced first by the parents and then by the husband through their +control over the life of the woman. The main conventions were: first, +that she must not encourage or display any amorous inclinations except +where there was practical certainty that the young man’s intentions +were serious; second, that when she was married to the young man +she submitted to his embraces only because the Lord somehow failed +to contrive a less vile method of perpetuating the species. All the +minor conventions were [p287] subsidiary to these; the whole system +was organized on the premise that procreation was the woman’s only +sanction for sexual intercourse. Such control as was exercised over +the conduct of men was subordinate to this control over the conduct of +women. The chastity of women before marriage was guarded; that meant +that seduction was a crime, but that relations with “lost” or unchaste +women were tolerated. The virtuous man, by popular standards, was one +who before his marriage did not have sexual relations with a virtuous +woman. There is ample testimony in the outcries of moralists that even +in the olden days these conventions were not perfectly administered. +But they were sufficiently well administered to remain the accepted +conventions, honored even in the breach. It was possible, because of +the way people lived, to administer them. + +The woman lived a sheltered life. That is another way of saying +that she lived under the constant inspection of her family. She +lived at home. She worked at home. She met young men under the +zealous chaperonage of practically the whole community. No doubt, +couples slipped away occasionally and more went on than was known or +acknowledged. But even then there was a very powerful deterrent against +an illicit relationship. This deterrent was the fear of pregnancy. +That in the end made it almost certain that if a secret affair were +consummated it could not be kept secret and that terrible penalties +would be exacted. In the modern world effective chaperonage has become +impracticable and the fear of pregnancy has been virtually eliminated +by the very general knowledge of contraceptive methods. [p288] + +The whole revolution in the field of sexual morals turns upon the fact +that external control of the chastity of women is becoming impossible. + + +2. _Birth Control_ + +The Biblical account of how Jehovah slew Onan for disobeying his +father’s commandment to go to his brother’s widow, Tamar, and “perform +the duty of an husband’s brother,” shows that the deliberate prevention +of conception is not a new discovery. Mr. Harold Cox must be right when +he says “it is fairly certain that in all ages and in all countries +men and women have practiced various devices to prevent conception +while continuing to indulge in sexual intercourse.” For while I know +of no positive evidence to support this, it appears to be self-evident +that the human race within historical times has not multiplied up to +the limits of human fecundity. Since it is hardly probable that this +has been due to the continence of husbands, nor wholly to infanticide, +abortion, infant mortality, and postponement of marriage, it is safe to +conclude that birth control is an ancient practice. + +Nevertheless, it was not until the Nineteenth Century that the +practice of contraception began to be publicly advocated on grounds +of public policy. Until the industrial age the weight of opinion was +overwhelmingly in favor of very large families. Kings and nobles needed +soldiers and retainers: “As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are +the children of youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of +them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies +in the [p289] gate.” Fathers of families desired many sons. The early +factory owners could use abundant cheap labor. There had been men from +Plato’s time who had their doubts about the value of an indefinitely +growing population. But the substantial opinion down to the end of +the Eighteenth Century was Adam Smith’s that: “the most decisive mark +of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its +inhabitants.” + +Apparently it was the sinister character of the early factory system, +and the ominous unrest which pervaded Europe after the French +Revolution, which rather suddenly changed into pessimism this bland +optimism about an ever growing population. Malthus published the first +edition of his _Essay on Population_ in 1798. This book is undoubtedly +one of the great landmarks of human culture, for it focussed the +attention of Europe on the necessity of regulating the growth of +population. Malthus himself, it seems, hoped that this regulation +could be achieved by the postponement of marriage and by continence. +It is not clear whether he disapproved of what is now called +neo-Malthusianism, or whether he did not regard it as practicable. +Nevertheless, within less than twenty-five years James Mill in the +_Encyclopædia Britannica_ had in guarded fashion put forward the +neo-Malthusian principle, and shortly thereafter, that is in 1823, an +active public propaganda was set on foot, most probably by Francis +Place, by means of what were known as the “diabolical handbills.” +These leaflets were addressed to the working classes and contained +descriptions of methods for preventing conception. Some of them were +sent to a good lady named Mrs. Fildes, who [p290] indignantly, but +mistakenly from her point of view, assisted the nefarious propaganda +by exposing it in the public prints. Fifty years later Mr. Bradlaugh +and Mrs. Besant had themselves indicted and tried for selling an +illustrated edition of Knowlton’s _Fruits of Philosophy_. After that +advertisement, neo-Malthusian principles and practices were known and +were, therefore, available to all but the poorest and most illiterate. + +No propaganda so threatening to the established moral order ever +encountered such an ineffective opposition. I do not know how much +money has been spent on the propaganda nor how many martyrs have had +to coerce reluctant judges to try them. But it is evident that once it +was known that fairly dependable methods of contraception exist, the +people took the matter into their own hands. For the public reasons by +which neo-Malthusianism was justified were also private reasons. The +social philosopher said that population must be adjusted to the means +of subsistence. Man and wife said that they must have only as many +children as they could afford to rear. The eugenist said that certain +stocks ought not to multiply. Individual women decided that too many +children, or even any children, were bad for their health. But these +were not the only reasons which explain the demand for neo-Malthusian +knowledge. There was also the very plain demand due to a desire to +enjoy sexual intercourse without social consequences. + +On this aspect of birth control the liberal reformers have, I think, +been until recently more than a little disingenuous. They have been +arguing for the removal of the prohibitory laws, and they have built +their case on two [p291] main theses. They have argued, first, that +the limitation of births was sound public policy for economic and +eugenic reasons; and second, that it was necessary to the happiness +of families, the health of mothers, and the welfare of children. All +these reasons may be unimpeachable. I think they are. But it was idle +to pretend that the dissemination of this knowledge, even if legally +confined to the instruction of married women by licensed physicians, +could be kept from the rest of the adult population. Obviously that +which all married couples are permitted to know every one is bound +to know. Human curiosity will make that certain. Now this is what +the Christian churches, especially the Roman Catholic, which oppose +contraception on principle, instantly recognized. They were quite +right. They were quite right, too, in recognizing that whether or +not birth control is eugenic, hygienic, and economic, it is the most +revolutionary practice in the history of sexual morals. + +For when conception could be prevented, there was an end to the theory +that woman submits to the embrace of the male only for purposes of +procreation. She had to be persuaded to co-operate, and no possible +reason could be advanced except that the pleasure was reciprocal. +She had to understand and inwardly assent to the principle that it +is proper to have sexual intercourse with her husband and to prevent +conception. She had, therefore, to give up the whole traditional theory +which she may have only half-believed anyway, that sexual intercourse +was an impure means to a noble end. She could no longer believe that +procreation alone mitigated the vileness of cohabiting with a man, and +so she had to change her valuation [p292] and accept it as inherently +delightful. Thus by an inevitable process the practice of contraception +led husbands and wives to the conviction that they need not be in the +least ashamed of their desires for each other. + +But this transvaluation of values within the sanctity of the marital +chamber could hardly be kept a secret. What had happened was that +married couples were indulging in the pleasures of sex because +they had learned how to isolate them from the responsibilities of +parenthood. When we talk about the unconventional theories of the +younger generation we might in all honesty take this fact into account. +They have had it demonstrated to them by their own parents, by those +in whom the administering of the conventions is vested, that under +certain circumstances it is legitimate and proper to gratify sexual +desire apart from any obligation to the family or to the race. They +have been taught that it is possible to do this, and that it may be +proper. Therefore, the older generation could no longer argue that +sexual intercourse as such was evil. It could no longer argue that it +was obviously dangerous. It could only maintain that the psychological +consequences are serious if sexual gratification is not made incidental +to the enduring partnership of marriage and a home. That may be, in +fact, I think it can be shown to be, the real wisdom of the matter. +Yet if it is the wisdom of the matter, it is a kind of wisdom which +men and women can acquire by experience alone. They do not have it +instinctively. They cannot be compelled to adopt it. They can only +learn to believe it. + +That is a very different thing from submitting to a convention upheld +by all human and divine authority. [p293] + + +3. _The Logic of Birth Control_ + +With contraception established as a more or less legitimate idea in +modern society, a vast discussion has ensued as to how the practice +of it can be rationalized. In this discussion the pace is set by +those who accept the apparent logic of contraception and are prepared +boldly to revise the sexual conventions accordingly. They take as +their major premise the obvious fact that by contraception it is +possible to dissociate procreation from gratification, and therefore +to pursue independently what Mr. Havelock Ellis calls the primary and +secondary objects of the sexual impulse. They propose, therefore, to +sanction two distinct sets of conventions: one designed to protect +the interests of the offspring by promoting intelligent, secure, and +cheerful parenthood; the other designed to permit the freest and +fullest expression of the erotic personality. They propose, in other +words, to distinguish between parenthood as a vocation involving public +responsibility, and love as an art, pursued privately for the sake of +happiness. + +As a preparation for the vocation of parenthood it is proposed +to educate both men and women in the care, both physical and +psychological, of children. It is proposed further that mating for +parenthood shall become an altogether deliberate and voluntary +choice: the argument here is that the duties of parenthood cannot +be successfully fulfilled except where both parents cheerfully and +knowingly assume them. Therefore, it is proposed, in order to avert the +dangers of love at first sight and of mating under the blind compulsion +of instinct, that a period of free experimentation [p294] be allowed +to precede the solemn engagement to produce and rear children. This +engagement is regarded as so much a public responsibility that it is +even proposed, and to some extent has been embodied in the law of +certain jurisdictions, that marriages for parenthood must be sanctioned +by medical authority. In order, too, that no compulsive considerations +may determine what ought to be a free and intelligent choice, it is +argued that women should be economically independent before and during +marriage. As this may not be possible for women without property +of their own during the years when they are bearing and rearing +children, it is proposed in some form or other to endow motherhood. +This endowment may take the form of a legal claim upon the earnings of +the father, or it may mean a subsidy from the state through mothers’ +pensions, free medical attention, day nurseries, and kindergartens. The +principle that successful parenthood must be voluntary is maintained +as consistently as possible. Therefore, among those who follow the +logic of their idea, it is proposed that even marriages deliberately +entered into for procreation shall be dissoluble at the will of either +party, the state intervening only to insure the economic security of +the offspring. It is proposed, furthermore, that where women find the +vocation of motherhood impracticable for one reason or another, they +may be relieved of the duty of rearing their children. + +Not all of the advanced reformers adopt the whole of this program, but +the whole of this program is logically inherent in the conception of +parenthood as a vocation deliberately undertaken, publicly pursued, and +motivated solely by the parental instincts. [p295] + +The separate set of conventions which it is proposed to adopt for the +development of love as an art have a logic of their own. Their function +is not to protect the welfare of the child but the happiness of lovers. +It is very easy to misunderstand this conception. Mr. Havelock Ellis, +in fact, describes it as a “divine and elusive mystery,” a description +which threatens to provide a rather elusive standard by which to fix a +new set of sexual conventions. But baffling as this sounds, it is not +wholly inscrutable, and a sufficient understanding of what is meant can +be attained by clearing up the dangerous ambiguity in the phrase “love +as an art.” + +There are two arts of love and it makes a considerable difference +which one is meant. There is the art of love as Casanova, for example, +practiced it. It is the art of seduction, courtship, and sexual +gratification: it is an art which culminates in the sexual act. It +can be repeated with the same lover and with other lovers, but it +exhausts itself in the moment of ecstasy. When that moment is reached, +the work of art is done, and the lover as artist “after an interval, +perhaps of stupor and vital recuperation” must start all over again, +until at last the rhythm is so stale it is a weariness to start at +all; or the lover must find new lovers and new resistances to conquer. +The aftermath of romantic love—that is, of love that is consummated +in sexual ecstasy—is either tedium in middle age or the compulsive +adventurousness of the libertine. + +Now this is not what Mr. Ellis means when he talks about love as an +art. “The act of intercourse,” he says, “is only an incident, and not +an essential in love.” Incident to what? His answer is that it is an +incident to an [p296] “exquisitely and variously and harmoniously +blended” activity of “all the finer activities of the organism, +physical and psychic.” I take this to mean that when a man and woman +are successfully in love, their whole activity is energized and +victorious. They walk better, their digestion improves, they think +more clearly, their secret worries drop away, the world is fresh and +interesting, and they can do more than they dreamed that they could +do. In love of this kind sexual intimacy is not the dead end of desire +as it is in romantic or promiscuous love, but periodic affirmation of +the inward delight of desire pervading an active life. Love of this +sort can grow: it is not, like youth itself, a moment that comes and is +gone and remains only a memory of something which cannot be recovered. +It can grow because it has something to grow upon and to grow with; +it is not contracted and stale because it has for its object, not the +mere relief of physical tension, but all the objects with which the +two lovers are concerned. They desire their worlds in each other, and +therefore their love is as interesting as their worlds and their worlds +are as interesting as their love. + +It is to promote unions of this sort that the older liberals are +proposing a new set of sexual conventions. There are, however, +reformers in the field who take a much less exalted view of the sexual +act, who regard it, indeed, not only as without biological or social +significance, but also as without any very impressive psychological +significance. “The practice of birth control,” says Mr. C. E. M. Joad, +for example, “will profoundly modify our sexual habits. It will enable +the pleasures of sex to be tasted without its penalties, and it will +remove the most [p297] formidable deterrent to irregular intercourse.” +For birth control “offers to the young ... the prospect of shameless, +harmless, and unlimited pleasure.” But whether the reformers agree with +Mr. Ellis that sexual intimacy is, as he says, a sacrament signifying +some great spiritual reality, or with Mr. Joad that it is a harmless +pleasure, they are agreed that the sexual conventions should be revised +to permit such unions without penalties and without any sense of shame. + +They ask public opinion to sanction what contraception has made +feasible. They point out that “a large number of the men and women +of to-day form sexual relationships outside marriage—whether or +not they ultimately lead to marriage—which they conceal or seek to +conceal from the world.” These relationships, says Mr. Ellis, differ +from the extra-marital manifestations of the sexual life of the past +in that they do not derive from prostitution or seduction. Both of +these ancient practices, he adds, are diminishing, for prostitution is +becoming less attractive and, with the education of women, seduction +is becoming less possible. The novelty of these new relations, the +prevalence of which is conceded though it cannot be measured, lies in +the fact that they are entered into voluntarily, have no obvious social +consequences, and are altogether beyond the power of law or opinion to +control. The argument, therefore, is that they should be approved, the +chief point made being that by removing all stigma from such unions, +they will become candid, wholesome, and delightful. The objection of +the reformers to the existing conventions is that the sense of sin +poisons the spontaneous goodness of such relationships. [p298] + +The actual proposals go by a great variety of fancy names such as free +love, trial marriage, companionate marriage. When these proposals are +examined it is evident they all take birth control as their major +premise, and then deduce from it some part or all of the logical +consequences. Companionate marriage, for example, is from the point +of view of the law, whatever it may be subjectively, nothing but +a somewhat roundabout way of saying that childless couples may be +divorced by mutual consent. It is a proposal, if not to control, then +at least to register, publicly all sexual unions, the theory being that +this public registration will abolish shame and furtiveness and give +them a certain permanence. Companionate marriage is frankly an attempt +at a compromise between marriages that are difficult to dissolve and +clandestine relationships which have no sanction whatever. + +The uncompromising logic of birth control has been stated more clearly, +I think, by Mr. Bertrand Russell than by anyone else. Writing to Judge +Lindsey during the uproar about companionate marriage, Mr. Russell said: + + I go further than you do: the things which your enemies say about + you would be largely true of me. My own view is that the state + and the law should take no notice of sexual relations apart from + children, and that no marriage ceremony should be valid unless + accompanied by a medical certificate of the woman’s pregnancy. + But when once there are children, I think that divorce should be + avoided except for very grave cause. I should not regard physical + infidelity as a very grave cause and should teach people that + it is to be expected and tolerated, but should not involve the + begetting of illegitimate children—not because illegitimacy is + bad in [p299] itself, but because a home with two parents is + best for children. I do not feel that the main thing in marriage + is the feeling of the parents for each other; the main thing is + cooperation in bearing children. + +In this admirably clear statement there is set forth a plan for that +complete separation between the primary and secondary function of +sexual intercourse which contraception makes possible. + + +4. _The Use of Convention_ + +It is one thing, however, to recognize the full logic of birth control +and quite another thing to say that convention ought to be determined +by that logic. One might as well argue that because automobiles can be +driven at a hundred miles an hour the laws should sanction driving at +the rate of a hundred miles an hour. Birth control is a device like the +automobile, and its inherent possibilities do not fix the best uses to +be made of it. + +What an understanding of the logic of birth control does is to set +before us the limits of coercive control of sexual relations. The law +can, for example, make divorce very difficult where there are children. +It could, as Mr. Bertrand Russell suggests, refuse divorce on the +ground of infidelity. On the other hand the law cannot effectively +prohibit infidelity, and as a matter of fact does not do so to-day. +It cannot effectively prohibit fornication though there are statutes +against it. Therefore, what Mr. Russell has done is to describe +accurately enough the actual limits of effective legal control. + +But sexual conventions are not statutes, and it is important to define +quite clearly just what they are. In the [p300] older world they were +rules of conduct enforceable by the family and the community through +habit, coercion, and authority. In this sense of the word, convention +tends to lose force and effect in modern civilization. Yet a convention +is essentially a theory of conduct and all human conduct implies some +theory of conduct. Therefore, although it may be that no convention +is any longer coercive, conventions remain, are adopted, revised, and +debated. They embody the considered results of experience: perhaps the +experience of a lonely pioneer or perhaps the collective experience of +the dominant members of a community. In any event they are as necessary +to a society which recognizes no authority as to one which does. For +the inexperienced must be offered some kind of hypothesis when they +are confronted with the necessity of making choices: they cannot be so +utterly open-minded that they stand inert until something collides with +them. In the modern world, therefore, the function of conventions is to +declare the meaning of experience. A good convention is one which will +most probably show the inexperienced the way to happy experience. + +Just because the rule of sexual conduct by authority is dissolving, +the need of conventions which will guide conduct is increasing. +That, in fact, is the reason for the immense and urgent discussion +of sex throughout the modern world. It is an attempt to attain an +understanding of the bewilderingly new experiences to which few men or +women know how to adjust themselves. The true business of the moralist +in the midst of all this is not to denounce this and to advocate that, +but to see as clearly as he can into the meaning of it, so that out +of the chaos of [p301] pain and happiness and worry he may help to +deliver a usable insight. + +It is, I think, to the separation of parenthood as a vocation from love +as an end in itself that the moralist must address himself. For this is +the heart of the problem: to determine whether this separation, which +birth control has made feasible and which law can no longer prevent, is +in harmony with the conditions of human happiness. + + +5. _The New Hedonism_ + +Among those who hold that the separation of the primary and secondary +functions of the sexual impulse is good and should constitute the major +premise of modern sexual conventions, there are, as I have already +pointed out, two schools of thought. There are the transcendentalists +who believe with Mr. Havelock Ellis that “sexual pleasure, wisely used +and not abused, may prove the stimulus and liberator of our finest and +most exalted activities,” and there are the unpretentious hedonists +who believe that sexual pleasure is pleasure and not the stimulus or +liberator of anything important. Both are, as we say, emancipated: +neither recognizes the legitimacy of objective control unless a child +is born, and both reject as an evil the traditional subjective control +exercised by the sense of sin. Where they differ is in their valuation +of love. + +Hedonism as an attitude toward life is, of course, not a new thing in +the world, but it has never before been tested out under such favorable +conditions. To be a successful hedonist a man must have the opportunity +to seek his pleasures without fear of any kind. Theodorus of Cyrene, +[p302] who taught about 310 B.C., saw that clearly, and therefore +to release men from fear openly denied the Olympian gods. But the +newest hedonism has had an even better prospect than the classical: +it finds men emancipated not only of all fear of divine authority +and human custom but of physical and social consequences as well. If +the pursuit of pleasure by carefree men were the way to happiness, +hedonism ought, then, to be proving itself triumphantly in the modern +world. Possibly it is too early to judge, but the fact is nevertheless +highly significant, I think, that the new hedonists should already have +arrived at the same conclusion as the later hedonists in the classical +world. Hegesias, for example, wrote when hedonism had already had a +great vogue: he was called, rather significantly, the “persuader to +die.” For having started from the premise that pleasure is the end of +life, he concluded that, since life affords at least as much pain as +pleasure, the end of life cannot be realized. There is now a generation +in the world which is approaching middle age. They have exercised the +privileges which were won by the iconoclasts who attacked what was +usually called the Puritan or Victorian tradition. They have exercised +the privileges without external restraint and without inhibition. Their +conclusions are reported in the latest works of fiction. Do they report +that they have found happiness in their freedom? Well, hardly. Instead +of the gladness which they were promised, they seem, like Hegesias, to +have found the wasteland. + +“If love has come to be less often a sin,” says that very discerning +critic of life and letters, Mr. Joseph Wood Krutch, “it has come also +to be less often a supreme privilege. [p303] If one turns to the +smarter of those novelists who describe the doings of the more advanced +set of those who are experimenting with life—to, for example, Mr. +Aldous Huxley or Mr. Ernest Hemingway,—one will discover in their +tragic farces the picture of a society which is at bottom in despair +because, though it is more completely absorbed in the pursuit of love +than in anything else, it has lost the sense of any ultimate importance +inherent in the experience which preoccupies it; and if one turns to +the graver of the intellectual writers,—to, for example, Mr. D. H. +Lawrence, Mr. T. S. Eliot, or Mr. James Joyce,—one will find both +explicitly and implicitly a similar sense that the transcendental value +of love has become somehow attenuated, and that, to take a perfectly +concrete example, a conclusion which does no more than bring a man and +woman into complete possession of one another is a mere bathos which +does nothing except legitimately provoke the comment, ‘Well, what of +it?’ One can hardly imagine them concerned with what used to be called, +in a phrase which they have helped to make faintly ridiculous, ‘the +right to love.’ Individual freedom they have inherited and assumed +as a right, but they are concerned with something which their more +restricted forefathers assumed—with, that is to say, the value of love +itself. No inhibitions either within or without restrain them, but they +are asking themselves, ‘What is it worth?’ and they are certainly no +longer feeling that it is obviously and in itself something which makes +life worth the living. + +“To Huxley and Hemingway—I take them as the most conspicuous exemplars +of a whole school—love is at times only a sort of obscene joke. The +former in particular has [p304] delighted to mock sentiment with +physiology, to place the emotions of the lover in comic juxtaposition +with quaint biological lore, and to picture a romantic pair ‘quietly +sweating palm to palm.’ But the joke is one which turns quickly bitter +upon the tongue, for a great and gratifying illusion has passed away, +leaving the need for it still there. His characters still feel the +psychological urge, and, since they have no sense of sin in connection +with it, they yield easily and continually to that urge; but they +have also the human need to respect their chief preoccupation, and +it is the capacity to do this that they have lost. Absorbed in the +pursuit of sexual satisfaction, they never find love and they are +scarcely aware that they are seeking it, but they are far from content +with themselves. In a generally devaluated world they are eagerly +endeavoring to get what they can in the pursuit of satisfactions which +are sufficiently instinctive to retain inevitably a modicum of animal +pleasure, but they cannot transmute that simple animal pleasure into +anything else. They themselves not infrequently share the contempt with +which their creator regards them, and nothing could be less seductive, +because nothing could be less glamorous, than the description of the +debaucheries born of nothing except a sense of the emptiness of life.” + +This “generally devaluated world,” of which Mr. Krutch speaks, what +is it after all, but a world in which nothing connects itself very +much with anything else? If you start with the belief that love is +the pleasure of a moment, is it really surprising that it yields only +a momentary pleasure? For it is the most ironical of all illusions +to suppose that one is free of illusions in contracting any [p305] +human desire to its primary physiological satisfaction. Does a man +dine well because he ingests the requisite number of calories? Is he +freer from illusions about his appetite than the man who creates an +interesting dinner party out of the underlying fact that his guests and +he have the need to fill their stomachs? Would it really be a mark of +enlightenment if each of them filled his stomach in the solitary and +solemn conviction that good conversation and pleasant companionship are +one thing and nutrition is another? + +This much the transcendentalists understand well enough. They do +not wish to isolate the satisfaction of desire from our “finest +and most exalted activities.” They would make it “the stimulus and +the liberator” of these activities. They would use it to arouse to +“wholesome activity all the complex and interrelated systems of the +organism.” But what are these finest and most exalted activities which +are to be stimulated and liberated? The discovery of truth, the making +of works of art, meditation and insight? Mr. Ellis does not specify. If +these are the activities that are meant, then the discussion applies to +a very few of the men and women on earth. For the activities of most +of them are necessarily concerned with earning a living and managing +a household and rearing children and finding recreation. If the art +of love is to stimulate and liberate activities, it is these prosaic +activities which it must stimulate and liberate. But if you idealize +the logic of birth control, make parenthood a separate vocation, +isolate love from work and the hard realities of living, and say that +it must be spontaneous and carefree, what have you done? You have +separated [p306] it from all the important activities which it might +stimulate and liberate. You have made love spontaneous but empty, and +you have made home-building and parenthood efficient, responsible, and +dull. + +What has happened, I believe, is what so often happens in the first +enthusiasm for a revolutionary invention. Its possibilities are so +dazzling that men forget that inventions belong to man and not man to +his inventions. In the discussion which has ensued since birth control +became generally feasible, the central confusion has been that the +reformers have tried to fix their sexual ideals in accordance with the +logic of birth control instead of the logic of human nature. Birth +control does make feasible this dissociation of interests which were +once organically united. There are undoubtedly the best of reasons +for dissociating them up to a point. But how completely it is wise +to dissociate them is a matter to be determined not by saying how +completely it is possible to dissociate them, but how much it is +desirable to dissociate them. + +All the varieties of the modern doctrine that man is a collection of +separate impulses, each of which can attain its private satisfaction, +are in fundamental contradiction not only with the traditional body of +human wisdom but with the modern conception of the human character. +Thus in one breath it is said in advanced circles that love is a series +of casual episodes, and in the next it transpires that the speaker is +in process of having himself elaborately psychoanalyzed in order to +disengage his soul from the effects of apparently trivial episodes +in his childhood. On the one hand it is asserted that sex pervades +everything and on the other that sexual behavior is inconsequential. +[p307] It is taught that experience is cumulative, that we are what +our past has made us and shall be what we are making of ourselves now, +and then with bland indifference to the significance of this we are +told that all experiences are free, equal, and independent. + + +6. _Marriage and Affinity_ + +It is not hard to see why those who are concerned in revising sexual +conventions should have taken the logic of birth control rather than +knowledge of human nature as their major premise. Birth control is an +immensely beneficent invention which can and does relieve men and women +of some of the most tragic sorrows which afflict them: the tragedies of +the unwanted child, the tragedies of insupportable economic burdens, +the tragedies of excessive child bearing and the destruction of youth +and the necessity of living in an unrelenting series of pregnancies. It +offers them freedom from intolerable mismating, from sterile virtue, +from withering denials of happiness. These are the facts which the +reformers saw, and in birth control they saw the instrument by which +such freedom could be obtained. + +The sexual conventions which they have proposed are really designed to +cure notorious evils. They do not define the good life in sex; they +point out ways of escape from the bad life. Thus companionate marriage +is proposed by Judge Lindsey not as a type of union which is inherently +desirable, but as an avenue of escape from corrupt marriages on the +one hand and furtive promiscuity on the other. The movement for free +divorce comes down to this: it is necessary because so many marriages +[p308] are a failure. The whole theory that love is separate from +parenthood and home-building is supported by the evidence in those +cases where married couples are not lovers. It is the pathology of +sexual relations which inspires the reformers of sexual conventions. + +There is no need to quarrel with them because they insist upon remedies +for manifest evils. Deep confusion results when they forget that these +remedies are only remedies, and go on to institute them as ideals. +It is better, without any doubt, that incompatible couples should +be divorced and that each should then be free to find a mate who is +compatible. But the frequency with which men and women have to resort +to divorce because they are incompatible will be greatly influenced by +the notions they have before and during marriage of what compatibility +is, and what it involves. The remedies for failure are important. But +what is central is the conception of sexual relations by which they +expect to live successfully. + +They cannot—I am, of course, speaking broadly—expect to live +successfully by the conception that the primary and secondary functions +of sex are in separate compartments of the soul. I have indicated +why this conception is self-defeating and why, since human nature is +organic and experience cumulative, our activities must, so to speak, +engage and imply each other. Mates who are not lovers will not really +cooperate, as Mr. Bertrand Russell thinks they should, in bearing +children; they will be distracted, insufficient, and worst of all they +will be merely dutiful. Lovers who have nothing to do but love each +other are not really to be envied; love and nothing else very soon is +nothing else. The emotion of love, in spite [p309] of the romantics, +is not self-sustaining; it endures only when the lovers love many +things together, and not merely each other. It is this understanding +that love cannot successfully be isolated from the business of living +which is the enduring wisdom of the institution of marriage. Let the +law be what it may be as to what constitutes a marriage contract and +how and when it may be dissolved. Let public opinion be as tolerant +as it can be toward any and every kind of irregular and experimental +relationship. When all the criticisms have been made, when all +supernatural sanctions have been discarded, all subjective inhibitions +erased, all compulsions abolished, the convention of marriage still +remains to be considered as an interpretation of human experience. It +is by the test of how genuinely it interprets human experience that the +convention of marriage will ultimately be judged. + +The wisdom of marriage rests upon an extremely unsentimental view of +lovers and their passions. Its assumptions, when they are frankly +exposed, are horrifying to those who have been brought up in the +popular romantic tradition of the Nineteenth Century. These assumptions +are that, given an initial attraction, a common social background, +common responsibilities, and the conviction that the relationship is +permanent, compatibility in marriage can normally be achieved. It is +precisely this that the prevailing sentimentality about love denies. +It assumes that marriages are made in heaven, that compatibility is +instinctive, a mere coincidence, that happy unions are, in the last +analysis, lucky accidents in which two people who happen to suit +each other happen to have met. The convention of marriage rests on +an interpretation of [p310] human nature which does not confuse the +subjective feeling of the lovers that their passion is unique, with +the brutal but objective fact that, had they never met, each of them +would in all probability have found a lover who was just as unique. +“Love,” says Mr. Santayana, “is indeed much less exacting than it +thinks itself. Nine-tenths of its cause are in the lover, for one-tenth +that may be in the object. Were the latter not accidentally at hand, +an almost identical passion would probably have been felt for some one +else; for, although with acquaintance the quality of an attachment +naturally adapts itself to the person loved, and makes that person +its standard and ideal, the first assault and mysterious glow of the +passion is much the same for every object.” + +This is the reason why the popular conception of romantic love as the +meeting of two affinities produces so much unhappiness. The mysterious +glow of passion is accepted as a sign that the great coincidence has +occurred; there is a wedding and soon, as the glow of passion cools, it +is discovered that no instinctive and preordained affinity is present. +At this point the wisdom of popular romantic marriage is exhausted. For +it proceeds on the assumption that love is a mysterious visitation. +There is nothing left, then, but to grin and bear a miserably dull and +nagging fate, or to break off and try again. The deep fallacy of the +conception is in the failure to realize that compatibility is a process +and not an accident, that it depends upon the maturing of instinctive +desire by adaptation to the whole nature of the other person and to the +common concerns of the pair of lovers. + +The romantic theory of affinities rests upon an immature [p311] theory +of desire. It springs from an infantile belief that the success of +love is in the satisfactions which the other person provides. What +this really means is that in childlike fashion the lover expects +his mistress to supply him with happiness. But in the adult world +that expectation is false. Because nine-tenths of the cause, as Mr. +Santayana says, are in the lover for one-tenth that may be in the +object, it is what the lover does about that nine-tenths which is +decisive for his happiness. It is the claim, therefore, of those +who uphold the ideal of marriage as a full partnership, and reject +the ideal which would separate love as an art from parenthood as a +vocation, that in the home made by a couple who propose to see it +through, there are provided the essential conditions under which +the passions of men and women are most likely to become mature, and +therefore harmonious and disinterested. + + +7. _The Schooling of Desire_ + +They need not deny, indeed it would be foolish as well as cruel for +them to underestimate, the enormous difficulty of achieving successful +marriages under modern conditions. For with the dissolution of +authority and compulsion, a successful marriage depends wholly upon the +capacity of the man and the woman to make it successful. They have to +accomplish wholly by understanding and sympathy and disinterestedness +of purpose what was once in a very large measure achieved by habit, +necessity, and the absence of any practicable alternative. It takes +two persons to make a successful marriage in the modern world, and +that fact more than doubles its difficulty. For these reasons alone +the modern state ought to do what it [p312] would none the less be +compelled to do: it ought to provide decent ways of retreat in case of +failure. + +But if it is the truth that the convention of marriage correctly +interprets human experience, whereas the separatist conventions are +self-defeating, then the convention of marriage will prove to be the +conclusion which emerges out of all this immense experimenting. It +will survive not as a rule of law imposed by force, for that is now, I +think, become impossible. It will not survive as a moral commandment +with which the elderly can threaten the young. They will not listen. +It will survive as the dominant insight into the reality of love and +happiness, or it will not survive at all. That does not mean that all +persons will live under the convention of marriage. As a matter of fact +in civilized ages all persons never have. It means that the convention +of marriage, when it is clarified by insight into reality, is likely +to be the hypothesis upon which men and women will ordinarily proceed. +There will be no compulsion behind it except the compulsion in each man +and woman to reach a true adjustment of his life. + +It is in this necessity of clarifying their love for those who are +closest to them that the moral problems of the new age come to a +personal issue. It is in the realm of sexual relations that mankind is +being schooled amidst pain and worry for the novel conditions which +modernity imposes. It is there, rather than in politics, business, or +even in religion, that the issues are urgent, vivid, and inescapable. +It is there that they touch most poignantly and most radically the +organic roots of human personality. And it is there, in the ordering of +their personal attachments, [p313] that for most men the process of +salvation must necessarily begin. + +For disinterestedness in all things, as Dean Inge says, is a mountain +track which the many are likely in the future as in the past to find +cold, bleak, and bare: that is why “the road of ascent is by personal +affection for man.” By the happy ordering of their personal affections +they may establish the type and the quality and the direction of their +desires for all things. It is in the hidden issues between lovers, +more than anywhere else, that modern men and women are compelled, by +personal anguish rather than by laws and preachments or even by the +persuasions of abstract philosophy, to transcend naive desire and to +reach out towards a mature and disinterested partnership with their +world. + + + + +CHAPTER XV [p314] + +THE MORALIST IN AN UNBELIEVING WORLD + + +1. _The Declaration of Ideals_ + +Of all the bewilderments of the present age none is greater than that +of the conscientious and candid moralist himself. The very name of +moralist seems to have become a term of disparagement and to suggest +a somewhat pretentious and a somewhat stupid, perhaps even a somewhat +hypocritical, meddler in other men’s lives. In the minds of very many +in the modern generation moralists are set down as persons who, in the +words of Dean Inge, fancy themselves attracted by God when they are +really only repelled by man. + +The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is an historical +accident. It so happens that those who administered the affairs of the +established churches have, by and large, failed utterly to comprehend +how deep and how inexorable was the dissolution of the ancestral order. +They imagined either that this change in human affairs was a kind of +temporary corruption, or that, like the eighty propositions listed in +the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX, it could be regarded as due to “errors” +of the human mind. There were, of course, churchmen who knew better, +but on the whole those who prevailed in the great ecclesiastical +[p315] establishments could not believe that the skepticism of mind +and the freedom of action which modern men exercise were due to +inexorable historic causes. They declined to acknowledge that modern +freedom was not merely a wilful iconoclasm, but the liquidation of an +older order of human life. + +Because they could not comprehend the magnitude of the revolution in +which they were involved, they set themselves the task of impeding its +progress by chastising the rebels and refuting their rationalizations. +This was described as a vindication of morals. The effect was to +associate morality with the vindication of the habits and dispositions +of those who were most thoroughly out of sympathy with the genuine +needs of modern men. + +The difficulties of the new age were much more urgent than those which +the orthodox moralists were concerned with. The moralists insisted +that conduct must conform to the established code; what really worried +men was how to adjust their conduct to the novel circumstances which +confronted them. When they discovered that those who professed to be +moralists were continuing to deny that the novelty of modern things had +any bearing upon human conduct, and that morality was a word signifying +a return to usages which it was impossible to follow, even if it were +desirable, there was a kind of tacit agreement to let the moralists be +moral and to find other language in which to describe the difference +between good and bad, right and wrong. Mr. Joad is not unrepresentative +of this reaction into contempt when he speaks of “the dowagers, the +aunts, the old maids, the parsons, the town councillors, the clerks, +the members of vigilance committees and purity [p316] leagues, all +those who are themselves too old to enjoy sex, too unattractive to +obtain what they would wish to enjoy, or too respectable to prefer +enjoyment to respectability.” Thus for many the name of moralist came +to be very nearly synonymous with antipathy to the genius and the +vitality of the modern age. + +But it is idle for moralists to ascribe the decline of their influence +to the perversity of their fellow creatures. The phenomenon is +world-wide. Moreover, it is most intensely present at precisely those +points where the effect of science and the machine technology have +been most thoroughly manifested. The moralists are not confronted +with a scandal but with history. They have to come to terms with a +process in the life of mankind which is working upon the inner springs +of being and altering inevitably the premises of conduct. They need +not suppose that their pews are empty and that their exhortations are +ignored because modern men are really as wilful as the manners of the +younger generation lead them to conclude. Much of what appears to be a +tough self-sufficiency is protective: it is a brittle crust covering +depths of uncertainty. If the advice of moralists is ignored, it is +not because this generation is too proud to listen, or unaware that +it has anything to learn. On the contrary there is such curiosity and +questioning as never before engaged so large a number of men. The +audience to which a genuine moralist might speak is there. If it is +inattentive when the orthodox moralist speaks, it is because he seems +to speak irrelevantly. + +The trouble with the moralists is in the moralists themselves: they +have failed to understand their times. They [p317] think they are +dealing with a generation that refuses to believe in ancient authority. +They are, in fact, dealing with a generation that cannot believe in +it. They think they are confronted with men who have an irrational +preference for immorality, whereas the men and women about them are +ridden by doubts because they do not know what they prefer, nor why. +The moralists fancy that they are standing upon the rock of eternal +truth, surveying the chaos about them. They are greatly mistaken. +Nothing in the modern world is more chaotic—not its politics, its +business, or its sexual relations—than the minds of orthodox moralists +who suppose that the problem of morals is somehow to find a way of +reinforcing the sanctions which are dissolving. How can we, they say in +effect, find formulas and rhetoric potent enough to make men behave? +How can we revive in them that love and fear of God, that sense of the +creature’s dependence upon his creator, that obedience to the commands +of a heavenly king, which once gave force and effect to the moral code? + +They have misconceived the moral problem, and therefore they +misconceive the function of the moralist. An authoritative code of +morals has force and effect when it expresses the settled customs of +a stable society: the pharisee can impose upon the minority only such +conventions as the majority find appropriate and necessary. But when +customs are unsettled, as they are in the modern world, by continual +change in the circumstances of life, the pharisee is helpless. He +cannot command with authority because his commands no longer imply the +usages of the community: they express the prejudices of the moralist +rather than the practices of men. When that [p318] happens, it is +presumptuous to issue moral commandments, for in fact nobody has +authority to command. It is useless to command when nobody has the +disposition to obey. It is futile when nobody really knows exactly +what to command. In such societies, wherever they have appeared among +civilized men, the moralist has ceased to be an administrator of usages +and has had to become an interpreter of human needs. For ages when +custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist +cannot teach what is revealed; he must reveal what can be taught. He +has to seek insight rather than to preach. + +The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to +their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the +moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the +good is. The problem of sanctions is secondary. For sanctions cannot +be artificially constructed: they are a product of agreement and +usage. Where no agreement exists, where no usages are established, +where ideals are not clarified and where conventions are not +followed comfortably by the mass of men, there are not, and cannot +be, sanctions. It is possible to command where most men are already +obedient. But even the greatest general cannot discipline a whole army +at once. It is only when the greater part of his army is with him that +he can quell the mutiny of a faction. + +The acids of modernity are dissolving the usages and the sanctions to +which men once habitually conformed. It is therefore impossible for the +moralist to command. He can only persuade. To persuade he must show +that the course of conduct he advocates is not an arbitrary pattern +[p319] to which vitality must submit, but that which vitality itself +would choose if it were clearly understood. He must be able to show +that goodness is victorious vitality and badness defeated vitality; +that sin is the denial and virtue the fulfilment of the promise +inherent in the purposes of men. The good, said the Greek moralist, is +“that which all things aim at”; we may perhaps take this to mean that +the good is that which men would wish to do if they knew what they were +doing. + +If the morality of the naive hedonist who blindly seeks the +gratification of his instincts is irrational in that he trusts immature +desire, disregards intelligence and damns the consequences, the +morality of the pharisee is no less irrational. It reduces itself to +the wholly arbitrary proposition that the best life for man would be +some other kind of life than that which satisfies his nature. The true +function of the moralist in an age when usage is unsettled is what +Aristotle who lived in such an age described it to be: to promote good +conduct by discovering and explaining the mark at which things aim. The +moralist is irrelevant, if not meddlesome and dangerous, unless in his +teaching he strives to give a true account, imaginatively conceived, +of that which experience would show is desirable among the choices +that are possible and necessary. If he is to be listened to, and if +he is to deserve a hearing among his fellows, he must set himself +this task which is so much humbler than to command and so much more +difficult than to exhort: he must seek to anticipate and to supplement +the insight of his fellow men into the problems of their adjustment to +reality. He must find ways to make clear and ordered and expressive +those concerns [p320] which are latent but overlaid and confused by +their preoccupations and misunderstandings. + +Could he do that with perfect lucidity he would not need to summon the +police nor evoke the fear of hell: hell would be what it really is, +and what in all inspired moralities it has always been understood to +be, the very quality of evil itself. Nor would he find himself in the +absurd predicament of seeming to argue that virtue is highly desirable +but intensely unpleasant. It would not be necessary to praise goodness, +for it would be that which men most ardently desired. Were the nature +of good and evil really made plain by moralists, their teachings would +appear to the modern listener not like exhortations from without, but +as Keats said of poetry: “a wording of his own highest thoughts and ... +almost a remembrance.” + + +2. _The Choice of a Way_ + +What modernity requires of the moralist is that he should see with an +innocent eye how men must reform their wants in a world which is not +concerned to make them happy. The problem, as I have tried to show, is +not a new one. It has been faced and solved by the masters of wisdom. +What is new is the scale on which the problem is presented—in that so +many must face it now—and its radical character in that the organic +bonds of custom and belief are dissolving. There ensues a continual +necessity of adjusting their lives to complex novelty. In such a +world simple customs are unsuitable and authoritative commandments +incredible. No prescription can now be written which men can naively +and obediently follow. They have, therefore, to reeducate their +[p321] wants by an understanding of their own relation to a world +which is unconcerned with their hopes and fears. From the moralists +they can get only hypotheses—distillations of experience carefully +examined—probabilities, that is to say, upon which they may begin to +act, but which they themselves must constantly correct by their own +insight. + +It is difficult for the orthodox moralists to believe that amidst the +ruins of authority men will ever learn to do this. They can point to +the urban crowds and ask whether anyone supposes that such persons are +capable of ordering their lives by so subtle an instrument as the human +understanding. They can insist with unanswerable force that this is +absurd: that the great mass of men must be guided by rules and moved +by the symbols of hope and fear. And they can ask what there is in +the conception of the moralist as I have outlined it which takes the +character of the populace into account. + +What I take into account first of all is the fact, which it seems to +me is indisputable, that for the modern populace the old rules are +becoming progressively unsuitable and the old symbols of hope and fear +progressively unreal. I ascribe that to the inherent character of the +modern ways of living. I conclude from this that if the populace must +be led, if it must have easily comprehended rules, if it must have +common symbols of hope and fear, the question is how are its leaders +to be developed, rules to be worked out, symbols created. The ultimate +question is not how the populace is to be ruled, but what the teachers +are to think. That is the question that has to be settled first: it is +the preface to everything else. + +For while moralists are at sixes and sevens in their own [p322] +souls, not much can be done about morality, however high or low may +be our estimates of the popular intelligence and character. If it +were necessary to assume that ideals are relevant only if they are +universally attainable, it would be a waste of time to discuss them. +For it is evident enough that many, if not most men, must fail to +comprehend what modern morality implies. But to recognize this is not +to prophesy that the world is doomed unless men perform the miracle +of reverting to their ancestral tradition. This is not the first time +in the history of mankind when a revolution in the affairs of men +has produced chaos in the human spirit. The world can endure a good +deal of chaos. It always has. The ideal inherent in any age is never +realized completely: Greece, which we like to idealize as an oasis of +rationality, was only in some respects Hellenic; the Ages of Faith +were only somewhat Christian. The processes of nature and of society +go on somehow none the less. Men are born and they live and die with +some happiness and some sorrow though they neither envisage wholly nor +nearly approximate the ideals they pursue. + +But if civilization is to be coherent and confident it must be _known_ +in that civilization what its ideals are. There must exist in the form +of clearly available ideas an understanding of what the fulfilment of +the promise of that civilization might mean, an imaginative conception +of the good at which it might, and, if it is to flourish, at which +it must aim. That knowledge, though no one has it perfectly, and +though relatively few have it at all, is the principle of all order +and certainty in the life of that people. By it they can clarify the +practical conduct [p323] of life in some measure, and add immeasurably +to its dignity. + +To elucidate the ideals with which the modern world is pregnant is +the original business of the moralist. Insofar as he succeeds in +disentangling that which men think they believe from that which +it is appropriate for them to believe, he is opening his mind to +a true vision of the good life. The vision itself we can discern, +only faintly, for we have as yet only the occasional and fragmentary +testimony of sages and saints and heroes, dim anticipations here and +there, a most imperfect science of human behavior, and our own obscure +endeavor to make explicit and rational the stresses of the modern +world within our own souls. But we can begin to see, I think, that the +evidence converges upon the theory that what the sages have prophesied +as high religion, what psychologists delineate as matured personality, +and the disinterestedness which the Great Society requires for its +practical fulfilment, are all of a piece, and are the basic elements of +a modern morality. I think the truth lies in this theory. + +If it does, experience will enrich and refine it, and what is now an +abstract principle arrived at by intuition and dialectic will engender +ideas that marshal, illuminate, and anticipate the subtle and intricate +detail of our actual experience. That at least can be our belief. In +the meantime, the modern moralist cannot expect soon to construct a +systematic and harmonious moral edifice like that which St. Thomas +Aquinas and Dante constructed to house the aspirations of the mediæval +world. He is in a much earlier phase in the evolution of his world, +in the phase of inquiry and prophecy rather than of ordering and +harmonizing, [p324] and he is under the necessity of remaining close +to the elements of experience in order to apprehend them freshly. +He cannot, therefore, permit the old symbols of faith and the old +formulations of right and wrong to prejudice his insight. Insofar as +they contain wisdom for him or can become its vehicles, he will return +to them. But he cannot return to them with honor or with sincerity +until he has himself gone and drunk deeply at the sources of experience +from which they originated. + +Only when he has done that can he again in any honest sense take +possession of the wisdom which he inherits. It requires wisdom to +understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf. +In the great moral systems and the great religions of mankind are +embedded the record of how men have dealt with destiny, and only the +thoughtless will argue that that record is obsolete and insignificant. +But it is overlaid with much that is obsolete and for that reason it +is undeciphered and inexpressive. The wisdom it contains has to be +discovered anew before the old symbols will yield up their meaning. +That is the only way in which Bacon’s aphorism can be fulfilled, +that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth +in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” The depth +in philosophy which can bring them about is a much deeper and more +poignant experience than complacent churchmen suppose. + +It can be no mere settling back into that from which men in the ardor +of their youth escaped. This man and that may settle back, to be sure; +he may cease to inquire though his questions are unanswered. But such +conformity is sterile, and due to mere weariness of mind and [p325] +body. The inquiry goes on because it has to go on, and while the +vitality of our race is unimpaired, there will be men who feel with Mr. +Whitehead that “to acquiesce in discrepancy is destructive of candor +and of moral cleanliness,” and that “it belongs to the self-respect of +intellect to pursue every tangle of thought to its final unravelment.” +The crisis in the religious loyalties of mankind cannot be resolved by +weariness and good nature, or by the invention of little intellectual +devices for straightening out the dilemmas of biology and Genesis, +history and the Gospels with which so many churchmen busy themselves. +Beneath these little conflicts there is a real dilemma which modern men +cannot successfully evade. “Where is the way where light dwelleth?” +They are compelled to choose consciously, clearly, and with full +realization of what the choice implies, between religion as a system of +cosmic government and religion as insight into a cleansed and matured +personality: between God conceived as the master of that fate, creator, +providence, and king, and God conceived as the highest good at which +they might aim. For God is the supreme symbol in which man expresses +his destiny, and if that symbol is confused, his life is confused. + +Men have not, hitherto, had to make that choice, for the historic +churches have sheltered both kinds of religious experience, and the +same mysteries have been the symbols of both. That confusion is no +longer benign because men are no longer unconscious of it. They are +aware that it is a confusion, and they are stultified by it. Because +the popular religion of supernatural governments is undermined, the +symbols of religion do not provide clear channels [p326] for religious +experience. They are choked with the debris of dead notions in which +men are unable to believe and unwilling to disbelieve. The result is a +frustration in the inner life which will persist as long as the leaders +of thought speak of God in more senses than one, and thus render all +faith invalid, insincere, and faltering. + + +3. _The Religion of the Spirit_ + +The choice is at last a personal one. The decision is rendered not by +argument but by feeling. Those who believe that their salvation lies +in obedience to, and communion with, the King of Creation can know how +whole-hearted their faith is by the confidence of their own hearts. If +they are at peace, they need inquire no further. There are, however, +those who do not find a principle of order in the belief that they are +related to a supernatural power. They cannot be argued into the ancient +belief, for it has been dissolved by the circumstances of their lives. +They are deeply perplexed. They have learned that the absence of belief +is vacancy; they know, from disillusionment and anxiety, that there is +no freedom in mere freedom. They must find, then, some other principle +which will give coherence and direction to their lives. + +If the argument in these pages is sound, they need not look for and, +in fact, cannot hope for, some new and unexpected revelation. Since +they are unable to find a principle of order in the authority of a +will outside themselves, there is no place they can find it except +in an ideal of the human personality. But they do not have to invent +such an ideal out of hand. The ideal way of life for men who must make +their own terms with experience and find [p327] their own happiness +has been stated again and again. It is that only the regenerate, the +disinterested, the mature, can make use of freedom. This is the central +insight of the teachers of wisdom. We can see now, I think, that it +is also the mark at which the modern study of human nature points. We +can see, too, that it is the pattern of successful conduct in the most +advanced phases of the development of modern civilization. The ideal, +then, is an old one, but its confirmation and its practical pertinence +are new. The world is able at last to take seriously what its greatest +teachers have said. And since all things need a name, if they are to be +talked about, devotion to this ideal may properly be called by the name +which these greatest teachers gave it; it may be called the religion +of the spirit. At the heart of it is the knowledge that the goal of +human effort is to be able, in the words I have so often quoted from +Confucius, to follow what the heart desires without transgressing what +is right. + +In an age when custom is dissolved and authority is broken, the +religion of the spirit is not merely a possible way of life. In +principle it is the only way which transcends the difficulties. It +alone is perfectly neutral about the constitution of the universe, in +that it has no expectation that the universe will justify naive desire. +Therefore, the progress of science cannot upset it. Its indifference to +what the facts may be is indeed the very spirit of scientific inquiry. +A religion which rests upon particular conclusions in astronomy, +biology, and history may be fatally injured by the discovery of new +truths. But the religion of the spirit does not depend upon creeds and +cosmologies; it has no vested interest in any particular truth. It is +[p328] concerned not with the organization of matter, but with the +quality of human desire. + +It alone can endure the variety and complexity of things, for the +religion of the spirit has no thesis to defend. It seeks excellence +wherever it may appear, and finds it in anything which is inwardly +understood; its motive is not acquisition but sympathy. Whatever is +completely understood with sympathy for its own logic and purposes +ceases to be external and stubborn and is wholly tamed. To understand +is not only to pardon, but in the end to love. There is no itch in +the religion of the spirit to make men good by bearing down upon them +with righteousness and making them conform to a pattern. Its social +principle is to live and let live. It has the only tolerable code of +manners for a society in which men and women have become freely-moving +individuals, no longer held in the grooves of custom by their ancestral +ways. It is the only disposition of the soul which meets the moral +difficulties of an anarchical age, for its principle is to civilize the +passions, not by regulating them imperiously, but by transforming them +with a mature understanding of their place in an adult environment. +It is the only possible hygiene of the soul for men whose selves have +become disjointed by the loss of their central certainties, because +it counsels them to draw the sting of possessiveness out of their +passions, and thus by removing anxiety to render them harmonious and +serene. + +The philosophy of the spirit is an almost exact reversal of the +worldling’s philosophy. The ordinary man believes that he will be +blessed if he is virtuous, and therefore virtue seems to him a price +he pays now for a blessedness he [p329] will some day enjoy. While +he is waiting for his reward, therefore, virtue seems to him drab, +arbitrary, and meaningless. For the reward is deferred, and there is +really no instant proof that virtue really leads to the happiness he +has been promised. Because the reward is deferred, it too becomes +vague and dubious, for that which we never experience, we cannot truly +understand. In the realm of the spirit, blessedness is not deferred: +there is no future which is more auspicious than the present; there +are no compensations later for evils now. Evil is to be overcome now +and happiness is to be achieved now, for the kingdom of God is within +you. The life of the spirit is not a commercial transaction in which +the profit has to be anticipated; it is a kind of experience which is +inherently profitable. + +And so the mature man would take the world as it comes, and within +himself remain quite unperturbed. When he acted, he would know that he +was only testing an hypothesis, and if he failed, he would know that he +had made a mistake. He would be quite prepared for the discovery that +he might make mistakes, for his intelligence would be disentangled from +his hopes. The failure of his experiment could not, therefore, involve +the failure of his life. For the aspect of life which implicated his +soul would be his understanding of life, and, to the understanding, +defeat is no less interesting than victory. It would be no effort, +therefore, for him to be tolerant, and no annoyance to be skeptical. +He would face pain with fortitude, for he would have put it away +from the inner chambers of his soul. Fear would not haunt him, for +he would be without compulsion to seize anything and without anxiety +[p330] as to its fate. He would be strong, not with the strength of +hard resolves, but because he was free of that tension which vain +expectations beget. Would his life be uninteresting because he was +disinterested? He would have the whole universe, rather than the prison +of his own hopes and fears, for his habitation, and in imagination all +possible forms of being. How could that be dull unless he brought the +dullness with him? He might dwell with all beauty and all knowledge, +and they are inexhaustible. Would he, then, dream idle dreams? Only if +he chose to. For he might go quite simply about the business of the +world, a good deal more effectively perhaps than the worldling, in +that he did not place an absolute value upon it, and deceive himself. +Would he be hopeful? Not if to be hopeful was to expect the world to +submit rather soon to his vanity. Would he be hopeless? Hope is an +expectation of favors to come, and he would take his delights here and +now. Since nothing gnawed at his vitals, neither doubt nor ambition, +nor frustration, nor fear, he would move easily through life. And so +whether he saw the thing as comedy, or high tragedy, or plain farce, he +would affirm that it is what it is, and that the wise man can enjoy it. + + + + +APPENDIX [p331] + +ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + + +At the suggestion of the publishers, the references which follow have +been segregated in an appendix instead of being scattered as footnotes +through the text. They felt, rightly enough, I think, that in a book of +this character the purpose of the notes was to acknowledge indebtedness +for the material cited rather than to support the argument, and +that the reader would prefer not to have the text encumbered by the +apparatus of a kind of scholarship to which the author makes no +pretensions. + +While these notes, except in a few instances, refer only to matter +actually used in the text, they are also an approximate bibliography +of the works which I have consulted. I wish I could adequately +acknowledge the obligation I owe to my teachers, William James, George +Santayana, and Graham Wallas, though that perhaps is self-evident. I +should like to thank Miss Jane Mather and Miss Orrie Lashin for help +in the preparation of the manuscript. I am under special obligation +to my wife, Faye Lippmann, without whose assistance I could not have +completed the book. + + W. L. + +New York City, January, 1929. + + + + + NOTES [p332] + +[Transcriber’s note: a standard page of this book had 31 or 32 lines.] + + +PAGE LINE + + 4 32 Quoted in Irving Babbitt, _Rousseau and Romanticism_, p. 181. + + 5 4 John Herman Randall Jr., _The Making of the Modern Mind_, + p. 118. + + 5 21 From _The City of Dreadful Night_, cited, Babbitt, op. + cit., p. 332. + + 5 24 For discussion of this theme, cf. Babbitt, op. cit. + passim. + + 5 29 Shelley, _Prometheus Unbound_, Act III, Scene IV. + + 6 12 From Byron, _The Island_, cited, Babbitt, op. cit., p. 186. + + 6 16 From T. H. Huxley, _Address on University Education_, + delivered, 1876, at the formal opening of Johns Hopkins + University. I am indebted to Mr. Henry Hazlitt for the + quotation. + + 7 11 Cited, Babbitt, op. cit., p. 341. + + 7 20 Nietzsche, _Thus Spake Zarathustra_, LXIX, cited, + Babbitt, op. cit., p. 261. + + 11 12 Cf. W. R. Inge, _The Platonic Tradition in English + Religious Thought_. + + 11 19 W. C. Greene, Introduction to Selection from the + _Dialogues of Plato_, p. xxiv. + + 13 27 Calvin, _Institutes_, Book IV, Chapter X, Paragraph 7, + cited A. C. M’Giffert, _Protestant Thought Before Kant_, p. + 90. + + 21 32 Harry Emerson Fosdick, _Adventurous Religion_, p. 59. + + 24 8 W. C. Brownell, Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. XXX, p. 112, + cited in footnote, William James, _The Varieties of + Religious Experience_, p. 115. + + 24 25 William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, + p. 518. + + 25 12 James, op. cit., p. 519. + + 26 7 Alfred North Whitehead, _Science and the Modern World_, + pp. 249–250. + + 27 12 Bertrand Russell, _A Free Man’s Worship_, in _Mysticism + and Logic_, p. 54. + + 27 27 Kirsopp Lake, _The Religion of Yesterday and Tomorrow_. + + 30 2 W. R. Inge, _Science, Religion and Reality_, p. 388. [p333] + + 31 3 Cf. W. B. Riley, _The Faith of the Fundamentalists_, + Times Current History, June, 1927. + + 34 18 _Fundamentalism and the Faith_, Commonweal, Aug. 19, + 1925. + + 35 25 George Santayana, _Reason in Religion_, p. 97. + + 37 22 The material in this section is taken from Harry Emerson + Fosdick, _The Modern Use of the Bible_. + + 40 2 Fosdick, op. cit., p. 83. + + 42 5 Fosdick, _The Desire for Immortality_, in _Adventurous + Religion_. + + 44 10 W. R. Inge, _The Philosophy of Plotinus_, Vol. II, p. 166. + + 44 23 W. R. Inge, _The Platonic Tradition in English Religious + Thought_. + + 47 30 Fosdick, _The Modern Use of the Bible_. + + 51 22 Cf. Rudolf Otto, _Chrysostom on the Inconceivable in + God_, in _The Idea of the Holy_. Appendix I; cf. also + the _Catholic Encyclopedia_, Vol. VIII, p. 452; cf. also + William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, + Lecture III. + + 56 21 Lord Acton, inaugural _Lecture on the Study of History_, + in _Lectures on Modern History_. + + 70 29 Otto Gierke, _Political Theories of the Middle Ages_— + Translated by F. W. Maitland, p. 7. + + 71 14 From the Song of Roland, cited, Henry Adams, + _Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres_, p. 29. + + 72 18 For an analysis of the texts on which this claim was + based, cf. James T. Shotwell and Louise Ropes Loomis, _The + See of Peter_. + + 73 18 Cited in A. C. M’Giffert, _Protestant Thought Before + Kant_, p. 44. + + 74 7 For a comprehensive condemnation by the Holy See of + modern opinions which undermine the authority of the Roman + Catholic Church, see the Syllabus of Pius IX (1864) and + the Syllabus of Pius X (1907). The Syllabus of 1864 lists + and condemns eighty principal errors of our time, and + is described by the Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. XIV, p. + 369) as opposition “to the high tide of that intellectual + movement of the Nineteenth Century which strove to sweep + away the foundations of all human and Divine order.” + The Syllabus of 1907 condemns sixty-five propositions + of the Modernists which would “destroy the foundations + of all natural and supernatural knowledge.” (Catholic + Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV, [p334] p. 370.) It should be noted + that there is difference of opinion among Catholic scholars + as to the binding power of these two pronouncements, and + also that their meaning is open to elaborate interpretation. + + 75 2 _Catholic Encyclopedia_, Vol. XIV, p. 766. + + 76 20 J. N. Figgis, _Political Thought in the Sixteenth + Century_, Cambridge Modern History, Vol. III, p. 743. + + 79 4 Cf. J. N. Figgis, op. cit., p. 742. + + 80 20 For an able recent exposition by an American of this + theory of absolutism, cf. Charles C. Marshall, _The Roman + Catholic Church in the Modern State_. + + 85 24 Cited R. H. Tawney, _Religion and the Rise of + Capitalism_, p. 44. + + 86 13 Cited Tawney, op. cit., p. 243. + + 98 6 The facts cited in this section are from: E. Mâle, _L’Art + Religieux du XIIIeme Siècle en France_, and _L’Art + Religieux de la Fin du Moyen-Age en France_. But cf. G. G. + Coulton, _Art and the Reformation_. + + 102 28 _Prometheus Unbound_, cited A. N. Whitehead, _Science + and the Modern World_, p. 119. + + 104 23 R. H. Wilenski, _The Modern Movement in Art_, p. 5. + + 109 10 Cf. Diego Rivera, _The Revolution in Painting_, in + Creative Art, Vol. IV, No. 1. “And there is absolutely + no reason to be frightened because the subject is so + essential. On the contrary, precisely because the + subject is admitted as a prime necessity, the artist is + absolutely free to create a thoroughly plastic form of + art. The subject is to the painter what the rails are + to a locomotive. He cannot do without it. In fact, when + he refuses to seek or accept a subject, his own plastic + methods and his own esthetic theories become his subject + instead. And even if he escapes them, he himself becomes + the subject of his work. He becomes nothing but an + illustrator of his own state of mind, and in trying to + liberate himself he falls into the worst form of slavery. + That is the cause of all the boredom which emanates + from so many of the large expositions of modern art, a + fact testified to again and again by the most different + temperaments.” + + 109 18 Bernard Berenson, _The Florentine Painters of the + Renaissance_, p. 19. + + 111 4 Cf. R. H. Wilenski, _The Modern Movement in Art_, p. 119. + + 116 4 Cf. George Santayana, _Reason in Religion_, pp. 92 et + seq. [p335] + + 119 28 Cf. _Catholic Encyclopedia_, Vol. X, p. 342. + + 123 17 Whitehead, _Science and the Modern World_, p. 257. + + 127 2 A. S. Eddington, _Stars and Atoms_, p. 121. + + 128 1 John Herman Randall Jr., _The Making of the Modern Mind_, + p. 100. + + 128 9 _Epist. ad Can Grand_, cited in footnote to _Paradiso_ in + the Temple Classics. + + 129 3 Cf. P. W. Bridgman, _The Logic of Modern Physics_, p. 45. + + 129 23 C. S. Peirce, _How to Make Our Ideas Clear in Chance, + Love and Logic_, edited by Morris R. Cohen. + + 130 4 Bridgman, op. cit., p. 38. + + 135 2 Cited L. R. Farnell, _The Attributes of God_, p. 275. + + 137 31 Cf. M. C. Otto, _Natural Laws and Human Hopes_, pp. 32 + et seq. + + 146 29 The _Catholic Encyclopedia_, Vol. XII, p. 345. + + 147 29 Cf. B. L. Manning, _The People’s Faith in the Time of + Wyclif_. + + 148 3 Fosdick, _Adventurous Religion_, p. 85 et seq. + + 148 9 Santayana, _Reason in Religion_, p. 43. + + 148 17 L. R. Farnell, _The Attributes of God_, p. 15. + + 149 14 Manning, op. cit. + + 159 2 Herbert Asbury, _A Methodist Saint, The Life of Bishop + Asbury_, p. 265. + + 160 20 Cf. _Encyclopedia Britannica_, “Asceticism.” + + 161 17 Cf. _Catholic Encyclopedia_, Vol. I, p. 768. + + 162 5 Quoted in Irving Babbitt, _Rousseau and Romanticism_, p. 45. + + 162 19 _Rabelais_, Book II, Chapter 34. + + 163 6 Cited Henry Osborn Taylor, _Thought and Expression in the + Sixteenth Century_, Vol. I, p. 330. + + 163 25 Babbitt, op. cit., p. 161. + + 163 28 Cf. Dora Russell, _The Right to be Happy_. + + 164 5 Cf. Bertrand Russell, _Political Ideals_. + + 165 17 T. W. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 111. + + 166 22 _Ethics_, Book II, Chapter 9. + + 177 3 S. Freud, _Formulierung über die zwei Prinzipien des + psychischen Geschehens_, 1911, Jahrb, Bd., I, s. 411. + + 177 10 S. Ferenczi, _Stages in the Development of the Sense of + Reality_, 1913. In _Contributions to Psychoanalysis_, + translated by Dr. Ernest Jones. + + 192 13 Spinoza, _Ethics_, Part V, Prop. XLII. + + 192 23 Cf. T. W. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 110. + + 192 31 _Confucian Analects_, Book II, Chapter 4. + + 195 25 A. N. Whitehead, _Religion in the Making_, pp. 15–16. [p336] + + 196 20 _Analects_ VII, XX. + + 197 24 _Ethics_, Part V, Prop. XLII. + + 199 19 Cf. T. W. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 84. + + 199 30 C. Snouck Hurgronje, _Mohammedanism_, p. 82. + + 200 18 _Republic_, VI, 495, 504. + + 205 5 Cf. J. Burnet, _Philosophy_ in _The Legacy of Greece_, + edited by R. W. Livingstone, p. 67. + + 218 9 Lucretius, _On the Nature of Things_, Book Third, + Translation by H. A. J. Munro. + + 220 1 Spinoza, _Ethics_, Part V, Prop. III. + + 220 4 Id., Part V, Prop. VI. + + 224 28 Aristotle, _Ethics_, Book IV, Chapter III. + + 232 18 Oswald Spengler, _The Decline of the West_. + + 233 25 C. A. Beard, _Is Western Civilization in Peril?_ + Harper’s Magazine, August, 1928. + + 234 17 H. G. Wells, _The Outline of History_, Vol. II, pp. 394–5. + + 235 30 A. N. Whitehead, _Science and the Modern World_, p. 4. + + 236 10 W. T. Sedgwick and H. W. Tyler, _A Short History of + Science_, p. 269. Cf. Martha Ornstein, _The Role of + Scientific Societies in the Seventeenth Century_. + + 237 7 J. B. Bury, _The Idea of Progress_, p. 330. + + 238 16 For a most illuminating description of the behavior of a + great scientific investigator, cf. Claude Bernard, _An + Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine_. + + 238 26 Bertrand Russell, _Mysticism and Logic_, p. 42. + + 240 19 Cf. Graham Wallas, _Our Social Heritage_, Chapter I. + + 241 12 John Herman Randall Jr., _The Making of the Modern + Mind_, p. 279. + + 242 24 Adam Smith, _The Wealth of Nations_, Book IV, Chapter 9. + + 245 4 Cited in R. H. Tawney, _Religion and the Rise of + Capitalism_, p. 286. + + 265 19 Otto Gierke, _Political Theories of the Middle Age_, + Translated by F. W. Maitland, p. 23. + + 266 9 Id., p. 88. + + 266 12 Cf. J. W. Garner, _Introduction to Political Science_, p. 92. + + 267 7 For a discussion of the concept of sovereignty in the + modern world, cf. Otto Gierke, _Political Theories of + the Middle Ages_; J. N. Figgis, _Churches in the Modern + State_; Lord Acton, _History of Freedom and Other Essays_; + H. J. Laski, _A Grammar of Politics_; Kung Chuan Hsiao, + _Political Pluralism_. + + 274 11 William Hard, _Who’s Hoover?_ p. 193. + + 280 31 _Reflections on the French Revolution_, cf. Garner, op. + cit., p. 112. [p337] + + 288 6 Genesis XXXVIII; cf. Harold Cox, _The Problem of + Population_, pp. 208–211, for an interpretation of the + story of Onan in the light of Deut. XXV, which shows that + the crime of Onan was not the spilling of his seed, but a + breach of Jewish tribal law in refusing “to perform the + duty of a husband’s brother” with his brother’s widow. + + 289 1 Psalm 127, cf. Cox, op. cit. + + 289 9 The historical data are from A. M. Carr-Saunders, _The + Population Problem_, Chapter I. + + 295 6 Havelock Ellis, _Love as an Art_, in Count Hermann + Keyserling’s _The Book of Marriage_, p. 388. + + 295 21 Santayana, _The Life of Reason_, Vol. II, p. 10. + + 297 3 C. E. M. Joad, _Thrasymachus_, or _The Future of Morals_, + pp. 54–55. + + 297 15 Havelock Ellis, _The Family_, in _Whither Mankind_, p. 216. + + 299 4 Quoted in Judge Ben B. Lindsey and Wainwright Evans, _The + Companionate Marriage_, p. 210. + + 302 18 Cf. Alfred Weber, _History of Philosophy_, p. 72. + + 304 24 _Love—Or the Life and Death of a Value_, Atlantic + Monthly, August, 1928. + + 310 14 _Reason in Society_, p. 22. + + 313 6 W. R. Inge, _The Philosophy of Plotinus_, Vol. II, p. 161. + + 320 15 John Keats, Letters to John Taylor, Feb. 27, 1818—in + _Oxford Book of English Prose_, No. 379. + + + + + INDEX [p339] + + + Absolute state, 80 + + Absolutism, 266 + + _Accademia dei Lincei_, 236 + + “Acids of modernity.” _See_ Modernity. + + Acquisitive instinct, 250 + + Acton, Lord, 56 + + Adams, Henry, 71 + + Adeimantus, 160 + + Adultery, 89 + + “Agnostic,” 28, 77 + + Agnostics, 29, 54 + + Agnosticism, 34 + + Allegiance, 263, 265, 267, 268–269 + + Allegory, 37, 38–40 + + American farmer, 85, 276 + + Americanism, 61, 63, 274 + + American Philosophical Association, 236 + + Anabaptists, 15 + + Analysis, scientific, 107 + + Ananias, 95 + + Anarchy, moral, 209 + + Anne, St., 149 + + Anthropomorphism, 28, 148 + + Anti-evolution laws, 31 + + Antioch, 51, 52 + + Apostles, 58, 99, 120, 200 + + Aquinas, St. Thomas, 11, 68, 71, 100, 218, 323 + + Arcadia, 148, 162 + + Arians, 52 + + Aristocracy, 15 + + Aristophanes, 4 + + Aristotle, 26, 48, 127, 156, 157, 161, 166–167, 194, 224, 244, 319 + + Art, 112; + Christian, 101; + for art’s sake, 101, 104–105, 107 + + Artist, modern, 108–109 + + Artists and the Catholic Church, 98–101, 104 + + Asbury, Bishop, 158 + + Asbury, Herbert, 158 + + Asceticism, 155, 156–161, 191, 192, 204, 205 + + Astronomers, Newtonian, 123 + + Atheism, 28, 324 + + “Atheist,” 28, 29 + + Atheists, 6, 54, 194 + + Augsburg, Peace of, 79 + + Augustine, St., 37, 38, 69, 71, 73, 113, 196 + + Authority, 13, 14, 166, 202, 262, 272, 317, 326; + divine, 135; + ecclesiastical, 14–15, 35, 76, 93, 133, 236; + moral, 9 + + + Bacon, 324 + + Baxter, 86 + + Beard, Charles A., 233, 235 + + Beauty, religion of, 18 + + Beauvais, Vincent de, 99 + + Behavior, 171–172, 186 + + Behaviorism, 174, 177 + + Belief, childish, 185, 189, 190 + + Berenson, 109 + + Bergson, 107 + + Berlin Academy, 236 + + Besant, Mrs., 290 + + Betelguese, 169 + + Bible, 13, 23, 27, 34–35, 37, 38–39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47–48, 60, + 78, 121, 131, 132, 162, 214, 288; + epic of, 116, 117 + + Biblical world, 40 + + Bigotry, 190 + + Bill of Rights, 114 + + Biologists, 150–151, 325 + + Birth control, 93, 285, 287, 289–291, 292–293, 296–297, 298–299, 301, + 305–306, 307 + + Bishop of Rome, 71 + + Bodin, Jean, 262 + + Bolshevism, 251–253, 254–255 [p340] + + Bradlaugh, 290 + + Breuer, 220 + + Bridgman, Prof., 129 + + Broadway Temple, 88 + + Brownell, W. C., 24 + + Bryan, 77 + + Buddha, 46, 155, 156, 161, 165, 193, 194, 199, 200 + + Buffon, 241 + + Bunyan, John, 86 + + Bureaucracy, 249–250 + + Burke, Edmund, 280 + + Bury, Prof. John B., 236 + + Business, 231, 284; + and the Catholic Church, 84–88; + organized, 244; + stabilization of, 256 + + Byron, 5, 6 + + + Calles, 264, 265 + + Calvin, 13, 39, 73, 74, 135 + + Calvinism, 13 + + Canby, Henry Seidel, 17 + + Capitalism, 16, 85, 245, 247–248, 250–251; + primitive, 251–252; + rise of, 232, 245–246 + + Capitalists, 242; + abolition of, 249–250; + coercion of, 248–249 + + Capitalistic credo, 244–245 + + Caste, 199 + + Catholic Church, 7, 15, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 49, 58, 72, 73, 77, 81, + 84–85, 86, 94, 98, 117, 120, 161, 205–206, 291 + + _Catholic Encyclopedia_, 51, 74 + + Catholicism, 11, 15, 35, 58, 78, 81, 86, 109 + + Catholics, 74, 76–77 + + Cause and effect, 181 + + Cecilia, St., 98–99 + + Certainty, feeling of, 19, 21, 322 + + Certainty, moral. _See_ Moral certainty. + + Chateaubriand, 5 + + Chesterton, G. K., 56–57 + + Children and the churches, 91, 93 + + Christ, 13, 14, 23, 29–30, 33, 58, 74, 99, 205; + _See also_ Jesus. + + “Christ, athletes of,” 160 + + Christian capitalism, 87 + + _Christian Directory_, 86 + + Christian doctrine, 152, 163 + + Christian Fathers, 207 + + Christianity, 8–9, 11, 29–30, 32, 34, 55, 58, 205–206, 250; + foundations of, 51 + + _Christianity and Liberalism_, 32 + + Christian socialism, 87 + + Chrysostom, St., 51–54 + + Church and state, 75, 79–80, 112 + + Church attendance, 48 + + Church councils, 58 + + Church of England, 266 + + Church of St. Urban, 98 + + _City of God_, 69, 71; + _See also “Civitas Dei.”_ + + Civilization, cycle of, 232; + modern, 4, 9, 62, 230, 233–234, 237, 240, 241, 265, 267, 271, 273, + 300, 327; + Roman, 233–234; + technological, 233, 238, 240 + + Civil service, 271–272 + + Civil War, 66 + + _Civitas Dei_, 70; + _See also “City of God.”_ + + Commercial enterprise, 86 + + Commonsense, religion of, 44, 45 + + _Commonweal_, 34 + + Communities, homogeneous, 270–271 + + Competition, 247; + free, 244 + + Compulsions, old and new, 9–10 + + Comstock, Anthony, 156 + + Conceptions of God, 51; + Eighteenth-Century, 55; + Luther’s, 53; + mediæval, 55, 71–72; + Modernist, 55; + Oriental, 55; + St. Chrysostom’s, 52–53 + + Concepts, fixed, 171 + + _Conclusions to The Renaissance_, 106 + + Conduct, human, 145, 230, 284, 323 + + Conformity, 12, 324–325, 328 + + Confucius, 193, 196, 258, 327 + + Conventions, new, 12 + + Conversion, 192, 198 + + Council of Vienna, 87 + + Counter-Reformation, 94, 96 + + Courage, 222–223 + + Cox, Harold, 288 [p341] + + Creation, 99; + theory of, 11 + + Creative evolution, 18, 117, 131 + + Creator, dependence on, 69 + + Credulity, modern, 8–9 + + Creeds, profusion of, 110 + + _Critique of Pure Reason_, 136 + + Cults, modern, 9, 14, 125–126 + + Culture, theocratic, 164, 175, 221 + + Curia, 81 + + Curiosity, 129–130 + + Custom, 166, 167, 241, 327 + + + Dante, 11, 68, 69, 128, 323 + + Darwin, 210 + + Darwinism, 125, 132, 174 + + Darrow, Clarence, 13 + + Davids, Rhys, 165 + + Decoding the Bible, 41, 47 + + Della Porta, 236 + + Democracy, 15, 264, 278 + + Desire, reform of, 201, 202, 282, 320–321 + + Desires, human, 145, 146, 165, 167–170, 172, 180, 182, 186, 190, 193, + 206, 216, 310–311, 319 + + Destiny, human, 133, 184, 218, 324 + + Development, concept of, 171–172, 174, 191; + industrial, 245–246, 252, 253–254, 255, 257, 258 + + _Dialogue of Dives and Pauper_, 147 + + Dictatorship, military, 253, 264 + + Disciplines, 202, 203, 205 + + Disillusionment, 17, 326 + + Disinterestedness, 204, 206, 209, 210, 221, 225, 230–231, 237, + 238–239, 243, 258, 272, 281, 283, 311, 313, 323, 327, 330 + + Disorders, social, 191–192, 206 + + Disposition to believe, 143 + + _Divine Comedy_, 69, 128 + + Divine government, sense of, 72, 95, 194; + theory of, 71–72, 82, 175 + + Divine right of kings, 79, 265 + + Divorce, 299, 308 + + Doge, 81 + + Dogma, 13, 96, 125, 133, 176, 244 + + Domain of religion, 82 + + Donne, John, 40 + + Doubt, freedom from, 16 + + + Ecclesiastical establishments, 196, 201, 314–315 + + Eckhart, 196 + + Economic order, new, 86, 246–248 + + Eddington, Dr., 127 + + Eden, 37 + + Education, 175, 184, 191, 192, 198, 230 + + Eighteenth Century, 154, 174, 266, 289 + + _Élan vital_, 55 + + Eliot, T. S., 303 + + Ellis, Havelock, 293, 295–296, 297, 301, 305 + + Emancipation, 19; + of women, 91–92 + + Emotions, 220 + + _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 289 + + England, 253–254, 272, 273 + + Environment, 145, 172, 180, 181, 184, 189, 190, 247, 250 + + Epistles of St. Paul, 44 + + Erasmus, 196 + + _Essay on Population_, 289 + + Estheticism, 105, 107 + + Ethical codes, 49, 165 + + _Ethics_, 166 + + Evil, problem of, 145, 156, 213, 214, 216–217, 218, 329; + sense of, 188, 189, 218–219 + + Evils, social, 243 + + Evolution, 60, 117, 122, 125, 132, 171, 210, 231; + _See also_ Creative evolution. + + Excommunication, 76 + + Executives, modern business, 256–257 + + Exhibition of London, 236–237 + + Existence, 108, 117, 123 + + Exodus, 27, 118 + + Experience, Christian, 33; + esthetic, 106; + lessons of, 181, 182, 183, 186, 188, 189, 192, 195, 227; + scientific, 220 + + + Faith, age of, 83, 322; + questions of, 77 [p342] + + Fallacy, 167, 168 + + Family, 88, 91–92, 93 + + Fanaticism, 271 + + Faraday, 240 + + Fascism, 251–253, 254 + + _Faust_, 116 + + Federal Council of Churches of Christ, 87 + + Ferenczi, Dr. S., 177–179 + + Fetich worship, 160 + + Feudal system, 85–86, 242, 252, 253, 263, 266–267 + + Figgis, Dr., 76, 81 + + Fildes, Mrs., 289–290 + + Flaubert, 7 + + Ford, Henry, 64 + + Fornication, 89 + + Fosdick, Rev. Harry Emerson, 21–22, 40, 41, 42, 45–46, 47, 97, 147–148 + + Fourth Gospel, 11, 44, 194 + + Francis, St., 69, 113 + + Franklin, Benjamin, 236 + + Freedom, 17, 136, 242, 262, 315, 326, 327; + religious, 75 + + French Academy of Sciences, 236 + + Freud, 107, 157, 176, 177, 179, 220 + + _Fruits of Philosophy_, 290 + + Fundamentalism, 30–31, 34–35, 64 + + Fundamentalists, 31, 33–34, 51, 60, 77 + + + Galileo, 123–124, 236 + + Gargantua, 162–163 + + Genesis, 27, 38, 131, 132, 325 + + Geneva, 74 + + Genteel, cult of, 155 + + Gentleman, ideal of, 167 + + Germany, 254, 272 + + _Gestalt-theorie_, 174, 177 + + Gierke, 70 + + Giotto, 109 + + Gnostics, 52 + + God, attributes of, 213–214, 215–216 + + Gods, Greek, 10, 302 + + Godlessness, 194 + + Gods, popular. _See_ Theology, popular. + + Golden Age, 151 + + Golden mean, 166–167, 180 + + Good and evil, 135, 137, 153, 168, 170, 172, 214–215, 320 + + “Good life,” 156, 172, 191, 202, 319, 323 + + Good Samaritan, 37 + + Gospels, 37, 44, 206, 325 + + Government, 231, 275–276, 278–279 + + Grace, meaning of, 58; + religion of, 12 + + Greek Church, 51 + + + Hammurabi, code of, 136 + + Happiness, pursuit of, 4, 153, 166, 198, 328–329 + + Heaven, Christian, 146 + + Hedonism, 301–302, 304, 319 + + Hegesias, 302 + + Hellenism, 322 + + Hemingway, Ernest, 303 + + Hera, 148 + + _Heretics_, 56 + + Heroism, 156 + + Hertz, 240 + + Heterodoxy, 12, 62 + + Hierarchies, 92, 263, 265, 268 + + Higher Criticism, 40 + + “Higher sense,” 11 + + High religion, 193, 203–204, 207, 208, 230, 239; + function of, 193; + insight of, 207–208, 209, 230, 239, 251 + + Hildebrand, 58 + + Historians, philosophic, 232 + + Historical scholarship, 157 + + History, 143, 157 + + Hobbes, 266 + + Holy Land, 149 + + Holy See, 73, 74 + + Homer, 10, 43 + + Hooker, Richard, 266 + + Hoover, 273–274 + + Hope and fear, 321, 330 + + Hosea, 12 + + Human development, 177, 234 + + Humanism, 137–139, 143–144, 164, 166, 167, 172, 175, 196, 221 + + Humanity, religion of, 18 [p343] + + Human nature, 157, 161, 164, 165, 169, 171–172, 173, 175–176, + 183–184, 207, 227, 306, 327 + + Huss, 73 + + Huxley, Aldous, 303 + + Huxley, Thomas Henry, 6 + + + Iconoclasm, 17, 96, 315 + + Iconoclasts, 15, 302 + + Idealism, debacle of, 17 + + Ideals, foundation of, 133, 224, 323; + succession of, 111 + + Ideas, crystallization of, 20 + + Idols, smashing of, 15, 16 + + Illusions, 8, 189, 232 + + Immortality, 11, 41–43, 45, 122, 180, 188 + + Impersonal, worship of the, 44 + + Impulses, 165–166, 168, 169, 192, 222, 224, 227, 306 + + Industry, ideals of, 258–259; + modern, 248, 251, 255–256, 260, 273–274, 288 + + Inertia, human, 208, 227 + + Infallibility, 81 + + Infantilism, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181, 182, 184, 185, 189–190, 191 + + Inferno, 146 + + Inge, Dean, 28, 29–30, 42, 44, 46, 196, 313, 314 + + Inquiry, disinterested, 132; + freedom of, 126 + + Inquisition, 123–124, 161 + + Inspiration, 13, 46 + + Intelligence, 186; + machinery of, 64 + + Interests, diversification of, 267–268, 269–270, 274, 328 + + Internal life, 152, 195, 196 + + Invention of invention, 235 + + Inventions, mechanical, 234–235 + + Irreligion, modern, 12, 53–54 + + Isaiah, 12 + + Italy, 251–253, 272 + + + James I, 79 + + James, William, 18, 24–26 + + Jefferson, 15 + + Jehovah, 12, 214, 288; + _See also_ Yahveh. + + Jerome, St., 161 + + Jesus, 12, 46, 99, 119, 155, 193, 199, 200; + _See also_ Christ. + + Jews, 52 + + Joad, C. E. M., 296, 297, 315–316 + + Job, 213–216 + + Job, Book of, 214, 216 + + John, Gospel of. _See_ Fourth Gospel. + + John, St., 99 + + Joyce, James, 303 + + Judaism, 12 + + Judgment, private, 15, 34 + + + Kant, Immanuel, 136–137 + + Keats, 320 + + Kelvin, Lord, 129 + + Keynes, Maynard, 245, 258 + + Knowledge, limitations of, 202 + + Knowlton, 290 + + Knox, 73 + + Krutch, Joseph Wood, 302–303, 304 + + Ku Klux Klan, 31 + + + Labor, organized, 244 + + _Laissez-faire_, 242, 244, 250, 252 + + Lake, Kirsopp, 27–29 + + Lamarckism, 125 + + “Land of heart’s desire,” 151–152 + + Last Judgment, 99 + + Law enforcement, 277–278 + + Law, international, 265–266 + + Lawrence, D. H., 303 + + Leadership, mass, 274–275 + + Legislation, modern, 275–276, 279 + + Lent, 1492, 38 + + Leviticus, 37 + + Lewis, Sinclair, 16 + + Liberalism, 6, 152 + + Liberals, Protestant, 34; + religious, 21, 33 + + Liberty, natural, 243, 244–246, 258 + + Life, art of, 175, 326–327; + mediæval view of, 154, 323; + wisdom of, 156, 330 + + Lindbergh, Col. Charles A., 222–223 [p344] + + Lindsey, Judge, 298, 307 + + Locke, 266 + + Love, art of, 293, 295, 301, 303, 305, 308–309; + value of, 302–304, 306, 310 + + Lowell Lectures, 25 + + Loyalty, 261–263, 268–269, 272, 325 + + Lucretius, 218 + + Luther, 13, 14–15, 39, 53–54, 73–74, 79, 196 + + Lutheran Church, 13 + + Lutherans, 77 + + + Machen, Prof. J. Gresham, 32, 33–34 + + Machine process, 246, 253–254, 274 + + Machine technology, 242–243, 247, 251, 252, 254, 257, 258–259, 274, + 284, 316 + + Mâle, 100, 101 + + Malthus, 289 + + Manichæans, 52 + + Man, nature of, 152, 243 + + Manner of life, 235 + + Markets, 246–247 + + Marriage, 89, 286, 288, 289, 291, 309, 310–311, 312; + companionate, 298, 307 + + Marxianism, 16 + + Mary, St. _See_ Virgin Mary. + + Masses, 148–149, 278 + + Matriarchal societies, 91 + + Maturity, 174–175, 176–177, 179–180, 183–184, 185, 186, 189, 190, + 191–192, 204, 209, 225, 230, 237, 239, 313, 323, 325, 327, + 328–329 + + Maxwell, 240 + + Mazzini, 18 + + Meaning of things, 183 + + Mechanism, 125, 128, 130–131 + + Medical progress, 218 + + Melanchthon, 79 + + Mencken, H. L., 13, 16 + + Mendel’s law, 231 + + Messianic Kingdom, 11 + + Methodism, 6; + American, 158 + + Mexico, 253, 265 + + Middle Ages, 70–72, 73, 94, 129, 131, 161, 265, 266 + + Mill, James, 289 + + Milton, 74, 266 + + Minority, recalcitrant, 279 + + Miracles, 118, 119–120 + + Mississippi flood, 273–274 + + Modernism, 18, 32, 33, 59, 77, 117, 217 + + Modernists, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 35, 42, 51 + + Modernity, 5, 8, 14, 15, 19, 56, 68, 96, 105, 110, 112, 143, 158, + 196–197, 208, 229, 251, 284, 316, 318, 320, 321 + + Modern man, 4, 8–10, 12, 19, 21, 24, 40, 41, 51, 54, 57, 59, 94, 111, + 112, 113, 114, 152, 153, 158, 161, 194, 203, 227–228, 315, 316 + + Modern men. _See_ Modern man. + + _Modern Movement in Art, The_, 104 + + Modern spirit, 36, 110, 143 + + Modern state, 260, 262–263, 267, 272–273, 275, 279, 311 + + Modern world, 14, 19, 20, 268–269, 270, 300, 311, 322–324 + + Mohammed, 145 + + Mohammedanism, 199 + + Monasticism, 204–206 + + Montaigne, 48, 175, 196 + + Moral certainty, 9–10, 15, 115 + + Moral codes, 3, 49, 135, 167, 170, 171, 201, 208–209, 226, 228, 272, + 317, 319 + + Moral confusion, 155, 228, 230 + + Moral effect, 179–180 + + Moral effort, 175 + + Moral guidance, 14, 205 + + Moral insight, 227–228, 229 + + Moralists, 164, 165, 166, 167, 170, 172, 173, 208–209, 225, 244, 300, + 314–315, 316–319, 320–321, 323 + + Morality, 114–115, 117, 136, 137–139, 145; + divine, 49–50; + sanctions of, 78, 166, 176, 228; + theistic, 138; + _See also_ Morals. + + Moral law, 46, 48, 191, 233 [p345] + + Moral philosophies, 156 + + Moral problem, 134, 166, 168, 192, 229, 312, 317 + + Morals, 17, 112, 151, 157, 192, 208, 210, 227–228, 229, 241, 322; + _See also_ Morality. + + Moral values, 106 + + Morris, William, 5, 244 + + Mortality, 188, 191 + + Mosaic law, 136 + + Moses, 49 + + Moving pictures, 6 + + Music, 182 + + Musset, Alfred de, 163 + + Mystics, 147, 196 + + + Nain, 119 + + Naples, 236 + + Nationalism, 63–64, 232 + + Natural goodness, 163 + + Natural man, 19, 162, 163, 241 + + Natural selection, 18, 150 + + Nature and science, 241 + + Nature, laws of, 117, 122, 125, 150, 165, 195; + religion of, 18 + + Necessity, experience of, 187 + + Need to believe, 125, 203 + + Neo-Malthusianism, 289–290 + + Neo-Platonism, Christian, 28 + + Neo-Platonists, modern, 11 + + New Jerusalem, 115, 116 + + Newspapers, popular, 6, 64–65 + + New York, 66, 271, 273 + + Nicæa, Second Council of, 98, 100, 101 + + Nietzsche, 7, 157 + + Nietzscheanism, 16 + + Nineteenth Century, 5, 16, 18, 174, 288, 309 + + Nirvana, 145, 165, 199 + + Noah’s Ark, 38 + + Noguchi, 223 + + Non-sectarianism, 77–78 + + Novels, autobiographical, 113 + + + Objectivity, 132 + + Obregon, Gen., 264 + + Old Testament, 55, 214 + + Onan, 288 + + Order, ancestral, 68, 153, 207, 208, 228, 267, 314, 322; + cosmic, 8, 195, 202, 216; + industrial, 242 + + Origen, 11, 28, 29, 37, 39, 196 + + Original sin, 198 + + “Orthodox,” 57, 122 + + Orthodoxy, 10, 11, 12, 19–20, 32, 35, 194, 216 + + “Overbeliefs,” 24 + + + Pach, Walter, 95 + + Pagans, 52 + + Painting, religious, 94–96, 97–98 + + Pantagruelists, 162 + + Pantheism, 117–118 + + Paradise, 128, 145, 146 + + _Paradise Lost_, 116 + + Parenthood, 292–294, 301, 305 + + Paris, 111, 223 + + Passions, harmony of, 198, 206, 208 + + _Pater_, 149 + + Pater, Walter, 106–107 + + Patriotism, 18, 78, 82 + + Paul, St., 12–13, 50, 52, 58, 90, 99, 155, 161 + + Peace of mind, 7–8 + + Peirce, Charles S., 129 + + Periclean Age, 11, 232 + + Personality, persistence of, 42 + + Peter, St., 72, 74, 99, 146 + + Petrarch, 5 + + _Phædo_, 159 + + Pharisees, 12, 317, 319 + + Philistines, 104 + + Philosophers, Greek, 10, 159, 233, 235–236 + + Philosophy, 324; + industrial, 243, 260; + modern, 157, 158; + political, 260 + + Physicists, 102, 124, 129 + + Physics, 143, 157, 174, 241 + + _Pilgrim’s Progress, The_, 200 + + Place, Francis, 289 + + Plato, 10, 48, 156, 159, 161, 200, 289 + + Platonic tradition, 28 + + Platonism, 43 + + Platonists, 42–43, 196 + + Pleasure and pain, 177, 179, 302 [p346] + + Plot, John, 149 + + Plotinus, 155 + + Political conduct, 264–265, 284 + + Political machine, 264 + + Politician, the, 279–282 + + Pope, the, 13, 15, 72, 79, 81, 85, 265, 270–271 + + Pope Innocent IV, 85 + + Pope Paul V, 81 + + Pope Pius IX, 75 + + Population, growth of, 289–291 + + Post-Darwinians, 18 + + Pragmatism, 119 + + Prayer, 146–149 + + Pre-machine age, 253 + + Presbyterians, 79 + + Priesthood, 73 + + Primitive peoples, 159 + + Procreation, 166 + + Progress, religion of, 18 + + Prohibition, 31, 277 + + Propaganda, 281 + + Prophet, artist as, 101–102, 103, 104 + + Prophets, 12 + + Protestantism, 15, 30, 32, 34, 52, 77, 86 + + Protestants, 34–35 + + Pseudo-religions, 125 + + Psychiatry, 158, 159 + + Psychoanalysis, 6, 125, 174, 177, 179, 220 + + Psychology, 143, 171, 172, 173, 174, 220; + abnormal, 171; + folk, 171; + popular, 114; + scientific, 173, 176 + + Public interest, 257–258 + + Public opinion, 167 + + Public schools, 76–77 + + Public utilities, regulation of, 254–255 + + Purgatory, 146 + + Puritanism, 154, 302 + + Purpose, cosmic, 9 + + Pythagoras, 204–205 + + + Rabelais, 161, 162–163 + + Randall, Dr., 127–128 + + Rationalists, 24–25 + + Rationalization, 39 + + Reality, 177, 179, 180, 193, 216, 272, 312, 319 + + Reason and faith, 51, 121 + + Rebellion, 16–17, 19, 190 + + Rebels, 15–18, 19 + + Reconstruction, essays in, 14 + + Redemption, 11, 115 + + Reformation, 13, 72–73, 94, 154 + + Reformers, Eighteenth-Century, 15; + Protestant, 34, 39, 40, 73, 96 + + Relative motion, 124 + + Religion, 8, 10, 17, 18–19, 23, 112, 123, 131, 284, 324; + aristocracy in, 197, 200, 202, 203; + need of, 123; + of the spirit, 44, 46, 196–197, 203, 205–206, 327–328; + popular, 14, 32–33, 47, 50, 69, 91, 94, 127, 131–132, 143, 145, + 176, 194, 195–196, 201, 202, 208, 216, 227, 232, 244, 325 (_See + also_ Theology, popular); + traditional, 122, 124, 203 + + Religious experience, 33, 90–91, 125, 325–326 + + Religious synthesis, 111, 124 + + Religious thought, 96 + + Religious wars, 74 + + Religious writing, 97 + + Renaissance, 94–95, 161; + High, 154 + + Renan, 7 + + Renunciation, 45, 156, 157, 191, 192, 206 + + _Republic_, 159–160 + + Revelation, 124, 126, 127, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 143, 318, 326; + logic of, 121; + sense of, 13 + + Revivals, 14 + + Revolution, French, 289; + industrial, 210, 248; + mechanical, 19, 234, 236, 241, 248, 289; + Russian, 250–251; + spiritual, 133–134 + + Rewards and punishments, 201, 202, 213 + + Riggs, Father, 34 + + Righteousness, sense of, 16 + + Right of revolution, 82 + + Right to believe, 25 + + Rights of men, 242, 267 + + Roland, 71 [p347] + + Roman Catholic Church. _See_ Catholic Church. + + Roman Empire, 58, 205 + + Romantics, 18, 26, 154 + + Rome, 149, 236 + + Rousseau, 154, 266 + + Royal Society of London, 236 + + Ruskin, 244 + + Russell, Bertrand, 27, 114, 157, 238, 298–299, 308 + + Russell, Dora, 163 + + Russia, 250–253, 272, 273 + + + Sages, teaching of, 198, 200, 210, 239 + + Saintliness, 156 + + Salvation, 75, 88, 147, 195–197, 198, 201, 313 + + Santayana, George, 19, 35, 36, 43, 68, 145, 148, 182, 310, 311 + + Sargent, John, 95 + + Savonarola, 37 + + Schoolmen, 127, 129 + + Science, 10, 18, 19, 112, 120, 123, 153, 176, 205; + and religion, 123–124, 132–133; + concepts in, 102–103, 107, 122; + Greek, 210; + logic of, 121; + mediæval, 128; + method of, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 157, 239; + modern, 127, 128, 236–237, 239, 316; + popular, 127; + pure, 237–238, 239 + + _Science and the Modern World_, 123 + + Scientific discipline, 239–240, 241 + + Scientific explanation, 130, 131 + + Scientific hypotheses, 125, 126–127 + + Scientific inquiry, 35, 123, 236 + + Scientific materialism, 131 + + Scientific method. _See_ Science, method of. + + Scientific research, 236–237, 238 + + Scientific spirit, 240, 327 + + Scientific theory, 133, 209 + + Scribes, 12 + + Scriptures. _See_ Bible. + + Self-discipline, 45, 196–197, 198 + + Serenity, 7–8 + + Sex, 284–285, 288, 299–300, 306, 308; + and religion, 89–90 + + Sexual conventions, 299–300, 301, 307–308 + + Sexual ideal, 93–94, 293, 301, 305–306, 307 + + Sexuality, 150, 165–166, 303–304 + + Sexual relations, 231, 284–287, 288–289, 291–292, 295–296, 297, 299, + 308, 312 + + Shaw, George Bernard, 18, 48, 156 + + Shelley, 5–6, 102 + + Simeon Stylites, St., 158 + + Sinai, 136, 227 + + Smith, Adam, 242, 243, 245 + + “Social compact,” 266–267 + + Socialism, 249–250, 258 + + Socialists, 249, 250, 252 + + Social system, American, 65–67, 273–274 + + Society, 19, 190, 206, 207, 241, 250, 266, 276, 284, 322; + opinion of, 134 + + Socrates, 10, 11, 155, 159, 160, 161, 219, 220 + + Song of Solomon, 38 + + Sophists, 219, 220 + + Sophisticated violence, 64 + + Soul, 114, 196 + + Sovereignty, conception of, 265, 267 + + Space, sense of, 180 + + Species, propagation of, 150 + + Speculation, philosophic, 233 + + Spengler, 62, 232 + + Spinoza, 155, 156, 161, 192, 193, 194, 197, 216, 219, 220, 266 + + Spirituality, 154, 197, 204, 329–330 + + Staël, Madame de, 162 + + Statesman, the, 279–283 + + Steele, Richard, 86 + + Stimuli, 182 + + Stoddard, Lothrop, 64 + + Suffering, irrational, 213 + + _Summa_, 100 + + Supernatural kingdom, 143, 325–326 + + Superstition, 218 + + Survival of the fittest, 150 + + Syllabus of Pope Pius IX, 314 + + Symbolism, 34, 45, 68, 100, 325 [p348] + + + Tabu, 160 + + Tamar, 288 + + Tariff, 276–277 + + Ten Commandments, 78 + + Tennessee, 77 + + Theism, 136, 137 + + Theocracy, 194, 195, 197, 203, 227, 228 + + Theodorus of Cyrene, 301–302 + + Theology, Catholic, 51, 119; + popular, 10–11, 23 (_see also_ Religion, popular) + + Thirteenth Century, 11 + + Thomas à Kempis, 113 + + Thomson, James, 5 + + Thought, contemporary, 194; + scientific, 125, 235 + + Time, sense of, 181 + + Toleration, 74–77, 123 + + Totemism, 160 + + Towns, rise of, 19, 232 + + _Tradesman’s Calling, The_, 86 + + Traditions, religious, 61–62, 96, 97 + + Transubstantiation, 58 + + Trent, Council of, 14, 100–101 + + Trinity, 70 + + _True Law of Free Monarchy_, 79 + + “Truth, the,” 129 + + + _Unam sanctam_, 81 + + Unbelief, 3–20, 28, 228, 229, 326 + + Understanding, 181–183, 191, 206, 321, 329 + + Uneasiness, modern, 14 + + United States, 253–254, 272, 274, 276, 277–278 + + Universe, 8, 128, 129, 145 + + Usury, 84, 85, 86, 87 + + Utopia, 151 + + + Valerian, 98–99 + + Values, transvaluation of, 16, 181 + + Versailles, Court of, 95 + + Vicegerent of God, 72 + + Victoria, Queen, 155, 302 + + View of life, traditional, 109 + + Villers, 162 + + Virgin Mary, 96, 99, 115, 149 + + Virtue, 166, 192, 221–225, 226–227, 228–229, 320, 329; + conception of, 226, 318, 319, 324 + + Voltaire, 16, 197 + + + Wallas, Graham, 240 + + Walter Reed Hospital, 223 + + Walwayn, Thomas, 149 + + War, abolition of, 232 + + Watt, James, 234, 236 + + _Wealth of Nations_, 242 + + Wells, H. G., 233–234 + + West, Lady Alice, 148–149 + + Whitehead, Alfred North, 25–27, 123–124, 195, 236, 325 + + Wilenski, R. H., 104, 111 + + Will, human, 195 + + Will of God, 10, 195 + + Will to believe, 25, 53 + + Wisdom, 185–186, 198–199, 201, 226–228, 229, 244, 320, 324 + + Woman, economic independence of, 93 + + Women, chastity of, 286–288, 291 + + Wordsworth, 5, 18, 180 + + World, character of, 186 + + World’s Christian Fundamentalist Association, 30, 31 + + World War, 17, 253, 272–273 + + Wyclif, 37, 73 + + Wynne, Father, 146 + + + Yahveh, 55, 214. + _See also_ Jehovah. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77019 *** |