,,morality ,,as ,a ,,religion ,,an ,,exposition ,,of ,,some ,,first ,,principles ,,by ,w4 ,r4 ,,washington ,,sullivan ,religion is ,morality recognised as a ,divine command4 --,,immanuel ,,kant ,the mind of this age has fallen away from theology to morals4 ,i conceive it an advance4 --,,emerson ,,london ,,swan ,,sonnenschein ,,co41 ,,lim4 ,,new ,,york3 ,,the ,,macmillan ,,co4 #ahih ,all rights reserved ,,preface4 ,a recent work by ,m4 ,guyau was originally announced under the title of ,the ,non-,religion of the ,future1 and1 doubtless1 an impression is generally prevalent that1 with the modification or disappearance of traditional forms of ,belief1 the fate of ,religion itself is involved4 ,the present volume is a plea for a reconsideration of the ,religious question1 and an inquiry as to the possibility of reconstructing ,religion by shifting its basis from inscrutable dogmas to the unquestionable facts of man's moral nature4 ,it is now some fifty years since ,emerson wrote that the progress of ,religion is steadily towards its identification with ,morals1 and foretold a new ,church founded on ,moral ,science 4 4 4 the ,church of men to come4 ,it is more than a century since the immortal ,immanuel ,kant startled ,europe by the betrayal of the immensity of the emotion whereby the contemplation of man's sense of law filled his soul1 shedding henceforth an unfading glory about the ideal of ,duty and ,virtue1 and elevating it in the strictest sense to the supreme height of ,religion4 ,what these men--the prophet and philosopher of the ,new ,idealism--thought and did has borne fruit in the foundation in ,america1 ,great ,britain and ,ireland1 in ,france1 ,germany1 ,austria and ,italy1 of ,centres or ,societies of ,ethical ,culture which assume as axiomatic that there is1 there can be1 no ,religion but that which makes us one with the ,moral ,progress of ,humanity1 by incessant co-operation with the ,power that makes for ,righteousness4 ,if ,religion be1 what its name signifies1 the unifying principle of mankind1 in no other wise can we be possibly made ,one with each other and with the ,universal ,power than by so living as to secure the ends for which worlds and men exist4 ,as the great ,ethical prophet of the ,west expressed the truth3 ,my ,father worketh even until now1 and ,i also work4 ,in such co-operation by moral life we place the very essence of ,religion4 ,with a view to propagating such a conception of ,religion1 wholly based on ,morality1 a ,society was founded in the autumn of the past year which assumed the title of ,the ,ethical ,religion ,society1 and described itself as a branch of ,the ,ethical ,church1 the ,church of men to come1 which is one day to emerge from the united efforts of all who believe in the everlasting ,sovereignty of ,ethics1 the unconditioned ,supremacy of the ,moral ,law4 ,the ,ethical ,movement is now beginning to spread in ,europe and ,america4 ,it is represented very largely in the ,united ,states1 where1 indeed1 it was inaugurated some twenty years ago by ,dr4 ,felix ,adler1 of ,new ,york2 in ,germany1 by a score or more of ,societies2 in ,italy1 in ,austria1 in ,hungary1 and quite recently in ,france and ,norway4 ,london1 of course1 is represented by numerous ,societies1 and ,ireland possesses one at ,belfast4 ,so far1 there has been nothing definite accomplished towards a federation of these representative ,bodies1 though some preliminary steps have been taken in the formation of an international committee4 ,the various ,societies are quite independent1 nor are their speculative opinions always in agreement4 ,one only principle is universally and unreservedly acknowledged1 namely1 the absolute supremacy and independence of ,morality1 whatever philosophical differences may exist as to speculative matters connected therewith4 ,the ,movement stands for freedom4 ,in certis1 unitas2 in dubiis1 libertas4 ,as regards the ,ethical ,religion ,society1 which meets at ,steinway ,hall1 ,portman ,square1 and for which alone the present volume has any claim to speak1 it may be said that it expresses the ,ethical interpretation with which the teaching of ,kant and ,emerson1 and the ,idealist school generally1 have made us familiar4 ,during the year of its existence it may be said to have met a certain need1 and to have gained numerous adherents from amongst those who1 finding it impossible to stand upon the old ways1 were yet in need of an ,idealism and an inspiration of life4 ,the teaching given weekly at its ,sunday ,services is summarised in the following chapters1 which are published under the impression that some information respecting a ,body which is content to make the ,moral life its ideal and reverence ,conscience as the highest1 holiest reality1 may be welcome to religious idealists generally4 ,the volume is altogether of an introductory character1 and merely aims at conveying the central truth of ,ethical ,religion expressed by ,immanuel ,kant in the well-known words--,religion is ,morality recognised as a ,divine command4 ,morality is the foundation4 ,religion only adds the new and commanding point of view4 ,,contents4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,ethics ,,and ,,religion ,,ii4 ,,ethics ,,and ,,science ,,iii4 ,,ethics ,,and ,,theism ,,iv4 ,,immanuel ,,kant1 ,,the ,,ethical ,,philosopher ,v4 ,,the ,,ethical ,,doctrine ,,of ,,compensation ,,vi4 ,,conscience ,,the ,,voice ,,of ,,god ,,and ,,the ,,voice ,,of ,,man ,,vii4 ,,priests ,,and ,,prophets ,,viii4 ,,prayer ,,in ,,the ,,ethical ,,church ,,ix4 ,,the ,,ethical ,,aspect ,,of ,,death ,x4 ,,the ,,ethical ,,aspect ,,of ,,war ,,xi4 ,,the ,,ethics ,,of ,,marriage ,,xii4 ,,the ,,ethical ,,church ,,and ,,positivism ,,xiii4 ,,the ,,old ,,faith ,,and ,,the ,,new ,,as ,,seen ,,in ,,helbeck ,,of ,,bannisdale ,,xiv4 ,,the ,,religion ,,of ,,tennyson ,,xv4 ,,the ,,unknown ,,god ,,xvi4 ,a ,,chapel ,,in ,,the ,,infinite ,,xvii4 ,,the ,,over-,,soul ,,morality ,,as ,a ,,religion4 ,i4 ,,ethics ,,and ,,religion4 ,some fifteen years ago a discussion was carried on in the pages of one of our leading monthlies on the profoundly important question1 ,the ,influence on ,morality of a ,decline in ,religious ,belief4 ,men of every shade of opinion1 from ,roman ,catholicism to ,agnosticism1 contributed their views1 and1 as might well have been expected1 they came to the most contradictory conclusions4 ,the ,roman ,catholic and ,anglican writers appeared to think that the mere husk of morality would be left with the disappearance of ,christianity2 that a sort of enlightened epicureanism1 a prudent animalism1 would sway the greater part of mankind2 in a word1 that we should be whited sepulchres1 fair to look on without1 but inside full of dead men's bones1 and all filthiness4 ,the agnostic was no less certain that morality1 which had outgrown the cumbrous garments manufactured by theology1 would get on equally well in the handy raiment provided by science4 ,the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,martineau1 speaking as a theistic philosopher1 accurately delineated the boundaries of religion and morality1 proceeded to show the untenableness of these two extreme positions1 and nobly vindicated the complete autonomy or independence of ethics1 whether of theological or scientific doctrines4 ,before stating the views which an ethical society advocates as to the relations between religion and ethics1 it would be very opportune to remark that in the symposium or discussion referred to1 sufficient emphasis was not laid on an extremely important distinction which should be borne in mind when we estimate the comparative importance of religion and ethics4 ,it is this4 ,religion1 to ninety-nine out of every hundred men who talk about it1 does not mean religion in its genuine character1 but philosophy4 ,a man's religion is merely a synonym for the reasoned explanation of the universe1 of man1 and their destiny1 which he has learnt from the particular ecclesiastical organisation to which he belongs4 ,thus1 the ,christian religion means to the ,anglican the ,bible as interpreted by the ,thirty-nine ,articles2 to the ,dissenter1 the same book1 as interpreted by some confession1 such as the ,westminster1 the ,calvinistic1 or the like4 ,to the ,roman ,catholic it is synonymous with what has been1 and what in future may be1 the verdict of a central teaching corporation whose judgment is final and irrevocable4 ,similarly1 religion for the ,mohammedan is the precise form which his founder gave it1 whilst the ,buddhist is equally persistent in upholding the version of ,sakya ,mouni4 ,now1 it is plain that religion itself is one definite thing1 and cannot be made to cover a multiplicity of contradictory statements4 ,what1 then1 are these ,catholic1 ,protestant1 ,mohammedan and ,buddhist religions8 ,they are not religions at all3 they are merely philosophies1 or systematised accounts of ,god1 the world1 and of man1 which have obtained large support in earlier stages of the world's history4 ,religion itself is a thing apart from these ephemeral forms in which it has been made to take shape4 ,it is the great sun of reality1 whose pure and authentic radiance has been decomposed in the spectrum of the human brain1 each man seizing on an individual ray of broken light and making that the sum and substance of his belief4 ,our little systems have their day1 ,they have their day and cease to be2 ,they are but broken lights of ,thee1 ,and ,thou1 ,o ,lord1 art more than they4 ,it is the aim of this movement1 for the establishment of ethical religion1 to re-discover to man's wondering eyes the imperishable beauty of a religion allied to no transitory elements1 wrapped up in no individual philosophy1 bounded by no limitations of time1 place or race1 but ever the self-same immutable reality1 though manifesting itself in most diverse ways1 the sense of the infinite in man1 and the communion of his spirit with that alone4 ,speak to ,him1 thou1 for ,he hears1 and spirit with spirit can meet1 ,closer is ,he than breathing1 and nearer than hands or feet4 ,what has philosophy1 creed or council to say to that high and ennobling conception8 ,shall articles and confessions venture to intrude there in the innermost sanctuary of man's spiritual being and dictate to him what he shall hold or not hold of a reality about which he alone is conscious8 ,what has the conflict about the ,hebrew cosmogony1 of ,genesis1 baptismal regeneration1 or the validity of orders to do with that serene peace in which religion alone can dwell8 ,it were profanity surely to intrude such strife of words in a sanctuary so sacred as that4 ,one of our saddest thoughts as we reflect on the little systems1 so called1 of the day1 must be that they have so inconceivably belittled religion1 tearing away that veil of reverence which should ever enshrine the ,holy of ,holies4 ,the only atmosphere in which religion can really live is one of intense reverence1 and when we hear of revivals1 pilgrimages1 elaborate ritualism 7,i am afraid ,emerson describes it as peacock ritual71 we may safely doubt whether the soul of religion be there4 ,it is an excitement1 a large advertisement for one or other of the many ecclesiastical corporations of the age1 but where is the lonely communing with the ,unseen1 as revealed in the story of ,jesus or the ,buddha8 ,the reason why ,jesus is so fascinating a memory to his church disciples is that he is so wholly unlike them4 ,so little is there really spiritual and suggestive of the higher life in what is exclusively ecclesiastical1 that in their best moments men instinctively turn away from it1 and find inspiration and peace in quiet thoughts about the ,master1 who said1 ,the ,kingdom of ,god1 that is the kingdom of righteousness1 or the ethical church1 cometh not with observation1 and ,the ,kingdom of ,god is within you4 ,the more inward religion is1 the less formalism it employs1 the more ethical it becomes1 the nearer it approaches the ideal of the great ,master4 ,a pure and saintly inspiration1 an ennobling and yet subduing influence1 a solemn stillness and hushing of the senses that would contend for mastery1 an odour blown from the everlasting hills1 filling life with an indescribable fragrance2 such is religion as professed and taught by ,jesus1 and such is the ideal of the ,church of ,emerson1 builded on the purified emotions of the human heart4 ,perhaps ,i have now indicated what ,i mean by religion1 pure and undefiled1 though ,i know too well what truth lies hid in those words of the ,over-soul1 ,ineffable is the union of man and ,god in every act of the soul4 ,the spoken word does but suggest1 and that faintly1 what the inner word of the soul expresses on matters so sublime4 ,still1 so far as the limitations of thought and speech permit1 we have shown how religion is the communion of man's spirit with the ,over-soul1 the baring of his heart before the immensities and eternities which encompass him1 the deep and beautiful soliloquy of the soul in the silence of the ,great ,presence4 ,draw1 if thou canst1 the mystic line ,severing rightly ,his from thine1 ,which is human1 which ,divine4 --,conduct of ,life4 ,let us now pass on to inquire what are the relations between religion so conceived and ethics or morality4 ,in the first place1 it must be laid down as clearly as words will permit that religion and morality should always be conceived as separate realities4 ,of course1 there can be no such thing as religion pure and undefiled without morality or right conduct2 nevertheless1 the two words connote totally distinct activities of the soul of man4 ,we shall best explain our meaning by pointing to the obvious fact that there have not been wanting men in all times who have exhibited an almost ideal devotion to duty without betraying any sympathy whatsoever with religious emotion such as has been described4 ,they have no sense of the infinite1 as others have no sense of colour1 art or music1 and in nowise feel the need of that transcendent world wherein the object of religion is enshrined4 ,i should say that the elder ,mill was such a man1 and his son1 ,john ,stuart ,mill1 until the latter years of his life1 when his views appear to have undergone a marked change4 ,some of his disappointed friends ascribed the change to the serious shock he suffered at his wife's death4 ,there may possibly be truth in that opinion2 the winnowing wings of death often bring about a searching change4 ,no one yet has ever been able to seriously live up to the ,hedonistic rule1 eat and drink for to-morrow we die4 ,if death were announced1 the very last thing man would do would be to eat and make merry4 ,however1 it is notoriously possible to bring forth fruits of righteousness1 or1 to use modern language1 to live the good life1 without seeking any help from that world of the ideal in which religion lives4 ,this teaching1 of course1 is diametrically opposed to that of the ,churches1 who lay it down almost as an axiom that without such extraneous assistance as grace1 generally conveyed in answer to direct supplication1 or through the mystery of ,sacramental agencies1 such as ,baptism or the ,lord's ,supper1 it is fairly impossible to keep the moral law4 ,to the credit of humanity1 this dark theology has been falsified by results in countless instances1 and never more frequently than to-day4 ,men whose names are in the mouth of everybody have lived and died in the enjoyment not merely of the esteem1 but of the reverent admiration of their age1 whose lives were wholly uninspired by religious motives4 ,i need only mention ,charles ,darwin1 and when we remember that not even sectarianism ventured to dispute his right to rest within the hallowed precincts of an abbey-cathedral1 ecclesiastics themselves must be fast forgetting the deplorable narrowness of old views which made morality and dogmatism inter-dependent terms4 ,nevertheless1 it must be conceded1 and such men as ,i have spoken of were the first to admit it1 that lives such as these are necessarily imperfect4 ,the stunting or the atrophy of the religious instinct1 the hunger and thirst for something beyond the sphere of sense when left totally unsatisfied1 produces at length a restless1 tormented feeling1 which turns the very joy of existence to sadness1 and dims the light of life4 ,such men may plunge into pleasure1 absorb themselves in their books or research1 wear and waste themselves in the making of wealth1 and for a time they are satisfied4 ,but the imperious craving reasserts itself at length2 there is the cry of the soul for some lost inspiration1 some transfiguring influence to soften the hard way of life1 console a lonely hour1 comfort a bereavement1 inspire that tenderness and sympathy1 without which we are scarcely even human4 ,one remembers ,darwin's sorrowful admission1 that the deadening of his spiritual instincts left him incapable of enjoying1 or even tolerating1 the rhythm of the poet's verse4 ,the world has heard the note of weariness with which ,mr4 ,spencer absolved himself from further effort on behalf of science and man4 ,the late ,prof4 ,romanes1 in his volume entitled ,a ,candid ,examination of ,theism1 made the melancholy declaration that the admission of a philosophy of pure mechanism or materialism had1 for him at least1 robbed the universe of its soul of beauty4 ,in later years1 as is well known1 the same writer came to see things with other eyes4 ,mind took the place of force as the ultimate fact of creation1 and with it the sun of loveliness returned once more4 ,have we ever sufficiently reflected that the purely negative philosophy has done nothing for idealism in any shape or form8 ,it has inspired no art1 music or poetry4 ,with nothing to draw upon but the blind whirl of infinite atoms and infinite forces1 of which man is himself the haphazard and highest production1 it has contented itself with the elementary work of destruction1 without even attempting to dig the foundations for anything which it is proposed to erect in the place of what has been destroyed4 ,scepticism1 says ,carlyle1 is1 after all1 only half a magician4 ,she calls up more spectres than she can lay4 ,scepticism was1 nay is1 sometimes1 a necessary attitude of the human mind4 ,but man cannot live on doubt alone1 and therefore1 though we profoundly believe the possibility of living the good life independently of religious sanctions1 we unhesitatingly affirm the deep need man has of religious emotion to satisfy the ineradicable instinct of his nature towards communion with the unseen world4 ,here are the words of a man who had exhausted the possibilities of life before he wrote them1 conveying in the simplest1 though most penetrating way1 a most momentous truth3 ,fecisti nos ,domine ad ,te1 et irrequitum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in ,te4 ,thou hast made us1 ,o ,lord1 for ,thyself1 and our heart is restless until it find rest in ,thee4 ,and if we would have a modern commentary upon this saying of the fourth century writer1 ,augustine of ,hippo1 here are a few words of ,victor ,hugo1 spoken in the ,french ,parliament of the forties3 ,dieu se retrouve la fin de tout4 ,before leaving this point1 it would be well to complete the argument by distinctly stating that1 as morality is possible without religion1 religion--or rather we should call it religiosity--is possible without morality4 ,this is a matter of very great importance1 and what has been asserted will help us to understand the curious phenomena one meets with in all periods of the world's history--men and women1 apparently of undeniable religious instincts1 exhibiting a most imperfect appreciation of the far more weighty matters concerned with moral conduct4 ,i am not speaking of downright hypocrites who make religion merely a cloak for the realisation of rascally designs4 ,i speak rather of such individuals1 who1 while betraying a marked religious fervour1 showing itself in assiduous attention at church services1 proselytising1 and religious propaganda generally1 manifest on the other hand little or no delicacy or sensitiveness of conscience on purely ethical matters4 ,take for example such men as ,torquemada and the inquisitors1 or ,calvin amongst the ,protestants2 take the orgies of sensuality which were the necessary accompaniment of much religious worship in ,pagan times1 and1 if we may believe travellers1 are not wholly dissociated with popular religion in ,india and ,china to-day4 ,or1 again1 take such a case as that of the directors of the ,liberator ,building ,society1 men whose prospectuses1 annual reports1 and even announcements of dividends1 were saturated with the unction of religious fervour4 ,or1 take the tradesman who may be a churchwarden or deacon at his church or chapel1 but exhibits no scruples whatever in employing false weights1 and1 worst of all1 in adulterating human food4 ,an incalculable amount of this sort of thing goes on1 and1 whether it be accurate or not ,i cannot say1 it is often ascribed to small dealers in small towns and villages1 pillars of the church1 as a rule1 which they may happen to attend4 ,now1 in all these cases there is no need to suppose conscious hypocrisy4 ,unconscious1 possibly2 but1 though the heart of man be inscrutable1 we need not necessarily believe that such phenomena are open evidence of wilful self-deceit4 ,the far truer explanation is1 that religious emotion is one thing and moral emotion quite another4 ,the late chairman of the ,liberator ,building ,company1 ,i can well conceive1 was a fervent and devoted adherent of his sect1 and was not consciously insincere1 when1 in paying dividends out of capital1 he ascribed his prosperity to the unique care of a heavenly providence which especially occupied itself about all he personally undertook4 ,the rascality of ,saturday was entirely forgotten on ,sunday1 when1 with bowed head1 he recited his metaphysical creed or received the parting blessing4 ,the ,sunday service1 the surpliced choir1 those melting hymns1 the roll of the organ's mysterious tones throughout the holy edifice1 the peculiar sense of spiritual well-being and prosperity which it all combined to produce was probably a joy of his life1 and by no means the meanest4 ,the mischief was that he had no moral sense1 and the word honesty and duty connoted nothing real to his mis-shapen mind4 ,he was a morally deficient being4 ,now1 the ethical ,church has come for this great purpose1 to make us see the repulsiveness of a religion of that kind1 to assure every man that no religious services1 any more than the eager subscription of antiquated formularies1 constitute the essence of religion4 ,that is built on the moral law1 and unless it come as the crown and glory of a life of duty1 then that religion is a shameful thing1 the sacrilegious degradation of the highest and holiest thing on earth4 ,it has come1 this ethical ,church1 to reinforce the wholly forgotten teaching of the ,hebrew prophets of the utter emptiness of all religion devoid of moral life1 the vanity of sacrifices1 oblations and rites1 the hollowness of formularies1 creeds and confessions1 the indispensable necessity of an ethical basis for all religious belief and practice4 ,what more1 asks ,micah1 doth the ,lord require of thee than to do justice1 love mercy1 and to walk humbly with thy ,god8 ,it has come also to indicate the true relations between ethics and religion4 ,ethics are truly the basis on which religion is built1 but when once the sacred edifice is fully raised1 a beautiful reaction is set up 7at least in the ideal good life71 and religion becomes one of the strongest incentives to a dutiful and virtuous life4 ,this is the explanation of the truly ideal lives lived by men and women of deep personal religion1 in all sects and creeds1 ,european and ,asiatic4 ,this1 too1 is the justification of that oft-repeated and profoundly true saying1 that all good men and women belong to the same religion4 ,it is to that one true1 pure1 and aboriginal religion we wish to get back1 in which we discover the best ally of morality1 the all-powerful incentive to a life wholly devoted to duty and the service of the human brotherhood4 ,the allegory of the ,last ,judgment1 as it is called1 as depicted by ,jesus himself in the ,gospel according to ,matthew1 emphasises this ethical truth in words of great solemnity4 ,the sheep and the goats are distinguished1 not by the possession or non-possession of miraculous spiritual powers1 professions of belief or ,church membership1 but by the humble devotion exhibited to suffering humanity1 and steadfast perseverance in the path of duty4 ,how was it possible1 we ask again and again1 for such a religion as that to be transformed into the thing of shreds and patches of bad philosophy as set forth in the ,nicene and ,athanasian ,creed8 ,forget all that1 we would fain exhort men1 forget all but the words that made music on the ,galilean hills1 the life lived in the loveliness of perfect deeds1 the veritable exemplar of a religion founded on the moral sentiment4 ,to be touched by the influence of religious emotion is to approach in greater or less degree to the image and character of ,christ4 ,to live a life of devotion to duty1 however humble our station may be1 is to range ourselves1 with that great ,master of ethics1 on the side of an eternal order of righteousness which can never fail4 ,it is to work with that soul of reason dominating everything in the animate and inanimate world1 to co-operate with it towards the fulfilment of those high ends which are predestined for humanity4 ,every man must make his choice4 ,either he will ally himself with all that makes for moral advancement--his own1 that of others1 and consequently of the world--or he will fight for the powers of retrogression and decay4 ,he will live for the hour and its momentary pleasures1 fight for his own hand alone1 forget mercy and pity1 seldom think1 never reflect1 and at length1 sated and yet dissatisfied with all he has experienced1 sink impotently and ignobly into the grave4 ,immanuel ,kant lays it down as an axiom that the moral law must inevitably be fulfilled one day in every individual human being4 ,it is the destiny of man to be one day perfect4 ,what a searching change must sometime pass over those who have taken the wrong side in this earth-life1 who have helped on the process of disintegration1 and contrived to leave the world worse than they found it6 ,they fight for a losing cause3 they lose themselves in fighting for it4 ,it has been said1 ,i have heard it said myself1 that ethics are cold4 ,possibly to some they are2 but at any rate they are grave and solemn when they hold language such as this to the pleasure-loving1 the light-hearted1 and the indifferent4 ,to tell a man to do his duty in spite of all1 to love the good life irrespectively of any reward here or hereafter1 may sound cold after the dithyrambics of the ,apocalypse or the ,koran1 but of one thing we are assured by the experience of those who have made the trial of it themselves1 that any man who will do the doctrine1 that is1 live the life1 shall know at once whether it be of ,god--that alone is the unspeakable peace1 passing all understanding4 ,but ethics are not alone4 ,as ,i have endeavoured to point out1 religious emotion which grows out of the moral sentiment is the most powerful stimulus towards the realisation of the good life1 and ,i consequently urged the supreme value of true religion1 as both satisfying the emotional side of man's nature and stimulating him towards that sacrifice of self--that taking up of a cross1 as ,jesus put it--which in some measure is indispensably necessary for the attainment of character4 ,but ,i in no wise concede that ethics are cold2 ,i in no wise admit they are uninspiring4 ,the consciousness that a man possesses of being one with the great ,power of the universe in making for righteousness is surely an overwhelming thought4 ,if man would but think1 he would come to feel with ,emerson the sublimity of the moral laws1 their awful manifestation of the working of infinite mind and power1 and of man's nearness to1 or rather oneness with1 that ,power1 when he obeys them4 ,he would come to thrill with an indescribable emotion with ,kant1 as he thinks of the infinite dignity to which fellowship with those mysterious laws elevates him4 ,he would realise the truth of the solemn words3-- ,two things fill me with ceaseless awe1 ,the starry heavens1 and man's sense of law4 ,ethics cold6 ,then what else is left to inspire to us8 ,we are bankrupt4 ,what is there in all the ,churches to help humanity if not their ethics--ethics which are not the perquisite of any sect1 no mere provincialism of any ,church or nation1 but the heirloom of mankind8 ,what1 we ask1 is there to cheer the heart in the ,thirty-nine ,articles1 the ,vatican decrees1 or the ,westminster ,confession8 ,what mysterious inspiration lurks in the dogmas of the ,oriental councils of #afjj years ago1 dogmas to be believed to-day under peril of perishing everlastingly8 ,we do not concede that the ethical ,church has no message to the heart1 no comfort for the emotions1 no solace to the deeply tried and afflicted4 ,a ,church which preaches the imperishability of every good deed1 the final and decisive victory of the good2 which reveals to us not only mind1 but beneficence1 as the character of the supreme ,power in the universe2 which bids us remember that as that ,power is1 so are we1 moral beings to our heart's core1 and1 in consequence1 to take the place which belongs to us at the side of the infinite righteousness for the furtherance of the good--such a ,church1 such a religion is not destitute of enthusiasm and inspiration4 ,a philosophy such as this1 a religion such as this1 will one day sweep the ,english-speaking countries in a tempest of enthusiasm4 ,it will be welcomed as the final settlement of the conflicting claims of mind and heart in man1 the reconciliation of the feud too long existing between religion and science4 ,everything points to its immense future4 ,within the churches its principles are tacitly accepted as irrefutable4 ,we claim such men as ,stanley1 ,maurice and ,jowett as preachers of the ethical ,church1 and their numbers are increasing every year among the cultured members of the ,anglican clergy4 ,leading men of science are no longer committed to a purely negative philosophy1 while one and all would be prepared to admit that if religion we are to have it must be one in complete harmony with the moral sentiment in the best men2 in other words1 a ,church founded on moral science1 the ideal of the saintly ,jesus1 and of all the prophets of the race4 ,,note4--,i can conceive the existence of a ,church in which1 week by week1 services should be devoted1 not to the iteration of abstract propositions in theology1 but to the setting before men's minds of an ideal of true1 just and pure living3 a place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily cares should find a moment's rest in the contemplation of the higher life which is possible for all1 though attained by so few2 a place in which the man of strife and of business should have time to think how small after all are the rewards he covets compared with peace and charity4 ,depend upon it1 if such a ,church existed1 no one would seek to disestablish it4--,,huxley4 ,i know not what better words could be chosen wherewith to describe the ethical ,church4 ,,ii ,,ethics ,,and ,,science4 ,since the era of the re-birth of learning1 each successive century has been generally distinguishable by some marked intellectual development1 by some strong movement which has taken deep hold of the minds of men4 ,thus the ,renascimento period was followed by the century of the ,reformation1 and that again by the inauguration of the era of modern philosophy1 while the eighteenth century has been claimed as the ,saeculum ,rationalisticum1 the age of rationalism1 in which the claims of reason were pushed to the forefront in the domains of religion and politics4 ,nothing remained after that but an age of physical science1 and surely enough has been given us in the nineteenth century which may with equal accuracy be termed the ,saeculum ,scientificum4 ,it cannot be doubted that a sort of mental intoxication has been set up as a result of the extraordinary successes which have rewarded the efforts of scientific investigators4 ,everything now-a-days is expressed in terms of science and its formulae4 ,evolution is the keynote to the learning of the age4 ,thus ,mr4 ,spencer's system of the ,synthetic ,philosophy is a bold and comprehensive attempt to take up the whole knowable1 and express it anew in the language of development4 ,it is emphatically1 professedly1 the philosophy of evolution1 the rigid application of a purely scientific formula to everything capable of philosophical treatment4 ,now1 having discussed the question of ethics and religion1 their distinction and their intimate relations2 having shown how that religion comes as the crown and glory of the ethical life1 the transfiguration of the ethical ideal and the most powerful stimulus towards the realisation in practice of what is conceived as theoretically desirable1 it remains for us to complete our treatment of this aspect of the ethical problem and determine the relations existing between morals and science4 ,this question we conceive to be of vital importance4 ,just as we must be inexorable in refusing to base our ethic on religion1 and still less on theology1 so must we be equally determined in repudiating the claim often put forward1 that morality is a department of physics1 or in any way founded on physical science4 ,the scientific professor1 feeling the ground strong under his feet1 and sure of the applause of his very numerous public1 has made a bold bid for the control of the moral order4 ,he has made a serious attempt to capture the ethical world1 and to coerce morality into obedience to the inflexible formulae of physics4 ,the evolutionist1 in particular1 is consumed with an irresistible desire to stretch the ethical ideal on his procrustean couch and to show how1 like everything else1 it has been the subject of painfully slow growth and development1 and that when the stages of that growth have been accurately ascertained by research into the records of the past1 the essence of morality is fully explained4 ,originally non-extant1 it has become at length1 after aeons of struggle1 the chief concern of man1 the business of all men in common1 as ,locke puts it1 all of which philosophy is tantamount to saying1 that morality is merely a flatter of history4 ,when you know its history1 you know everything1 very much as a photographer might claim to exhaustively know an individual man1 because he had photographed him every six months from his cradle to his grave4 ,a very inadequate philosophy of ethic1 this4 ,but1 before coming to close quarters with this extremely interesting problem1 ,i would protest that we are sincere in our loyalty and enthusiasm for physical science1 sincere in our deep admiration for its chief exponents4 ,we claim to be students of the students of nature1 for1 after all1 nature herself is the great scientist4 ,the secrets are all in her keeping4 ,the ,all-,mother is venerable indeed in the eyes of every one of us4 ,the heated pulpiteer may denounce modern science as the evil genius of our day1 the arch-snare of ,satan for the seduction of unwary souls and the overthrow of ,biblical infallibility1 but we are not in that galley4 ,as true sons of our age1 we are loyal to its spirit1 and that spirit is scientific4 ,the late ,professor ,tyndall said of ,emerson1 the veritable prophet and inspiration of ethical religion3 ,in him we have a poet and a profoundly religious man1 who is really and entirely undaunted by the discoveries of science1 past1 present and prospective1 and in his case poetry1 with the joy of a bacchanal1 takes her graver brother science by the hand1 and cheers him with immortal laughter4 ,by ,emerson scientific conceptions are continually transmuted into the finer forms and warmer lines of an ideal world4 ,it is in no spirit1 therefore1 of hostility to physical science or her methods that we venture to point out that the term science is not synonymous with experimental research4 ,the most brilliant work of ,darwin1 ,kelvin or ,edison in no wise alters the fact that there are more things in heaven and earth than are revealed by their microscopes or decomposed in their crucibles4 ,mental science1 and above all moral or ethical science1 have a claim to be heard as well as physics4 ,philosophy1 strictly speaking1 working by the light1 not of the senses1 as does physical science1 but by the higher light of the intelligence alone1 must be reckoned with by the thoughtful man4 ,yet this is precisely what so many of the lesser luminaries of science1 the popularisers of the great discoveries made by other and greater men1 appear to be wholly unable to see4 ,they have borrowed their foot-rule for the mensuration of the universe1 and they apply it indiscriminately4 ,everything1 from the dead earth to the glowing inspiration of the prophet's soul1 must be labelled in terms of that infallible instrument4 ,if it cannot be reduced to their exiguous standard1 so much the worse for it4 ,science1 or rather the heated pulpiteer of science 7for these inflammatory gentlemen are found both in the pulpit and at the rostrum71 can take no account of it1 and that settles the matter once for all4 ,we may proceed to offer a few illustrations of the attempt of the scientist to capture the domain of ethics4 ,the late ,professor ,huxley1 of whom we would speak with all the respect due to his high position as a scientific expositor1 roundly asserts that the safety of morality is in the keeping of science1 meaning1 of course1 physical science4 ,the same authority considers science a far better guardian of morality than the pair of old shrews1 philosophy and theology1 in whose keeping he evidently thinks everybody1 not a scientist1 believes morality to rest4 ,the teaching of such men as ,mr4 ,spencer1 ,mr4 ,bain1 and ,mr4 ,leslie ,stephen1 though they lack the vigour and picturesqueness of ,mr4 ,huxley's unique style1 comes to much the same thing4 ,under the extraordinary delusion that all the world1 excepting a few enlightened scientific men1 believes morality to be under the tutelage of a pair of shrews1 to wit1 philosophy and theology1 they at once proceed to fly to the opposite extreme error1 and to proclaim that it is under the guardianship of physical science4 ,we have already satisfied ourselves that morality is not based on religion1 but contrariwise that religion is built on the sanctified emotions of the human heart1 that is on the moral ideal--a new church founded on moral science--and as to theology1 ,i should not waste my time in attempting to show that morality is not based on that4 ,but it will be worth our while to show that ,mr4 ,huxley and his brethren are under a serious misapprehension when they suppose that having dispossessed theology of a property which no sane man believes it ever possessed1 they are at once entitled to appropriate the same themselves in the name of physical science4 ,we shall see that there is a third claimant in the field of whom the extremists on either side appear to have lost sight1 and that when the case is fully set forth a verdict in its favour will be inevitable4 ,meanwhile1 let us look at the scientific claim4 ,is the criterion of conduct in the custody of the scientific experimenter8 ,if a man wanted to know whether a certain act was good1 bad or indifferent1 such a course of conduct permissible or not1 is he to consult the biologist or the chemist8 ,i venture to affirm1 in language of the most explicitness1 that physical science can know absolutely nothing about morality2 that ethics are a matter of profound indifference to it1 that1 as ,diderot1 the encyclopaedist--certainly not suspect in such matters--says1 ,to science there can be no question of the unclean or the unchaste4 ,you might as well ask a physician for an opinion about law as to put a case of conscience before an astronomer4 ,there has been1 as a matter of fact1 an extraordinary amount of loose thinking concerning the precise relations between science1 ethics and religion4 ,the churches1 having become irretrievably discredited in their doctrinal teaching 7their very ministers1 in the persons of ,stanley and ,jowett1 openly avowing disbelief in their articles and creeds71 religion has come to be looked upon as a sort of no man's land1 and therefore the legitimate property of the first occupier4 ,science1 as the enterprising agency par excellence of the century1 has stepped in1 and in claiming to exhaustively explain religion1 virtually claims to have simultaneously annexed morality1 erroneously looked upon as a department of religion4 ,but a little more careful thinking ought to convince the most eager of the advance-agents of physical science that the discipline they serve so loyally is altogether unconcerned with the moral life1 and wholly incompetent to deal with its problems4 ,mr4 ,frederic ,harrison once asked1 and with extreme pertinence1 what the mere dissector of frogs could claim to know of the facts of morality and religion8 ,positively nothing1 as such1 and in their more sober moments the beaters of the drum scientific would appear to be well aware of the fact4 ,for instance1 ,mr4 ,huxley himself1 oblivious of all he had claimed in the name of physical science1 asked with surprise1 in what laboratory questions of aesthetics and historical truth could be tested8 ,in what1 indeed8 we may well ask4 ,and yet the physical science which is avowedly incapable of deciding the comparatively insignificant matters of taste and history is prepared to take over with the lightest of hearts the immense burden of morality and to become the conscience-keeper1 ,i had almost said the ,father ,confessor1 of humanity6 ,i imagine ,mr4 ,huxley himself would have shrunk before the assumption of such responsibility4 ,but let us approach the matter more closely4 ,to physical science1 one act is precisely the same as another2 a mere matter of molecular movement or change4 ,you raise your arm1 you think with the energy and profundity of a ,hegel2 to the physicist it is all one and the same thing--a fresh distribution of matter and motion1 muscular contraction1 and rise and fall of the grey pulp called brain4 ,a burglar shoots a policeman dead and the public headsman decapitates a criminal4 ,to physical science1 those two acts differ in no respect4 ,they are exercises of muscular energy1 expenditure of nervous power1 the effecting of molecular change1 and there the matter ends4 ,but surely1 you would urge1 the scientist would discriminate between those two acts4 ,most assuredly4 ,the one he would reprobate as immoral1 and the other he would approve as lawful4 ,but1 be it carefully noted1 he would do this1 not as a scientist1 but as a citizen respecting law and order and upholding good government based on morality and justice4 ,as a moralist1 then1 but not as a scientist does he pass judgment1 for there is no experimental science which deals with such matters4 ,physics concerns itself solely with what it can see and handle--nothing else4 ,the actions1 therefore1 of right and wrong1 justice and injustice1 morality and immorality are simply unintelligible to it1 just as unintelligible as they are to the most highly developed animal4 ,it is the fully developed mind or intelligence alone which apprehends the sublime conception of duty1 and the indefeasible claims which it has upon the allegiance of the will1 and1 in consequence1 the scientist who denounces injustice and iniquity is no longer on the tripod of the professor1 but in the rostrum of the ethical teacher4 ,if ,i may say so1 it supplies us with an admirable illustration of a quick-change performance4 ,the same man performs a double part1 and so adroitly is the change managed1 that the performer himself is deceived into thinking that he is still the scientist1 whereas he has become for the moment the moral professor4 ,but he did not acquire that new teaching in the laboratory2 he learnt it in the study4 ,but there is distinctly one point of close contact between science and morality1 which we must not omit to point out4 ,physical science1 particularly physiology1 from its intimate acquaintance with the human organism1 is admirably adapted for the function of a danger-signal1 so to speak1 to warn the ignorant and indifferent that a life undisciplined and ill-regulated cannot but end in irretrievable disaster4 ,it thus most powerfully subserves the ends of private and individual morality1 just as historical science1 which1 as ,professor ,huxley accurately noted1 can in no wise be tested in a retort or a crucible1 can point the moral when the lawless actions of public bodies or nations threaten the foundations upon which society rests4 ,the physiologist can preach a sermon of appalling severity to the drunkard2 he can describe internal and external horrors 7as certain to ensue in the victim's case1 as night follows day71 compared with which the imaginings of a ,dante are comparatively tame4 ,he can likewise depict a deplorable future of disease and decay as reserved for the vicious4 ,he can point to a veritable ,gehenna strewn with the corpses of unnumbered victims4 ,he can prove to demonstration1 if we listen to him1 that no organisation such as ours can resist the awful strain put upon it by the poison of alcohol1 and the enervating results of an undisciplined existence4 ,reform1 he can tell us1 or go to perdition2 and most valuable his sermon will be4 ,would that men1 so favourably endowed with this intimate knowledge of the intricacy of the workings of our bodily frame1 so utilised their great powers in the service of ethics1 pointing out to the reckless transgressor what a scourge nature has in store for him1 what indescribable disasters he is preparing for himself by his audacity in venturing to break her holy laws4 ,in the ,church which is to be1 the ,church of men to come1 the scientist will fill this very rle4 ,as the best interpreter of nature1 he will be most fitly chosen to discourse to us of nature's laws4 ,the priests of humanity in days to be will not be consecrated by a magical transmission of imaginary powers1 but by their ascertained capacity to open a door in heaven and earth and reveal to us the secret workings of the ,soul of the ,world4 ,we shall meet in united worship in the great cathedrals1 but no more to repeat the dead formulae of a past which is gone1 but to hear the living word of to-day1 the last revelation the ,supreme has made1 be it through the mouth of poet1 prophet1 philosopher or scientist4 ,then1 and only then1 shall the ,catholic or ,universal ,church be born1 coming down out of heaven from ,god1 visibly embracing all humanity1 because excluding none prepared to subscribe the aboriginal creed of the supremacy of ethic1 the everlasting sovereignty of the moral law4 ,but while we candidly acknowledge the priceless services which science can render to morality in the way indicated1 this in no way warrants our assenting to ,mr4 ,huxley's dictum that science is the guardian of morality4 ,as a matter of fact1 science points at the deplorable results of excess without any regard to morality whatsoever4 ,she announces them as definite facts1 as certain as to-morrow's sunrise1 because she is intimately acquainted with the human organisation and the laws which control it4 ,but she ventures on no opinion as to the moral worth of the acts in question2 she registers results and there her work ends4 ,if the scientist does happily go farther1 and point out that conduct conducing to such disastrous consequences must be irredeemably bad in itself1 he is doing most praiseworthy work1 but he is no longer the scientist4 ,he has slipped off his tripod1 and is repeating the lesson of the moralist4 ,let us suppose the acts in question were not followed by unfortunate results4 ,say1 for example1 that by uttering a falsehood1 by altering a figure in a will1 or on a draft1 one could inherit a fortune1 what physical science could prevent our doing so1 or instruct us as to the honesty or dishonesty of the contemplated action8 ,put thus1 we see at a glance that the matter is outside the province of science1 and quite beyond its jurisdiction4 ,morality1 therefore1 so far from being in the custody of science1 has nothing whatsoever to do with it1 but belongs to an entirely different order1 and is ascertained by totally different methods4 ,if one would know the origin of the theory we are at present freely criticising1 it can be indicated in a moment4 ,the most ordinary induction has satisfied men that1 in the long run1 the ,hebrew singer is right when he says1 ,the way of transgressors is hard4 ,wrong-doing and calamity are inseparably connected4 ,those laws1 through which the voice of the ,supreme is ever heard1 are so intertwined in their action1 that the infraction of one leads to the infliction of retributive punishment by the other4 ,we break a moral law1 the physical law will take up its cause1 and we suffer4 ,we have come1 ,i say1 to see the universal validity of this rule1 the absolute irresistibility of the laws under which we live4 ,hence1 a shallow judgment has been hastily framed that you may always judge of the morality of an act by the consequences it produces4 ,if the results are good1 then the action is good2 if evil1 then the action is adjudged bad4 ,this is1 in substance1 the ,benthamite or utilitarian ethic1 ,bentham roundly maintaining that crime is nothing but a miscalculation1 an error in arithmetic4 ,it is the failure of a man to count the cost1 to weigh the results of what he is about to do4 ,that being the case1 the scientist being persuaded that utility and pleasure make an action good1 and uselessness and pain make it bad1 he was able to conclude at a stroke that one action differs only from another in the results it produces1 and that since science was admirably equipped to take stock of results through its statistical bureau1 she1 and not the hideous old shrews1 theology and philosophy1 was the rightful protectress of morality4 ,but we1 who believe with ,immanuel ,kant1 that the ,all's well that ends well theory has no place in morality1 refuse to recognise that the character of an action is determined solely by the results it produces4 ,we believe that some actions are intrinsically good1 and others intrinsically bad1 totally irrespective of the good or evil they may effect4 ,we believe with the ,stoics and with ,jesus that evil may be consummated in the heart without any evil results appearing at all4 ,we believe that thoughts of envy1 hatred1 malice1 are in themselves bad1 irrespective of results1 that such a thing as slander is ipso facto stamped as irredeemably bad long before any of its evil consequences may be manifest4 ,we look not so much to consequence1 but to the intention of the doer1 and the intrinsic nature of the action performed4 ,pleasure and pain considerations are the last things we take into account when we weigh an action in the scales of justice4 ,the theory is therefore hopelessly inadequate to our needs2 it breaks in our hands when we attempt to use it1 and1 consequently1 we refuse our assent to the proposition that because science can occasionally predict results she is therefore entitled to patronise ethics4 ,the truth is1 that ethics need no such patronage4 ,neither the theologian nor the scientist is essential to their well-being4 ,ethics are beholden to neither of the two claimants who dispute the honour of their parentage and protection4 ,they rest on that alone on which everything in this miraculous universe1 science itself included1 ultimately rests1 the reason which is at the heart of things4 ,the moral law1 the sanction of the eternal distinction between right and wrong1 a distinction valid before the very whisperings of science1 aye1 and of the voice of men were heard upon this earth1 is1 to the stately and impressive system of ,emerson and ,kant1 the first-born of the eternal ,reason itself1 the very apprehensible nature of the ,most ,high1 which1 the more men grow in the moral life1 the more they recognise for his inner-most character and nature4 ,things are what they are1 and actions are what they are1 not because of the ephemeral judgments of a tribe or nation of men1 but because they cannot be otherwise than they are1 good or bad in themselves1 judged solely by reference to that everlasting law of righteousness1 the aboriginal enactment of the ,eternal4 ,men point to the growth and development of the moral sentiment in man1 they show how he has grown from savagery to civilisation1 and think therein that they have explained everything4 ,they are like the photographer ,i spoke of above4 ,they have found out the history of ethics1 and they think there is nothing more to know4 ,far from it4 ,identically the same might be said of music and logic4 ,man once beat a tom-tom1 and now he writes operas and oratorios4 ,he once rambled1 now he reasons4 ,will any sane man delude himself into believing that music and logic are nothing more in themselves but the history of the successive stages through which they have naturally and inevitably passed8 ,neither then is ethic and the moral law4 ,it is not man's creation1 it is not his handiwork4 ,it is no mere provincialism of this dwindling sphere of ours1 but a fact and a law supreme1 holding sway beyond the uttermost star1 valid in infinity and eternity1 at this hour1 the sovereign law of life for whatsoever or whomsoever lives and knows1 the adamantine foundation upon which all law1 civilisation1 religion and progress are built4 ,this is1 says ,burke in his magnificent language1 that great immutable pre-existent law1 prior to our devices1 and prior to all our sensations1 antecedent to our very existence1 by which we are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe1 out of which we cannot stir4 ,and not only ,burke1 but centuries before him1 the great ,roman orator1 in language equally sublime1 professed his enthusiastic belief in that same law1 which no nation can overthrow or annul2 neither a senate nor a whole people can relieve us from its injunctions4 ,it is the same in ,athens and in ,rome1 the same yesterday1 to-day1 and for ever4 ,,iii4 ,,ethics ,,and ,,theism4 ,in the present chapter we propose to discuss the gravest of all the grave problems which gather round the central conception of ethic as the basis of religion4 ,there are1 it may be said1 two great schools which hold respectively the doctrines which may be not unfitly described as the significance and the insignificance1 or rather1 non-significance of ethics4 ,the latter school1 which is that of ,bentham1 ,mill and ,spencer1 is content to take ethic as a set of formulae of utility which man has1 in the course of his varied experience1 discovered to be serviceable guides of life4 ,there is no binding force in them2 the idea of a conscience trembling like a guilty thing surprised because it has broken one of these laws1 the hot flush of shame which seems to redden the very soul at the sense of guilt1 the agony of remorse so powerful as sometimes to send the criminal self-confessed and self-condemned to his doom1 is all said to be part of an obsolete form of speculation4 ,there is merely a feeling of obligation1 such as an animal may experience which is harnessed to a waggon or a load1 but any real obligation1 authoritatively binding on the conscience of man1 is repudiated in terms4 ,now this teaching ,i venture to describe as the insignificant ethic1 the ethic which connotes nothing beyond the feeling of obligation1 and refuses to recognise in morality anything but a series of hints casually picked up1 as to how mankind should behave in order to score in the game of life4 ,the significant ethic1 on the other hand1 discerns in the law of morality the pathway into the transcendental world1 the realm of reason beyond the boundaries of the sense4 ,it sees in morality the basis of religion2 it discovers the fact of man's freedom to conform or not to conform to the eternal law2 it unveils the reality of life beyond this earth-stage of existence1 and last and chiefest of all1 it discerns1 in the words of ,immanuel ,kant1 a natural idea of pure theism in the unmistakable reality of the moral law1 from the very obvious fact that laws do not make themselves1 but are enactments of reason or intelligence4 ,we propose1 therefore1 to address ourselves to the fundamental question--the question of questions--the being of a subsistent intelligence and a supreme moral will1 responsible for man and all things1 whom we in our own tongue name ,god1 though it were more reverent to think and speak of the awful truth with ,emerson1 as the ,nameless ,thought1 the ,super-personal ,heart4 ,we are to treat of theism1 the philosophical1 not the theological1 term to designate the truth that the universe owes its existence to infinite ,power and infinite ,mind1 and that morality is a fact because that ,power is moral also4 ,to quote ,whittier's well-known lines1 which express the essential truth of theism in words of exceeding simplicity combined with philosophic depth3-- ,by all that ,he requires of me ,i know what ,he ,himself must be2 or1 to quote the more vigorous1 but equally common-sense statement of the facts by ,carlyle3 ,it was flatly inconceivable to him 7,frederick the ,great7 that moral emotion could have been put into him by an entity which had none of its own4 ,and finally1 we propose to speak of theism1 thus defined1 in its relations to ethics or moral science1 the discipline which treats of human conduct and its conformity with a recognised law of life1 the systematising of those principles of life which man has learned by reason and experience during the course of his sojourn in this sphere of existence4 ,let us begin by some attempt at a definition of our terms4 ,ethics1 ,i take it1 we are agreed to consider as the science concerned with conduct2 that is1 with the actions of man in so far as they conform or do not conform with a standard of right1 whatever that standard may be4 ,ethical1 moral1 morally good1 right1 we take to be synonymous terms4 ,the word metaphysical male olet1 no doubt4 ,it is unpalatable1 and is suggestive of1 if not synonymous with1 the unreal4 ,however1 ,i do not think we need be concerned now with the repute or disrepute of metaphysic generally1 since we all are agreed that theism1 or that reality for which theism stands1 is in the super-sensible1 super-experiential world1 and therefore if theism is an implication of ethics at all1 it is1 of course1 a metaphysical one4 ,as to theism itself1 things are not quite so clear1 for the term covers1 or may be made to cover1 a number of philosophic systems which are not in harmony with one another4 ,thus the theism of the ,hebrew ,scriptures would possibly be atheism to ,hegel1 while the great idealist's position might be pantheism or worse to a ,high ,church curate4 ,to us theism means that at the ground of being1 at the heart of existence1 there is a self-subsistent reality which we call by the highest name we know1 viz41 reason or mind4 ,before the chaos that preceded the birth of the heavens and the earth one only being existed1 immense1 silent1 immovable1 yet incessantly active2 that being is the mother of the universe4 ,i know not how this being is named1 but ,i designate it by the word 'reason'4 #a ,absolute1 unconditioned intelligence is the ,theos we acknowledge4 ,this is the formulary of our philosophical creed1 and as ,luther fastened his forty theses to the doors of the ,wrtemburg ,cathedral1 ,i affix my two humble propositions to the postern of the ethical church1 namely1 first1 that ,in the beginning was ,mind1 and next1 that the moral law is the highest expression of that ,mind4 ,and1 moreover1 that as the mind in man is so ordered as to naturally proceed from the more known to the less known1 from the ascertained fact of the moral law1 we ascend to the source of the moral law1 which1 like all things1 takes its rise in the apeiron1 the ,boundless of ,anaximander1 the ,infinite of ,mr4 ,spencer4 ,theism1 then1 as thus explained1 one discerns as an implication of the indisputable fact of morality1 of the sovereignty of ethic1 of the indestructible supremacy of conscience4 ,and here one may be allowed to quote a singularly luminous passage from the ,cours d',histoire de la ,philosophic ,morale en #ahme ,sicle of ,victor ,cousin1 p4 #cah4 ,kant remarks at this point1 he says1 that we have no right to derive our moral ideas from the idea of ,god1 because it is precisely from the moral ideas themselves that we are led to recognise a ,supreme ,being1 the personification of absolute righteousness4 ,consequently1 no-one may look upon the laws of morality as arbitrary enactments of the will of ,god4 ,virtue is not obligatory from the sole reason that it is a ,divine ordinance2 on the contrary1 we only know it to be a law of ,god because it already commands our inward assent4 ,this is essential ,kantism1 the gospel of the ,critique of the ,practical ,reason1 and the ,religion within the ,boundaries of mere ,reason4 ,not ethics1 then1 from theism1 but theism from ethics4 ,not morality from ,god1 but ,god is known from and through morality4 ,now1 here we may be justified in remarking1 by way of a preliminary indication of the truth1 rather than of an argument1 that the preponderant weight of modern philosophical authority is emphatically in favour of some such interpretation of ethic as ,cousin sketches from ,kant4 ,whatever the cry of back to ,kant may actually mean1 an idealist ethic is in the air of the schools of this country and ,america4 ,i am not oblivious of such names as ,spencer and ,stephen1 nor of ,hffding or ,gizycki abroad1 but ,i think it undeniable that what we mean by the metaphysical implications of ethic commands the assent1 not merely of the prophets of the church ethical1 such as ,emerson1 ,carlyle and ,ruskin1 but also of the rising men amongst us who are carrying on the philosophical traditions of the country4 ,but passing by the argument from authority1 let us approach the question from the standpoint of reason4 ,we may appeal1 in the first place1 to the truth implied in the very expression the ,moral ,law4 ,but it must be explained that by the term moral law we do not mean a code of five1 ten1 or fifty commandments1 but simply the expression of the ethical ought1 the announcement of the supreme fact of moral obligation in general1 that is1 the duty of unconditionally obeying the right when the right is known to us4 ,it is no more the duty of the moral law to set about codifying laws than it is of the conscience to practise casuistry4 ,conscience is not a theoretical instructor1 but a practical commander4 ,the intelligence1 the reason in man it is to which is allotted the function of formulating laws and of deciding what is and what is not in conformity with right4 ,once that is decided1 according to its light1 by the reason1 then conscience steps in and authoritatively commands that the right is to be unconditionally obeyed4 ,and this1 of course1 solves that venerable objection that conscience can be no guide because moral codes have changed and are changing1 and are not alike in various ages and countries4 ,conscience has nothing to do with the excesses of ,torquemada1 or libidinous rites of ,astarte4 ,reason was at fault1 not conscience1 and that supreme judge1 misguided by the reason1 appeared to give a false judgment1 whereas1 true to itself for ever1 it simply pronounced in each and every instance1 that the right must be obeyed4 ,like the needle in the compass1 it undeviatingly points to the polar star of duty4 ,let us proceed with our analysis of the conception of the moral law4 ,there are various schools of ethics1 but they are all united in maintaining some obligatory force in morality1 that whatever may be the precise meaning of the solemn word right1 the right is binding on the allegiance of our will4 ,hence ,emerson1 of the rational school1 is philosophically accurate when he deduces purity of heart1 or uprightness of intention1 and the law of gravitation from the same source4 ,they are both laws1 one valid in the spheres1 the other valid among men1 the one only difference being that whereas the spheres compulsorily obey the law of their existence1 man by the noble obeisance of his will--an obeisance which1 as ,kant points out1 raises him to an immeasurable dignity--voluntarily submits himself to his law1 and thereby fulfils the purpose of his life4 ,moreover1 we must reflect1 as the law of gravitation1 which as physical beings we obey1 is none of our making1 but merely our discovery1 so is the moral law1 the eternal distinction between right and wrong1 no creation of man's4 ,he is born into a world not his own1 and he finds himself surrounded by an order which is not within the sphere of his control4 ,the law1 for instance1 of numbers1 the law of thought1 the facts of the universe1 organic and inorganic1 the bases on which he has erected what is compendiously called civilisation--are all provided otherwise than by his efforts4 ,he is born into an order of reason which1 by obedience to the law and light of reason within him1 he has developed into the stately fabric of organised1 social1 political1 intellectual1 in a word1 civilised life4 ,but1 ,i would repeat1 the basic facts of this life are none of our creation2 they are our discovery1 and no more the invention of man than ,america is the invention of ,columbus4 ,hence1 with the master-poet of ,hellas1 we must acknowledge those-- agrapta kasphal then nomima ou gar ti nun ge kachthes1 all aei pote z tauta1 koudeis oiden ex otou phan-- the unwritten irresistible laws1 ever-living1 whose origin no one can tell4 ,it would be of no avail1 ,i submit1 to point out to ,sophocles1 as ,spencer pointed out to ,kant1 that a knowledge of the early condition of man would have made short work of these sublimities1 that the cosmical man was before the ethical man1 in whom we discover very little evidence of these majestic laws of such universal and undeniable validity4 ,the reply would be that the growth of them is only evidence of what was potentially present from the first1 that just as the beating of brass was no obstacle to the ultimate evolution of the opera or the oratorio1 or the first vague feelings of wonderment with which primitive man surveyed himself and his surroundings to the creation of the world of science and philosophy1 so the undoubted fact that man was unmoral at the start is no obstacle to the belief that the moral law was as existent then as now4 ,nay1 just as the cosmic process itself from the first contained the promise and potency of an organic form ultimately to be called man and to become the crowning glory of the universe1 so also1 we hold1 it contained the potentialities of that whereby man was enabled to crown the splendid edifice of creation by the imperishable deeds he has done1 and that just as it would be futile to ask one to point out traces of man amongst the dragons of the prime1 or some ,bathybiotic slime1 so it would be equally irrelevant to demand indications of moral life in the tertiary man4 ,but1 as in the savage of to-day1 as in the infant1 it is there2 and the fact that it ultimately appears shows that it was there4 ,so surely as the laws of music1 mathematics and thought1 are of the ,sophoclean category of eternal facts1 man's discoveries not his creations1 so also are the moral laws1 and1 therefore1 when ,mr4 ,spencer points out the aborigines who are destitute1 to all appearances1 of what we understand by the term morality and traces its growth through almost everlasting generations of men1 he is but describing the history of ethic1 the development of morality1 just as one might write the history of music1 or of the rifle1 from the days of the blunderbuss to the ,mauser or ,lee-,metford2 but what ethic1 what morality1 is in se1 he leaves untouched4 ,the form differs from the content1 history differs from the reality of which it is the history1 and morality is more than the story of its vicissitudes1 of its gradual1 painful development from the pre-historic times to our own4 ,what1 then1 is morality in se apart from its history8 ,it is1 as asserted1 that universal law1 obligatory on all rational beings in virtue of their rationality1 binding them to live for the right4 ,the instinct of humanity is with us1 that instinct which commands a man to live for the right1 and instinct does not err4 ,just as we instinctively recognise a righteous retribution in the downfall of the wrong-doer and feel outraged when he prospers1 even temporarily1 in his wickedness1 so we equally apprehend by an immediate intuition that what is recognised as the good ought to be obeyed1 and loyally obeyed1 by a man4 ,fais ce que tu dois3 ,advienne que pourra1 is the expression of this faith that is in humanity1 and ,i cannot conceive how any ethical philosopher can venture to contest its truth1 no matter what his test of morality may speculatively be4 ,and1 now1 we may point out what we conceive to be the significance1 the implication of the facts just set forth4 ,if we are to think about the matter at all1 if we are not to adopt a ,positivist attitude and absolutely bar metaphysic as a sterile and unprofitable investigation1 it seems to me that the moral law1 like all law1 points unmistakably to reason as its source2 and since1 as already pointed out1 man does not create the moral order in which he lives any more than he creates the mathematical or chemical laws which he uses1 but simply discovers them by observation1 the moral law must be the expression of a mind other than man's4 ,when we say other than man's1 we do not mean specifically1 but individually1 for we hold the specific oneness of all mind in all intelligent creatures from first to last4 ,we mean1 the moral law is an expression of the ,mind which is the ,whole1 the ,mind which is the ,infinite1 so that1 just as ,mr4 ,spencer refers everything ultimately--and in this he is not far from the kingdom of ,god--to an ,infinite and ,everlasting ,power1 we refer everything1 the moral law above all1 which to us is the highest expression of the ,divine known to this earth1 to an ,infinite and ,everlasting ,mind1 the ,soul of the ,world1 the ,soul of all souls1 the inexhaustible ,intelligence upon whose treasury ,i am drawing now as ,i think and write1 upon whose stores all creatures are drawing in every intelligent action of their lives4 ,law we define as an ordination of reason4 ,from first to last it is so4 ,from the laws which we daily obey to the everlasting laws holding the spheres together--can we account of them as other than the expression of reason8 ,so do we account of the moral law1 with this essential difference1 that while the rules of man1 the laws of man1 may be arbitrary1 the moral law is no arbitrary enactment1 but essential righteousness2 it is the ,supreme ,mind and ,will in actual manifestation--the moral law is ,god4 ,i mean thereby that it could not be otherwise4 ,it is beyond the power of omnipotence to dispense with it4 ,right recognised as right could never be other than right1 it could never become wrong1 any more than two and three could become interchangeable ideas4 ,one may say now that this definite act is right1 and a century later that it is wrong2 but for all that1 for all the imperfection1 the limitation1 of our intelligence1 as much in the moral as in the mental spheres1 one thing is certain1 that the right does exist and is eternally dissevered from the wrong1 and that this quite infinite distinction is the instant revelation of ,supreme ,mind4 ,now1 if to bar this conclusion it were argued that so far from the moral law being an expression of mind1 supreme or otherwise1 it was merely the generalised experience of mankind which had discovered that certain acts were attended by pleasurable or useful results1 and certain other acts by painful and mischievous consequences1 which had led men to describe the first class as good and the second as evil1 one might reply that herein we have stated a truth but not the whole truth4 ,to us the fact that good living and well-being are so intimately associated1 and that the way of the transgressor is hard1 is only one more evidence of the main contention of our school4 ,surely1 if man awakes to the discovery that the laws1 neither of nature1 health1 nor of private or public life1 can be violated with impunity1 more than ever is he convinced that the universe is1 in ,emerson's singularly expressive phrase1 so magically woven that man must come to ruin if he sets himself to systematically disregard them4 ,the word woven is an illumination in itself1 showing how the warp of constant nature and life and the woof of man's conduct are meant to work and must work harmoniously together4 ,and if this be indeed so1 if we adopt ,bentham's language and call pleasure and pain our sovereign masters1 what have we but a further indication that things are so ordained1 that the universe is so constructed1 so to speak1 that you cannot get the good out of it unless you conform to moral law--in other words1 that in the long run wrong1 virtue and happiness are reconciled8 ,well1 but the ordering of things1 the ordaining of a course of things1 what is this but the work of intelligence8 ,and therefore ,bentham1 no less than ,kant1 contributes his quota to the universal conclusion that the moral law implies theism in the sense explained4 ,wherefore1 it may be added1 there is no reason whatsoever why a rational ethic such as has been sketched should not avail itself of the unquestionable services of experience in determining what is and what is not in conformity with morality4 ,if a man sees the world as one1 and all intelligence as one1 he will be assured beforehand that things are so constituted that mischief cannot permanently or ultimately befall him if he lives what he knows to be the life4 ,and1 therefore1 the considerations of pain and pleasure1 utility and mischievousness1 are extremely serviceable criteria whereby we are assisted in that codification of morality1 in that determining of what is good and what is evil1 only it must ever be pointed out that they are not the ultimate explanation or basis of morality1 which is built1 not on any hedonistic or utilitarian foundation1 but on the reason in us1 in the universe1 which commands us to live as offspring of that reason1 or as ,paul puts it from his point of view1 as children of the light4 ,and1 in explaining why pleasure and pain cannot be regarded as the sovereign masters of ethic1 we may add to the evidence for our conclusion4 ,it appears that ,bentham and his school do not observe the proprieties of language in identifying the moral good1 the moral right1 with pleasure4 ,the ideas are really incommensurate1 as is well pointed out in ,schurman's monograph on the ,kantian and the evolutionary ethics of ,spencer4 ,the ethical ought1 the word which gives the keynote to the whole science1 does not and cannot mean what is pleasurable1 serviceable1 or useful4 ,the word essentially implies the ideal1 the conformity to a definite standard of right1 the approximation towards a goal or standard of conduct implicitly recognised as absolute good4 ,but the ideas of pleasurable1 useful1 and the like concern the moment only2 they merely suggest that man should secure the advantage offered or avoid the pain which may befall him here and now1 or some time subsequently to his contemplated action4 ,hence there is no obligatory force in this ethic4 ,prudential motives1 suggestions of expediency1 abundance of counsel1 if you will2 but we miss the note of authority1 the commanding voice1 the categorical imperative1 the solemn injunction1 ,thou canst1 therefore thou must4 ,indeed1 it seems difficult to see how one could convince a man on hedonistic or utilitarian grounds that a course of conduct on which he was bent1 and to which he was allured by the overmastering impulse of a vehement nature1 and which promised him sensible gratification1 possibly even material advancement1 was not legitimate4 ,i do not press this1 nor do ,i suggest that moral elevation of life is not discernible amongst professors of this interpretation of ethics equally with those who take an idealist view4 ,all ,i say is1 that the recognised terminology of the ethical life1 the ought1 the must1 receive an ampler recognition1 a fuller interpretation1 in the rational schools than in those of ,bentham and ,spencer4 ,and1 finally1 we may approach the question from the point of view of evolution4 ,everybody knows the pitiless manner in which the late ,professor ,huxley contrasted the ethical man with the cosmical process1 how he pointed out that the one hope of progress lay in man's ability to successfully combat by ethical idealism the rude realism of the material order of which he is a part4 ,the facts need no exposition4 ,every man has the evidence of it in himself1 in the periodical insurrection of the ape and tiger element in him against the authority of some mysterious power which in the course of his long sojourn here has been acquired1 and to which he recognises that the allegiance of his life is due4 ,that tearful1 regretful expression of the ,grand ,monarque1 after one of ,massillon's searching1 scathing sermons on the sensual and spiritual in every man1 ,ah1 voil deux hommes que je connais trs bien6 may be repeated with even greater truthfulness by every one of us1 now that ,darwin has superseded ,st4 ,paul in the explanation of the phenomenon4 ,now1 here we have a surprising contradiction in ,nature1 the startling apparition of an element in man so utterly opposed to all that is beneath him1 that a scientific chieftain tells us that his only hope is to kill out that ape and tiger1 or at any rate keep it under unceasing control4 ,whence is this extraordinary human element1 and what explanation can be given of the contradiction unless there be some higher synthesis into which the antinomy is taken up and resolved into unity8 ,if out of the primordial nebula both the cosmos and man1 with all that he is1 have been evolved1 then it would appear1 plain as the writing on the wall1 that some extraordinary transformation has come over the scene as soon as man appeared1 and that an element utterly irreconcilable with all that has appeared previously manifests itself in him1 not as an accident or a fortuitous occurrence1 but as an essential1 nay1 as the essential law of his being4 ,how can we explain this8 ,how can we account for this complete volta face in ,nature1 which bids man turn his back on all that made the universe and him1 and resolve to live by a law so irreconcilable with the methods of the cosmos1 that ,i take it we should be justified in saying that had it been in operation before man ,nature itself could not have been evolved8 ,we believe the contradiction receives its explanation in the synthesis already suggested1 that above the two processes1 the cosmical and ethical1 there is another1 that of absolute intelligence or mind1 energising through them both from first to last1 but in widely different ways4 ,in the cosmos1 by ways which we describe as non-moral2 in us by law1 which we recognise as moral4 ,in every grade of being1 in every stratum of ,nature1 the self-same ever-active ,mind is manifest1 nay1 the very distinctions of ,nature's life are fixed by the intenser or remisser energy wherewith the eternal ,mind functions in them4 ,from first to last it is mind-power behind all and in all4 ,in the beginning was ,mind2 in the beginning was the ,reason4 ,lao-tze is right2 the ,alexandrian mystic is right2 ,en arch ho ,logos1 and the ,mind was the light of man1 the light of reason1 the holier light of conscience1 leading him if he will but follow it1 in the way which has been described in language of philosophic precision by the ,hebrew poet as the way everlasting4 ,man may sing a ,magnificat1 because mighty things have been done in him1 such as a cosmos or an infinity of worlds never knew or shall know4 ,and thus the very contradictions manifested by evolution do but contribute to the truth of the general conclusion1 that there is a ,power1 not dead1 dull1 inert1 but an ever-living1 ever-energising ,mind1 whence the mighty procession set forth1 unto which it is ever returning4 ,there is a ,power above the water floods and cosmic disasters which is bringing to fulfilment purposes known from everlasting1 which we are compelled to acknowledge as beneficent4 ,we see its workings in history1 in the rise and fall of nations2 we witness the morally1 no less than the physically1 unfit fall out of the ranks4 ,progress here and there may seem to stop1 but the course of things is never wholly retrograde4 ,is not that hope strong in every man of us1 going before us as an unquenchable light1 encouraging us to persevere even to the end1 because we shall not be deprived of the fruits of our toil1 and no demon power shall come to dash the cup of happiness which we have striven to fill8 ,and what is this but to confess that the ,power manifested in the cosmos is identical with the ,power manifested in life1 that physical and psychical are ultimately one1 that virtue and well-being are indissolubly associated8 ,what is this but to confess the supreme synthesis1 embracing all apparent contradictions1 the ultimate harmony in which all discords are ultimately merged and lost for ever8 ,what is it finally but to proclaim our faith one with that of the most eloquent voice heard in this century1 poet and philosopher in one1 the sublime ,victor ,hugo3 ,la loi du monde matriel1 c'est l'quilibre1 la loi du monde moral c'est la justice8 ,pindar's words again6 ,justice is rightful sovereign of the world4 ,the ,reason which is revealed as equilibrium in the spheres1 reveals itself as justice among men4 ,both spring from one indefectible source4 ,dieu se retrouve la fin de tout4 #a ,lao-tze1 quoted in ,huc's ,china1 vol4 ii41 p4 #agg4 ,,iv4 ,,immanuel ,,kant1 ,,the ,,ethical ,,philosopher4 ,to think of what ,immanuel ,kant has been to the many men and women of this century1 who1 having unlearnt the old traditions1 had not yet found a new inspiration--the souls that were athirst for the waters of life which the ancient wells could no longer supply--is to be reminded of the pious and generous tribute which the ,jewish exiles1 after their sad return from the ,babylonian captivity1 paid to ,nehemiah and his brethren1 the reorganisers of their race4 ,let ,nehemiah1 they said1 be a long time remembered amongst us1 who built up our walls that were cast down1 who raised also the bars of the gates6 ,precious indeed is the man who can recreate the shattered fabric of the ,commonwealth1 re-enkindle the pure flame of patriotism1 and restore the inspiration of religion4 ,a benefactor indeed is the thinker who can give us a glimpse of the ,divine on rational terms1 satisfy the exigencies of the intelligence without denying the cravings of the heart1 and provide an idealism for the inspiration and guidance of life4 ,perhaps it is not too much to say that the temporal destitution of the repatriated ,jews was a symbol of the religious and ethical decay of the last century4 ,protestantism of the orthodox type1 which essentially was and is nothing more than the substitution of a book for a ,pope1 the pruning of the tree dogmatical1 the lopping off of some of its more reprehensible excrescences1 had visibly failed to meet the necessities of the irresistible maturing of the human mind1 to quote an expression of ,emerson's4 ,the older ,church had prophesied accurately enough that ,lutheranism would turn out but a half-way house to infidelity1 and sure enough it did4 ,its thorough application of the principle of private judgment in matters of religion could no more justify the inspiration of ,leviticus than the federal headship of ,adam and the dogma of endless vindictive punishment4 ,hence ,lutheranism necessarily meant the gradual disintegration of dogma1 that is1 of all super-rational truth1 for every man outside the sacred circle of those bound over not to think4 ,when we remember1 in addition to the decay of ,protestantism1 that ,roman ,catholic countries afforded more than sufficient evidence of the inability of their own religion to meet the increasing needs of the age--how ,france1 ,spain1 and ,portugal were devastated by the sceptical disease2 how they insisted on and carried the total suppression of the ,jesuit ,order1 beyond compare the ablest body of men their ,church had ever produced2 how the ,french ,revolution was in its inception profoundly anti-,christian1 and in its progress even anti-religious--when1 ,i say1 we call to mind these facts1 we are able to appreciate the accuracy of the statement that1 through the maturing of the intelligence of man1 the ancient traditions had lost their hold1 not only of ,protestant1 but of ,catholic1 lands4 ,without leaving for a moment the eighteenth century1 ,i think we are warranted in stating that the close of the nineteenth century does not witness a rehabilitation of those traditions4 ,the truth is more obvious than ever that in the men of to-day1 ,the power is lost to self-deceive ,with shallow forms of make-believe4 ,now1 it would appear that ,immanuel ,kant was the man of destiny for the work of the reorganisation of ethical and religious life4 ,i look upon him as the morning star of the ,new ,reformation4 ,he witnessed in his own day the very low-water mark of scepticism1 reaching even to the gross atheism of ,holbach in the ,systme de la ,nature4 ,he had the advantage of everything which ,david ,hume1 the ,prince of ,agnostics1 as ,mr4 ,huxley styled him1 found to say1 and indeed ,hume exercised a marked influence on his ,german brother-savant1 as we may1 perhaps1 later see4 ,the whole work of the ,encyclopaedia in ,france was done under his eyes2 the galaxy of brilliant writers who composed that school were contemporaries of ,immanuel ,kant4 ,he witnessed the crash which accompanied the downfall of the old regime in ,france1 the enthronement of anarchy in the place of government1 the complete eclipse of religion1 and the worship of reason symbolised on the altar of ,ntre ,dame as my tongue refuses to describe4 ,it was the era of the deluge3 the water-flood had burst upon ,europe2 and there was nothing1 no institution of ,state or ,church1 no philosophy1 no religion then extant that could stem the rush of the torrent4 ,never was the effeteness of ancient systems1 the impotence of the old idealism1 more conspicuous4 ,in the midst of this wreckage the problem of reconstruction had to be faced4 ,immanuel ,kant did face it1 and his object was to provide against the recurrence of atheisms and anarchies1 to make godlessness and revolutions impossible1 to ensure religion's being a help instead of a gross and deplorable hindrance to progress1 and to provide man with an idealism and an enthusiasm which would satisfy his utmost desire for knowledge1 and yet stir the pulses of his moral being by the suggestion of an irresistible emotion4 ,such ,i conceive to have been the work which ,immanuel ,kant undertook in the system of the transcendental philosophy4 ,the name of this thinker is so famous1 ,i had almost said so venerable1 in the ethical ,church1 that ,i may be allowed to put before my readers1 who may be unacquainted with the details1 a few personal or biographical notices concerning him4 ,immanuel ,kant was born at ,knigsberg1 in ,prussia1 on #bbnd ,april1 #agbd1 of humble parentage4 ,he was apparently destined for the ,church1 since his first efforts were directed towards the study of theology in the university of his native town4 ,but natural science and philosophy proved of far more powerful attraction1 and1 abandoning ,divinity1 he earned his livelihood1 first of all1 by acting as a private tutor in the neighbourhood of ,knigsberg1 and afterwards by assuming a similar office in his own university4 ,he subsequently1 at the age of forty-six1 became a professor of the ,philosophical ,faculty1 a post he retained till his death in #ahjd4 ,the deep reverence and religious emotion which betrays itself in ,kant's ethical writings was probably due to the influence of his parents4 ,his father was venerable in his eyes as a man of moral worth4 ,honesty1 truth and domestic peace characterised his home4 ,for his mother the philosopher cherished the tenderest of recollections1 and to her religious feeling1 detached as it was completely from formula and system1 he probably owes the fervour with which he speaks--as do ,emerson and ,carlyle--of the sublimity of the moral laws1 and of the infinite dignity of a life lived in harmony with them4 ,when he lost his father at the age of twenty-two1 he wrote in the family ,bible3 ,on the #bdth of ,march my dearest father was called away by a blessed death4 ,may ,god1 who has not vouchsafed him great pleasure in this life1 grant him the joy eternal6 ,after a youth spent under the spell of such surroundings1 we are not surprised to learn that ,kant was of a singularly grave1 gentle and quiet demeanour1 which in old age tended to deepen into austerity and increased conscientiousness1 were that possible1 in the fulfilment of his duties4 ,with the simple words1 ,it is the time1 his servant ,lampe called him every morning at five minutes to five1 and never to the end1 according to the testimony of his servant1 was the summons disobeyed4 ,in the thirty-four years of his professorship he was reported to have been only once absent from his chair1 and that owing to indisposition4 ,kant lived a solitary life2 he never married4 ,like more than one eminent man in the past and present1 absolute want prevented his inviting the woman he loved to share his lot4 ,the world has just learnt that ,tennyson was engaged to his wife for twenty years1 from her seventeenth to her thirty-seventh year1 owing again to stress of circumstances1 and there is living now one eminent man for whom1 as for ,immanuel ,kant1 comfort1 competence1 and fame have come too late to allow of any share in the blessing and joy of home4 ,such things cannot but deepen the hold these elect spirits have and shall have upon men unto all time4 ,of religion ,kant conceived a noble idea1 but he did not find it realised in the ,churches of his day4 ,sacerdotalism1 even in its mildest forms1 was abhorrent to him4 ,during his manhood he never entered a church door1 a fact which is a source of deep pain to many of his most enthusiastic biographers4 ,once only did ,kant take his place in the procession which made its way to the cathedral on an especial day in the year1 and was joined by the rector and professors of the university1 but on arriving at the door he turned back and spent the hour of service in the retirement of his rooms4 ,to his free soul it was a performance1 professional and sectarian1 and in consequence1 something of a profanation4 ,his disciple ,hegel must have been moved by similar feelings when he replied to the questioning of his old housekeeper why he did not attend ,divine service1 ,thinking is also a ,divine service6 ,nature had an irresistible fascination for him4 ,he learnt that also from his revered mother1 whose joy it was to take her child into the world of ,nature1 where the ,soul of the worlds is so conspicuously at work1 and instil into his young heart a deep and tender love for the beautiful life around him4 ,thus he couples the impressive spectacle of the holy night1 revealed in the shining of the eternal stars1 with the supreme object of emotion1 the moral law within the heart1 as the most awful of realities4 ,but not only for ,nature in her sublimer aspects did he conceive so reverential a feeling1 the humbler exhibitions of beauty and wisdom were equally moving to his awakened spirit4 ,once he told his friends1 whom he constantly had with him at his dinner-table1 he had held a swallow in his hands and gazed into its eyes2 and as ,i gazed1 he said1 it was as if ,i had seen heaven4 ,the great lesson of ,mind in ,nature he had learnt well at his mother's knee1 and he never forgot it4 ,children1 so recently come out from one eternity1 their souls so well attuned to the wonderment and mystery there lies hid in things1 are peculiarly susceptible to such beautiful influences4 ,nature is the temple in which their tender souls should learn their first lessons in worship and see the earliest glimpses of the ,divine4 ,kant lived into his eightieth year1 surrounded by the homage of ,europe1 which made him1 in a sense1 the keeper of its conscience4 ,his ethical treatises caused him to be consulted from the most distant lands on questions of moral import4 ,it is on record that many of his correspondents paid insufficient postage upon their letters--a fact which meant considerable loss for the philosopher4 ,indeed1 so habitual was the forgetfulness of these ethical sensitives that ,kant at length refused to take their letters in4 ,after some thirty years of professorship in his own university his marvellous powers began to fail2 his memory served him no longer2 his great mind could think no more the thoughts sublime4 ,the keen senses grew dull1 and the light of his glad blue eyes went out4 ,his bodily frame1 which by assiduous care he had maintained as a worthy organ of his mind1 sank into weakness4 ,his last years1 his last hours even1 are described by his well-beloved disciple and friend ,wasianski with a faithful and pathetic minuteness which1 in the view of some of the great thinker's deepest admirers1 might well have been less microscopic4 ,the spectacle of a great mind losing itself at length in the feebleness of age1 almost the imbecility of second childhood1 might well1 they consider1 have been withdrawn from the vulgar gaze4 ,yet1 as the late ,prof4 ,wallace most truly remarks1 for those who remember1 amid the decline of the flesh1 the noble spirit which inhabited it1 it is a sacred privilege to watch the failing life and visit the sick chamber of ,immanuel ,kant4 #a ,on the #abth of ,february1 #ahjd1 in his eightieth year1 he passed away1 the victim of no special ailment or disease1 but exhausted by the life of deep and strenuous thought upon the most profound and sacred problems which can agitate the mind of man4 ,simple and unostentatious to a degree during his life1 the great master left instructions that he was to be buried quietly in the early morning4 ,but for once his wish was disregarded1 and amid the mourning of his ,alma ,mater1 his townsfolk and the neighbourhood around1 he was laid to rest in the choir of the ,university ,church1 which during life he would never enter4 ,as with ,kant so with ,darwin1 all men instinctively feel--even the most narrow of sectarians--that the lives of such men were--,i will not say religious--but religion1 and so they lay them at last within the shadow of their altars as the worthiest and best of the race4 ,it shows us how deeply seated is the ethical emotion in man2 it shows us that the religion of every man at his best moments is such as ,immanuel ,kant described and realised in his calm and beautiful life--a religion based on the sublime realities of the moral law4 ,and now1 perhaps1 we may say something of the thoughts of our philosopher1 though at present it cannot be more than of a fragmentary character4 ,if the ethical movement is to prove enduring1 the name and teaching of ,immanuel ,kant must be frequently before us1 and numberless opportunities afforded for an ampler account of his doctrine4 ,for the moment my purpose was rather to put before my readers some idea of the man himself whose teaching is now exercising so deep an influence on the religious tendencies of the hour4 ,every time you read of the vicar of a parish changing pulpits with his ,nonconformist brother2 every philanthropic meeting you hear of as addressed by clergymen of all denominations2 every garden party given by a bishop or a dean to a ,dissenters' ,conference2 every advance you gratefully note towards a wise and patient tolerance of theological dissensions1 the sinking of sectional differences in the interests of a higher and purer life--ascribe it all to the beneficent influence of ,immanuel ,kant4 ,before his day all these fraternisings would have been impossible2 the ancestors of these reconciled brethren were ready to scourge and burn each other1 until ,kant came and shamed them out of their narrowness and bigotry4 ,men talk no more of mere morality1 as though it paled into positive insignificance by the side of the dogmatical majesty of articles and creeds4 ,kant has taught them a more excellent way1 and in so far as they have learnt that one lesson1 they and we are members of the one great ,church--the ,church of the ethically redeemed1 the ,church of men to come--the idealism1 the enthusiasm1 of the ages to be4 ,never let it be forgotten4 ,we are not concerned to controvert or to destroy4 ,the message of ,kant to the ,churches is that in all essentials we are at one with them1 and the trend of thought is now setting visibly towards the substitution of an ethical for a doctrinal basis of religion4 ,you are powerless to resist the times1 we would urge4 ,whether the old names and formulae survive or not1 the irresistible maturing of the general mind will make it impossible for men to acquiesce in any religious belief not grounded on the conviction that the sole test of a man's status is not what he believes1 but what he does4 ,this is ,kant1 this is ,christ1 and this is the message of the ethical ,church4 ,but to return to the teaching of the philosopher of ethics1 ,i must remind my readers again that ,i am unable to do more than sketch the outlines of the great ethical system which he gave to the world4 ,more than that will not be needed for the moment4 ,but before undertaking even a synoptical account of the transcendental ethic1 ,i think it advisable to remark that ,kant's title to philosophical immortality rests upon his constructive work as an ethicist1 and not on his critical work as a speculative thinker4 ,it is well known that the two philosophies of ,kant are not prim facie harmonious1 that he finds himself compelled to deny as a critic that of which he is most certain as a moralist4 ,thus the great facts of theism1 immortality and the autonomy or freedom of the will1 he professes himself unable to know save as revelations of the moral order4 ,his mind1 or pure reason1 can know nothing of them2 it is his will or practical reason which discerns them as plain deductions from the overwhelming fact of the moral law4 ,this fact has led some critics to describe ,kant as a sceptic4 ,nothing could be farther from the truth4 ,we might almost quote of him what ,browning wrote of ,voltaire3-- ,crowned by prose and verse1 and wielding with wit's bauble learning's rod1 ,he at least believes in soul and is very sure of ,god4 ,no one more so2 yet as a thinker he professed himself unable to demonstrate these high truths4 ,in that sense ,kant's famous ,critique of the ,pure ,reason may be described as the forerunner of the systematic agnosticism which is set forth in the ,first ,principles of ,mr4 ,spencer4 ,but there is this immense difference1 that ,kant was convinced of the reality of that which the mind of man could not demonstrate4 ,the great facts were existent indeed1 but he was powerless to reach them with the instruments at his command4 ,in consequence1 he laid it down as a principle that man must ever act as though it were actually demonstrated that we were free1 our innermost being imperishable1 and a supreme judge and dispenser of justice to administer the moral laws which are the guide of life4 ,it would be out of place to state the arguments whereby ,kant justified his belief in a controlling mind in the universe and in the spiritual nature of man1 while avowing his inability to demonstrate those truths4 ,it must suffice to state here that the truths which lie at the foundation of religion were a matter of profound conviction with the sage of ,knigsberg1 all the deeper perhaps because he would not claim to subject them to an intellectual dissection or to be able to measure out heaven and earth in the exiguous terms of human thought4 ,but as soon as he leaves the plane of the pure or speculative reason and rises to the level of the practical reason or the will1 then the full truth bursts upon his astonished gaze1 clearer than the meridian light4 ,he sees no more half shade1 half shine1 but the truth pours itself upon the new sense it now trusts with all its plenitude of power4 ,it is the will1 not the mind1 which discloses the full revelation to ,immanuel ,kant1 and makes him the deeply-reverent1 religious man he ever was1 the convinced theist1 the believer in his power to control his acts by the independence of his will1 and in the possibility1 or rather the certainty1 of his being one day morally perfect--not indeed within the limits of the life which now is1 but in a future life of unlimited duration4 ,that which to ,wordsworth was an intimation was to ,kant an intuition after the vision of the glory of the moral law had flooded his innermost soul4 ,and this we may1 perhaps1 briefly show before bringing the chapter to an end4 ,the fundamental principle of the ,kantian system is the primacy of the will4 ,the key to the mystery of man's being ,kant finds1 not in the marvellous faculty of intelligence1 but in that power of self-movement1 that capacity for self-originated energy which we call the will4 ,reason is regulative1 he said1 but not creative and constitutive1 like the will4 ,it is the latter faculty which makes us what we are1 determines our life1 fixes our character1 and decides our destiny4 ,as you act1 so you are4 ,this principle once conceded1 the majestic system at once takes shape4 ,what is it that governs the world of phenomena outside us8 ,physical laws1 and supreme amongst these laws1 that of equilibrium or gravitation4 ,what is it that governs the reason8 ,the laws of thought1 those aboriginal rules1 none of man's creation1 but the essentially necessary guides which he was bound to discover and to follow if he is to think accurately1 that is1 if his thoughts are to be in conformity with fact4 ,and what is it which governs the will of man8 ,do you tell me1 the master would urge1 that the inert masses of the spheres have each their own movements regulated for them1 that nothing from a stone to a star is shaped or moved without the intervention of eternal laws2 that the lispings of children no less than the meditations of a philosopher must conform to law1 and that the will of man1 whereby he makes himself to be what he is1 shapes his character1 influences his surroundings1 and fixes his destiny--do you venture to say that that is lawless in a world where all is law8 ,no1 he proclaims in words which burn conviction into his soul3 it1 too1 has its laws1 the highest1 holiest thing in all this universe1 the law of laws which confronts man wherever he goes1 fills all his sublimest thoughts1 subdues his soul to the most reverent worship1 and is the holiest inspiration of his religion4 ,it is the moral law1 the supreme concern of the will of man1 a revelation to man alone of his own unspeakable dignity1 the norm or standard whereby he is to regulate his life--this it is which is the law of his will4 ,as gravitation rules the stars1 so the moral law1 the sanction of the eternal distinction between right and wrong1 controls the will1 not compulsorily1 not arbitrarily1 as though it could by any possibility be otherwise1 but freely4 ,so sovereign is its power1 so authentic are its claims1 that if it had might as it has right1 it would rule the world4 ,it is1 therefore1 to use ,kant's own language1 a categorical imperative1 that is1 an unconditional command4 ,thou canst1 and therefore thou must4 ,by the very manhood you possess you are bound wholly to surrender yourself in submission to what you know to be the right for the right's sake alone4 ,you must make it your own law1 and obey it as inflexibly as the stars keep their courses in the everlasting way4 ,thou dost preserve the stars from wrong1 ,and the most ancient heavens1 through thee1 are fresh and strong4 ,we may see now how ,kant bases his whole system upon the indestructible fact of ethical law1 the primeval intuition of the awakened spirit of man into the eternal distinction between good and evil4 ,standing on that foundation1 he is able to descry the world of transcendental realities--the land which is very far off--which the pure and critical reason could never behold4 ,but though the eyes of the mind were holden1 the intuition of the will enables him to gaze direct into the unseen and discern freedom1 soul1 immortality and ,god as eternal facts4 ,for whence this sublime law of life unless we conceive mind1 not blind chance1 as the arbiter of things8 ,whence this constraining power within me1 exerting itself to the uttermost to win my allegiance to the right1 unless ,i am free to obey or disobey8 ,how is not the very conception of morality entirely obliterated in the false philosophy that would fain persuade man that because he is in the world he must needs be of it1 and because the tides rise and fall with the phases of the moon1 that his actions are fixed and controlled by influences utterly beyond his power8 ,we have no room for the man-machine in the beautiful school of ,immanuel ,kant4 ,and1 finally1 the awful question of the future ,kant solves in the light of the same sublime principle4 ,that law1 he urges1 which is the essential law binding humanity must one day be fulfilled in every one of us4 ,there is a moral as well as a physical evolution which you try in vain to confine to the limits of the life which now is4 ,there is no argument known to science justifying such an attempt4 ,kant believes in the ,eternities1 because every man born of woman is destined to be at last in absolute conformity with that law of everlasting righteousness which is for us what the law of balance is to the infinite worlds4 ,all life1 that which now is and whatever is to be in the hereafter1 is simply a never-ending progress towards an ideal whose dignity is infinite4 ,hence the command of ,jesus1 ,be ye perfect as your heavenly ,father is also perfect1 would be endorsed by ,kant as in strict harmony with the philosophy which does not teach that the physical act of dissolution called death fixes the moral state of man for ever1 but that all life1 whatsoever it may be and wheresoever it may be lived1 is but an approach towards a goal of infinite value1 the will of man absolutely conformed to justice1 or the moral law4 ,as ,kepler described the philosopher and the scientist as thinking again the thoughts of ,god1 even so does the ,kantian ethic aspire to absolute conformity of will with that ,will which is supreme and eternal1 the moral order itself personified4 ,this is immortality3 this is everlasting life1 even as the ,christian disciple and philosopher describes it3 ,this world passeth away and the desire thereof1 but he that doeth the ,divine will endureth for ever4 ,the phenomenal world is a pageant1 a scene4 ,only the good will 7,kant's constant expression7 in absolute harmony with the ,supreme ,will is real and eternal4 #a ,philosophical ,classics1 p4 #he4 ,v4 ,,the ,,ethical ,,doctrine ,,of ,,compensation4 ,i suppose there is no teaching more frequently insisted upon in the ,old and in the ,new ,testament as the truth of a judgment1 now1 or in the future1 upon the misdeeds or sins of men4 ,let criticism prune and cut as it will1 while it exhibits the deplorably low standard of morality once prevalent among the ,hebrew peoples1 and therefore prevalent among their ,gods1 their ,elohim1 ,adonai and ,jahveh1 one thing1 at least1 is undeniable--that that which is recognised as immoral is reprobated and forthwith visited with condign punishment4 ,doubtless1 acts which to us are wholly reprehensible are discussed without attaching any stigma to them1 and are even permitted1 and sometimes suggested1 by ,jahveh himself1 as in the story of ,judith and ,holofernes4 ,such ethical insensibility is wholly natural1 viewing the state of development at which the ,hebrew people had arrived1 and should cause no wonderment in those who are familiar with the ,deity of ,christian ,mediaevalism1 and the methods and practices he was supposed to favour4 ,but what should be carefully noted is1 that nothing is adjudged immoral but is forthwith sternly reprobated and condemned to a fitting retribution4 ,the way of transgressors is hard was a conviction with the race4 ,in the same way1 the ethical note rings out in the ,new ,testament1 that right and wrong are eternally dissevered1 sheep ever separated from goats2 that virtue must be rewarded and vice be condemned and punished4 ,now1 this teaching of the judgment to come1 the bare announcement of which by ,paul filled ,felix1 the ,roman governor1 with such dire consternation1 is the subject of which we propose to set forth the philosophical and ethical explanation4 ,in the ,bible we have the mythical setting much as we have the mythical version of the agony of spirit undergone by ,christ before he definitely committed himself to his prophetical work4 ,it is for us to-day to disentangle the substantive truth from the maze of legend with which an imperfectly developed age has surrounded it and discover the true raison d'tre of that doctrine which the ,bible ,christian confesses under the aspect of the ,last ,judgment4 ,now1 ,i take it that no educated man believes in the drama1 or rather1 the panorama1 of the last judgment2 the vision of ,jesus sitting in the clouds1 with every human being that ever was or shall be gathered before his throne to hear definite sentence pronounced upon them4 ,the mise-en-scne demands of course the presence of bodies1 and ,i suppose it is needless to point out the dogma of the resurrection of the body1 insisted upon by all the ,christian ,churches1 is a blank impossibility4 ,we may acquire other bodies in that unknown state1 should we stand in need of such appurtenances--a fact which we may wholly disbelieve--but of one thing we may rest assured1 that these identical bodies in which we die can by no possibility conceivable to us be brought back4 ,i once read a highly imaginative article in a religious magazine which attempted to solve the unsolvable by suggesting that after men's bodies had been buried in sufficient numbers1 the whole soil of our planet would consist of nothing but the substance of the bodies of the dead1 and that when that momentous epoch arrived1 the ,almighty would give the order for the sounding of the final trump1 and the whole solid globe would be forthwith transmuted1 or rather re-transmuted1 into human bodies--in what condition it was not stated--for the countless myriads of souls ready to take possession of them4 ,probably1 this pious romance was woven in the days before cremation1 and as the next century will not be very old before we shall be compelled to resort to that method of disposal of the dead1 at all events in our larger cities1 it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend how men of the future1 to say nothing of the past1 are going to be provided with their own bodies so as to put in an appearance at the great assize4 ,we may rightly wonder how men and women of the nineteenth century can still believe in the ,churches and ,chapels which teach such deplorable absurdities as the revelation of ,god1 and how it happens that when religion appears upon the scene of their daily life1 their common sense can so totally desert them4 ,one need say nothing of the inadequacy of the judgment pronounced1 the summary classification of the myriads of humanity as white sheep or black goats1 or the character of the rewards and punishments allotted4 ,the one redeeming point in the narrative is that whatever judgment is pronounced is decided1 not on doctrinal grounds1 about which no two of ,christ's followers can be got to agree1 but on ethical grounds1 on character manifesting itself in public spirit and care for the unfortunate--the bruised reeds and smoking flax--of our communities4 ,it would seem impossible to maintain after this final scene that creeds and faiths have any decisive influence on our status here or hereafter4 ,but though now seen to be no more than a variant upon the apocalyptic tradition and literature which represented that ,jesus was to return speedily to earth and rule among his saints for a thousand years--a delusion which apparently possessed even the trained intellect of ,paul1 and subsequently led to the pseudo-,peter explaining that his fellow-,christians must not be in too great a hurry1 because a thousand years are as one day and one day as a thousand years in the sight of the ,lord--it has done an incalculable amount of harm in the past4 ,it has shut men's eyes to the awful fact of retribution1 administered here and now1 and prevented their realising any punishment other than the savage1 barbarous and wholly vindictive punishment of torturing eternally by fire4 ,it shuts men's minds to the operation of moral laws1 to the fact that judgment is executed instantaneously upon the commission of wrong4 ,it has1 and it does1 to the serious detriment of moral development1 lead man to put off until late in life1 sometimes to the very hour of death itself1 restorative work which should have been undertaken immediately on the recognition or conviction of misdeeds4 ,the notion that he is not to be called up for judgment until he is rendered incapable by death of doing any further mischief1 has been a moral obstacle in the path of man1 and therefore of the race1 wholly beyond the power of calculation4 ,foolish priests once thought that by the invention of the dogma of hell they could terrorise men into morality1 and so they preached their ,divinity1 the magnified copy of a fiend1 who would have cheerfully created humanity out of nothing and damned them everlastingly1 had not he himself1 in the shape of his son1 who is one in being with him1 decided to appear upon earth and atone to himself for the mischief1 which presumably he could have very well foreseen1 perpetrated by man4 ,and what has been the effect of such teaching on humanity8 ,it is impossible to doubt that it has led to results deplorably1 indescribably wicked4 ,whence1 for instance1 arose the horrors of the mediaeval inquisition1 the insensate tortures inflicted upon men like ,huss and ,bruno solely for theological errors1 if not from belief in this demon-deity whom the ,church worshipped8 ,if their practices were but a shadow of the horrors he was supposed to be everlastingly inflicting on mankind1 who could raise a protest against them8 ,shall man be juster than his ,god8 ,this perverse ,christian morality is responsible for the worst cruelties which have tormented the human race since the days of ecclesiastical domination4 ,if the ,deity is inhuman1 why should man be otherwise8 ,therefore1 inhuman tortures will be inflicted on prisoners4 ,the rack and thumb-screw will be used to extract secrets4 ,men will be immured alive within narrow walls and allowed to perish by inches4 ,the ,austrian prisons in the northern ,italian provinces will be so constructed that the miserable victim can neither sit nor lie down nor see the light of day4 ,floggings and scourgings will be universal1 lettres de cachet an institution4 ,why not8 ,where the god has no sense of justice1 why should man8 ,hundreds and hundreds of thousands of victims will perish at the stake and in the flames in atrocious agony because they are wizards or witches or have had dealings with imaginary devils4 ,why not8 ,the god does worse than all this4 ,he keeps his victims alive for the sole purpose of glutting his ire and satiating his insatiable vengeance4 ,nay1 things are so ordered that the very happiness of the elect is enhanced1 not only by the knowledge1 but by the sight1 of the appalling1 unavailing anguish of the lost1 and we have seen such a philosopher as ,aquinas representing the ,deity as conducting the elect in troops and droves to the heavenly shores and giving them a glimpse of hell by way of stimulating their enjoyment of the celestial beatitude4 ,why not8 ,i ask again4 ,my only wonderment is how we ever got rid of it4 ,picture the world under the universal dominion of this foul superstition4 ,it reigns on the thrones of kings1 in the cabinets of statesmen1 it is preached in the pulpits1 taught in the schools1 it is the earliest lesson that trembles on the lips of innocent children4 ,the most ingenious1 subtly contrived1 widespread and all-pervading influence is especially created to propagate it everywhere in the shape of the ,christian ,church--a ,divine institution1 possessed of the keys of life and death1 of heaven and hell--the sole representative of the ,deity on earth4 ,how1 we ask1 in wondering gratitude1 did the world ever escape the tyranny of such superstition8 ,this fact alone--this deliverance--is enough to make one believe that there is a ,power1 not ourselves1 which makes for righteousness1 that the course of human events is never wholly retrograde4 ,and1 now1 what is the truth about the judgment to come8 ,what is the ethical equivalent of hell fire8 ,in the first place1 we refuse to believe in a last judgment because we know that judgment is not only pronounced but executed instantaneously1 automatically1 ,i would say1 on the commission of wrong4 ,there is no need to wait for the day of judgment or even for the hour of death4 ,if a man has done wrong he sits condemned that self-same moment4 ,illo nocens se damnat quo peccat die4 ,there is no need of ,god1 angel or devil1 to announce the fact or deliver judgment2 the man has pronounced his own sentence1 executed judgment on himself4 ,this is1 in essence1 the ethical doctrine of compensation1 that this universe is so woven1 that the nature of things is such that things are what they are1 that the consequences of things will be what they will be1 that we can no more hope to avert them by crying out for help to man1 saint or ,god1 than we can hope to hurl back the waves that dash upon the strand at flood tide4 ,our view is that moral laws are as irresistible as physical1 and admit of no more dispensation than the everlasting order of ,nature4 ,one of our main reasons for repudiating the conception of the miraculous is that it involves a violation of eternal order and therefore of eternal reason1 and if freely admitted in the physical1 would doubtless be speedily introduced into the moral order1 to the destruction of civilised society4 ,we believe that this universe is so magically woven that it is absolutely impossible to escape the consequences of our deeds1 and if the ,buddhist doctrine of ,karma represents that teaching1 then we are among its most enthusiastic adherents1 because it is absolutely true to fact4 ,but let us look at the matter more closely4#a ,have we ever sufficiently reflected how that all things are double1 one against the other1 in this mysteriously governed world1 that everything has its counterpart8 the world appears to be split into halves1 which yet cleave to each other1 as a man is haunted by his shadow4 ,an inevitable dualism bisects ,nature1 so that each thing is half1 and suggests another thing to make it whole4 ,thus--spirit1 matter2 man1 woman2 odd1 even2 subjective1 objective2 in1 out2 upper1 under2 action1 rest2 yea1 nay4 ,all things are double1 one against the other4 ,all the woes of existence arise from our deliberate resistance to the law of oneness1 to that integration which is so conspicuous in ,nature4 ,we are incessantly seeking to take the one half and leave the other1 and straightway ,nemesis overtakes us4 ,we want to enjoy the pleasures of sense without attending to the inexorable requirements of mind1 and such an appalling satiety sickens our souls1 that we forget ourselves in the commission of deeds unspeakably wicked2 we possibly degrade ourselves in the eyes of all men by falling even into the clutches of the law1 or we border on the verge of self-destruction in our unspeakable ennui4 ,we would have the half1 while ,nature planned the whole1 and we pay the last farthing4 ,the results are naturally so appalling that it is not to be wondered that men sought to express them under the image of a fire which will not be quenched1 a worm of remorse which can never die--an immense despair for which there is no relief4 ,life is full of distressing illustrations of this ethical law4 ,a man who owns but the clothes he wears one day1 is a millionaire the next1 and he attempts the impossible task of bisecting life1 which has been manifestly planned as a whole4 ,he appears to succeed for a time1 but one day men are startled to hear that he has owned up that he had chosen the wrong path1 and has determined to quit it in suicide4 ,a few months after1 the community is compelled to witness an almost unparalleled degradation1 that of a young man born in the purple1 with every advantage that birth1 position1 education or matrimonial connections could give him1 sentenced as a felon for the meanest treachery1 because he would halve life which was planned a whole1 and forgot the ,fates1 the dread ,erynys1 who administer the ethical law of compensation4 ,but it is the same in lesser as in greater things4 ,without hesitation1 we may ascribe our minor sorrows to the one self-same source1 the attempt to dissever the sensual sweet1 the sensual strong1 the sensual bright1 from the moral sweet1 the moral deep1 the moral fair4 ,we forget that purity of heart and the law of gravitation arise in the same eternal spring1 that the world is a whole1 that moral and physical are grounded in one source1 and we pay the penalty4 ,the soul says eat2 the body would feast4 ,the soul says the man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul2 the body would join the flesh only4 ,the soul says1 ,have dominion over all things to the ends of virtue2 the body would have power over things to its own individual ends4 ,now1 this conduct never yet met with any success4 ,you thrust your arm into the stream to divide the water1 but it re-unites behind your hand4 ,you attempt to live your life on one side only1 to dissever that which was made for unity1 and calamity comes to crush you4 ,men and women marry for flesh or gold1 they put half their whole into the contract1 and their sacrilegious bargain smites them with a curse4 ,it is the law of compensation1 the workings of that moral gravitation which causes all things to fit into their own places1 and is to us the clearest indication of the workings of the ,divine in all this tumultuous life4 ,wonderful discernment of the ethical prophet6 ,we cease to see ,god omnipresent in all things1 and our blindness ends in our destruction4 ,we see the sensual allurement1 but not the sensual hurt2 we see the mermaid's head1 but not the dragon's tail2 we think we see our way to cut off that which we would have from that which we would not have4 ,how secret art ,thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in silence1 that bringest penal blindnesses on such as have unbridled desires1 quotes ,emerson from ,augustine's confessions4 ,no last judgment1 then1 but a first judgment1 a judgment here and now1 swift1 sudden1 irreversible upon every man and woman who dare to take their lives by halves1 to forget the seamless unity wherewith the universe is woven4 ,this is the ancient doctrine of ,nemesis1 who keeps watch in the universe and lets no offence go unchastised4 ,the ,furies are the attendants on justice1 and if the sun in the heavens should transgress his path1 they would punish him4 ,this is that awful yet sublime doctrine of retribution which is the groundwork of the masterpieces of the ancient ,greek tragedies1 the inspiration without which the world would never have known the ,agamemnon or the immortal trilogy of ,sophocles4 ,it is the doctrine which made ,plato describe punishment as going about with sin1 their heads tied together1 and ,hegel define it as the other half of sin1 while ,emerson shows that crime and punishment grow out of one stem4 ,punishment is a fruit which1 unsuspected1 ripens with the flower of pleasure which concealed it4 ,they are linked together inexorably1 as cause and effect1 and no god can dispense in this law1 because the law itself is ,god4 ,hence1 there can be no such thing as forgiveness of sin4 ,an act once done is irreparable4 ,its consequences must endure to all time4 ,our most agonising repentance cannot undo the past1 it can only avail to safeguard the future4 ,we cannot escape the law of compensation4 ,there is no magnified man in the skies1 swayed by human passions1 ready1 at the call and entreaty of prayer1 to obstruct the operation of natural laws4 ,theories of atonement by blood shedding1 sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins1 arose in the days when man believed in such a deity as that1 but we know none such now1 and wise are we if we recognise--oh1 how well it had been if in our youth we all could have known--that the consequences of an act are absolutely inevitable1 that deeds once done1 words once spoken1 are traced ineffaceably on the tablets of universal nature and must reverberate throughout the universe to all time6 ,severe teaching1 you say4 ,yes1 one pauses here when thoughts of hell and devils never once made man pause4 ,the truth is1 no one really believes the insensate teaching of the ,churches on punishment4 ,even their adherents have outgrown them4 ,nothing is clearer from history than that fear of hell fire never yet made man moral4 ,it could not keep the ,church of mediaevalism1 its priests and its bishops1 aye1 and its supreme pontiffs--numbers of them--even decent living men1 to say nothing of morality or virtue4 ,it is worse than useless now2--an insult to reason and an outrage on religion4 ,but what will hold a man is the doctrine of compensation1 of judgment pronounced by himself directly his iniquity is accomplished1 of sentence self-executed1 unpardonable and irremissible1 now and for ever4 ,and1 added to this1 the conviction that his crimes are committed1 not against ,god1 who can in no wise be personally influenced or injured by man's misdeeds1 being wholly destitute of human passions and emotions1 but against his fellow man1 or against his sister woman4 ,one knows1 alas6 the beginning of the end to which the lost have come4 ,if only youth had been taught in the opening days of life1 when impressions are so vivid1 that there is no such article as the creeds of the ,churches falsely proclaim--the forgiveness of sin--that one only wrong act may1 rather must1 be the starting point which will one day precipitate a catastrophe1 how many would have been saved from the nameless depths1 of which we must be silent1 how many spared the anguish of an unavailing remorse6 ,must this false teaching indeed go on for ever8 ,will it never dawn upon our priests and ministers1 our masters and mistresses in schools1 that ,god bears none of the burden of humanity2 his heart never breaks because a life is withering in despair8 ,he takes no hurt from the weltering sorrows by which so many are overwhelmed4 ,it is man1 it is woman1 who bears the agony2 the crushing burden of wrong-doing falls on them4 ,look no more then1 we urge1 to a phantom deity1 to an idol-god in the skies1 a figment of a disordered imagination1 but think on your brother man before you dare to set mischief in motion4 ,when you apprehend the nearness of danger1 think of the future1 think of consequences1 think only of the irremissibleness of sin1 which not all the waters and baptisms1 though it were of blood1 through which the ,churches can pass you1 will ever be able to efface4 ,how much knavery in actual progress in this wilderness of men in ,london might one not hope to stop if this doctrine of compensation could be brought home8 ,how much company-promoting1 fraud1 mendacity1 adulteration of food1 could we not render impossible1 if ethical and prophetical teaching took the place of the ,church catechisms and the creeds1 if men could be persuaded that the success of their ventures--quite legitimate in the eyes of the civil and criminal law--can only be purchased by the tears and ruin of human beings8 ,the dogma of endless future punishment was apparently impotent to restrain the ultra-orthodox directors of the ,liberator ,company1 but ,i take it that no man who had been schooled in ,emerson1 could have sat at that board and thanked an ,almighty ,god for the exceptional favours he had been mercifully pleased to bestow on their conscious frauds4 ,the vindictiveness of a purposeless hell has1 of course1 failed ignominiously as a deterrent from crime4 ,we cannot conceive infinite ,intelligence inflicting an excruciating and endless punishment simply for punishment's sake4 ,we are superior to such methods ourselves2 we refuse to associate them with ,god4 ,what we do believe in1 what we are sure of1 is that a man's sin must find him out1 that he must reap as he sows1 that the consequences of his misdeeds are eternal1 that-- ,all on earth he has made his own ,floating in air or pent in stone1 ,will rive the hills1 the sea will swim1 ,and like his shadow follow him4 #a ,in what follows ,i have freely borrowed from the great ,essay on ,compensation4 ,,vi4 ,,conscience ,,the ,,voice ,,of ,,god ,,and ,,the ,,voice ,,of ,,man4 ,we have already learnt in the study of the doctrine of ,compensation that the misfortunes of life are due to man's attempt to bisect the world and life1 and seize greedily on one half to the partial or total neglect of the other4 ,life having been planned a whole1 inevitable disaster overtakes the man who would behave as though it were a thing of shreds and fragments4 ,now this law of what we may call the ,divine unity is equally valid in the purely intellectual order4 ,that1 likewise1 refuses to admit schisms and divisions to break in on the solidity of its unbroken ranks4 ,an attempt to view life and its problems exclusively from our own standpoint1 is to fail to grasp truth2 our shadow gets projected over the surface1 and the light is partially concealed1 if not wholly confused4 ,no better illustration of this fact1 ,i believe1 could be afforded than that supplied by conscience1 the practical dictate of reason which controls the moral life of man4 ,in days of old when man was nothing in his own or anybody else's eyes1 in the ages when he thought to magnify the ,deity by belittling himself1 an interfering agency of the ,divine was necessarily invoked on almost every conceivable occasion2 the hand of ,god was seen in every occurrence4 ,from the comparatively minor matters of bodily ailments up to the colossal disasters which nature is capable of inflicting--in all the visible interference of the supra-mundane power was discerned4 ,those were naturally the days of the ,divine right of kings1 when all civil power was held to have been centred in one individual by the express act of the ,divinity2 those were likewise the days when the conscience of man was exclusively interpreted as the articulate utterance of ,god4 ,but1 inasmuch as man was too ignorant and wicked to rightly interpret that supreme oracle1 he was bidden to leave it in the custody of a sanctified corporation1 the ,church1 and to keep his thoughts and his conduct in tune with the dominant ecclesiastical sentiment of the hour4 ,now1 from that extraordinary position a reaction was of course inevitable4 ,man could not go on for ever describing himself as a worm and an outcast1 or avowing himself a miserable sinner and a limb of ,satan2 and consequently1 with an awakened sense of human dignity1 inspiring him1 not with vainglory1 but with an ever-deepening self-reverence1 the ascription of all agency to supernatural power began to be seriously curtailed4 ,the ,divine right of kings went its way with other archaisms into the limbo of oblivion1 from which the reigning monarch in ,prussia would appear to be vainly endeavouring to rescue it1 while man began to realise that the causes of natural and human phenomena were to be sought in nature and in man4 ,as a consequence of this1 a new theory of conscience began to take shape1 which was ultimately described by one of the boldest of later ,english philosophical writers1 the late ,professor ,clifford1 as the voice of man commanding us to live for the right4#a ,in these definitions of conscience1 as the voice of ,god and the voice of man1 we have an instance of propositions which in logic are called contraries4 ,both1 therefore1 cannot be exclusively and simultaneously true1 but both may be simultaneously false4 ,thus1 all men are white and no men are white are contraries1 but they are both false4 ,and this1 ,i submit1 is the judgment to be pronounced on these two exclusive definitions of conscience4 ,neither is1 exclusively speaking1 true1 but there is a measure of truth common to both1 and that measure it will be the purpose of the following remarks to determine4 ,but1 before going any farther1 we must get a clear idea of what we mean by conscience4 ,in a general way1 of course1 we all know what is meant by the word3 an appeal to conscience would be intelligible by every one4 ,we understand it to be a faculty which decides on a definite course of action when alternatives of good and evil are before us4 ,we look upon it as an instinct1 magnetic in its power1 incessantly prompting us towards the fulfilment of duty1 and gravely reproaching us on its dereliction4 ,we recognise it as the sweetest and most troublesome of visitants2 sweetest when the peace unspeakable sinks into our souls1 most troublesome when we have been guilty of a great betrayal4 ,so delicate is that voice that nothing is easier than to stifle it2 so clear is it that no one by any possibility can mistake it4 ,thus1 in general terms1 we may describe conscience4 ,coming now more closely to a philosophical analysis of the conception1 we shall find therein much enlightenment for the purposes of our present investigation4 ,in the first place1 the word is of comparatively late origin4 ,it does not occur in the ,hebrew writers of the ,old ,testament4 ,its earliest appearance is in the ,book of ,wisdom1 the work of a ,hellenistic ,jew extremely well acquainted with the trend of ,greek thought in the third century ,b4,c4 ,it does not occur in the ,gospels1 except in the story of the sinful woman whom ,christ refused to condemn--a history which1 though profoundly in accord with the sympathetic genius of ,jesus1 is none the less an interpolation in the eighth chapter of the ,johannine ,gospel1 so much so that ,tischendorff excised it from his last edition of the text of the ,new ,testament4 ,st4 ,paul certainly uses the word once in the ,epistle to the ,romans1 and though known in the latter days before the advent of ,christianity1 we may assume that mainly through that religion the word was popularised throughout the world4 ,but what is the faculty which corresponds to the word conscience8 ,we shall find etymology of great assistance in giving precision to our thoughts4 ,the word is1 of course1 a derivative from the ,latin1 conscientia1 knowledge with1 or together4 ,now1 scientia is the simple knowledge of things by the reason1 while conscientia is the knowledge which the reason has of itself2 it is the realisation of one's selfhood--the realisation of the ichkeit des ego1 as the very expressive ,german phrase has it1 the selfhood of the ,i4 ,in ,english philosophical language we commonly denominate this self-realisation consciousness1 a word of precisely the same etymological origin as conscience4 ,if1 in the next place1 the reason is occupied1 not with the reflex action of self-contemplation1 but with moral action or the discernment of right from wrong1 then it is called1 and is1 no longer consciousness1 but conscience4 ,putting it technically1 consciousness is a psychological expression1 while conscience is ethical4 ,nevertheless1 it must be most carefully remembered that the two functions are performed by one and the same reason--immaterial and indivisible in us4 ,truly speaking1 there is no real1 but only a conceptual1 distinction between the reason of a ,darwin elaborating his famous law1 realising his selfhood1 and acknowledging his obligations to the eminent man--only less so than himself--who had simultaneously lighted on the great discovery of the age--the law of organic evolution4 ,as ,paul says of those manifold endowments of the earliest ,christians1 ,a diversity of gifts and a diversity of graces1 but in them all worketh the self-same spirit1 so say we of the reason at the very heart of our being1 the sole1 self-sufficing explanation of the multitudinous phenomena of our mental life4 ,hence we arrive at a definition of conscience as the practical dictate of the reason in us prescribing obedience to the good and avoidance of the evil4 ,two elements1 therefore1 are discernible in this definition3 first1 reason1 as such1 pointing out what is good and evil2 and1 secondly1 reason1 as conscience1 ordaining that the good is to be done and the evil left undone--a distinction to be carefully borne in mind when the problem of conflicting consciences has to be faced2 how it comes1 for instance1 that morality appears to differ in different countries1 and even in the same individual at different periods of his life4 ,but of that nothing further need be said now1 but we may immediately pass on to see in what sense conscience1 thus explained1 is1 in the first place1 to be accounted the voice of ,god4 ,outside a philosophy avowedly atheist it seems difficult to understand how there can be any doubt that the eternal distinction between right and wrong betokens the presence in this world of men of a supreme power and a supreme mind4 ,how comes it1 let us ask with ,emerson1 that the universe is so constituted1 that that which we instinctively recognise as good makes for the individual and the general welfare1 and that which we must perforce reprobate as evil works uniformly disaster8 ,we recognise that things are unalterably so ordered that by no possibility could lying1 slander1 malice and hatred be other than intrinsically evil1 and their opposites be other than essentially good4 ,but how is it that things are so ordered8 ,whence these uniformities of approbation and disapprobation8 ,is there any answer conceivable but that the power responsible for the world is a moral power8 ,whence is existence itself but from the subsistent source of all being8 ,whence is life but from one ever-lasting source8 ,whence is intelligence but from the world's ,soul1 which is the soul of men8 ,and towering above being1 above life and reason1 is conscience1 the supreme guide1 the light enlightening every man that cometh into this world4 ,luce intellettual1 piena d'amore1 ,amor di vero ben pien di letizia1 ,letizia die trascende ogni dolzore4 ,what is this light intellectual1 this love of the true1 so unutterably blissful as to quiet all pain and sorrow1 but the radiance of the eternal falling athwart the shadows of this lower life8 ,what is this miraculous monitor--this man within the breast1 as the ,stoics called it--but the very articulate utterance of the supreme ,reason bidding man to live for the right8 ,no great son of earth ever interpreted it otherwise4 ,from the days when ,socrates scattered the sophist clan in ,athens1 and forced men by the irresistible majesty of his own moral elevation to believe in a morality which was more than a string of rules sanctioned by convention2 from the hour when he refused to escape from prison because his conscience bade him submit to die2--from the days of the sublime martyrdom of ,socrates and ,jesus1 the noble school of the ,stoics1 down to the philosophic ,titans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in ,germany1 with the glorious sage of ,knigsberg at their head1 there has been but one answer to the question1 ,what is conscience8 ,conscience1 they proclaimed1 is the voice of ,god4 ,so surely as the maternal instinct in woman is the voice of universal ,nature1 so surely is conscience the witness in us that we are indeed sons of ,god4 ,if that teaching of the ,over-soul be the truth1 then since the ,divine is incarnate in every man1 by what other voice can we be guided than by the ,divine utterance commanding us to live by a moral law8 ,we are ,divine by nature1 by what other law of life should we live8 ,or1 how are we to explain the appearance of so strange a visitant in a universe which is dominated by the struggle for existence8 ,the intellectual difficulty of atheism is so insuperable that we hear of it no more from men of science4 ,i think ,mr4 ,spencer's speculations have given it the coup de grace4 ,but difficult as is the question of the origin of the cosmos1 far more so is that of conscience4 ,on what principles are we to explain how a world1 evolving itself mechanically1 cycle after cycle1 has eventually produced an element so utterly at variance with itself1 an element which puts right before might1 self-surrender before the struggle for existence1 and the law of pity in place of the survival of the fittest8 ,is conscience a development of the cosmic process8 ,and1 if so1 how is such a volta face in nature explicable on purely mechanical grounds1 even if the process itself were so explicable8 ,and how striking a fact that the last words ,mr4 ,huxley#b spoke in public should have been devoted to prove that so opposed were the cosmic and ethical processes--in other words1 so completely at variance are the law of conscience and the law of evolution--that only by the triumph of the former over the latter is progress possible in the world4 ,again1 ,i ask1 since conscience is not the voice of ,nature1 of what is conscience the voice and witness if not of one of whom it is written1 ,in the beginning was ,reason2 in the beginning was ,mind8#c ,but there is another aspect of the question1 and we must now pass on to inquire how far conscience is also the voice of man commanding us to live for the right4 ,quite at the beginning of this ethical movement we protested1 as plainly as words would allow1 our entire allegiance to the teachings of physical science1 and our readiness to abandon any doctrine of ethical religion which is disproved by experimental research4 ,so convinced are we of the absolute unity of truth1 because with ,plato we believe in the unity of its source in the ,divine intelligence1 that to us it is inconceivable that there should be any fundamental contradiction in the orders of the real and the ideal4 ,things seen and unseen1 the passing and the eternal1 both ultimately take their origin in the same source1 the ,infinite4 ,no finite thing can be the ultimate explanation of the universe1 because it itself requires explanation4 ,hence1 whatever science has to tell us about conscience will be enthusiastically acclaimed by us as true equally with what we learn from the masters of the higher experience1 the philosophers who break unto us the bread of life4 ,now what has experimental science to say about the conscience8 ,it does not say that it is the voice of ,god--a fact by no means calculated to disturb those who remember that physical investigation is not concerned with such speculations4 ,half the mischief and misunderstandings which occur over these border questions1 which are1 so to speak1 under two jurisdictions1 arise from our forgetting in what capacity and by what principles certain well-known scientific men have made pronouncements on matters such as conscience1 morality and religion4 ,there are two sides to them1 the physical and the hyper-physical or metaphysical4 ,and here it may not be amiss to offer a suggestion that one should mistrust that parrot cry so often heard from men who speak most confidently about that which they know least1 that metaphysic is synonymous with unreality1 or in plainer words1 moonshine4 ,a very little reflection will be sufficient to satisfy us that without the aid of conceptions higher than those of sense-experience--and that is all the word metaphysic means--it would be absolutely impossible to formulate a single scientific generalisation4 ,what is the very concept of law1 or system1 but a metaphysical idea8 ,to cease to be metaphysical would be to cease to be rational1 to have no higher or wider conceptions than those of a dog4 ,hence1 like ,m4 ,jourdain1 who had been talking prose all his life without knowing it1 some of our most daring anti-metaphysicians have been philosophising by the very method they had in their ignorance so contemptuously denounced4 ,therefore1 when we hear from ,mr4 ,spencer that conscience1 so far from being the voice of ,god1 is but the capitalised instinct of the tribe1 an empirical fact established by heredity1 just like fan-tails in pigeons2 when ,mr4 ,clifford popularises this teaching in ,st4 ,george's ,hall by announcing that conscience is the voice of man bidding us to live for man1 and ,mr4 ,leslie ,stephen tells us that the ,socratic conception of conscience is part of an obsolete form of speculation1 we know precisely what judgment to pass upon their assertions4 ,they are speaking1 one and all1 of the historical growth or natural evolution of that rational faculty in man which they1 equally with their opponents1 describe as the conscience4 ,and keeping within those limits they are strictly accurate in what they say4 ,who is there that does not know that time was when the inhabitants of ,europe were as destitute of moral instincts1 and therefore of a conscience1 as the ,tonga islanders8 ,who does not know that man1 instead of beginning at the top and tumbling headlong to the bottom1 really began at the bottom and learnt everything by a very severe discipline in the hardest of all schools1 that of experience8 ,certainly1 we are ignorant of none of those things1 and therefore readily assent to ,mr4 ,spencer's teaching that conscience is not a fixed criterion of morality1 but a faculty in a ceaseless state of transformation1 in a perpetual state of becoming1 that its dicta are1 in a certain sense1 constantly changing and improving with the progress and development of the race4 ,certainly1 as scientists and anthropologists1 we should say precisely the same thing4 ,we should recognise the developed conscience in man as obedient to the law of growth equally with his physical organisation1 because we know of men now existent in whom the faculty is still in a very rudimentary state4 ,every advance in humanitarianism1 in our treatment of men and animals1 is evidence to us of the illimitable capacities of moral expansion in our nature1 and therefore of the growth of conscience1 or the moral sentiment4 ,but are we to conclude therefrom that conscience is nothing more than a product of organic evolution8 ,it is a shallow philosophy1 a surface system1 indeed1 which is content with such an estimate1 and is only possible in a school of bald empiricism which imprisons man within the boundaries of his sense-experience1 and resolves him into a string of feelings bound together1 like a rope of sand1 by nothing4 ,the truth is1 that ,mr4 ,spencer1 ,mr4 ,bain1 ,mr4 ,mill and the whole corps of experimental philosophers are confusing the reality with its outward manifestation or history4 ,indeed1 by their principles they are constrained to do so4 ,once affirm that nothing beyond the reach of your sensory organs is trustworthy1 and conscience must be1 like the nervous system1 the development of a shock or a thrill4 ,but it has never apparently dawned upon these thinkers that the very distinguishing note of conscience1 its compulsory power1 its assumption of authority to command the obedience of the will and its capacity to torment the soul with an overmastering remorse--to make a man say1 my sin is greater than ,i can bear--is left wholly unexplained and unaccounted for in the historical analysis with which they favour us4 ,what we want to know is3 ,whence has conscience the strange1 mysterious power to influence us even in the sanctuary of our thoughts2 why does the wicked man flee when no one pursueth except that the sleepless eye of his own outraged conscience is upon him and he cannot tolerate its reproachful gaze8 ,nowhere do we feel the inadequacy of the sense-philosophy more piercingly than in this matter of conscience4 ,it has cut the world in twain and treated it as a piece of mechanism and reduced man to the position of an automaton4 ,but the facts are too strong2 ,nature is too strong4 ,every time some splendid heroism1 some complete self-surrender is made2 every time some deed of moral enthusiasm thrills the pulses of the world1 or some lonely man or woman succeeds in crushing some infamous desire2 every time for the sake of the good1 for the sake of the right alone1 we resist even unto blood1 conscience is exalted and enthroned above the stars1 lifted utterly out of the low and insignificant category of physical experiences in which they would vainly endeavour to imprison it4 ,the commanding voice is heard throughout the ages1 and men will1 men must1 ask3 ,who is it--what is it that spoke8 ,they will not be put off with the reply that all they hear is an echo of the past1 reverberating throughout the race as the successive generations arise4 ,ah6 but whence has it power to command me1 even in the sanctuary of my deepest solitude1 in the loneliness of my silent thoughts8 ,no ancestral traditions1 no shouts of blessing or curse of multitudes can influence me there4 ,i am alone in the abysmal depths of my personality1 solitary as though in a desert world1 and yet the mysterious voice is heard1 the solemn sense of obligation and duty makes itself felt4 ,it bids me respect myself1 my moral dignity1 though no one be nigh2 it bids me chase the phantoms of evil from my mind4 ,in vain do you attempt to evade its jurisdiction by pointing to the acknowledged facts that men form different estimates of their duties in different countries and in different ages4 ,conscience is not concerned with that4 ,such subordinate tasks as the formation of moral codes1 the ascertainment of the conformity or nonconformity of certain precise acts with morality are the work of the reason4 ,conscience is no theoretical instructor4 ,far more than that1 it is a practical commander4 ,it speaks but one voice4 ,obey what you know to be right1 for the right's sake alone4 ,and conscience has never wavered in the inculcation of that precept4 ,the reason of man has been constantly advancing1 discovering the content of the moral law just as it has been discovering the content of the geometrical1 mathematical or musical law2 but conscience1 like the polar star1 has been pointing steadily in one direction1 the direction of duty1 without error1 without failure4 ,an erring conscience1 says the ethical master1 is a chimera4 ,we learn1 thus1 from the teaching of both schools that conscience is at once the voice of man1 the accumulated and concentrated moral experience of the race1 but still more the voice of the eternal ,reason which is revealed to our wondering eyes in the true1 the good and the beautiful4 ,if this universe in its meanest province is in very deed the star-domed city of ,god2 if the glory of the ,one breaks through it all in every place1 what are we to say of that which is higher than the stars1 more radiant than the sun1 diviner than all worlds--the conscience of man nobly conformed to the great obedience of the everlasting laws8 ,what are we to say of lives such as those of ,gotama1 ,socrates and ,christ8 ,nothing4 ,like the psalmist of ,israel1 ,i am struck dumb in the presence of a vision so majestical4 ,deveni in altitudinem maris et silui3 ,i came unto the great deeps and ,i held my peace4 #a ,see his well-known essays1 ,the ,ethics of ,belief and ,the ,ethics of ,religion4 #b ,prof4 ,j4 ,seth1 in his ,study of ,ethical ,principles1 concludes from ,mr4 ,huxley's ,romanes lecture that agnosticism could scarcely have been the final resting place for such a mind4 #c ,i have ventured to repeat here a portion of the argument set forth in the chapter on ,ethics and ,theism4 ,,vii4 ,,priests ,,and ,,prophets4 ,one of the most striking characteristics of the ecclesiastic1 as opposed to the religious mind1 is its tendency to concentrate its attention upon detail to the exclusion of fundamental principles4 ,we are assured that the same habit distinguishes the statesman from the party man1 or mere politician4 ,at any rate1 we have had abundant evidence during the past fifty years--evidence which has been emphasised during the past year--that the love of detail1 of all that comes under that washing of cups and platters1 of first places and salutations in the market-place1 resplendent raiment and broad phylacteries1 which ,jesus so summarily denounced in the official religion of his own time1 is still a mark of the ecclesiastic temper in the ,england of to-day4 ,if a man--even though that man be a pope--should question the validity of its orders1 volleys of sacerdotal refutation are fired from the press1 the whole atmosphere is electric with the controversial charges such profanity provokes4 ,but let a man proclaim that there is no such institution as orders at all1 that true religion1 that ,christianity1 as conceived by its founder1 is destitute of ritual1 priest and sacrifice1 and everything is still as a ,quakers' meeting4 ,how is it that men will seriously devote their energies to repelling such side attacks as those directed against them by rival churches1 while they totally neglect to satisfy an enlightened age as to the validity of the fundamental assumption on which their entire system reposes8 ,the pope and the ,eastern ,churches may be serious rivals in the camp ecclesiastic1 but what are our native pontiffs and priests to reply to men like ,hatch1 ,jowett and ,stanley1 to say nothing of ,martineau1 who roundly proclaim that orders1 as understood by them1 are nothing more nor less than a superstition8 ,for instance1 what would the patrons of the mass in masquerade answer to ,stanley's direct and emphatic pronouncement3 ,in the beginning of ,christianity there was no such institution as the clergy2 it grew naturally out of the increasing needs of the community 4 4 4 the intellectual element in religion requires some one to express it1 and this1 in some form or other1 will be the clergy8#a ,surely if there were no orders in the beginning1 then a priesthood was no creation of ,jesus1 his apostles were no priests1 they created1 therefore1 no priests1 and a priestly caste grew up as an intrusion in ,christendom just as it arose in the religion of the holy ,buddha in ,india1 and attempted1 though unsuccessfully1 to invade the severely simple religion of ,mohammed4 ,the view which ethical religion takes of sacerdotalism is very well known1 but it is essential to do more than merely repudiate the notion of priesthood as an integral portion of religion2 our duty is also to possess ourselves of the facts of history and criticism so as to satisfy ourselves and others who may need such instruction1 that sacerdotalism is not only not ethical1 but is anti-,christian1 and that the greatest anomaly the world presents to-day is that of the clergymen of the ,eastern and ,western ,churches arrogating to themselves the possession of powers which the founder of their religion and his earliest followers not only never exercised1 but of which they had not even a remote conception4 ,a singular interest has been added to this inquiry by the recently-revived controversy between two of the many ,churches into which ,christendom is divided on the highly debatable matter of ,anglican orders4 ,the said controversy had been in a state of suspended animation from the time of the ,stuarts up to the ,tractarian movement1 when it was partially revived1 and a fair crop of literature sprang up around it4 ,it has been reserved1 however1 for our own days to witness its complete vivification under the auspices of the ,high ,church societies and certain sagrestani among the nobility and gentry of our day4 ,to the credit of the female sex1 we hear of no ladies being prominently identified with the movement4 ,even ,oxford1 once the home of lost causes and impossible ideals1 concerns itself with these minutiae no more4 ,like the later pantheon of imperial ,rome1 it offers its impartial hospitality to representatives of every form of orthodoxy and heterodoxy4 ,the shadowy warfare is now waged1 apparently1 in the ,london press and magazines1 in the bulls of popes and the responsions of archbishops4 ,of course1 the renewed inquiry set on foot by the industry and temerity of ,lords ,halifax and ,nelson--tanti nominis umbra surely1 in this latter case1 to engage itself in such a battle--could have but one ending1 namely1 the reiterated and emphasised condemnation of our national ecclesiastics as nothing better than mere laymen1 and the renewed degradation of the officiating curate to the level of his neighbouring ,nonconformist minister who celebrates the ,supper and preaches in his coat4 ,the papal representatives in this country have published a rejoinder to the official reply of the ,archbishops of ,canterbury and ,york1 which1 if ,i may shelter myself behind the authority of the ,times#b reviewer1 does not err on the side of dignity1 moderation and scholarship4 ,it is said to be jaunty1 perky1 off-hand1 suggestive of the smart evening journalist--this last is very serious--and1 worse than all1 it is an appeal1 not to theologians or scholars1 nor even to thoughtful and instructed men1 but to the gallery4 ,who the gallery in this particularly ,divine comedy may be ,i really do not know4 ,i strongly suspect that if the piece were put upon the boards--and everything is now dramatised1 from the trials of ,satan to the ,dreyfus case--the gallery would be the emptiest department of the theatre4 ,and this opinion ,i am pleased to see confirmed by the closing remarks of the review above noticed1 which warns the ,christian bishops and pastors of the present day that the comparative merits of one set of orders as opposed to those of another set have little interest and not much meaning for nine ,englishmen out of ten4 ,but what1 ,i think1 the average man would be interested to know is whether there be such things as holy orders at all4 ,very many of them are1 in this matter1 ,i believe1 in the position of those interesting ,asiatics who knew not whether there be such a thing as a ,holy ,ghost1 and ,i think it will be abundantly easy to show that the ignorance of the ordinary man as to the precise nature of orders was shared in also by our ,asiatic friends whose existence is noticed in an early chapter of the ,acts of the ,apostles4 ,we shall therefore proceed to show the groundlessness of the entire controversy from evidence which satisfactorily establishes that the authentic form of ,christianity1 as fixed by its founder and his followers for two centuries1 admits of no such thing as a priesthood in the sense contemplated by the disputants whose wordy warfare has now1 we understand1 been closed for ever4 ,to begin1 then1 whence arose the idea of a priest8 ,what is the meaning of the word8 ,etymologically1 we may take it to be identical with the ,saxon word preost1 which again is doubtless1 though it is not admitted on all hands1 identical with the ,greek presbys or elder4 ,a priest1 then1 originally and literally1 signified senior or elder1 whether in the family or the ,state4 ,how an elder came to be associated with religion was in this wise4 ,every philosopher and anthropologist has been constrained to admit the presence in man of an instinct of unity1 impelling him not merely to society or intercourse with his fellows1 but to communion with a power unseen4 ,this instinct1 as already defined in a former chapter1 is religion4 ,now the initiatory development of this aboriginal instinct was very humble1 and if we wish to know what our direct ancestors once were1 we need only consult the record of anthropological research among such savages as the ,fijians or ,tonga ,islanders4 ,the shape assumed by religion amongst such people was most probably ancestor or ghost worship4 ,the dead father or chieftain is still seen in the dreams of his children or people1 and the mysteriousness of the new shape and presence he assumes excites the awe and reverence which is at the root of the religious habit4 ,the chief becomes the tutelary deity or protector of his tribe1 or locality over which he ruled4 ,other chieftains are added to him in course of time1 and soon we have a veritable pantheon of gods1 good and evil1 whom it is necessary to placate by certain offices and functions1 very much as it is necessary to covet the favour of powerful men on earth4 ,whose duty shall it be to perform such rites8 ,naturally1 it falls to the head of the family and the head of the ,state4 ,they are the born officers of religious functions1 the father for his home circle1 the chieftain for his clan or tribe4 ,thus ,livy tells us that ,numa1 the ,roman king1 was accustomed to offer sacrifice1 but that the increasing cares of ,state caused him to relinquish the office in favour of specially appointed individuals who were called ,flamens1 and ,mr4 ,mc,donald1#c in his account of the ,blantyre negroes1 informs us that during the temporary absence of a chief1 it devolved upon his wife to take his place at the sacrificial altar4 ,numberless instances are supplied in such works as ,tylor's1 ,lubbock's1 and ,spencer's ,ecclesiastical ,institutions1 which go to show this primatial or pontifical authority resident in the chief of the ,state1 and the transference of its offices to subordinate people1 who gradually and naturally became an official body or caste called priests or elders1 as representatives of heads of families1 or of the tribe or ,state4#d ,at any rate1 however much interested people may be inclined to dispute the lowly origin of religion and worship1 the indisputable fact remains that such worship and sacrifice goes on among aboriginal peoples at this very hour1 and there is not one shred of evidence1 beyond a mistaken prejudice1 which goes to show that our religion had any other origin than that4 ,we may now enter on the further inquiry whether ,christianity1 meaning thereby the religion personally professed and practised by ,jesus of ,nazara1 was a sacerdotal or sacrificial system in the sense already explained4 ,such an inquiry necessarily resolves itself into this further one1 namely1 whether there is any reliable evidence that the founder of the ,christian religion was himself a priest1 taught a sacerdotal doctrine1 or exercised any sacerdotal functions4 ,though he died a comparatively young man1 if we may believe the gospel narrative1 which makes him to have lived either to thirty-one or thirty-three years1 though ,irenaeus emphatically asserts that he lived to fifty years1 we may most assuredly proclaim him a priest in the sense of elder1 or leader of men4 ,one whom schools of thought1 represented by men so opposed as ,mill1 ,renan1 ,matthew ,arnold1 ,spinoza1 ,goethe1 ,napoleon and ,rousseau1 conspired to honour must have been indeed a king of men4 ,but this is not what is meant by the question4 ,by priest we mean here what the ecclesiastic means1 namely1 one who is set apart by the act of ,god1 signified by some external rite or ceremony1 whereby power is conferred to perform certain definite functions impossible to the ordinary man4 ,he alone1 in virtue of his consecration1 can mediate between man and the ,deity1 can propitiate him for the sins of men1 can forgive those sins1 and mechanically communicate holiness by the adoption of a definite ceremony and the pronouncement of a precise formula4 ,nay1 in virtue of his peculiar status1 the priest is able to superinduce a physical sanctity in solid and liquid substances1 like bread and wine1 and quite independently of his own belief1 or the belief of the bystanders1 or even the recipients1 cause those substances to be no longer what to every conceivable physical test they still continue to be1 but the body and blood of a man who lived more than #ahjj years ago4 ,in a word1 a ritual may be described as a system of consecrated charms or spells1 and the priest is the great magician who dispenses them4#e ,what we ask1 then1 is precisely this3 ,was ,jesus a priest in this sense8 ,unhesitatingly and most emphatically we reply--and without any fear of serious attempt at refutation--that he was not1 and that1 in consequence1 the whole scheme of sacerdotal religion as prevalent in the ,roman and ,oriental ,christian ,churches1 and to a moderate extent in the ,anglican ,church1 is entirely baseless1 grounded1 not on the institution of ,jesus their reputed founder1 but on an infantine superstition which the third century of ,christianity took over from the ,jewish and ,pagan traditions which had preceded it4 ,hence the whole protracted controversy1 which has set no end of theological hair on end1 about the validity of these orders and the invalidity of those1 is so much beating the air1 because ,christianity1 as understood and instituted by ,christ1 knows no place1 any more than ,buddhism or ,mohammedanism1 for priest1 rite or sacrament4 ,let us proceed to offer some evidence for this statement4 ,in the first place1 the whole tenor of ,christ's life was not that of the priest1 but of something entirely different2 ,christ was a prophet4 ,what is a prophet8 ,we shall very imperfectly appreciate the character of the prophet if we look upon him as nothing more than an historian for whom ,god has turned time round the other way1 so that he reads the future as if it were the past4 ,most extraordinary instances of clairvoyance are brought to our notice in which things1 eventually realised1 turn out to have been previously known1 but the clairvoyant is not the prophet4 ,the prophet is the spirit representative of the ,supreme ,spirit before our own4 ,he is the image--perfected by intercourse with the ,unseen--of the ,invisible ,goodness4 ,he uses no rites1 sacraments or symbols1 for he is all that in himself4 ,if his pure1 lofty1 ennobling life cannot impress the eternal upon the souls of men1 then assuredly no bread1 wine or oil1 can do it4#f ,hence1 we see1 a prophet is born1 not made4 ,no consecration can make one any more than installing a scene painter in the studio of a ,raphael could ensure a reproduction of a ,transfiguration1 or the ,madonna di ,foligno4 ,and no desecration1 no excommunication from church1 chapel or sanhedrin can unmake him4 ,the prophet is one of those royal beings who are kings by right ,divine1 aye and human too1 for all fall down instinctively before him4 ,it is the verdict of history that all that is most blessed we owe to the prophets--not to the priests--to ,moses1 ,confucius1 ,chrishna1 ,buddha1 ,socrates1 ,zoroaster and ,christ4 ,now1 surely no one can seriously question that the life of ,christ as described in the gospel narrative is of a pronounced anti-sacerdotal type4 ,he was not of the priestly family1 no man laid hands upon him1 he never exercised priestly functions4 ,his teaching so directly tended to the disparagement of priesthood as such1 that the official hierarchy of his country1 quick to perceive it1 compassed his death in the interest of their self-preservation4 ,what do we1 for lo6 the whole world has gone after him8 ,his first sermon was the announcement of a prophetic mission4 ,in the synagogue of his own town1 among the humble folk who had seen him grow from boyhood to youth and manhood1 he made the announcement3 ,the spirit of the ,lord is upon me1 because the ,lord hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor4 ,if he entered the stately courts of the temple1 it was to teach rather than to worship1 and never to sacrifice4 ,at the close of a day's teaching1 he retires to the hillside of ,olivet1 and feels the ,great ,presence in the night breeze upon his brow and in the heaven above him as deeply as within the walls of the ,holy ,place4 ,it is not1 ,lo here1 lo there6 for the ,kingdom of ,god is within you4 ,a priest would have said the ,divine ,presence is upon the altar1 but ,christ discerns it always and everywhere4 ,his teaching was almost entirely delivered under the canopy of heaven--on the mount of beatitudes1 in a public street1 in the market-place1 from a fishing boat to crowds upon the strand1 in a corn-field1 or occasionally in some private dwelling-place4 ,the only invective that broke the calm of his peaceful speech was directed against the ruling sacerdotal influence2 he was emphatically a ,prophet of the ,most ,high4 ,the word hiereus1 or sacrificing priest1 is never once applied to him in the ,gospels1 and only in one epistle1 that to the ,hebrews1 and there its appearance is not unworthy of our notice4 ,christ is declared to be a hiereus1 or priest1 only after his removal from earth4 ,it is stated that it is an office which did not1 which could not have belonged to him while on earth--precisely the point we contend4 ,but how is it that in this epistle he comes to be designated as a priest at all8 ,it was probably due to the exigencies of controversy4 ,the epistle must be looked upon as a polemical pamphlet directed against those ,hebrews who refused to embrace the new reform and derided its absence of priest1 sacrifice and altar4 ,conscious that ,jesus left no priesthood behind him1 that his teaching was anti-sacerdotal and non-sacramental1 there was nothing for the writer but to suggest that the great prophet himself was the high priest1 the solitary member of the caste in the new gospel1 and that therewith men are to be satisfied1 because more than compensated thereby for the absence of the altar and hierarchy of old4 ,so we have here an unique instance of the exception which proves the rule4 ,once and once only is the founder of ,christianity affirmed to be a priest1 and then by an anonymous writer1 in a production which the whole ,western ,church for centuries refused to acknowledge as inspired1 and on examination it turns out that by the very nature of the priesthood ascribed to him1 such an institution is no longer possible on earth2 it is banished for ever into invisibility1 and can have no longer any representatives amongst men4 ,in like manner we find no instance of any attempt on the part of ,jesus to make his immediate followers priests4 ,he called them witnesses1 bade them preach and teach4 ,if he told them to baptise1 or to break bread in memory of him1 we shall soon see that1 in the first three centuries of ,christian history1 his words were emphatically not taken to mean that no one but they1 or such as they1 could perform these offices4 ,that which men call the apostolic succession1 and to which some of them apparently attach supreme importance1 is nothing but a chimera1 positively unknown to ,jesus or his apostles1 and absolutely unintelligible to the ,christian ,church for more than #bjj years4 ,the most profound silence on the whole subject prevails during this period1 in vivid contrast with the language held on the subject by subsequent writers4 ,in the face of available1 and even readily accessible evidence1 it is impossible to maintain that1 before the age of ,cyprian1 the ,bishop of ,carthage1 who flourished about the middle of the third century1 there was any such distinction between clergy and laity as the apostolic succession theory maintains to-day4 ,the very names of the clergy1 such as deacon1 presbyter1 and bishop1 are lay terms1 borrowed from civil not ecclesiastical life4 ,a deacon is a domestic servant2 a presbyter1 an elder2 and a bishop an overseer or bailiff2 and in conformity with these names there was no office or function of the ,church so exclusively proper to the clergy as not to be capable of performance also by the laity4 ,and if this can be shown1 what follows but that the whole conception of holy orders is an absolute innovation upon the original teaching of ,jesus--a corruption fruitful in disorders1 or rather disasters1 of the most deplorable character1 and at this very hour tending more than any other ascertainable cause to divide man from man1 and perpetuate the mischief of religious dissension8 ,to begin with1 then1 preaching was indiscriminately permitted in the apostolic times and subsequently4 ,this may be gathered freely from the ,acts and ,paul's first epistle to the ,corinthians1 chapter xiv4 ,moreover1 one of the most interesting monuments of the second century is a homily delivered by a layman at ,rome1 a fragment of which had long been known as the second epistle of ,clement1#g and the remainder of which came to light in #ahge in two forms1 a ,greek ,,ms4 and a ,syriac translation4 ,moreover1 the ,apostolical ,constitutions1 which are still later--going well into the second century--expressly contemplate preaching by a layman4 ,dr4 ,hatch does not hesitate to say that the earliest positive prohibitions of lay preaching were issued solely in the interests of ecclesiastical order1 not because there was any inherent right in the priest to teach as opposed to the layman4 ,next1 in regard to baptism1 there need be no hesitation in admitting the capacity of the layman to baptise1 because the ,church of ,rome admits it to-day1 nay1 it admits that a ,mohammedan1 or even the heathen ,chinaman--if indeed he be such--could lawfully and validly perform that function4 ,this1 ,i submit1 is not to be construed as an act of liberality on the ,church's part4 ,it is simply the result of the impasse to which it would otherwise be brought by the grotesque teaching that the ,deity would condemn everlastingly the soul of an unbaptised infant4 ,this1 according to ,augustine1 being the ,christian religion1 naturally some loophole had to be fabricated1 because priests are not always at hand in moments of emergency1 and consequently the validity of lay baptism had necessarily to be recognised4 ,but there is one office which the ,anglican1 no less than the ,roman ,church1 would reserve to the priest1 and that is the celebration of the ,eucharistic ,supper4#h ,it is abundantly clear to historians that the root-source of the superstitious belief in orders is to be found in the ,eucharist and the theories which sprang up in the third century concerning the elements4 ,it cannot be doubted that previously to the age of ,cyprian1 the communion was held to be what its name designates--an holy assembly1 a pledge of unity symbolised by the common partaking of bread and wine after the example of ,christ4 ,now1 it is clear from the ,ignatian epistles1 writings of the second century1 whoever may have been their author1 that the ,christians of those days were accustomed to hold ,eucharistic meetings other than those over which a presbyter or elder presided4 ,the practice is indeed reproved by the writer1 but in exceeding gentle tones4 ,break one bread1 says the writer2 be careful to have only one ,eucharist2 let that be the valid ,eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop or by some one commissioned by him4 ,it is surely positively inconceivable that ,ignatius of ,antioch1 or whoever the author of these letters is1 can have held the sacramental doctrine subsequently introduced and have used language of such mild remonstrance to the ,asiatic ,christians he addresses4 ,what would the present occupant of the ,see of ,antioch1 of ,lincoln1 or of ,rome say to a number of ,christians who assembled together to-day1 took bread and wine1 and after repeating the ,lord's prayer--for they did no more in the early centuries--proceeded to partake of it8 ,their holy horror is scarcely conceivable4 ,and yet1 these lay folk would be the true ,christians1 not their sacerdotal denunciators4 ,let us repeat1 there was no office open to the priest which was not equally open to the layman4 ,merely considerations of order and procedure restricted ecclesiastical functions to a particular body or caste of men1 and consequently the theory of the essential distinction between priest and layman is not a tenable one because it is none of ,christ's making4#i ,it has been remarked that perverse conceptions of the ,eucharist were responsible for the equally corrupt teaching about orders4 ,this is the case4 ,previously to the third century1 the ,eucharist remained what it had ever been1 the breaking of bread1 the commemorative meal4 ,then there came a change1 and men began to read into it a sacrificial meaning and to interpret it as a mystical repetition of the death of ,christ4 ,from ,cyprian this novel theology apparently passed to ,augustine and ,ambrose in the fourth century1 and thenceforth it became dominant1 though by no means universally so1 until the eighth and ninth centuries4 ,the rise of ,athanasianism in the fourth century1 and the abuse of the doctrine of incarnation by that bishop1 reacted naturally in the matter of the ,eucharist4 ,christ1 who was proclaimed to be the solitary incarnation1 the ,deity hidden behind a veil of flesh1 naturally paved the way for the ,eucharist as a sacrament wherein the ,deity is hid behind the veil of bread4 ,the one incarnation is1 as it were1 the complement of the other4 ,hence1 a rigidly literal meaning was given to ,christ's utterances about eating his flesh and drinking his blood1 and ,christians were taught to believe that by the manducation of his bodily frame his holy spirit could be incorporated1 as though1 for example1 a man might hope to become a poet or a sculptor by feeding upon the flesh or bones of a ,shakespeare or a ,michael ,angelo4 ,only mind can know and receive mind1 and it is really difficult to comprehend the grossness of soul which suggests to man the idea that by feasting on the flesh and blood of his ,god he may hope to become like a ,god4 ,it would be just as easy to show that in the matter of church government and discipline everything was1 in the early days1 on a thoroughly democratic1 or representative basis4 ,power1 as in the ,england of to-day1 is recognised to reside in the community1 not exclusively in the presbyters4 ,st4 ,paul's first epistle to the ,corinthians recognises this in the matter of the removal of officers4 ,the epistles of ,clement and ,polycarp recognise the same thing4 ,bishops are always elected by the people1 and the net conclusion therefore is that no such thing as a hierarchy of ordained deacons1 priests and bishops was known to ,christ1 to ,paul1 or the writers of the first two and a half centuries4 ,the teaching and belief of those days was nonsacerdotal and non-sacramental1 and nothing but a superstitious accretion overlaying the original truth can account for the spectacle which vast portions of the ,christian world now present1 as indeed do vast portions of the ,buddhist world4 ,the fate reserved for both these great prophets seems to be identical1 the submergence of their pure and elevated ethical teaching beneath an accumulated mass of traditionary and ceremonial law2 but here in the ,west1 at all events1 there appears to be a well-grounded hope that it is not altogether impossible to get back to ,christ and his pure and wholesome teaching4 ,prophets have arisen in this past century who have far more influence than many priests1 and there may be some standing here who will witness the close of the reign of the priest and the restoration of the dominion of the prophet4 ,the priests and scribes sat in the chair of ,moses in the days of ,christ1 and that chair is overturned4 ,no one knows where to look for it4 ,now we have another priest who sits in ,peter's chair1 a third who holds ,augustine's seat1 and a fourth and a fifth who can trace back their priestly ancestry in unbroken line to some era of superstition and decay4 ,the same thing goes on in ,india and ,ceylon1 and in ,thibet you have the ,grand ,lamas1 to whom successively is united1 by a sort of hypostatic union1 the holy ,spirit himself4 ,always and everywhere the shadow of the priest1 the mystical1 magical dispenser of the favours of heaven6 ,we look to the days when religion shall be purified of such conceptions1 when no one shall venture to stand between a man and his conscience1 or claim to possess powers unattainable by other men1 or pretend that the favour of heaven can be purchased by any other means than those indicated by the prophet of old and no less by the conscience of mankind--a life in accordance with righteousness1 that is1 a life in conformity with the moral law and the example of that supreme among the prophets of the race--,jesus who was called the ,christ4 #a ,christian ,institutions1 p4 #aic4 #b ,see ,times1 #eth ,february1 #ahih4 #c ,quoted in ,spencer's ,ecclesiastical ,institutions4 #d ,the appointment of ,aaron by ,moses1 the leader of the ,hebrew people1 is the exact counterpart of the institution of the ,flamens by ,numa4 #e ,martineau1 ,studies of ,christianity1 p4 #ch4 #f ,and1 therefore1 we note the inconsistency of the sacramentarian theory4 ,it insists on moral goodness in the recipients and ministers of sacraments4 ,but if the rite works of itself1 its mechanical performance should be sufficient4 ,but no2 goodness is needed to secure any benefit therefrom2 and this1 of course1 is the explanation of the alleged results of the sacraments4 ,the moral goodness of the recipient has already secured the blessing before any rite has been administered4 #g ,so that what had been thought to be a papal letter turns out to be a lay homily1 showing that a layman could preach as well as a pope in the second century of our era4 ,this suggests the notorious fact that unordained ministers are equally1 if not more1 successful in awakening ethical and religious emotion than priests and bishops4 ,nay1 women like ,catherine of ,siena could hold ,europe1 its kings1 and popes spell-bound1 when mere men were powerless4 ,has any one in this generation read more powerful appeals to the religious sense than the fragments of the sermons of ,dinah ,morris in ,adam ,bede1 more thrilling descriptions of an unavailing remorse than in the sermon on the text1 ,keep innocency1 and take heed to the thing which is right1 for this shall bring a man peace at the last1 which is preached by the agonised minister in ,the ,silence of ,dean ,maitland8 #h ,the recent papal rescript on ,anglican ordination makes it the test of the comparative value of the rival orders4 #i ,tertullian in the ,de ,corona distinctly declares that though it is only from the hands of our president we receive the ,eucharist1 if there be an emergency1 a layman may celebrate as well as a bishop4 ,i am indebted to the late ,dr4 ,edwin ,hatch for the historical evidence above adduced as to the church practice prevalent in the earliest centuries of ,christianity4 ,i would recommend interested readers to consult his ,bampton ,lectures1 delivered in #ahhb4 ,,viii4 ,,prayer ,,in ,,the ,,ethical ,,church4 ,the most important consequence of the new faith that religion is rooted and grounded not in doctrine but in morality1 is the belief that the religious instinct grows with the growth and advancement of the moral sense4 ,the old conception that everything religious was revealed once for all #aijj years ago1 that it is impious to add to1 or modify1 the heavenly communication then made1 we find ourselves obliged to repudiate in terms4 ,and1 hence1 we have no creed or articles4 ,we never know when1 owing to advancing knowledge1 we may be compelled to discard them4 ,the desperate straits to which the ,churches and their professional apologists are reduced in their endeavours to reconcile antiquarian statements in ,scriptures and theologies with the authenticated facts of mental and physical science1 are not such as to encourage us to attempt a definition of the ,indefinable1 or the comprehension of the ,infinite within the exiguous limits of human thought and speech4 ,we are too young by some centuries to so much as think about the formulation of a doctrinal code4 ,the moral sense1 it is abundantly obvious1 is growing from day to day4 ,the community herein is the counterpart of the individual4 ,and hence1 the moral and religious observances of to-day may become obsolete to-morrow4 ,the altar-cloths of one generation become the door-mats of the next4 ,hence1 ,i am full of confidence that though everything may be against us now1 one thing is on our side--that is1 the future4 ,we saw an illustration of this truth in the history of the relations between the priest and the prophet2 we shall witness a further instance of its workings in the history of prayer4 ,what is the attitude of a human and ethical religion towards that characteristic manifestation of piety which we call prayer8 ,doubtless its views will be found to diverge notably from those which were prevalent in other days when scientific knowledge was imperfect1 and conceptions of man and the ,infinite even more inadequate than they admittedly are at present4 ,the origin of prayer is1 like the origin of all things terrestrial1 extremely humble4 ,when primitive man found himself face to face with the more terrible of the natural phenomena--terrors and portents which he was wholly unable to explain--his only resource was to ascribe their appearance to the agency of beings like himself1 though1 of course1 immeasurably more powerful4 ,these phenomena being often attended by the destruction of the results of laborious industry1 and even of human life itself1 it became a matter of urgency to devise means whereby the anger of the preternatural powers might be appeased1 and a cessation of the successive scourges effected4 ,it was then that man began to offer up entreaty1 supplication1 petition and prayer to the dread divinities in whose power it was to behave so malevolently towards man and his possessions4 ,that this account of the matter is not fanciful1 the reports of travellers and missionaries in savage lands make certain2 and as the inhabitants thereof now are1 we certainly once were in our ancestors who dwelt in these northern islands1 in the days after the cessation of the glacial periods4 ,there is not one shred of scientific evidence available which would help us to the comforting belief that1 however it may be with the ,matabele or the ,tonga ,islanders1 the ancestors of ,christian ,england were anything different4 ,that1 then1 which is called the instinct or habit of prayer1 had its origin in the ignorance and superstition of an age which knew nothing of the inviolable reign of law throughout the infinities of the ,divine creation1 in an age whose religious conceptions were as gross as their scientific ideas were absurd4 ,now1 the unscientific and unphilosophical taint1 which marked the earliest heavenward cries of terrified man1 has clung to the petitions which he offers up at this hour for material favours and blessings4 ,at the close of a prolonged drought1 the ,archbishops of ,canterbury and ,york compose a prayer for rain1 and as a drought cannot last for ever1 rain does eventually come1 and the same dignitaries then order a prayer to be offered up in thanksgiving4 ,but does any one really suppose that the natural order of the phenomena has been altered at the request of the clergy by an ,almighty mind8 ,it were preposterous1 grotesque and irreverent1 in the highest degree to think so4 ,and the proof that it is preposterous is seen in the fact that prayers are no longer offered up for the advent or cessation of the effects of phenomena whose causes have been scientifically determined4 ,thus1 in mediaeval days1 man placed bells high in the steeples of his churches to deafen the demons who caused the storms of thunder and lightning which destroyed his property4 ,at this day one may read the inscriptions on the bells which testify to the belief of the time4 ,but as soon as the lightning rod was discovered by ,franklin1 and its absolute ability to conduct the electric current to the soil1 bells were no longer requisitioned as antidotes to storms1 and prayers and litanies ceased to be sung to petition the ,divine clemency against the effects of the weather4 ,in the same way an outbreak of cholera or diphtheria once sent people in their thousands to the churches and chapels2 now it sends them to the drains1 and while prayers proved but a poor prophylactic against epidemics1 the most pious credulity now places unbounded faith in a sanitary system approved by a first-class surveyor4 ,can there be any possible doubt that1 when the laws of meteorology are as well known as those which govern the tides or the thunderbolts1 the archbishops will cease to order any more prayers for the purpose of controlling the elements8 ,then1 there is another aspect of petitionary prayer which demands a passing notice4 ,it actually represents the ,supreme ,being as an individual who will interfere with what are manifestly natural laws to suit the convenience or even the whim of the votary2 and worse than that1 that the course of events will be so ordered as to meet the requirements of the individual supplicant1 to the exclusion of the needs1 the convenience or circumstances1 of numberless other human beings who may be seriously incommoded1 possibly even wronged1 if the first votary's supplications are granted4 ,it is of little avail to have recourse to the mechanical theory that infinite power is capable of so adjusting matters as to satisfy everybody4 ,these are words and phrases more sonorous than satisfactory4 ,when1 for instance1 war breaks out between two ,christian powers1 the ,almighty is at once petitioned to crown both combatants with victory1 and that done1 victory is always assumed by the conqueror to mean that the ,divine blessing has been with him to the exclusion of his adversary4 ,but the remarkable fact to the impartial observer uniformly is1 that victory always rests with those who have made the best preparations1 conducted the campaign in the most skilful manner1 and fought with the greatest determination1 or as ,napoleon curtly put it1 that as far as he could see1 ,providence was always on the side of the strongest battalions4 ,i recently heard read a lady's letter in which she poured forth her most fervent gratitude to heaven because her husband had been elected to a certain influential position over the heads of seventy competitors4 ,unless sixty-nine other equally desirable posts were magically created by ,divine power1 it seems difficult to understand1 on the supposition that the election was the arbitrary act of ,god1 how the claims of all were satisfied in this individual instance4 ,the truth is that the prayer of petition ought instantly to cease as infantine1 irrational1 and irreverent4 ,the serious man cannot bring himself to offer up vocal prayers for temporary or spiritual benefits1 which are manifestly attainable by the capacity of man's natural powers1 or which cannot be heard without a selfish indifference to the equal rights and claims of others4 ,and1 therefore1 no petitionary prayers find a place in the service of the ethical ,church4 ,the ,god whom we recognise is the ,mind who meditates in beauty and speaks only in law2 the beneficent ,unity1 the beautiful ,necessity2 the law which is not intelligent1 but ,intelligence4 ,it were as impious to pray for an infraction of the natural laws of ,divine ordaining as it were foolish to wish that the law of gravitation were suspended to gratify a passing need or whim4 ,in the ,talmud there is a prophetic intimation of the religion which asks no favours1 but prays by living the moral life4 ,it foretells the day when prayer shall cease in the ,jewish ,church1 and thanksgiving only be henceforth heard4 ,this exactly expresses what we feel should be the attitude of the reverent man in the silence of the ,great ,presence--his life an attestation of his recognition of what he owes to the ,being whose nature he shares4 ,but1 it will doubtless be urged1 prayers are answered even when offered for purely temporary blessings1 or at any rate1 numberless men and women contend that they have been so answered in their own experience4 ,members of the more emotional forms of ,nonconformity are especially emphatic in their testimony to the efficacy of prayer1 though ,i doubt not that their more educated ministers would hesitate to commit themselves to the belief in its more extreme forms4 ,mr4 ,armstrong certainly disavows it for the ,unitarian body1 a ,church always to be held in reverence as having done more to rationalise religion in this country and ,america than any other agency we could indicate4 ,but what are we to say to such testimonies8 ,this1 that the prayers have been answered by the supplicants themselves1 when even1 indeed1 we have not to deal with a matter of mere coincidence4 ,but1 ,i would expressly guard against the inference being drawn1 that ,i question the ,divine ,personality4 ,i lay down no dogmatic statements as to the efficacy of vocal prayers4 ,what ,i do say is1 that all ,i know of ,god as revealed in nature and law forbids me to entertain the notion that the order he has seen fit to establish is to be capriciously altered at the request of any of his creatures4 ,it is not irreverence1 but a sense of reverence which prohibits me from believing that the ,being whose presence and power are revealed in the least as in the greatest of the phenomena of nature1 is open to arbitrarily interfere with the established course of things because an individual or a score of individuals wish it4 ,but what of the alleged answers to prayers which are held to establish its efficacy8 ,i unhesitatingly ascribe the results to increased activity1 more resolute determination1 on the part of the natural will of the votary4 ,let a man1 for example1 become convinced that the crisis of his life has arrived1 that a certain policy must be at once adopted1 a certain post secured1 or an examination passed1 and the natural bending of the energies in a given direction redoubles his ordinary powers4 ,if a post has to be obtained and influence is necessary1 he prosecutes a more resolute canvass2 if an examination must be passed1 a degree secured1 he reads with increased application1 and1 as a matter of course1 he succeeds4 ,if1 in the meantime1 he has had recourse to prayer1 his womankind1 or possibly he himself1 will ascribe the entire results to that agency1 while the results are altogether due to his own persistent efforts4 ,he has answered his own prayers4 ,does the most pious individual believe1 if all efforts were remitted1 or no exceptional energy put forth by the individual in question1 but the whole matter left entirely in the hands of ,god1 as the phrase runs1 that any successful results would have ensued8 ,not one4 ,and hence those axioms which the common-sense1 even of the most credulous1 adopts as true1 namely1 that1 ,heaven only helps those who help themselves1 or1 as another pious recommendation goes1 ,pray as though everything depended on ,god1 act as though everything depended on yourself4 ,what wonder1 when this advice is followed out to the letter1 that we are overwhelmed with assurances that prayers have been answered1 when a man is appointed to a sinecure or has obtained a life-pension8 ,what one would like to ask is this3 ,do these credulous people suppose that the event would have been otherwise1 had the young candidate not prayed8 ,do they suppose that the ,deity would positively have snatched away the prize at the last moment1 and given it to another1 simply because he had not been consulted in the matter8 ,if they do1 then we must confess our ideals of the ,divine are very different from theirs4 ,powers are given to man for one purpose--that he may use them--and to us it is wholly irrational to suggest that what is given with one hand is to be taken away with the other1 because the formality of supplication is not employed when anything of moment is to be put into execution4 ,the notion that intelligence was put in man only to be shattered1 a will given him only to be forthwith distorted by passion or blinded by ignorance1 and that there is no health in us unless we abase ourselves to the dust and proclaim our utter worthlessness1 is to men and women of this time wholly inconceivable4 ,that nothing ethically valuable can be accomplished except after instant prayer1 or after copious outpourings of ,divine grace1 that the curse of absolute sterility is upon all our attempts to conform to the dictates of the moral law1 unless ,god be with us in prayer1 is henceforth an impossible theology4 ,tell us that the man and the world are dependent at every instant of time on the sustaining and prolonged creative act of the ,infinite ,being1 and we are one with you1 nay1 we probably go beyond you4 ,he is not very far from any one of us means more to the scientific philosopher than to the mediaeval theologian4 ,but spare us the repetition of those stale legends that man was made and unmade in the space of a few moments1 and that ever since the manducation of the forbidden fruit his powers have withered1 and that there is no remedy available for their recovery but incessant prayer and sacramental ordinances4 ,our reading of history is exactly the reverse4 ,with the progress of time we discern the advance of man1 and with the diminution of sacerdotalism and a mechanical religion we think we note an accelerated progress2 that in those countries in which men are nobly self-reliant1 and look within instead of without for the source of their inspiration and power1 the course of moral life takes a higher turn2 that in proportion as men are true to themselves and the powers of their own being1 they ascend in the scale of moral perfection4 ,we think that to teach a man to look without him for assistance is to cripple half his powers1 to make him unlearn the grand gospel of self-reliance1 to loosen the fibres of his moral being1 and thereby to check his individual progress4#a ,it must have been some such conviction as this which led the late ,master of ,balliol to say that the longer he lived the less he prayed1 but the more he thought4 ,precisely2 it is not irreverence but a deepening reverence for the ,divine powers within us1 which shames us into trusting them when anything great is to be done4 ,what god are you praying to1 we ask in dismay1 when you lift up your hands and your eyes1 or turn to east or west1 or kneel or lie8 ,is there any god in the wastes of infinity1 in a sunstar1 a swarm of worlds1 who is not in that miraculous soul of yours8 ,is there aught anywhere greater than a son of ,god8 ,is a stone1 a star1 a heaven studded with infinite glories1 a greater place than your eternal soul8 ,then look within you4 ,speak with yourself1 commune with your own heart1 summon up the irresistible energies of your nature and nothing shall be impossible to you4 ,this is the prayer of faith that never shall1 that never can1 go unanswered1 the concentration of the myriad energies of our souls to meet an attack1 to prosecute an enterprise1 to overcome obstacles1 aye1 to make our lives sublime with a heroism that men shall call divine4 ,the less ,i pray1 but the more ,i think6 ,aye1 it is not prayer in the old sense1 the cry of the soul that believes itself craven1 weak and wanton1 because it has always been told so by blind guides2 it is not this aimless outpouring of energy directed towards a ,divinity in the skies1 when the very ,life and ,mind ,divine are the endowments of every rational creature1 that has made man great2 but thought1 concentration1 the serious1 resolute application of the powers that man does possess1 the bending of the iron energies to the accomplishment of the individual task--this it is which has conquered kingdoms1 wrought righteousness1 obtained the promises1 riveted man's dominion over nature and made him what he was intended to be--the crown and glory of the universe4 ,and at this point we may make a further suggestion towards explaining the genesis and the continued maintenance of vocal prayer as a part of religious worship4 ,the practice would seem to be due not merely to ignorance or disregard of the obvious law of cause and effect1 by which material phenomena are necessarily controlled1 but to less worthy conceptions of the ,divine ,mind governing all things4 ,the ,deity of the ,christian and ,mohammedan worlds is a ,being eternally dissevered from a world which he has by an omnipotent effort evoked from nothingness--a conception now regarded as impossible4 ,consequently1 while ,god is in his high heaven1 surrounded by his court1 the world holds on its courses1 and is periodically corrected by special interferences1 generally said to be due to the intervention of prayer4 ,thus1 the grand historical evolution1 which caused the ,roman ,empire to appear at the close of the three great ,eastern ,empires1 and that monument of human genius itself to ultimately collapse and make way for the nations which now constitute modern ,europe1 in no wise strikes ,augustine1 or any orthodox teacher1 even of to-day1 as the outcome of purely natural forces and influences--the action and reaction of powers wholly human--but as part of a ,divine scheme1 which was foreordained for the purpose of founding the ,christian ,church4 ,this1 in briefest outline1 is the famous argument of ,the ,city of ,god1 the first ,christian attempt at a philosophy of history4 ,everything mapped out by ,divine ordinance1 and men moved like puppets to accomplish the scheme4 ,attila the ,hun appears at the gates of ,rome1 in the fifth century1 and threatens to sack it1 and thereby delay the execution of the plan1 and prayer averts the disaster4 ,in all moments of danger1 threatened catastrophe1 public or private1 the doctrine inculcated was recurrence by prayer to the external ,deity1 who would so modify things by his omnipotent power1 as to reconcile the interests of all concerned4 ,i do not think it can be said that such a frame of mind is distinctive of the ,protestant of to-day1 certainly not of the instructed ,protestant1 who may acquiesce in the vicarious repetition of certain formulas by his clergyman on ,sunday morning1 but would certainly not in practice endorse the theory that ,divine intervention might be called in at any moment by prayer4 ,but it is the attitude of the ,roman and ,greek ,churches1 as it is of the ,mohammedan religion1 and doubtless of the less educated in the sects of ,nonconformity4 ,now this conception of ,divinity is ,oriental1 whence indeed our current religion arose4 ,it represents the ,supreme ,being as an aged man clothed in flowing robes1 his hair white as wool1 seated on a golden throne and ceaselessly adored by myriads of voices who sing day and night1 ,holy1 ,holy1 ,holy1 or ,hallelujah4 ,it is the conception of a ,divinity who existed an eternity in the solitude of his own kingdom1 amid silences unbroken by any voice1 who suddenly comes to the determination to create worlds and man out of nothing1 and orders men to pray and to praise him4 ,he is angry if they do not2 he is a jealous ,god1 and will punish those who offend him to the fourth generation4 ,he is sorry he has made man and proceeds to destroy him1 and then subsequently regrets that decision4 ,in a word1 the ,god of the ,hebrew tradition1 whom the ,christian ,church still popularly preaches1 is in reality a magnified copy of an ,oriental ,sultan1 whose tastes and proclivities are such as the ,arabian ,nights has familiarised us with--greedy of praise1 adulation and homage1 cruel and vindictive to those who refuse their worship and adoration4 ,now this ,orientalism is no longer tolerable in the eyes of thoughtful people4 ,we cannot conceive that the ,infinite ,being should find pleasure in hearing all day and night how wonderful he is1 and how miraculous his works4 ,it is not easily intelligible how services and litanies of praise can be acceptable to the ,creator when they would certainly be nauseous to the best men on earth4 ,jesus openly reproved one who praised him as the good master4 ,call no man good1 he said3 ,god only1 he is good4 ,wellington's reply to the famous individual who claimed to have saved the life of the saviour of ,europe is too well known to repeat4 ,the truth is1 that these prayers and chants are offered up not for ,god's sake1 but for ours4 ,they are a relief to the heart surcharged with religious emotion1 the outcome of the vehement impulse of the soul towards communion with the ,life of its life4 ,speaking reverently1 prayer and praise are like a lover's protestations1 which are not an act of adulation at the shrine of his mistress1 but an irresistible unburdening of the greatness of the emotion that fills his heart4 ,but no lover could speak from his soul in a public place1 in the sight or hearing of other men4 ,solitude1 silence1 the element in which everything truly great is made1 is needed above all else1 that the soul may find adequate utterance for thoughts so sublime4 ,and1 therefore1 ,jesus warned man to pray in his own chamber1 in secret1 the lonely soul bared in the presence of the ,alone1 to the ,father which seeth in secret4 ,hence no sound of spoken prayer is heard at our services4 ,the deed is too solemn4 ,nevertheless1 the whole object of the series of acts which are done is to suggest1 to create1 first thought1 and then emotion1 after the manner of the ,hebrew psalmist1 who sang ,in the midst of my thoughts shall a fire flame forth4 ,the hymns are chosen with the idea1 not of praising the ,almighty1 who needs no such praises1 but of filling our souls with a sense of the unearthly beauty of the moral life1 of the life perseveringly devoted to high ideals of self-culture and human service1 and thereby lifting our souls to thoughts of that fair world of the ,ideal in which such conceptions are eternally realised4 ,likewise the readings set before us the burning words of first one and then another prophetical soul to deepen in our own the conviction of the seriousness of life1 its far-reaching responsibilities1 the realisation of the boundless capacities for good or evil which man has within him1 and the utter worthlessness of all things on this earth compared with character1 integrity1 the perfection of the will by conformity with the moral law4 ,in the midst of such influences by which we are surrounded during the hour1 all too brief1 which we devote to the world of the ,ideal on one day out of seven1#b it is hoped that thoughts will sometimes burn in many hearts1 that reverence1 awe1 fear1 regrets for the past1 fervent resolutions for the future1 hope1 aspiration1 and love2 in a word1 all the sanctified emotions of the human heart1 which together melt into the supreme emotion of religion1 will sometimes arise to sternly rebuke the selfish life1 shame us out of our moral lethargy1 and comfort those whose one solace is that their honour is intact1 though misfortune has stricken them in mind or body1 or robbed them of the goods of earth1 or the cheer and comfort of friendship and of love4 ,it is hoped that the influence of what is said and done then will endure beyond the hour of our meeting1 and fill some other moments of our lives when we are1 as we should be1 at seasons1 alone--alone with ourselves1 and therefore alone with ,god1 in solemn communion with the ,soul who is the soul in us1 and who asks for no articulate voice of prayer1 but only that our life in every word and deed should be worthy of our exalted nature4 ,life is prayer4 ,conduct is sacrifice4 ,morality is religion4 ,when ,i am stretched beneath the pines1 ,when the evening star so holy shines1 ,i laugh at the lore and the pride of man1 ,at the sophist schools and the learned clan2 ,for what are they all in their high conceit1 ,when man in the bush with ,god may meet8 --,,emerson4 #a ,see the concluding words of ,emerson's essay on ,self-,reliance4 #b ,the ,ethical ,religion ,society meets weekly on ,sunday mornings4 ,,ix4 ,,the ,,ethical ,,aspect ,,of ,,death4 ,there is a common but none the less erroneous impression amongst those who walk and worship in the old ways1 that the newer forms in which the religious sentiment expresses itself are insensible to the more solemn aspects of life1 its sins and sorrows1 its disappointments and disillusionment1 and most of all to the final catastrophe which men call death4 ,ours1 they would impress upon us1 is a fair weather creed1 good enough when all goes well1 but painfully inadequate in the storm and stress which the inevitable trials of existence inflict upon us4 ,sorrow1 they impressively warn us1 is ever the rock upon which all such systems must split4 ,now1 to say nothing of the obvious reflection that what we now call the old1 that is1 the orthodox ways1 are in reality exceedingly new1 and that even the chosen people1 or their immediate predecessors1 were left wholly destitute by the ,deity of any such comforts as are held so indispensably necessary to a well-ordered existence--to say nothing of this1 the argument1 if worth anything1 would go to show that the religion which offered most consolation was the true one2 and since no traveller ever returns from that bourne1 so near and yet so far1 to advise us of the truth or falsity of these ultra-mundane comforts1 we seem compelled to hesitate more than ever before we forsake that sturdy and plain-spoken guide called reason1 whom we as confidently follow in the region of religion as in the business of everyday life4 ,the ,society for ,psychical ,research has some remarkable evidence to offer1 apparently establishing to physical demonstration that the man ,transcriber's note3 the man8 in us does not die but lives1 and communicates with his fellows after the final fact of this earth called death4 ,but1 however this may be1 and we are not called upon now to offer any opinion on these matters1 the so-called revelations are wonderfully silent on those topics which sentimentarians apparently erect into the supreme test of a religion's truth or falsity4 ,as far as one may judge1 the departed appear to be occupied with nothing more sublime than filled their thoughts during this present sphere2 in fact1 as is well known1 they often appear to exhibit a painful declension in moral life and to have lost immeasurably in character by their passage from this stage of being to the unknown land beyond the grave4 ,reason1 therefore1 being in no position to settle the rival claims of the physical delights of the ,mohammedan paradise1 the comparatively insipid ideal of the ,apocalypse1 and the nameless quiet of the ,buddhist ,nirvana1 feels compelled to pass them all by and to hold that of the invisible universe we are painfully ignorant1 and that the only deathless reality is the will of man conformed to the great obedience of the moral law4 ,it believes that the test of a system is not what it promises but what it performs1 and we may take it as an absolutely certain thing that if any of the systems of our day secured palpably higher ethical results amongst its adherents1 the world would flock to that ,church forthwith4 ,as ,augustine says1 no one loves the devil1 which1 being ethically interpreted1 means no one wants to be bad1 and if any ecclesiastical corporation1 by an appeal to history or to present and urgent visible facts1 could justify its claims to successfully strengthen man's oftentimes rebel will in the pursuit of the great ideal1 men would follow it to the world's end1 such is the power of truth and goodness over the human heart4 ,but the truth is1 no such agency has ever been discovered4 ,in the sixteenth century the ,council of ,trent was summoned to reform the ,church in its head and members1 a plain confession of ethical failure4 ,do men suppose that ,luther1 or a whole synod of monks1 could have torn ,europe in pieces in about a score of years1 when ,anglicans have been debating auricular confession and the eastward position for the last fifty1 unless the ,continent had undergone a moral dbcle8 ,luther's paltry diatribes about indulgences would have left men as cold as stone2 it was the fervour of the ethical enthusiast thundering against immoralities in high places which rent the ,christian ,church in twain by the most violent and widespread schism it had ever known4 ,no1 the test of a thing is not what it promises but what it does4 ,exitus acta probat4 ,and if the enlightened men and women of our time are disposed less and less to rely upon creeds as a basis of religious communion1 it is because they see that whatever the future life may have in store for mankind1 they cannot better prepare for it than by living worthily in this4 ,but as evidence that they who follow the ethical obedience are in no wise insensible to the sterner aspects of life1 we shall now pass on to say what in our judgment should be the religious attitude of man face to face with the inevitable certainty of death4 ,if we pause one moment to reflect on the physical aspect of death1 it would only be to remark that it is as natural an occurrence as birth4 ,in fact1 as is obvious to the most superficial mind1 birth and death are inextricably interwoven4 ,the great life of the worlds is so one1 so powerful1 so omnipresent1 that nothing can so utterly pass away as to give birth to nothing--no1 not even the cremated remains which are blown to the four winds4 ,the theory that death is a non-natural occurrence arbitrarily inflicted by the ,deity in his anger at ,adam's disobedience is no longer taught even in the nursery1 because aeons upon aeons before man's advent hither death reigned supreme over sentient existence1 and the bones of the doomed are in our museums to attest the fact4 ,nay1 we have recovered the ice-embedded body of the mammoth1 its stomach filled with undigested food1 food it ate as far back as the glacial period1 by which it was overtaken and frozen in its ice grave #bjj1jjj years ago4 ,the ,roman sentinel1 overwhelmed where he stood by the lava of ,vesuvius1 defiant of disaster in his inflexible devotion to duty1 is not a surer proof of the natural fact of death than the mammoth that died in ,alaska before man's appearance on the earth4 ,the law of growth is the law of death4 ,life begins1 it increases1 it reaches its meridian1 it begins to waver and then steadily to decline1 till at length the bodily frame dissolves1 and then-- ,that which drew from out the boundless deep ,turns again home4 ,it is so with all things1 from a fungus to a giant of the forest1 from a stone to a cluster of stars whose light takes #djjj years to reach us4 ,it is only a question of time when our own sun shall set in impotence and rise again no more4 ,all things are passing away1 everything is unstable1 change is at the heart of all4 ,how solemn1 how true the words1 whose melancholy haunts the more the memory dwells on them3 this world passeth away and the desire thereof1 but he that doeth the ,divine will endureth for ever6 ,as we said1 the one changeless thing1 beyond the doom of sun-stars and swarms of worlds1 is the will of man nobly submissive to the ,great ,obedience of the ,supreme ,law--the ,law of ,justice and of ,truth4 ,that alone can never die4 ,let us turn now to the ethical and religious aspect of that which we have seen to be in itself so natural1 so inevitable4 ,in the first place1 we conceive that it in no wise interrupts the progress of the individual life4 ,certainly the conditions under which existence maintains itself in that other state must be far other than those which obtain here1 for there man is destitute of his bodily environment4 ,the conditions of such a life are wholly unpicturable1 wholly unimaginable1 but not inconceivable4 ,these are high matters1 like the truths of sublimest philosophy1 wherein it is impious to intrude with so inferior a faculty as imagination1 and demand that an image or representation of a bodiless existence be presented to it4 ,what picture does man make for himself of the force of gravitation1 nay of the force which drives the crocuses out of the soil in spring8 ,it is enough to know that the force is there2 it is enough to know that a man's body is not his self4 ,surely every one who reflects must be conscious that his body is his1 just like his clothes2 and therefore not he1 any more than the raiment wherewith he is covered4 ,foolish1 then1 is it to ask for pictures like children2 let us be satisfied to know with the reason1 which we alone of all earth-born creatures possess1 that the body is not we but ours1 and that we are not mere ephemerals1 but are going on and still to be4 ,now these words of ,tennyson exactly express our ethical teaching1 that man is ever going on and still to be1 and that death1 so far from putting a stop to the eternal progress1 is but a stage1 an incident in the journey1 possibly--for we know so little of these matters--a very insignificant one4 ,the theory commonly inculcated1 certainly commonly held1 is that the fact of death ushers in a perfect transformation scene1 more wonderful than anything thought of or devised by man1 nor should we be accounted irreverent did we describe the language of the book of ,revelation as pantomimic in the exuberance of its splendour4 ,all sorrow is supposed to cease as if by magic1 the sun shines perpetually1 it is eternal noon2 the home of the blessed is a wondrous city1 built four-square1 whose streets are of pure gold1 whose rivers are of crystal1 and whose foundations are laid in precious stones4 ,sweetest songs of earth resound in the heavenly courts2 yea1 even musical instruments are there1 and life would appear to be one prolonged religious service4 ,into this celestial blessedness departed souls enter new-born1 and take their allotted places once and for ever2 they never apparently move from them2 they grow no better2 there is no room for further development1 nor possibility of deterioration1 but a fixed and immovable moral status is1 to all appearances1 arbitrarily imposed upon them for evermore4 ,the impression one gathers is1 therefore1 of a large and glorified amphitheatre1 tiers rising above tiers into infinity1 seats along them1 each of which is tenanted by an individual elect spirit whose merits are precisely proportioned to its place4 ,now that existence prolonged1 ,i will not say into eternity1 but into a week is the very reverse of inspiring4 ,of course1 we are aware that ,dean ,farrar has as effectually explained away the ,orientalisms of the ,christian heaven as the ,paganisms of the orthodox hell2 we are ready to believe that the ,apocalypse--which is held now not to be a ,christian book at all1 but a ,jewish composition1 edited and amended by a ,christian hand--sets forth only figures and types of the great supernal blessedness4 ,this we know1 but our difficulty is not with the form but with the content1 that is1 with that which these hyperboles symbolise4 ,it is fairly inconceivable to us that a matter which1 according to the ,churches1 merely concerns the body1 soon to be resolved into its component gases1 should exercise so miraculous a transformation on the soul1 or the real man4 ,he did not die2 his body did1 and yet they would have us believe that that mere physical occurrence1 that catastrophe of flesh and blood1 means the subsequent and eternal stagnation of all psychical life2 that men either go forthwith into scenes with which ninety out of a hundred would be wholly unfamiliar1 or are thrust headlong into a subterraneous locality called ,sheol1 or the grave in ,hebrew1 the ,english equivalent of which is hell1 the only difference being that1 whereas the good can grow no better1 the wicked can and do grow worse4 ,doubtless1 ,i shall be reminded that these teachings do not occur explicitly in the ,thirty-nine ,articles1 any ,church ,confession1 or a ,papal ,decree4 ,that may very well be so1 as regards them all1 but there can be no doubt that the main assertion is accepted as dogmatically true by all ,christian ,churches--namely1 that a wonderful and searching change does occur at the moment of death1 whereby the time of probation1 as it is called1 comes to an end1 and all possibility of further merit before ,god1 or1 as we should say1 of ethical advancement1 relentlessly cut off4 ,to quote a letter of ,cardinal ,newman's1 written in #ahgb to the ,rev4 ,w4 ,probyn-,nevins1 and published subsequently by him--in the ,nineteenth ,century of ,may1 #ahic--,the great truth is that death ends our probation1 and settles our state for ever1 that there is no passing over the great gulf4 ,amidst much that is uncertain1 for instance1 as to whether real devils are in hell1 a real fire1 and whether it be bright or dark1 whether the appalling torments are ever mitigated1 say on certain feasts of the ,christian ,church1 such as ,christmas ,day and ,easter1 or whether eventually the pains ultimately die completely away and thus usher in that happiness in hell in which ,mr4 ,mivart is1 or was1 so deeply interested five years ago--amidst all these highly debatable points1 ,newman pronounces one thing certain1 that death ends our probation1 that there is no passing over the great gulf4 ,now1 whence did he learn this strange teaching8 ,how is he dogmatically certain of that one thing1 while all the rest is in a haze8 ,from stray texts1 such as1 ,whether the tree falleth to the north or the south1 in whatsoever place it shall fall1 there shall it lie2 or1 from the parable of wise and foolish virgins1 some of whom happened to be asleep1 and awoke at the critical hour to find that during the long night-watch for the bridegroom their store of oil had become exhausted8 ,surely tropes and parables are a highly insecure foundation whereon to build such a momentous teaching4 ,certainly1 it is gravely questionable whether any direct statement in the ,hebrew or ,christian writings can be adduced to support the common notion that bodily dissolution is a spiritual reagent1 and ipso facto seals the destiny of a spiritual essence4 ,vast numbers of even ,anglicans repudiate the notion in the name of theology and religion4 ,we repudiate it in the name of reason1 which was put into us for no other purpose1 we know well1 than to judge not only the statements ,churches put forth1 but the sacred documents on which they build them4 ,we repudiate the notion in the name of that reason which shows us that the ,infinite ,mind1 whose light and life we share1 was millions of years preparing this earth for man's habitation1 aeons of time so fashioning the course of things that a body might be prepared in which that mind which we call soul might energise2 aeons of time so ordering the course of events that man should emerge one day from the savagedom and animalism of the past to enter upon the path of a progress which we believe to be endless4 ,i say the reason which demonstrates this to us with a certitude which not the most intolerant bigotry dares to question to-day1 tells us also that it is wholly preposterous that all that is left to man wherein to work out his own individual moral progress is the brief span of threescore years and ten1 that after these days few and evil1 the chapter is closed1 the book sealed for ever1 and the status of man inexorably and unalterably determined4 ,i frankly avow ,i would as soon believe the ,buddhist ,jataka as such a wholly irrational account of the ways of ,god with man4 ,just think of the palaeolithic man1 who had no glimmering of moral discernment2 think of the cave-men whose skulls we possess in scores1 that bear eloquent testimony to their deplorable degradation--think of such creatures dying1 and their mental and moral status stereotyped for ever4 ,death ends our probation6 ,a precious revelation this6 ,where and what are these men now8 ,when ,newman visited ,greece in the thirties what impressed him1 or rather oppressed him1 as he stood above the glorious bay of ,salamis1 over which once rode the hundreds and thousands of galleys and triremes which transported the unnumbered hosts of ,xerxes to ,greece1 was the awful thought that all those million men1 including the proud monarch who reviewed them from the spot on which he then stood1 were still alive4 ,alive6 ,and where were they1 and what were they doing8 ,i cannot conceive anything more appallingly depressing1 nay1 maddening1 than to believe that all that heavenly orchestration is going on while ,xerxes is possibly in an ,apocalyptic hell1 and his hosts either bearing him company or wandering aimlessly about in the same stupid1 stolid1 unmoral1 unspiritual condition in which they were the moment they were engulfed in those blue waters4 ,why1 ,nero fiddling while ,rome was burning is a pleasant memory compared with it6 ,but we have not reached the end yet4 ,deep calleth unto deep1 and the extreme deductions from the perverse notion that the act of dying is the signal for the infliction of an everlasting mental and moral sterility1 finally convince us of the groundlessness of this feckless theology4 ,according to these deductions of which ,i speak1 one grievous offence against ,divine or ecclesiastical law--such1 for instance1 as grave scandal or the omission to attend at mass--is sufficient to condemn a man to eternal reprobation4 ,if it be supposed that death cuts the offender off before he has the opportunity to make confession of his fault or otherwise express his sorrow1 we are soberly asked to believe that the horrors of ,tartarus are his eternal doom4 ,surely the mediaeval authorities who formulated this precious teaching must have been bereft of the most elementary notions of ethical law4 ,one act1 or a dozen such acts1 do not stamp the delinquent as habitually bad1 still less as one irredeemably wicked4 ,habits are only generated by a constant repetition of corresponding acts1 just as good habits are formed with difficulty1 and only after persevering and resolute attention on the part of our wills4 ,so1 also1 an evil disposition is only the outcome of a deliberate surrender of our moral nature to perverse inclinations4 ,now1 the hell dogma implies that the so-called lost are so irredeemably depraved as to be incapable of as much as a good thought2 they are described in the graphic language of ,aquinas and ,suarez as obstinated in evil1 confirmed immutably in malice2 in fact1 absolutely diabolised4 ,and all this for missing attendance at mass on one of the ,church's festivals6 ,paris vaut bien une messe1 said ,henri ,quatre4 ,it would be well worth attending a mass to escape such a destiny6 ,there must be something rotten in the state of ,denmark1 where such horrors go stalking about unreproved4 ,as though infinite justice could be conceivably associated with such a transaction as the branding of a man as an eternal criminal1 blasting every moral sentiment he ever possessed1 arbitrarily reducing him to a condition infinitely beneath the bestial--and all because he had broken a ,church law in neglecting to attend ,divine service4 ,many of us incline to believe that our own punishments1 inflicted in the name of law1 often tend rather to degrade the prisoner than to improve him4 ,at any rate1 not a man in the land but believes that no punishment should be administered except with a view of amending what is amiss in the culprit's character4 ,but contrast this moral attitude of ours with the method of procedure deliberately ascribed to ,deity1 and let us ask ourselves whether the ,god of some men is not worse than their devil8 ,no such scruples1 apparently1 affect that supreme tribunal1 but if bodily death by accident overtake the erring man1 then1 forthwith1 and as if by magic1 the spiritual in him is rendered fiendish1 and henceforth and for ever he is fit for nothing but that genial society and those edifying occupations which are described in the cheerful manuals known as1 ,a ,glimpse of ,hell1 and ,hell open to ,christians4 ,those who witnessed the recent revival of ,hamlet--a revival which it would appear is destined to be historic--cannot have failed to notice how the great master of song permits himself to express the perverse conception that death is synonymous with everlasting moral stagnation4 ,hamlet steals into his murderous uncle's apartment1 sword in hand1 but discovering the criminal upon his knees1 forbears to strike then1 lest somehow his devotions should save him from his doom4 ,no1 he will wait until the miserable creature is off his guard1 so that death may overtake him at a moment when no prayer or cry for mercy is possible4 ,as though a momentary act could undo the mischief of years6 ,as though a man is in himself any different after years1 of crime because he utters a sudden cry for mercy6 ,and1 as though by killing him at an opportune moment1 ,hamlet could damn his soul for ever6 ,and it will be noted1 moreover1 that the ghost emphasises the treachery of which he has been the victim1 in that he was sent into eternity unhouseled1 unaneled1 as though momentary acts can make up for years wasted and misspent4 ,as well might one scatter one's fortune in luxury and riotous living1 and resolve to win it all back in a moment1 as misuse these glorious powers of mind and will we bear within us1 turn them to evil1 steep them in iniquity1 and then think to suddenly turn and by a single act bend them successfully to the arduous service of the good4 ,this is stern teaching1 but it is the truth2 and a mercy would it be1 a mercy would it have been for us all in the days of our youth1 if instead of the too frequent insistence on the doctrine of the forgiveness of sin1 the doctrine of compensation and retribution1 as taught by ,ralph ,waldo ,emerson1 had been instilled into our hearts4 ,ye shall not go forth until ye have paid the last farthing1 is the teaching4 ,dare to break those solemn laws1 to pervert these mysterious powers we possess1 ,amen1 ,amen1 we cannot escape retribution2 we cannot go forth until we pay the last farthing4 ,and this last thought prepares for the statement of our view of the attitude a rational religion takes up in the solemn presence of death4 ,stoicism shall not be more exigent1 said ,emerson of the new ,church4 ,we take no lax view of life and its responsibilities1 but we refuse to magnify death into the one thing worth living for or thinking about4 ,homo liber de nulla re minus quam de morte cogitat4 ,we do not set about digging our graves1 we do not carry our coffins about with us1 still less do we sleep in them--a gruesome practice which has attracted some fanatical folk4 ,to us1 death is a fact1 not an effect1 an incident as natural as birth1 in no wise affecting the real1 the spiritual1 man4 ,we therefore utterly disavow all sympathy with the groundless assumption that a magical change comes over the psychical powers of a man at that supreme moment1 whereby he can do no more good1 but may harden into a more hopeless reprobate4 ,the notion that a judgment of the soul takes place1 as in the hall of ,osiris1 of ,egyptian mythology1 at the instant of dissolution1 whereby the destiny of the individual is sealed for ever1 we repudiate in terms4 ,man is judged1 not then1 but at every moment of his life4 ,the moral laws vindicate themselves without the intervention of any external tribunal4 ,and1 therefore1 the eternal progress of the man in us is maintained uninterruptedly across the gloomy chasm of death1 under other circumstances1 no doubt1 but still it is the same ceaseless approach towards the ,infinite ,ideal1 the same untiring journey along the everlasting way4 ,all are in that way1 we may be sure1 even those whom we foolishly deem hopelessly reprobate4 ,something can be made of those failures of men1 for ,after last returns the first1 though a wide compass round be fetched2 ,what began best can't end worst1 nor what ,god once blest prove accurst4 ,but such men1 the ,neros1 ,caligulas1 the ,wainwrights and ,palmers of all ages and nations1 are but a fractional1 an infinitesimal1 element in the great human family4 ,sanabiles fecit nationes super terram4 ,he hath made earth's peoples to be healed2 they shall redeem themselves one day4 ,the moment of awakening comes sooner or later to all2 there is an unextinguished capacity for good under the sores and scars of the most dissolute life1 and we may believe that awakening comes when the spirit enters new-born1 as it were1 into a world where the illusions of the flesh1 the deceptions of the sense1 obtain no more4 ,there are no final1 irredeemable failures4 ,the ,divine in man must emerge one day2 its glory pierce through the gloom of his sin and shame1 and transfigure him anew after the beautiful and pathetic image of the holy ,christ in the legend1#a whose closing days on earth1 they say1 were illumined by one supreme wonder--his face calm and blissful1 glowing radiant like the glory of a setting sun1 his very raiment turned white like the driven snow4 ,a beauteous imagery6 ,but there was no external transfiguration4 ,it was but a type of the radiant purity within2 a witness to the beauty of holiness4 ,it was an emblem of what all may be in some far-off day1 when the lowliest amongst us learns to follow the ,christs1 the blessed company of all elect souls1 in the way which begins and ends in the eternal righteousness4 #a ,in the same way the ,buddha was transfigured4 ,see ,doane's ,bible ,myths4 ,x4 ,,the ,,ethical ,,aspect ,,of ,,war4 ,an idealism such as that which substantially identifies religion with morality1 is suitably occupied1 as occasion offers1 in the discussion of those questions of public interest which have an immediate bearing on the well-being of communities4 ,in this respect it departs markedly from the attitude taken up by those ,churches1 which afford little or no guidance on such matters1 probably because it is felt by priests and prelates that their functions are rather of an ultra-mundane character1 and that their most important duty is to prepare humanity for the enjoyment of another life after this unsatisfactory stage has passed4 ,hence the sharp line of distinction they draw between the ,church and the world1 the one the kingdom of saints1 the other lying hopelessly in wickedness4 ,hence1 again1 their distinction of holy days and secular days1 ,sunday being devoted to religious exercises1 while the remaining six days are presumably to be occupied in wholly secular enterprise4 ,the distinction affects our very attire4 ,religious rites being of a totally different character from the duties we accomplish during the week1 there is nothing for it but to don our blacks1 to quote the language of a current popular play1 and enact subsequently the ceremonial described as the church parade4 ,it is the same feeling which causes the average ,englishman to lapse into a sort of funereal solemnity at the very mention of the word religion1 or of anything allied to it4 ,the divorce of religion from ordinary life could not be more plainly indicated than by such phenomena as we have noticed4 ,it is1 of course1 one of the main objects of our movement to show the falsity of this distinction between the ,church and the world1 between religion and morality4 ,we submit that it is not the institution of the founder of ,christianity1 but of his later followers4 ,the ,church of ,christ meant the assemblage of men as men1 as citizens4 ,the entry thereto was not by the magical washing away of an imaginary birth-sin1 but through the natural and beautiful sacrament of human birth4 ,the world is the ,church1 and the ,church is the world1 and the living stones out of which the kingdom of heaven is built here on earth are precisely the stones out of which the civil commonwealth arises4 ,there is nothing secular1 nothing profane1 but from first to last the life of every man1 from the miraculous moment of his conception to the closing of his eyes in bodily death1 and beyond death1 through the perfecting of him by an ever-increasing approximation to the standard of all moral perfection1 everything is religious1 sacred1 divine4 ,the ,church is nothing but an ethical society1 co-extensive with the race1 and it is for the realisation of this ideal that the ethical movement is working1 to show men that religion is morality1 is life4 ,this preamble1 then1 may serve as a justification for introducing here such a subject as war4 ,the ,christian ,churches1 with one single exception1 that of the ,quakers1 vouchsafe no guidance whatsoever on the moral aspects of this question4 ,on the contrary1 they rather suggest that it is a highly moral proceeding1 for their ministers pray to their ,deity for the success of their country's arms1 and sing their ,te ,deums over the mangled corpses of the vanquished4 ,an archbishop in ,spain offered to guarantee the harmlessness of every ,american bullet1 and unctuous prayers were reported in the newspapers of last spring as emanating from ,transatlantic pulpits4 ,indeed1 it would be difficult1 if not impossible1 to imagine what the supreme court of their heaven must be1 the perplexities of patron saints and angels1 and ultimately of their ,deity himself1 in face of the immoral mingling of bloodshed and religion which went on during the recent ,spanish-,american war4 ,but the ,churches1 ,catholic and ,protestant alike1 see none of the impiety which is so revolting to moral men and women1 who to their lasting advantage have emancipated themselves from ecclesiastical guidance4 ,on the contrary1 the public in ,america which looks for moral inspiration to clergymen1 is fed upon this sort of doggerel3-- ,strike for the ,anglo-,saxon6 ,strike for the newer day6 ,o strike for heart and strike for brain1 ,and sweep the beast away4 ,and let no feeble pity ,your sacred arms restrain2 ,this is ,god's mighty moment ,to make an end of ,spain6 ,it is our purpose to endeavour to make an end of the immoral inspiration behind this profane piffle by speaking out our mind on the subject of war as viewed from the standpoint of ethics4 ,by war we understand the appeal to might to decide a question of right between two or more civilised peoples1 and of war thus defined ,i say that it is the great surviving infamy#a of our unmoral past1 the persistence in us of animal instincts1 of the ape and tiger which should long since have died out4 ,that man1 in the childhood of the world1 should have decided questions of justice by an appeal to brute force is only what we should expect4 ,the laws of life1 which are laws of development1 necessarily presuppose the imperfect before the perfect1 the animal as a preparation for the human4 ,as ,immanuel ,kant puts it in a sentence which flashes the light over the whole panorama of existence1 the cosmic evolution of ,nature is continued in the historic development of humanity and completed in the moral perfection of the individual4 ,this is the synthesis of the greatest of the masters of modern philosophy4 ,the non-moral cosmos makes way for a process of moral human development1 which is consummated in the perfection of each individual man4 ,here is the ,alpha and ,omega of all existence4 ,now1 warfare1 or the invocation of might to settle right1 was as natural an accompaniment of earlier conditions as theft or cannibalism4 ,but is it not obvious that with the disappearance of other unmoral ideals of the past1 we have a right to expect1 and to demand1 that the last and crowning infamy of wholesale and systematised manslaughter1 called war1 should cease also8 ,the humanity which has got rid of slavery in all civilised countries1 which has now through ,england's instrumentality succeeded in destroying its last strongholds on the ,upper ,nile1 will also ultimately get rid of war4 ,the manhood of the race1 which in this country has long since put down the immorality of duelling as a means of settling private differences1 will indubitably assert itself elsewhere to the final overthrow of warfare as a means of deciding public disputes4 ,the great reform is in the air4 ,it is everywhere except in the pulpits of ,christendom and the yellow press--the jingo journalism of the world4 ,we all experienced the growing sense of the unsuitability of war to our modern ideals during the earlier months of this year while matters were reaching the acute stage between ,spain and the ,united ,states4 ,the best ,press in this country reflected the common sentiment1 that the whole proceeding is savage1 barbarous1 inhuman1 and therefore utterly unworthy of rational men4 ,i believe it is this growing horror of legalised carnage which prevented the late ,president of the ,united ,states' ill-judged message leading to any rupture between our two countries4 ,it was felt that ,englishmen and ,americans deliberately setting about the destruction of each other's property and taking one another's lives would amount to a scandal positively unthinkable--a fratricidal horror to be prevented at all and any costs4 ,i am not sure that the same opinion was so universal on the other side1 though undoubtedly it existed amongst the best men of the country4 ,america has at present two difficulties to contend with4 ,first1 she is a young nation1 and young people are fond of trying experiments4 ,and1 next1 they are burdened1 perhaps ,i should say cursed1 with the most violent1 anti-cosmopolitan ,press anywhere existent4 ,a set of fire-eaters appear to control the ,new ,york section1 of it1 and in the judgment of many sober-minded ,americans1 with some of whom ,i have myself spoken1 the late war was wholly due to their ceaseless1 incessant clamour1 and that1 given a few months' patience1 the ,cuban people might have by plebiscite been able to settle their own destiny4 ,the starving peasants concentrated in the towns were the alleged object of the hurry4 ,long months passed before any succour reached them4 ,if they were veritably starving1 surely every man of them must have died long before an ,american army of liberation could have been effectually landed for their relief4 ,the sympathies of this country were not with ,spain1 for it is by her misrule1 her acknowledged misgovernment of her colonists1 that all the mischief has been brought about4 ,one regrets to have to say it1 but ,spain has been strangled in the coils of her own superstition1 and progress for her ceased to be when she elected to live by the light of ideals and principles which are henceforth impossible4 ,it is the frantic endeavour of ,france and ,italy to escape ,spain's doom which explains their incessant strife between ,church and ,state4 ,the enlightened ,frenchman or ,italian has a horror of sacerdotalism as the beginning of the end1 always and everywhere1 and as the only religion in those countries is sacerdotal1 they are1 alas1 in their national capacity1 bereft of any religious guidance or inspiration4 ,we are1 therefore1 unable to see anything in ,spain's present position1 but the working of the inevitable law of ,compensation1 which is sovereign over ,states as over individuals1 though there are many of us who believe that the avowed humanitarian objects of the ,american ,government might have been attained by peaceful methods1 had not the country been goaded into a fever of restlessness and impatience by that deplorable phenomenon of democratic institutions known as the yellow press4 ,at all events1 the feeling universal in this country in the early spring of this year1 showed how far and fast we are travelling along the road which will lead us to the final abandonment of warfare as unworthy of rational men4 ,doubtless we are in advance of other nations in this respect4 ,but that is only what history leads us to expect4 ,we were the first to free slaves1 abandon duelling1 reform prisons and criminal law1 and erect humanitarianism into a veritable religion4 ,and have we not taught representative institutions to the world8 ,we are evidently destined1 ,i believe1 to lead the way towards the final surrender of war4 ,we keep no standing army4 ,we shall never again enter on a war of conquest or aggression4 ,our naval armaments and such military power as we possess are notoriously created and maintained for defensive purposes only4 ,brigandage and pillage we have most certainly been guilty of in past times1 but such a policy could not now survive the day it was mooted4 ,we are in the last trenches1 preparatory to finally abandoning the field4 ,but here it will be urged that there are circumstances which render war absolutely inevitable1 such for instance as an unjust aggression upon the territory we own1 or even live upon2 an attack on the national honour1 or a reckless disregard of rights sanctioned by treaty or international usage4 ,were arbitration in such cases even admissible1 we may conceive the would-be aggressor unwilling to have recourse to it1 or possibly to abide by its award4 ,what is a government to do then8 ,now1 arguments and pleas such as these are valid enough against a proposal of universal disarmament to be compulsorily carried out in six months or a year's time1 but they in no wise1 ,i submit1 constitute an inseparable bar to the realisation of that sweet dream1 as ,immanuel ,kant called it1 of a perpetual peace4 ,the ideal is none the less real because it cannot be at once put into practice2 and had we to wait another whole century1 it would still be the duty of our movement to stand by ,kant and boldly set up the grand conception of an universal peace as the goal for which all that is best among men is inevitably making4 ,still1 ,i trust that in our enthusiasm for ethic and for the ideal of its master1 we have not lost our heads and betaken ourselves to ,utopian impracticabilities4 ,no ethical man could think of fixing a limit within which a national disarmament must take place1 and the swords of the world beaten into ploughshares1 any more than he could name the date at which the millennium is to be introduced4 ,but this implies no insuperable1 or rather1 no serious1 obstacle to our belief that the ideal of universal arbitration1 through the medium of a congress of all nations1 must in the future1 near or distant1 be realised1 because it is an ideal which is alone worthy of rational men4 ,and1 moreover1 the essential rationality of the ideal gives us a right to demand that it should be recognised by all public men1 by our legislators who represent us1 the ,press which aims at reflecting the life and thought of the age1 the professors and masters who have the care of our youth1 and above all by fathers and mothers to whom tender children are confided1 and those men who assume the responsibility of speaking to their generation in the sacred name of religion4 ,i say the ideal gives us the right to demand its recognition by men in such positions of responsibility1 and implies a corresponding obligation on their part1 no less than on our own1 to labour seriously for its speedy realisation4 ,we are1 every one of us1 agreed that war is essentially a cruel1 barbarous1 horribly vindictive and degrading method of serving the interests of the sublimest thing known to man1 namely1 justice4 ,wanton warfare1 merely for the sake of fighting or killing1 or openly avowed oppression1 can scarcely be acknowledged now even by the most cynical of statesmen4 ,the public conscience is become too sensitive for that1 so that some question of justice1 or the semblance of it1 must be invoked in order to justify its unspeakable barbarities4 ,but what an outrage1 the deliberate destruction of hundreds of thousands of innocent men--men who in their simplicity or ignorance are positively unable to even dimly comprehend why they are being lashed into a blind fury and goaded to the madness of steeping their hands in each other's blood--what barbarity1 what savagery to invoke as the minister1 as the vindicator of justice6 ,let us keep our eyes steadily fixed on this central1 essential wickedness of the whole business1 that it dares to offer its polluted services in the interests of justice and thereby to profane the holiest thing we know4 ,remembering this1 therefore1 let us ask ourselves what help we get in our endeavours to effect its overthrow from the recognised ministers of religion4 ,why1 it is notorious that what has long been clear to philosophers like ,immanuel ,kant1 and philanthropists among humble laymen1 has not yet dawned upon the imagination or touched the consciences of bishops or priests4 ,popes1 themselves1 have created military orders1 knights and commanders of ,christ and the ,cross1 whose profession it was to destroy life in the name of the most merciful1 pitiful man known to us ,western people4 ,popes have led military expeditions1 conducted campaigns and crossed swords with the most daring1 though the impetuous fisherman1 founder of their line1 was bidden by ,christ to put up his sword into its scabbard1 for all they that take up the sword shall perish by it4 ,can any man point to one single condemnation of war as immoral1 irrational1 opposed to the law of their ,deity or of ,christ1 in all the collection of councils1 bulls and canonical legislation8 ,and can any man quote to us the charge of an archbishop or bishop in the ,anglican ,communion or the ,greek ,communion wherein he has raised his voice against the barbaric survival of war and condemned it in the name of his ,saviour ,jesus1 who spoke of the meek1 the mourners1 the merciful1 the pure in heart1 the hungerers and thirsters after righteousness1 or1 as we say1 the ethical enthusiasts1 as his followers8 ,why1 religion1 in the hands of bishops and priests1 has allowed a trail of blood to be drawn across the path of the ages4 ,i say nothing of religious persecution and the millions who have gone to torture and to doom for erroneous beliefs4 ,i confine myself entirely1 to field warfare4 ,during a period of #fgd years1 from #aada-ahae1 it is an historical fact that this country and ,france were at war for no less than #bff years1 or considerably more than one-third1 and we must remember that up to the ,reformation both countries were under the direct guidance1 one might almost say the exclusive inspiration1 of the ,catholic ,christianity of the day4 ,but where does history record the act of any religious leaders of those times denouncing war as contrary to the gospel of ,christ and of reason alike8 ,we are able to quote numbers of despised heretics who had grasped the truth and emphatically condemned the brutal institution4 ,thus ,erasmus3 ,they who defend war must defend the dispositions which lead to war1 and these dispositions are absolutely forbidden by the gospel4 ,wickliffe1 the morning star of the ,reformation in ,england1 thought it utterly unlawful1 according to ,priestley2 and as ,southey writes in his ,history of ,brazil3 ,there is but one community of ,christians in the world1 and that unhappily of all communities one of the smallest1 enlightened enough to understand the prohibition of war by the ,divine ,master in its plain literal and undeniable sense and conscientious enough to obey it1 subduing the very instinct of nature to obedience4 ,these facts are noteworthy because they show that had the official churches--the ,roman1 ,greek and ,anglican--been true to their charge and commission from their founder2 had they been unworldly enough to defy the world and denounce its barbarous practices1 we might have been far nearer ,kant's sweet dream of universal peace4 ,but the churches1 as churches1 have done very little for the cause of the ,prince of peace1 and now the world itself has outgrown their moral standard and looks to them for guidance and inspiration no more4 ,by the light of reason alone1 by the inspiration we gather from the grands esprits of the race1 above all by the teaching of ,immanuel ,kant in his beautiful treatise on ,perpetual ,peace1 we intend to do what in us lies to put down this surviving1 crowning infamy of war1 the very thought of which brutalises the mind1 outrages its humanitarian instincts1 and degrades the ideals whereby we desire to live4 ,but1 surely1 it will be urged1 we cannot refuse to acknowledge undoubted benefits1 both public and individual1 which war has conferred in the past4 ,it has welded nomad peoples into nations1 bred courage1 devotion1 loyalty1 unselfishness1 self-sacrifice even to death in the hearts of those who have nobly borne their part therein4 ,is not the soldier hero1 the military chieftain1 the idol of all mankind8 ,doubtless he is1 and unquestionably through the instrumentality of war great services have been rendered to the communities of peoples in the past and noble individual traits of character created4 ,it is an axiom with us that the universe is so wondrously ordered that out of the worst things a soul of good may and does emerge1 and so goodly is creation that its very evils become a source wherefrom good may arise4 ,what was good shall be good with for evil so much good more4 ,thus1 for example1 the young lieutenant ordered to sink a hulk across the bay of ,santiago1 and his handful of companions have1 by exposing themselves to imminent risk of an awful death1 deeply stirred the feelings of their fellow-countrymen and filled us all with a sense of admiration at the heroism which can contemn danger and death in the execution of duty or the quest of glory4 ,but we must ask whether humanity is in need of such exhibitions of bravery1 whether there are not other fields of danger which offer tasks equally arduous and difficult of accomplishment8 ,we are not insensible to the claims of military or naval heroism1 but ,i confess ,i see much more to admire in ,father ,damien voluntarily surrendering himself to the slow and loathsome martyrdom of ,molokai1 more in the self-devotion of our white slaves1 as they must1 alas6 be called1 who toil all the day and a deal of the night in a heavy1 noisome1 almost disease-laden atmosphere in the disgracefully crowded slums of our great cities1 and all to earn a few pence wherewith to buy just enough bread to keep body and soul together in themselves and their children4 ,think of the matchbox-makers1 who turn out a gross for a few halfpence1 out of which they must supply some of their own materials4 ,think of the seamstresses1 the shirt-makers and tailors' assistants in the veritable dens of ,east ,london1 who by slaving for fifteen hours out of twenty-four can earn eighteenpence a day1 out of which four or five shillings must be paid weekly for rent4 ,think of these mean1 squalid surroundings in which a life of positively ceaseless toil must be lived1 the patience and long-suffering with which it is endured1 the silent martyrdom of monotonous1 unrelieved existence prolonged over long years4 ,think of it1 ,i say1 and compare it with the intoxication of the battle-field1 the cavalry charge1 the roar of cannon and musketry1 the rapid movements and counter-movements1 the exultation which the sight of numberless men produces1 grim1 deadly determination on their faces1 the thought of glory1 the hope of renown1 the dash of a few minutes1 the stroke perhaps of a few seconds1 the wild burst of untamed1 savage human nature temporarily released from the restraint of reason6 ,what cannot1 what shall not man under such circumstances accomplish8 ,yes1 we are not insensible to deeds of immortal daring1 of courage1 that must live for ever2 nor to the memory of ,leonidas and his ,spartans1 of the deathless glories of ,thermopylae1 of the unbroken chain of chivalric deeds from the days of ancient ,greece to the thin red line that broke the fiercest charge1 and the handful of ,englishmen that shot away their last cartridge and then stood to die with their country's anthem on their lips--we are not insensible to all this1 but we say the day for it is past and gone1 and the heroism of the battle-field must be consecrated anew to the service of peace and the poor4 ,the millions on millions we are spending on those majestic engines of destruction1 those ships of ours that bastion the brine for ,england1 what could they not do for the moralisation of the poor and outcast at our very doors in this city6 ,why1 in three years that inferno of the ,east ,end1 that foul1 reeking1 pestilential nest of tenements1 unfit for even animal habitation1 could be swept clean away and human homes erected which1 to put it on the lowest grounds1 would positively pay a dividend on the capital outlay1 as has been convincingly proved over and over again4 ,how long1 ,o ,lord1 how long1 we exclaim with the prophet of old1 shall men be consumed with this ignoble fever1 this war-madness which degrades the combatants far more than it exalts them1 which senselessly destroys valuable property1 scatters ruin broadcast1 paralyses industry1 robs the poor of all the bread of life1 fills the land with mourning and desolation1 with widows and orphans8--war1 which we learnt from wild beasts1 our ancestors1 which cannot therefore determine a question of justice1 which makes the wrong triumph as often as the right1 which degrades all that touch it by isolating them for months1 for years perhaps1 from civilised life1 which demoralises the victors1 embitters the vanquished1 and1 by creating strife1 perpetuates the possibilities of renewed strife--war1 which at this moment keeps ,europe in the condition of an armed camp1 millions of men leading comparatively idle lives1 with long hours on their hands which they cannot fill1 with the inevitable results1 the nauseating record of filth1 disease and abominations too utterly loathsome even to think about--war1 which is the curse of the poor and unfortunate1 consuming the energies of men and the material means whereby their unhappy lot might be alleviated--war1 the hard1 cruel1 relentless1 inexorable monster of unregenerate man's creation--we1 since no pope1 bishop or priest will do it--we execrate it in the name of all we hold holiest1 in the name of reason1 morality and religion1 and we pledge ourselves so to act1 privately and politically1 as to promote such measures--a federation of all ,english-speaking nations of the earth1 if that will serve the purpose1 or any other method equally or more serviceable--as will finally exorcise this last of the besetting demons of humanity1 and fulfil thereby the sweet dream of our master and inspirer1 ,immanuel ,kant4 ,ring out the old1 ring in the new2 99 99 99 99 99 ,ring out the false1 ring in the true2 ,ring out old shapes of foul disease2 ,ring out the narrowing lust of gold2 ,ring out the thousand wars of old2 ,ring in the thousand years of peace4 #a ,since these words were written the ,daily ,chronicle of #ajth ,september1 #ahih1 quotes them as having been used by a distinguished living ,english general4 ,,xi4 ,,the ,,ethics ,,of ,,marriage4 ,there is probably no department of morality in which a metaphysic of ethic is more conspicuously needed than in that which concerns marriage4 ,the insurrection of woman against the disabilities to which her sex was in the past unjustly subjected1 due perhaps more to custom and tradition than to the statute law of the land1 has developed in more recent times into a serious attack on the central institution of civilised life1 on that fundamental fact of ,nature on which posterity and society repose4 ,we have had an outbreak in literature culminating in the giddy glory of the hill-top novel1 with its heroine who did1 and in ,america what is tautologically described as the ,free-,love ,society was founded to propagate the truth of what ,rousseau euphemistically describes as mariage aprs la nature4 ,for all that1 however1 one seems to hear less of the hill-top species1 and possibly--with the problem play1 without which no theatre was complete a couple of years ago--it may be fading into the mist of the past4 ,it is with communities1 we may take it1 as with individuals4 ,there are moments when1 as it has been said1 every one is an atheist1 from archbishops downwards1 when a sense of the purposelessness and futility of perpetual combat seizes the most ardent4 ,these are the dark hours when attacks are planned and delivered against the most sacred institutions1 when people are not at their best1 but are restless1 rebellious and impatient of restraint2 for nations like individuals can go mad4 ,then it is that the wide-awake novelist and playwright see their opportunity1 and the temporary success of the sex-play or the breezy romance is the reflection of the thoughts--none of the best--that are for the moment flitting through men's feverish minds4 ,but we soon return to saner moments2 our moral sense resumes its normal sway1 and sex-plays and romances fade away into oblivion4 ,now1 it need not be said that the contention on behalf of the rights of woman is heartily espoused by a movement which bases itself on the conception of reason and justice as the root facts of existence4 ,there was no justice in the subjection of woman1 and we hold that those opportunities of learning which a cultured age opens up to man should likewise be at the disposal of his sister2 that that freedom1 which is the birthright of the man1 to expand the energies1 mental and moral1 of his being to their fullest extent and in whatever calling1 should also be acknowledged to be the right of woman4 ,the constitutional agitation for the recognition of her rights has met with notable success1 and it has the fullest support of the ethical ,church2 but we believe that that agitation has been pushed too far by a very small and insignificant minority1 and made to cover an attack on the institution of matrimony1 which her wisest friends see could only end in the ultimate downfall of woman herself4 ,such an agitation1 such an attack1 must encounter the most resolute opposition from a body which derives all its idealism and inspiration from a life motived1 not by the sense1 but by reason4 ,its leaders in ,america have pronounced decisively against any tampering with the natural sacrament of marriage1 and where they detect tendencies--as unfortunately they do in many of the ,states of their ,union--to further loosen its bonds1 they1 with all the influence at their command1 endeavour to strengthen them4 ,let me now proceed to justify this attitude of the ethical communion4 ,we do not base our action on considerations of authority such as move the ,churches of ,christendom4 ,it is not because ,jesus assisted at a wedding breakfast and performed an alleged wonder2 not because the ,apostle ,paul calls marriage a great mystery in ,christ and the ,church1 but because both ,jesus and ,paul and the ,churches express a truth of nature itself1 that the union of man and woman is not1 and cannot be1 the herding of animals2 that the bestowal of the body cannot but be the outward symbol of an invisible bond which is the very soul and life of the contract4 ,we thus go behind all ,churches and apostles and ascend to the very roots of ,nature herself1 and discern in the golden glory wherewith she surrounds the ideal marriage the significance of her intentions in its regard--that it is her true and real ,sacrament1 that her sons and daughters are themselves its ministers1 for they alone are kindled with the heavenly fire2 that not the ,church1 not the priest nor ritual celebrates it1 but these twain made one by that same ,love which moves the earth and heavens and all the stars4 ,that man has so regarded marriage as a sacred and sacramental fact is authenticated by history in an abundantly available form4 ,no doubt1 ages must have passed before he emerged from his animalesque condition and abandoned polygynous and polygamous manners1 the marriage by capture and purchase1 which were the stages which mark the historical evolution of the contract4 ,but ultimately these barbaric stages passed away1 and we discover in the ,teutonic ancestors of ,britain that monogamy which was ,nature's ideal from the first4 ,just as man was potential in the primordial slime1 so was the marriage of ,robert ,browning a possibility in the earliest union of scarce-emancipated man and woman4 ,what the institution could become1 what it has become1 shows what was the intent of ,nature from the beginning4 ,in the nobler days of ,rome1 under the republic and early empire1 the same lofty conception animated her best sons4 ,it was the decay of reverence for the sacred bond1 the era when a woman's years were told by the number of her divorces1 which called forth the solemn warnings of her moralist poets and philosophers1 and ultimately brought about the emasculation of the nation's manhood and the downfall of the empire4 ,we have not the remotest doubt but that a similar contempt in modern ,europe for ,nature's ordinance would involve us in the same catastrophe4 ,a low estimate of marriage means contempt of woman2 the contempt of woman means her degradation from her position at the side of man as his counsellor and his friend to that of his plaything1 the instrument of his pleasure2 that again means the enthronement of licence and licentiousness2 that1 the softening of the brain power of the manhood of the race1 leading to degeneracy1 imbecility1 and ultimate extinction4 ,we need no ecclesiastical organisation to tell us these things1 nor threaten us with direst penalties here or hereafter4 ,these are the penalties of nature's own aboriginal enactment4 ,as it was in the beginning1 so it is now1 and so it shall be unto all time4 ,no wonder ,st4 ,paul called marriage a great mystery6 ,now1 though it be true that ,nature's ideal is that which we call monogamy1 it may be perfectly true that we have not yet reached that level of morality which makes that condition universally practicable4 ,that wisest of teachers1 ,jesus of ,nazara1 expressly recognised this distinction when he told the ,jews of his own day that their lack of ethical enthusiasm1 their hardness of heart1 as he accurately expressed it1 the emptiness of their souls of everything save narrow nationalism and religious formalism--an emptiness by no means peculiar to them--was the sole reason which justified a departure from ,nature's great ideal4 ,in the beginning it was not so1 he declared1 but ,moses gave ye permission to write out a bill of divorce4 ,that one exception may be necessary still1 but1 let it be understood1 it is not the ideal1 and every one knows it1 faithful and faithless alike1 they whose honour is intact and they whose souls are smirched4 ,it is an instinct in the human heart--no one can deny it--that love is for evermore4 ,shakespeare is right1 ,marriage is a world-without-end bargain1 for love is felt to be eternal4 ,the old ,roman digest interprets nature with philosophic accuracy when it describes marriage as ,conjunctio maris et feminae et consortium omnis vitae1 divini et humani juris communicatio4 ,the union of man and woman and the companionship of all life1 the sharing of right1 human and divine4 ,that is the majestic conception of matrimony as it took shape in the brain of those ,roman masters of jurisprudence to whom we owe the law which is the nerve of civilisation4 ,they learnt it from that ethical religion which we1 too1 reverently follow1 from that morality which they found in things1 in themselves1 in ,nature's plain teaching that the union of man and his wife was a sacramental fact and therefore indelible4 ,are we asked for further evidence of this position8 ,we see it as a law of our rational being1 which refuses to believe that ,nature makes no other provision for us than she does for the animals2 that their instinctive and impulsive association should be the norm of man's intercourse with woman4 ,nay1 we see ,nature herself as she advances to the higher stages of animal existence anticipating1 in a sense1 that ideal which was only to be fully realised in man4 ,the lion1 the king of beasts1 as he is called1 tends towards that ideal1 and the elephant is believed to be even more strictly monogamous4 ,the loves of birds1 of doves and pigeons1 are too well known to need more than a passing mention1 and the grief they experience on the death of their partner not unfrequently ends in a broken heart4 ,but how much better is man than many animals1 and what is merely instinctive in them shall not he consciously obey as his acknowledged law of life8 ,we may see the truth also in ,nature's ordinance1 that man's offspring must be educated in order to reach maturity2 that training of a serious character is indispensably necessary to the development of the powers latent in them4 ,but how is such training possible1 except through the unceasing watchfulness of the parents'8 ,people here and there darken counsel with the suggestion that the ,state should assume such responsibilities4 ,was there ever such a suggestion8 ,as a matter of mere finance1 we are told by the ,vice-,president of the ,council1 that the assumption of the quite partial responsibility for the education of the children now taught in the elementary schools of the denominational bodies of the country1 would mean an addition of some millions yearly to the rates4 ,the education rate is high enough in all conscience1 but where the hill-top theory would land us one can scarcely conjecture4 ,so urgent is this consideration of the claim which offspring has upon parent1 so imperative the need that children should be fittingly instructed so as to be worthy citizens of a great community1 that we find writers like ,karl ,pearson1 in his ,ethic of ,free ,thought1#a consistently excepting from the operation of the free-love gospel those unions which have resulted in the procreation of children4 ,mr4 ,pearson being of the school of those who deride marriage as the tomb of love1 the source of the stupidity and ugliness of the human race1 his admissions as to the necessity of maintaining some element of permanence in the contract1 if only for the sake of children1 is well worthy of our attention4 ,it shows how grounded in nature is that conception of the marriage tie which the ,roman digest has put before us4 ,we may see the truth1 once again1 in the acknowledged instability of the passional element in human nature--particularly in man4 ,it is nothing short of amazing to see this very instability urged as a reason why the marriage tie should be still further weakened1 as though man should deliberately subject himself to the vagaries of sense1 instead of the guidance of reason4 ,we hear much to-day about the return to nature1 and1 soundly interpreted1 that gospel sounds like a breath of pure mountain air after the stifling atmosphere of modern convention and unreality4 ,would to heaven1 ,i say from my heart1 that we were more natural1 that a greater frankness and directness marked our intercourse with one another1 that the shams and pretences of so much of our social life were made away with1 that our lives were more open and free6 ,the grand old ,stoic maxim had it thus3 ,live in accordance with nature4 ,yes1 but with what nature8 ,no thinker1 from ,socrates to ,kant1 from ,buddha to ,hegel1 ever had a doubt but that man's nature was twofold1 and that the law of reason must be supreme in him4 ,let an animal live for sense2 it is its nature2 but for man another law is ordained1 which bids him think last of enjoyment1 and to partake only of that in obedience to the law of the mind4 ,the modern evangel of the apotheosis of the unstable we understand to convey the teaching1 ,live in accordance with sense1 or the feeling of the moment4 ,be like the dame du monde whom ,mrs4 ,ward has so accurately drawn in ,madame de ,netteville1 who did not hold herself responsible to our petty codes1 and judged that feeling was guidance enough for her4 ,that may be all very well for ,madame de ,netteville1 but how does such teaching look in the light of ,kant's solemn injunction3 ,act so that thy conduct may become a law unto all men8 ,could any one seriously propose to erect feeling into a supreme criterion whereby to judge of the conduct of life8 ,and1 to show that the line of argument here adopted is no mere false asceticism surviving from an undisciplined and pre-scientific age1 as the solemn verbiage of so much second-rate talking expresses it to-day1 we may quote some words of ,david ,hume1 ,huxley's prince of agnostics1 from the ,essay on ,polygamy and ,divorce4 ,the least emotional of philosophers--a hard-headed ,scotsman--he makes short work of the sentimentality which is invoked now-a-days against the natural law of marriage3-- ,we need not be afraid of drawing the marriage knot 4 4 4 the closest possible4 ,the unity between the persons1 where it is solid and sincere1 will rather gain by it2 and where it is wavering and uncertain that is the best method for fixing it4 ,how many frivolous quarrels and disgusts are there1 which people of common prudence endeavour to forget1 when they lie under the necessity of passing their lives together2 but which would soon be inflamed into the most deadly hatred1 were they pursued to the utmost under the prospect of an easy separation6 ,we must consider that nothing is more dangerous than to unite two persons so closely in all their interests and concerns1 as man and wife1 without rendering the union entire and total4 ,the least possibility of a separate interest must be the source of endless quarrels and suspicions4 ,the wife1 not secure of her establishment1 will still be driving some separate end or project2 and the husband's selfishness1 being accompanied by no power1 may be still more dangerous4 ,thus our conception of marriage as a nature sacrament1 a permanent contract in ,nature's original intention1 is abundantly confirmed by the sceptical philosopher of the eighteenth century4 ,whatever man may make of the contract1 there stands the fact that that ,nature meant it to be enduring which whispered into the lover's heart that love should be for evermore4 ,it is a far cry from the abstractions of philosophy to the realisms of ,french fiction1 but we could not better conclude this portion of our subject than by citing one single sentence from ,balzac1 in the judgment of many the first romancer of this century1 and one of the greatest masters of the social sciences4 ,nothing1 he declares1 more conclusively proves the necessity of indissoluble marriage than the instability of passion4 ,but here our difficulties begin4 ,though it may be abundantly clear that ,nature's ideal is ,hume's and ,balzac's1 is it not a fact that this high has proved too high1 this heroic for earth too hard8 ,is it not true that there are murmurs and mutterings of revolt both amongst men and women against a burden too grievous to be borne8 ,does not the fiction of the day represent a tendency to allow an increased laxity in the interpretation of the matrimonial contract8 ,and where there is smoke there is fire4 ,what novelists write other people are thinking4 ,has the time come to reconsider our position with regard to marriage and the permanent obligations hitherto associated with it8 ,we answer decisively1 ,no4 ,it is not the institution which is at fault1 but the individuals who embrace it4 ,we spoke of marriage as ,nature's great sacrament1 and so it is4 ,and as with the ,lord's ,supper the unworthy participant is said to eat and drink only condemnation to himself1 so is it with they who draw near to ,nature's banquet and attempt1 unprepared1 to partake of the deepest joys of life4 ,their profanity smites them with a curse4 ,we hold up our hands in no ,pharisaic spirit of holy horror1 but we ask the men and women of this generation and of those classes from which these mutterings and threatenings of revolt mainly emanate--we ask them1 whether marriage1 as they understand the term1 can be other than a bloodless martyrdom8 ,if that individual who gave her name to a novel two or three seasons ago1 if the young woman known as ,dodo be a type--and it was noted by the critics of the time that such was the character of the fashionable young mondaine of the day1 greedy for nothing but excitement and sensuous existence1 incapable of serious thought1 rebellious against1 ,i will not say the restraints1 but even the convenances of civilised life1 with no pretension to anything remotely resembling character or moral earnestness1 a wild1 gay1 frittering1 helpless creature1 whom it were blasphemy to think of in the same day with noble womanhood as we all have known it--if that1 ,i say1 is the type of the young mondaine of the hour1 then ,i have no doubt they will give the novelists and playwrights plenty of employment in describing their self-imposed torments1 the insufferable bondage to which they are subjected4 ,but does any one propose to alter the moral law for them8 ,if mothers in modern ,babylon are ready to labour day and night in attempting to catch as husbands for their daughters men in whom one and one only qualification is asked1 namely1 that of wealth1 then their perdition be upon their own heads and on those of the luckless pair who are literally speaking crucified on a cross of gold4 ,if girls continue to be brought up with the preposterous notion that marriage is the one profession open to them1 and that therefore they are by no means to risk the loss of an engagement1 no matter who the employer may be1 and that the wealthier he is the more suitable he is to be adjudged1 then let us abandon all attempts at reaching our ideal4 ,but let us at the same time prepare for the overthrow of the home and the family2 for the destruction of pure religion breathing household laws1 and of the stately1 dignified1 domestic life1 which has been the glory of every land where ,nature's true ideal has been worthily upheld4 ,if boys are brought up at school1 or taught by the social atmosphere they breathe on first entering into early manhood1 to conceive of marriage as in no wise nobler or loftier in essence than any of those mariages aprs la nature1 those ephemeral associations1 terminable at will2 that the only difference between them is1 that the one is legal and permanent1 the other voluntary and dissoluble1 then so long will the scandals of divorce and the revolt against marriage continue to be heard4 ,what one complains of is the utter lack of reverence in the view which is taken of this most solemn of all acts4 ,there is no idealism in the contract4 ,the thoughtless youth who has grown up in what one may call the wild oats theory is1 we suggest1 utterly incapable of appreciating the absolutely inestimable blessings which wedded love might have brought him4 ,how can he8 ,he has wasted his substance1 living riotously1 and the most precious of all the treasures he has squandered is that of his idealism4 ,his wife can scarcely be to him what she might have been had he come to her as he expected her to come to him4 ,the golden gates are closed1 a glory has passed from the earth4 ,this is pain enough to make hearts weep1 but it is the operation of that inflexible law of ,compensation1 that not all the tears of sorrow1 not all the absolutions and sacrificial atonements of ,churches1 can undo that past1 can make that young man to be as in the days of his youth1 before the experimental knowledge of good and evil touched him4 ,our remedy is1 therefore1 not to destroy the institution of ,nature1 but to reform the candidates who undertake to embrace it4 ,an ethical religion would reprobate the sacrilegious bargains in which bodies are exchanged for gold1 and refuse to accord them the honorific title of marriage1 which is first and foremost a union of souls4 ,time and again have we seen that the springs of all things are in the invisible world1 from the breath of a flower to the energy that pulsates in the great bosom of the ocean1 or governs the movements of the uttermost star4 ,it is so here4 ,not the transference of bodies1 of titles1 of wealth or station1 are the sacrament4 ,they are merely the accessories1 the outward form1 the symbol of something higher and ,diviner far1 of the invisible love1 which is everywhere1 yet manifests itself in especial manner in these two souls1 speaking even in their very countenances of an emotion supreme and irresistible4 ,an ethical religion1 wholly based upon and identified with morality1 would refuse to sanction any marriage but that we have described1 a union based upon a supreme affection between two who had worthily prepared themselves for its consummation1 and believed in the permanence of their tie4 ,with regard to the modern maiden--the ,dodos and their kindred swains--it would be infinitely preferable that they did not degrade the sanctity of a natural sacrament by profanely prostituting it to their temporal and social convenience4 ,far better that they betook themselves to the marriage after the truth of nature than to the great human institution of which ,milton sang3-- ,hail1 wedded love1 mysterious law1 ,true source of human offspring6 ,they do but defile it by their patronage1 and having manifestly spoiled themselves by their reckless lives for the entertainment of any emotion deeper than mere sensuousness1 they are bound at length to bring a noble institution into contempt1 and drag it down in their own fall4 ,you do not believe1 we would say to them1 in the eternity of soul and love1 and therefore the nature sacrament is not for you4 ,but having presented yourselves at its sacred table1 and partaken of its rites1 do not1 if only for motives of mere decency1 betake yourselves to the denunciation of that of which1 indeed1 you were never worthy4 ,week by week1 at the services of the ethical ,church1 we see numbers of young men who doubtless aspire one day to share in the benediction which a true marriage alone can bring them4 ,their presence is welcome as a testimony to the virility and inspiration of the ethic creed which is strong enough to prevail over other inducements which would take them far afield4 ,it shows that spirit overcomes the flesh1 and that the culture of the mind is not postponed to the relaxation and enjoyment of the body4 ,what the ethical religion says to all such as they is this3 ,live so as to be worthy of that which you one day hope to receive at ,nature's hands--a pure1 good and true wife4 ,somewhere1 in some corner of this earth1 unknown to you1 unknown to her1 she is being made ready for the hour of your espousals4 ,you will know her when you see her4 ,wait until you do4 ,remember the requisite preparation of the body1 and now forget not the preparation of the mind4 ,marriage is based on friendship1 that true kinsman of love1 which made a poet call his friend ,o thou half of my own soul6 #b ,your wife must be your friend4 ,true love1 the love of which true marriages are made1 is friendship transfigured--the halo1 the glory1 of a supreme emotion coming to crown that which is most enduring on this earth4 ,just as we say that our religion is morality1 is duty1 only etherealised by viewing it as the expressed mind and will of the ,soul of all souls1 the ,world-intelligence1 so do we think of marriage as based on a union of souls by friendship1 inspired by a deep mutual respect1 not for what the partners have1 but for what they are1 and finally made glorious in the light of an unfading love4 ,live1 we would counsel you1 so as to be worthy one day of the reverence of a woman's pure and untried soul4 ,and our message to womanhood is not dissimilar4 ,live1 we would say1 so that you be worthy of the respect1 of the homage of all men4 ,your nature is such that virtue in you has a double charm1 wherefore you are visibly marked out as the treasury wherein the ideal is enshrined and handed down through all the generations of men4 ,a nation is1 ethically speaking1 worth just what its women are worth1 and we must therefore rejoice1 and greatly rejoice1 to know that the contention which is being increasingly put forth by women1 that the men who demand their sisters' hands should themselves be arrayed in suitable wedding garment1 is convincing evidence of a strong ethical enthusiasm which is beginning to pervade the sex1 and a determination to ennoble more and more that one great sacramental ordinance of ,nature1 marriage4 ,all things transitory ,but as symbols are sent2 ,earth's insufficiency grows to event2 ,the indescribable1 ,here it is done1 ,the ever-womanly leadeth us ,upward and on4 --,,goethe4 #a ,pp4 #dca-ddc4 #b ,dimidium animae meae 7,horace74 ,,xii4 ,,the ,,ethical ,,church ,,and ,,positivism4 ,the appearance within the last hundred years of different philosophical attempts to produce a synthesis which should combine at once a system of thought for the guidance of the mind1 and a source of enthusiasm for the inspiration of the heart1 is significant of many things1 but chiefly of two4 ,in the first place it is evidence that the present has outgrown the past2 that the religion of medievalism is inadequate to modern needs2 that ,still the new transcends the old1 ,in signs and tokens manifold4 ,and1 next1 it would appear to indicate the serious disposition of the new ,age4 ,if we find the thinkers of humanity uniformly tending towards a given direction1 we may be sure there is an undefined1 perhaps unconscious1 though none the less real1 desire on the part of the age to be led thither4 ,thus1 at the close of the last century1 ,immanuel ,kant1 while undermining the ground on which the faith of old rested1 attempted that new presentation of religion1 as essential and sovereign morality1 with which we are so familiar4 ,and1 within half a century of the foundation of the new ,church1 we meet with another bold and comprehensive effort to revivify religion1 which had grown cold in the heart of his country1 by showing that its chief expression is to be found in that love of the brotherhood whereby ,jesus ,christ declared his own truest followers would ever be known4 ,we tire of thinking and even of acting1 this foremost of the thinkers of his age declared1 but we never tire of loving4 ,i need not say that these are the words of ,auguste ,comte1 one of the two men in this nineteenth century who had learning enough to grasp the universal knowable1 and genius enough to express it in a clearly defined philosophic system4 ,his fellow and compeer1 of course1 is our own ,herbert ,spencer4 ,now1 no one will be able to even dimly appreciate the significance of the work of ,immanuel ,kant and ,auguste ,comte unless he realises that the inspiration which moved them both was that which we call religion4 ,as the rivers flow into the sea1 so the streams of knowledge converge at a point which marks the limits of the finite1 the boundaries of the ,infinite4 ,there never was a system of thought yet which did not culminate in the sublimity of religion4 ,from the first system of all1 the immortal ,aristotle's1 down to ,kant's1 ,comte's and ,spencer's in our own times1 the issue is always the same3 philosophy leads the way to the ,boundless2 it lifts the veils of the ,eternal4 ,and therefore ,kant and ,comte1 each in his own way1 while setting forth their exposition of intellectual truth1 endeavoured to provide a stimulus to move the heart of man to put its plain teachings into execution4 ,though at first sight there appears to be nothing but irreconcilable opposition between the critical and positivist systems1 there is1 nevertheless1 a fundamental unity which ,comte was quick enough to detect1 for he pronounced ,kant the most positive of all metaphysicians4 ,what led him to this conviction was the fact that the ,german philosopher had1 like himself1 based his whole idealism on the sure ground of morality which cannot be overthrown4 ,as ,spinoza was called by ,novalis a ,god-intoxicated man1 so ,comte was described by ,mill as morality-intoxicated1 for in the purity and elevation of his ethical conceptions he comes nearest of all to the austere standard set up by ,kant and ,emerson4 ,nor do the points of resemblance stop here4 ,in the course of this chapter it will become ever more evident that there is no irreconcilable opposition between the ethical religion of ,kant and the ,religion of ,humanity of ,comte1 nay1 that there appears to be a well-grounded hope that the ,church of the ,future1 which we salute from afar1 and towards the building of which we are each contributing our share1 will in the main embrace as its essential features the teaching of these two great men4 ,for that ,church will aspire to guide men in their private and in their public capacities1 in their individual and in their social life4 ,the ethic of ,kant1 the categorical imperative of duty1 will be the inspiration of the individual2 the ,politique ,positive of ,comte will govern him in his social and political relations1 while in the supreme concern of worship1 ,i venture to foretell a widening of the ,comtist ideal so as to admit of such conceptions as underlie the philosophical belief of ,mr4 ,spencer1 that the world and man are but the fugitive product of a ,power without beginning or end1 whose essence is ineffable4 ,thus the agnosticism of to-day will contribute to the reverence of the future1 while ,i firmly believe that the religion of ,humanity will come to be so interpreted as not to wholly exclude belief in an ,existence anterior to man and to all things1 from whom he and all he knows aboriginally sprang1 unto whom he and all things ultimately return4 ,nothing shall be lost of these words of life which have fallen from ,wisdom's lips2 they are treasured now in many hearts1 and some day1 near or distant1 they will be one and all incorporated in some diviner gospel than any which has yet been heard1 and preached in some church1 vast enough1 catholic enough1 for the inspiration of the race4 ,reposita est haec spes in sinu meo4 ,in the meantime1 we must attempt something of a succinct statement of the ethical1 social and religious system with which the name of ,auguste ,comte is associated4 ,it is clear that he was early impelled to a study of the principles on which society rests by the disorganisation into which his country had fallen1 after the upheaval of the ,revolution and the disasters of the ,napoleonic era which succeeded it4 ,it may even be the truth that his bold and subversive teaching in religious matters was due to a profound conviction that the virtue of the old ideals had been completely exhausted1 and that if society was to be regenerated1 it must be by a radical reformation of the theoretic conceptions on which it had been held to repose4 ,certainly there was a vast deal in the contemporary history of ,france to confirm ,comte in his belief that ,catholicism had spent its force4 ,at a period of crisis in a nation's history1 thinking men naturally look about them for some strong influence1 for some commanding ideal which can serve as a rallying point in times of social dispersion1 and help to keep the severing elements of the body politic together4 ,but what had religion done for ,france in the hour of her trial8 ,so little1 that the country had to wade through blood in order to reach a measure of political emancipation which ,england had long enjoyed4 ,in fact1 it was the corruption of religion in the person of its official representatives1 its intellectual degradation in the eyes of the thinkers1 which helped to provoke the catastrophe4 ,what wonder1 then1 that a mind so penetrating and alert as ,comte's early arrived at the conclusion that the ancien rgime in religion1 no less than in politics1 must be abolished if progress was to be possible among men8 ,comte1 then1 was essentially a social philosopher4 ,his work1 indeed1 is encyclopaedic--not one whit less so than ,spencer's--but the aim he persistently kept in view was the service of man by the reconstruction1 through philosophy and religion1 of the foundations on which civilisation rests4 ,it is impossible not to be impressed by the grandeur of his conception1 and the consuming energy with which he addressed himself to its realisation4 ,he seems to recall to us ,browning's ,paracelsus1 whose vast longings urged him forward to some surpassing achievement1 to some heroic attempt ,to save mankind1 ,to make some unexampled sacrifice ,in their behalf1 to wring some wonderous good ,from heaven or earth for them4 ,when a young man of only twenty-four years1 he had already published his first work1 entitled ,a ,plan of ,scientific ,works necessary to reorganise ,society1 thus striking the keynote of his career4 ,we can feel nothing but the strongest admiration for the man who from the first determines to subordinate knowledge1 life and love1 to the service of the human race4 ,it was ,comte's incessant teaching that the sciences were to be cultivated1 not as ends in themselves1 but as means whereby to further human welfare4 ,he would have the astronomer and physiologist pursue their tasks1 not merely for the sake of acquiring knowledge1 for the gratification of the curiosity to know1 but for the betterment of man's lot4 ,and for the same reason he insisted on the pre-eminence of the sympathetic affections over the intellect4 ,the reason1 he declared1 must ever be the servant1 though not the slave1 of the emotions4 ,altruism1 or the service of others 7a word of his own coining71 must be made to prevail over egoism or selfishness4 ,there could not be a nobler conception of human duty4 ,what was the source of the miseries which had driven the people of ,france to rebellion but the selfishness of absolute monarchs1 of dissolute nobles who ground their dependants to the dust of destitution1 and of a corrupt hierarchy of clergymen contemptuous of the people1 hypocritical in their conduct1 and slaves of the crown8 ,an astounding revelation that elementary religion should be preached again in ,france by a layman who had turned his back in disappointment on all that priests and the past represented6 ,and what is the source of the degradation of our own cities but this same curse of selfishness which is ready to march to opulence and luxury over the bodies of the starved and poisoned toilers of our towns and factories1 and thinks it can justify its barbarity by an off-hand reference to ,political ,economy and its irrefragable laws8 ,supply and demand--sacrosanct enactments of man's brains--how shall they prevail over the clear dictates of the conscience that thunder in our ears that it is murderous to grind the life out of the poor in the name of an economical fetish8 ,is not the man more than the meat1 and the body more than the raiment8 ,how shall not man1 then1 be better than many economical laws8 ,if the laws outrage our sense of justice1 then are they false laws1 because false to reason1 and they must be abolished4 ,the unrestricted domination of the competition theory which urges men to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market1 and pay the very lowest wages that poor outcasts are forced in their destitution to accept--is that to be the permanent condition of large masses of toilers in the towns of the richest country in the world8 ,is the matchbox-maker to go on for ever turning out a gross for #b #a_/d;d41 providing her own paste and string8 ,are wretched women to toil from morning till night folding sheets--sheets of cheap bibles at #ajs4 a week and pay lodging and keep a family out of it8 ,are men and women to be decimated by consumption in the poisoned atmosphere of some of our factories8 ,no commonwealth can exist on such a basis1 and if economical laws are invoked in its support1 those laws are an infamy4 ,no wonder ,carlyle fiercely denounced it all as a wretched1 unsympathetic1 scraggy atheism and egoism4 ,well1 ,auguste ,comte had witnessed all this and possibly worse than this in ,prance4 ,he knew the institutions of his country and of his age1 and he came to the deliberate conclusion that if any progress was to be made1 if this degrading egoism was to be put down1 this callous insensibility on the part of employers towards the labourers1 whose slow martyrdom produces the wealth they enjoy1 the whole scheme of social philosophy would have to be reconsidered and a new foundation provided whereon to build the commonwealth4 ,you want altruism in place of egoism2 sympathy instead of selfishness1 he preached4 ,how are you going to obtain it8 ,for eighteen centuries now you have been walking in one beaten path1 following one and the same light1 listening to the same spiritual guides4 ,what have they taught you8 ,whither have they led you8 ,to the impasse which you have now reached4 ,has not the time come to begin anew2 to reconstruct1 to reorganise society8 ,and this time it must be sans dieu1 sans roi1 par le culte systmatique de l',humanit4 ,such is the remedy proposed by ,auguste ,comte for the malady of the modern world2 this is his revolutionary scheme for the establishment of society on such a basis as would conduce to progress4 ,it involves1 as may be seen1 the disavowal of the belief in ,god and king2 the substitution of a republic for a monarchy1 and of humanity for ,god4 ,comte conceived religion as the concentration of the three great altruistic affections1 namely1 of reverence towards that which is above us2 of love towards that which helps and sustains us1 and benevolence towards that which needs our co-operation4 ,religion being in his judgment a supreme concern of life1 though always subordinated to the larger interest of social welfare1 he was anxious to provide the new commonwealth with an idealism which should set before man a ,being able to evoke these three great emotions4 ,formerly man had bestowed them on ,god2 ,comte thought he had found a more excellent way in suggesting that they might far more appropriately and profitably be exercised on mankind4 ,the service of ,god1 therefore1 being changed into the service of man1 he contended that the course of things would set steadily in a higher direction1 because all the immense energy and enthusiasm which the worship of ,god had been able to provoke in the past would be available in the cause of suffering1 down-trodden and persecuted humanity4 ,he wished to dam the stream of devotion flowing towards the churches and ,god1 and divert it into channels that had far greater need of it--the unsatisfied and unprovided needs of all mankind4 ,is it urged that religion apart from a belief in ,god is an impossibility8 ,doubtless such is the conviction of great numbers of people1 and1 it must be confessed1 such usage of the word is not consonant with prevalent custom4 ,still the emotion which ,comte experienced for ,humanity was such as no other word would adequately express4 ,as ,mr4 ,mill remarks in his chapters on the ,positivist ,system 7p4 #acc7-- ,it has been said that whoever believes in the infinite nature of duty1 even if he believe in nothing else1 is religious4 ,comte believes in what is meant by the infinite nature of duty1 but he refers the obligations of duty1 as well as all sentiments of devotion1 to a concrete object1 at once ideal and real2 the human race1 conceived as a continuous whole1 including the past1 the present and the future4 4 4 4 ,candid persons of all creeds may be willing to admit that if a person has an ideal object1 his attachment and sense of duty towards which are able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and propensities1 and prescribe to him a rule of life1 that person has a religion4 4 4 4 ,the power which may be acquired over the mind by the idea of the general interest of the human race1 both as a source of emotion and as a motive to conduct1 many have perceived2 but we know not if any one before ,comte realised so fully as he has done all the majesty of which that idea is susceptible4 ,it ascends into the unknown recesses of the past1 embraces the manifold present1 and descends into the indefinite and unforeseeable future4 ,forming a collective existence without assignable beginning or end1 it appeals to that feeling of the infinite which is deeply rooted in human nature1 and which seems necessary to the imposingness of all our highest conceptions4 ,however1 we must now endeavour to briefly trace the steps whereby ,comte arrived at what certainly must be acknowledged a most startling conclusion4 ,a study of universal history1 of which he must be acknowledged an absolute master1 had convinced him that all human institutions1 be they beliefs1 forms of society or government1 scientific conceptions1 or modes of thought in general1 have passed through three distinct stages4 ,these three stages he called the theological1 metaphysical and positive4 ,in the first stage history shows that man explained the origin of everything by explicit reference to wills like his own1 though1 of course1 invisible2 and ultimately1 by an appeal to one supreme ,will4 ,thus1 a thunderstorm1 the rise and setting of the sun1 the ebb and flow of tides1 the succession of seasons and crops are all explained by the agency of unseen wills1 powers1 or divinities4 ,as time advances1 progress is so far made that all minor deities are merged in the belief in one supreme ,being who created the universe and is ever responsible for its continuance in existence4 ,but man at length awakens to the need of a more proximate explanation of phenomena1 and1 by such experiment as he is capable of1 endeavours to ascertain1 through their intrinsic properties or their outward manifestations1 the cause or causes of their being4 ,he leaves the skies and comes to earth1 and seeks to read the secret of things by examining the things in themselves4 ,this1 ,comte denominates the metaphysical stage1 mainly1 because the solutions given were bound up with abstractions of physical realities4 ,thus1 if you asked ,aristotle why a vegetable grew1 he would reply that it had a nutritive soul1 or principle1 which enabled it to assimilate food4 ,if one asked why heavy bodies fall1 or why flame and smoke ascend1 the answer would be because everything tends to go to its natural place1 implying1 thereby1 that there was some occult power or tendency in bodies to behave in certain definite ways4 ,those were the days of the time-honoured legends about ,nature abhorring a vacuum1 tolerating no breaks1 and the wonders of her curative force4 ,these phrases about abstractions were held to be adequate explanations of any of the facts about nature or man4 ,at length1 there came the period when men demanded a straightforward answer to plain questions1 and refused to acquiesce in the reply that opium puts us to sleep because there is a dormitive virtue resident in it4 ,the powers of observation and experiment having increased1 it became possible by scientific test and analysis to satisfy the desire for a more immediate knowledge1 and thus to discover1 for example1 that water is water1 not because it possesses the form of aquosity1 as the ,scholastics would have said1 but because it is chemically composed of oxygen and hydrogen4 ,this last stage ,comte called the positive1 and hence we perceive what he means when he calls his entire system by that name4 ,it marks his conviction that those methods which are so successful in the discovery of truth in scientific matters should be applied to the solution of the problems of sociology and religion4 ,in other words1 positive and scientific are practically synonymous terms1 the system pledging its followers to hold nothing which is not its own evidence1 to abandon all attempts to know anything which is not phenomenal1 that is1 an object of sense-experience1 and consequently to disavow metaphysics as practically equivalent to the unreal4 ,thus1 for ,comte1 sociology1 of which he may truthfully be described as the founder1 is as much a science as chemistry or astronomy4 ,it deals with its subject-matter1 man1 in precisely the same way as the astronomer with the stars4 ,and the same is also true of religion4 ,such is the famous ,law of the three ,states1 which has always been treated by friend and foe as the key to the ,comtean philosophy4 ,it only concerns us now to describe the use he made of it in abolishing the belief in ,god1 and thus attempting to revolutionise the conception of religion4 ,closely associated with his ,law of the three ,states is another which he calls the ,law of the ,wills and ,causes4 ,in fact1 there is practically no difference between that law and the first or theological stage through which human knowledge goes4 ,it may be enunciated thus3 ,whenever the human mind is in ignorance of the proximate causes of a given phenomenon1 it tends to ascribe it to the agency of superior and invisible powers4 ,hence1 ignorance of nature1 which modern science has largely remedied1 led men to ascribe to the act of ,god innumerable events1 even the appearance of ,halley's comet1 which we now unhesitatingly refer to subordinate agencies4 ,why1 then1 urged ,comte1 should we continue to believe in even one supreme ,cause1 when we may hope1 with the advance of science1 to give an explanation of every natural occurrence or fact8 ,convinced on social grounds that belief in the ,deity had been of no service to mankind1 he sought for philosophical reasons to justify his surrendering the tenet1 and thus formulated the famous law which has just been enunciated4 ,if that law is valid and universal in its application1 we should have to surrender all hope of ,comte's co-operation with what we hold to be rational religion4 ,but it is because ,i am so convinced that it is that very law1 so finely framed and stated by ,comte1 which makes it impossible to dispense with belief in a supra-mundane ,power1 that ,i adhere to the ideal which ,i sketched in the beginning1 that ,kant and ,comte will be found to be1 after ,christ1 the master builders of the second temple which is to be the religious home of the ages to come4 ,for what does his famous law amount to8 ,to nothing beyond this1 that we are warranted in believing that no single fact1 no individual phenomenon1 of nature exists1 but will be one day explained by the all-conquering advance of physical science4 ,but surely his most enthusiastic adherent will admit that when every phenomenon has been singly explained1 only half the work1 and that by far the less significant part1 has been done4 ,if the human mind is eager1 and legitimately eager1 to explore the scene of nature's manifestations1 much more will it be necessary to attempt some solution of the vaster fact of their concatenation1 of their miraculous combination into that whole which we call the universe4 ,it is not so much the isolated phenomena which strike the mind with such overpowering bewilderment1 as the manifest fact that in their infinite diversity and innumerable varieties1 they are all subordinated to one vast end--the constitution and the good of the whole4 ,explain every sun that lines the eternal path into the ,infinities1 where no telescope can penetrate--what is that to the mind that knows that the numberless series is bound together by laws which they as unhesitatingly obey as an animal when it walks8 ,hence1 by the very terms of his own law1 ,comte is compelled to restore to the human mind its belief in a ,power other than the world1 for if our only justification for discarding that belief is that science will explain one day the individual phenomena of the universe1 it is plain that man's science can never hope to explain the origin of the worlds themselves and the infinite complexities of their mutual relations4 ,and if science cannot hope to do that1 the mind of man must1 under penalty of going to disruption1 assent to the belief that there is a ,world-,power who is responsible for the conscious production of the universe1 and therefore of ourselves4 ,and ,i am glad to be able to say that ,comte never expressly excluded this belief4 ,on the contrary1 he asserts that if a cosmic hypothesis is to be held at all1 that of an intelligent ,mind is far more probable than atheism4 ,indeed of atheism he has written as caustically as the most orthodox could wish4 ,he expressly contends that the theory of design is far more probable than blind mechanism1 and if he excludes theism1 it is not so much for philosophical as for social reasons4 ,consumed with a passion for human betterment1 seeing that the love of ,god had deplorably failed as an incentive to morality1 he made the tremendous effort of endeavouring to substitute the love of man as a stimulus towards the accomplishment of duty4 ,if ,comte denied ,god1 let the ,churches and ecclesiastics of ,france and of ,europe bear the responsibility4 ,it was the disastrous condition into which ,europe had fallen under their guidance which led him to despair of ,god as a rallying point for humanity4 ,but there is1 ,i submit1 no inherent necessity in the ,positivist system to insist on the dogmatic exclusion of such theism as we profess under the guidance of ,emerson and ,kant1 and it is gratifying to be able to quote so sympathetic a supporter as ,j4 ,s4 ,mill in favour of this interpretation4 ,whoever regards all events as parts of a constant order1 each one being the invariable consequent of some antecedent condition1 or combination of conditions1 accepts fully the positivist mode of thought3 whether he acknowledges or not an universal antecedent on which the whole system of nature was originally consequent1 and whether that universal antecedent is conceived as an intelligence or not4 #a ,i need not say that to us who believe in ,mind as the necessary antecedent to all things1 the positivist spirit1 so defined1 is essential truth4 ,we believe in the ,great ,being revealed in the eternal order of the physical worlds and in the eternal order of the moral law4 ,our worship of ,god is therefore a worship of goodness or morality1 an ideal of justice1 as seen in the lives of only the elect spirits of the race1 and thus the worship of ,humanity is also the worship of ,god4 ,for where is ,god revealed as worshipful except in the lives of the great and good8 ,and if religion be defined to be morality as taught in the lives of the holiest servants of mankind1 in what do we differ essentially from the ennobling conceptions of ,auguste ,comte8 ,the service of man is seen to be the service of ,god1 for we know nothing of ,god until we have learnt to serve goodness and minister to our brother man4 ,the day will come when ,comte will be honoured in the universal ,church as an apostle of true religion1 because1 like ,kant1 he showed men that there is nothing holier or diviner on this earth than a life consciously conformed to the obedience of august laws4 ,comte1 no less than his brother philosopher1 is a servant of humanity1 and therefore a servant of ,god1 and we conceive that both thinkers have laid mankind under an immeasurable debt by showing us that that emotion of reverence which all men instinctively feel towards a ,power greater than man1 cannot be worthily satisfied except by a conscious endeavour to live as befits our rational nature1 and to serve the brethren out of love4 #a ,auguste ,comte and ,positivism1 p4 #ae4 ,,xiii4 ,,the ,,old ,,faith ,,and ,,the ,,new ,,as ,,seen ,,in ,,helbeck ,,of ,,bannisdale4 ,cynical observers of the tendencies of the age tell us that1 like the ,athenians of ,paul's days1 we are lovers of new things4 ,doubtless we are1 for this century1 this wonderful century1 as it has recently been described1 is a new age or there never was one4 ,hence1 just as ,spinoza saw everything sub specie aeternitatis1 we may very well have a tendency to see many things sub specie novi4 ,new things1 astonishingly new things1 in every imaginable department of life have been witnessed by men who saw the opening years of the century1 and fin-de-sicle as we are1 the capacities of man are apparently as inexhaustible as ever4 ,it would indeed be passing strange were religion an exception to the uniform progress everywhere in operation4 ,doubtless the aspect of that supreme concern of life does change less rapidly1 but change it does and must3 eppur si muove4 ,and it is significant1 as one of the most striking results of the beneficent movements of our time1 that1 in the ,english-speaking countries at least1 one of the most powerful1 because the most far-reaching1 stimuli to religious progress has been supplied by the hand of a woman4 ,it has always seemed to me that ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward's ,robert ,elsmere was the making of an epoch1 and when so shrewd an observer of the times1 so enthusiastic an admirer of the old ways as ,mr4 ,gladstone1 thought the book worth criticising and censuring1 he bore eloquent testimony to the effect it was evidently destined to produce4 ,its influence has unquestionably been great4 ,there are many people who owe to it their first acquaintance with modern religious thought4 ,numbers of the younger clergymen of the ,establishment must have been profoundly moved by it1 because the faith of an ,anglican is a comparatively elastic thing compared with the rigidity of supernatural conceptions which distinguishes the ,roman ,catholic communion4 ,it may even be true that these sporadic outbreaks of ,ritualism1 which are so seriously threatening to trouble ,israel's peace1 owe no little of their force to the far-reaching effects of the new religious controversy4 ,the ,newcomes of to-day1 like their prototype in the novel1 may very well have come to the belief that there is no salvation from that besetting demon of reason and intellectual pride1 but in a religion of sensuousness and externalism which ,sydney ,smith1 himself1 of course1 a clergyman1 once contemptuously designated as painted jackets and sanctified watering-pots4 ,panem et ,circenses6 ,bread and games6 ,give them fumes of incense1 blare and blaze of sounds and lights1 and they may learn to forget that there ever was such a thing as a school of biblical criticism which has turned orthodoxy into a heresy against reason by telling the truth about the ,bible4 ,biblical inspiration being attenuated to almost vanishing point1 there is nothing left but to appeal to the ,church--not1 indeed1 to the ,church of to-day1 lost amid the mazes and intricacies of sects and schisms1 but to that venerable fiction1 the undivided ,church of the first few centuries of our era1 and thus brand religion with the stigma of retrogression by proclaiming it the only thing which is incapable of progress4 ,not infrequently is a progressive movement attended at first by a partial reaction1 and it is not at all unlikely that ,ritualistic clergymen have been terrified into an increased reliance upon forms and rites by the disastrous effects produced upon many of their followers or fellow-churchmen by the new controversial methods of ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward4 ,now1 what is this new controversy8 ,it consists in the adoption of the handiest implement available to literary genius1 namely1 the novel1 or fictional history1 and by consummate critical and constructive skill1 showing the disintegration of the old faiths and the building up of the new in the life of some representative man or woman4 ,there is much more in such a novel than appears4 ,first1 there is the work of the scholar1 of the man of research4 ,he is like the miner who works underground and digs out of the hard earth that gem of purest ray serene1 the truth4 ,then comes the artist1 just as cultured as the scholar1 and only less learned1 who polishes the gem and gives it its setting in pages of brilliant writing1 and what is more important still1 weaves it subtly into the daily life of some human being to whom it has been slowly and always painfully introduced4 ,or1 to vary the metaphor1 this new controversy is an inoculation performed by one who possesses a masterly acquaintance with the circulatory system of the spiritual anatomy1 and is enabled thereby to describe with unerring accuracy the precise effects of the new ideal at every stage of its progress through the soul4 ,you see before you the experiment of a new ideal1 at first only suggested1 then partially welcomed and even loved4 ,then the awful struggle in which no quarter can be given on either side1 and the final victory of the truth4 ,such is the new controversy1 the world of truth brought down to the world of life1 the fertilising streams of knowledge turned by some strong1 wise hand1 into the narrow channel of an individual existence for the purification and recreation of life4 ,naturally1 the distinguished authoress turned her attention first to the ,anglican ,church1 the most cultured and liberal of the ,christian communities4 ,evangelical dissent cannot at present be said to be interesting1 at any rate from the point of view we are considering to-day4 ,it is destitute of the historic associations of ,anglicanism1 and has been1 until very recently1 identified with ideals little suggestive of the intellectual or the beautiful4 ,it can scarcely be said to lend itself to effective dramatic or artistic treatment4 ,i am by no means forgetful of ,george ,eliot1 but every one will see at a glance that the handling of the religious question by that incomparable genius is entirely different from that of ,mrs4 ,ward in the books we are noticing4 ,robert ,elsmere stands for a system of theology and faith4 ,dinah ,morris speaks for herself2 out of the abundance of a pure and beautiful heart her mouth speaks words of wondrous grace and truth4 ,hence1 having held up the mirror to the face of ,anglicanism1 our authoress has turned her attention to that older ,church1 so rich in memories of the past1 with so unequalled a record in the service of humanity1 and able even to-day to command the allegiance1 the nominal allegiance at all events1 of more than two hundred million beings4 ,in ,helbeck of ,bannisdale we have the world and life of ,roman ,catholicism displayed with a minuteness and a precision which ,i should have thought scarcely possible to one not of the household of the faith4 ,it is1 indeed1 an ideal world1 a world that belongs to the past1 for the ,helbecks have all but passed away4 ,the ,time-,spirit has been too much for them1 and that beautiful old-world courtesy1 that silent1 shrinking piety which was nurtured on memories of martyr-ancestors who were broken on the rack for the ancient faith1 and long years of isolation and the proud contempt of the world1 is now1 as some ,catholics regretfully deplore1 a thing of the past4 ,no one knows this better than ,mrs4 ,ward1 and she has1 ,i conceive it1 purposely chosen a type such as ,helbeck1 almost an impossible survival in our time1 because she could not otherwise have made ,catholicism interesting4#a ,nor could she have succeeded in pressing home her own rooted conviction of the hopelessness of any attempt at compromise between the new spirit of reason and life and that of the faith of saints and martyrs4 ,the modern ,catholic1 who stultifies himself and vilifies his faith by apologetic articles in this or that secular review1 in which he attempts to show that the ,church which taught the inspiration of ,genesis and condemned ,galileo was all the time not untrue to the scientific conceptions of ,copernicus and ,darwin1 is a very poor person in the eyes of many of us2 and one thing is abundantly certain1 that by no possibility could even ,mrs4 ,ward have made him the hero of a novel4 ,for a ,helbeck1 who has reckoned up the chances of life1 and deliberately made his choice1 casting in his lot wholly with an idealism for which the modern world has absolutely no sympathy1 we can and do feel a deep respect4 ,but for your ambidextrous apologist or theologian1 the fellow who can make words bear double meanings1 and even infallible oracles tell contradictory stories1 we have nothing but contempt1 because he is a trifler with truth4 ,and1 now1 we may turn to the book4 ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward has long taught us to expect excellence1 and in ,helbeck of ,bannisdale we are not disappointed4 ,she does not work1 indeed1 on so large a canvas as in ,robert ,elsmere1 nor do her materials allow her to be quite so interesting as in that masterpiece4 ,at all events1 that is my individual opinion4 ,the atmosphere is very close throughout the book1 and one has a feeling that the windows of that old1 old house of ,bannisdale have not been opened for centuries4 ,one breathes a stifling air4 ,light and freedom come alone through that delightful creation1 ,laura ,fountain1 a creature you do not easily forget1 with an instinct1 rather than a reasoned conviction1 of rational truth and liberty1 a being of almost wild impulse1 clever1 though partially educated1 but good to the heart's core4 ,altogether1 a winsome1 lovable girl1 and tragic as was her end1 one scarcely knows whether she was not happier in her fate1 hurried hence on the swift waters of the river she had grown to love1 than she ever could have been in her projected marriage with one to whom religion meant almost unmixed gloom4 ,doubtless ,helbeck found consolation in it1 but it was such as he was unable to allow others to share4 ,noble as we instinctively feel the man to be1 tender as is the passion wherewith he envelops the object of his love1 the shadow of the ,cross is ever there4 ,forgotten in the first sweet hours of their mutual avowal1 it soon reveals its sorrowful presence1 and gradually deepens into such unutterable gloom that the broken-hearted girl is forced to surrender first love and then life to the inexorable exigencies of his old-world creed4 ,this1 then1 is the issue of the dramatic interest of the story1 that the attempt to unite the living with the dead ends in the destruction of the living1 in the breaking of hearts1 in one case1 even unto death4 ,for the lives and loves of ,helbeck and ,laura must be regarded as allegories of the eternal truths which encompass us4 ,it may seem a harsh1 a needless thing to cloud the closing page with such sudden and unutterable woe4 ,why should not these two pass out of each other's lives1 as do numberless others who realise the mistake of their projected union8 ,there is no reason whatsoever save this1 that all things whatsoever are written in ,helbeck of ,bannisdale are1 like the history of ,isaac and ,ishmael1 told as in an allegory4 ,they are symbols of the gulf which separates the new life from the old1 and they serve to convey the reasoned conviction of the distinguished authoress that the inspiration of the ,ages of ,faith is inadequate to the complex needs of the larger life of to-day4 ,these two unhappy beings illustrate that law of growth and progress which forbids the youth to indulge in the pleasures of the child1 or the man to find his recreation in the pastimes of youth4 ,and as with man1 so with the race4 ,there was a time when the world was full of ,helbecks1 an age when the religion of the ,cross was the highest1 holiest1 known4 ,but man1 in his maturer years1 has outgrown that1 just as the ,cross supplanted an idealism more imperfect than itself3 and the proof of its inadequacy is seen to-day in the blaze of evidence supplied by the slow and inevitable decay of those peoples who were once its steadiest champions4 ,spain and ,portugal are being numbered among the dead4 ,italy and ,france are making violent endeavours to escape their doom1 by restricting the liberties of the official representatives of their legally established ,church1 because they instinctively feel that their dogmatics mean death to the peoples who live by them4 ,hence1 the cry1 le clricalisme1 voila l'enemi6 in ,france1 and the libera chiesa in libero stato6 in ,italy4 ,the modern state1 the modern man cannot live by the old ideals3 the dead would strangle the living4 ,and1 therefore1 ,laura ,fountain1 the modern maiden1 must die4 ,for1 look at ,alan ,helbeck4 ,he is a man who felt1 who knew1 himself to be an anachronism1 a man who had realised so fully the genius of his religion1 that he was thoroughly uncomfortable in the society of any who were alien to it4 ,he saw none of his neighbours2 once only he had been induced to attend a hunt ball4 ,the doctrine1 ,extra ,ecclesiam nulla salus1 he adopted in all its rigidity4 ,he fulfilled ,newman's ideal to the very letter3 he was anxious about his soul4 ,he never gave anything else a serious thought4 ,to escape hell--that nameless terror which stirs the soul of man to its very depths1 as ,mrs4 ,ward very aptly quotes from ,virgil on her title page--this was the purpose for which ,helbeck of ,bannisdale conceived he had been placed here by a beneficent ,god4 ,and on the supposition that ,acheron is a reality1 ,helbeck was absolutely right4 ,if hell is indeed open to ,christians1 and if the path to life be exceeding strait and narrow1 our bounden duty1 as men of common sense1 would be to go sell all we had and give to orphanages1 like the ,squire of ,bannisdale1 and appease this gloomy ,god by a life of austerity and utter renunciation4 ,why1 then1 do not all ,christians turn ,helbecks8 ,simply because for the very life of them they cannot believe in their own inspired eschatology4 ,verbally1 of course1 they assent to the whole code of immoralities connected with future retribution1 but a certain obstinate rationality in them prevents their translating their faith into practice4 ,hence1 the ,catholics we meet are no more ,helbecks than ourselves4 ,they do not believe in emptying their houses for the sake of orphanages1 fasting rigorously in ,lent1 abstaining from intercourse with their fellow-beings1 or going about chanting1 ,outside the ,church no salvation4 ,quite the contrary4 ,but the truth remains that ,helbeck was true to the ideal1 and because he was1 it is possible to see a romance and a dignity in his life1 not always observable in his modern co-religionists4 ,nobody has anything to say against their version of ,christianity1 because it is1 to all intents and purposes1 identical with the sane ideals supplied by modern thought4 ,no ,french or ,italian statesman would have one word to say against them1 but they have a morbid dread of ,helbecks4 ,if the ,helbeck ideal were multiplied indefinitely1 it requires very little foresight to pronounce the gradual extinction of the commonwealth4 ,a nation of men who were simply and seriously living so as to escape ,hades would make a speedy end of the most prosperous community4 ,and yet this man had once lived1 aye and loved4 ,but his love was lawless1 and when all was over1 he is taken by a church dignitary in ,belgium to witness the death of a bishop4 ,the prelate1 weak in body1 but strong in faith1 is vested in his pontifical robes1 and makes an extraordinary impression upon the young layman by the fervour with which he makes his final profession of faith4 ,while in the exaltation of spirit produced by this solemn scene1 he is induced to attend a retreat1 or series of spiritual exercises1 to be conducted by a ,jesuit in a house of their ,order4 ,grace had apparently not finally triumphed1 because he was within measurable distance of expulsion owing to the indifference of his behaviour4 ,however1 the preacher took him seriously in hand1 and after one more stirring appeal to absolute self-surrender to the ,cross1 or1 in plain language1 to turn his back on the common human life of men1 ,helbeck's conversion is finally effected1 and from that day to the close of his life at ,bannisdale1 his one thought was the ,cross and the safety of his soul4 ,he had been living this melancholy existence for a number of years1 when ,laura ,fountain1 the daughter of a ,cambridge professor1 and a member of the ,ethical ,society there 7so we are told71 broke in upon his life4 ,her father1 as much for pity as for love1 had married as his second wife the sister of ,alan ,helbeck1 and during his life had apparently succeeded in teaching her something of the gospel of reason1 because ,augustina practically abandoned her creed4 ,but on the death of her husband1 it revived1 and she experienced a longing to return to her old home4 ,of course1 there was joy before the angels and her brother ,alan at the penitent's return4 ,being absolutely dependent for her creature comforts on her step-daughter1 there was nothing for it but for ,laura to accompany the invalid1 and prepare to spend some of her time in the house of a rigid professor of a religion which her father had taught her to despise4 ,the utmost skill is shown in the gradual transformation of their feeling1 from one of pitiful condescension on the one side and undisguised revolt on the other1 to sentiments of growing esteem and respect which ripen at length into a love which is tender and deep4 ,the love scene which ensues on that early summer morning when ,helbeck discovers the wild pagan girl1 as he thought her1 in a state bordering on exhaustion1 after her long walk across country through half the night1 is a very beautiful and touching one1 and reveals all the mastery which the authoress commands of the language and mystery of the emotions4 ,the image of the infidel child had stolen into the strong1 stern man's heart1 and1 next to the master passion of his life1 his sombre religion1 completely dominated him4 ,they become engaged1 to the almost inexpressible scandal of the household1 from the sour old housekeeper up to ,father ,bowles1 with his purring inanities--a wonderful creation--and the courtly ,father ,leadham1 a ,jesuit and a ,cambridge convert4 ,but ,helbeck holds out1 trusts bravely to the intercession of saints and the attractiveness of ,catholic worship1 and thus some days of unclouded sunshine enter into his dark and troublous life4 ,like the gentleman he is1 he makes no attempt at proselytism1 and gives his word that by no speech or act of others shall his future wife be molested4 ,they spend a few weeks at the sea1 where ,bannisdale and all it represents is forgotten4 ,laura has grown to love and lean upon this strong1 resolute man4 ,she enjoys an almost unique experience in triumphing over a life which had been believed to be inaccessible to woman's influence4 ,but the sunshine is soon overcast4 ,they are back again in that atmosphere of depression which ,bannisdale exhales1 and the agony begins4 ,the poor girl sees the life from the inside1 so to speak1 and the hopelessness of it all dawns upon her like a desolation4 ,never could she bring herself to say and do the things she sees and hears about her2 a voice she cannot still seems to rise from the depths of her being1 defying her to go back on her past and forget the life and example of her father4 ,you dare not1 you dare not1 it kept saying to her4 ,no1 the system would hang like a pall of death between her and her love3 she could never possess his heart4 ,half of it1 more than half1 would be given to that ideal of gloom he worshipped as the ,cross1 which he correctly interpreted as the essence of the ,catholic teaching4 ,when1 finally1 ,helbeck stands by the account given of the life of the ,jesuit saint1 ,francis ,borgia1 who cheerfully surrenders his wife1 disposes of his eight little children and then goes off to ,rome to save his soul by becoming a ,jesuit1 the cup is full4 ,her lover tells her the story of his own life1 how he had been brought to his present ideals--a story of exceeding great pathos1 which utterly overcomes the sensitive1 shrinking girl by his side--but it was the end4 ,half-hysterically she falls into his arms1 and ,helbeck almost believes the great renunciation is to follow4 ,his heart beat with a happiness he had never known before4 ,but he was never farther from the truth4 ,it would be a crime--a crime to marry him1 the heart-broken girl sobbed1 when she reached the privacy of her own room4 ,and so she turns her back on ,bannisdale4 ,but fate compels her to return4 ,her step-mother is dying1 and ,laura's presence is indispensable4 ,once again the old battle is renewed 'twixt love and creed1 and in her anguish this child of the modern world resolves to force herself to submit that she may save her love4 ,father ,leadham can1 he must1 convince her4 ,has he not convinced ,protestant clergymen and other learned people8 ,why not a poor1 untutored girl such as her8 ,but it was never to be4 ,she was afraid to lose her love1 but there was something in her which conquered fear1 and it reasserted itself at the last4 ,i told you to make me afraid1 she had once said to ,helbeck in one of their sweet moments of reconciliation1 but you can't6 ,there is something in me that fears nothing1 not even the breaking of both our hearts4 ,and so1 with the awful inevitableness of a ,greek tragedy1 the action moves towards the closing doom4 ,it is sad beyond words1 and we are grateful for ,mrs4 ,ward's noble reticence4 ,the tyrant river that she loved had received her1 had taken life1 and then had borne her on its swirl of waters1 straight for that little creek where1 once before1 it had tossed a human prey upon the beach4 ,there1 beating against the gravelly bank1 in a soft helplessness1 her bright hair tangled among the drift of branch and leaf brought down by the storm1 ,helbeck found her4 ,he carried her home upon his breast1 and at the last they laid her amongst the ,westmoreland rocks and trees1 in sight of the ,bannisdale woods1 in a sweet graveyard1 high in the hills4 ,the country folk came in great numbers1 and ,helbeck1 more estranged than ever now1 watched the mournful scene from afar4 ,such is the tragedy of faith and love1 which bequeathed to the already lonely and sorrowful man memories so unspeakably sad1 and led this new ,antigone to immolate herself in so awful a manner--a blind witness to august things4 ,for us there remains but one question4 ,helbeck1 it is plain1 can never win ,laura1 but can ,laura ever hope to win ,helbeck8 ,one would have to answer with many distinctions4 ,in the first place1 much has been done already4 ,the true ,helbeck type is fast disappearing1 buried or lost in inaccessible places like the fells of ,westmoreland1 or ,breton castles1 far from the highway of humanity's daily life4 ,had not ,mrs4 ,ward reminded us of him1 we should have almost forgotten his existence4 ,the modern spirit1 of which ,laura is the type1 has steadily eliminated the species4 ,next1 though ,roman ,catholicism occupies a far different position from that it held in the days when ,yorkshire and ,lancashire were plentifully studded with houses and homes such as ,bannisdale1 it must be remembered that the successors of the sixteenth century ,helbecks are only magni nomines umbra4 ,to the modern ,catholic1 religion is less than ever a life to be lived1 a distinct type to be created2 it is increasingly recognised merely as a creed to be believed4 ,helbeck of ,bannisdale you could pick out of a crowd1 but a congregation at the ,oratory or ,farm ,street differs in nothing from one at ,st4 ,peter's1 ,eaton ,square1 or the smartest ,congregational chapel4 ,they all mingle indistinguishably in the church parade and are lost4 ,it is the victory of the world overcoming faith4 ,the modern ,catholic believes with the ,church as against the world1 in the importance of orders or the truth of transubstantiation and infallibility1 but his life is with the world4 ,emphatically1 his conversation is not in heaven4 ,he is one of us4 ,he is like ,nicodemus1 a disciple in secret1 for various reasons1 of which he is probably utterly unconscious4 ,his ,catholicism no more alienates him from modern life than ,wallace's profound belief in phrenology puts him beyond the pale of science4 ,his differences with the modern world are purely speculative1 having little or no bearing on practical life1 and therefore the world is content to take ,catholicism at its own valuation4 ,how far this is from ,helbeck one can easily divine1 but ,laura has brought them leagues from that ,westmoreland home of impossible ideals and all it symbolises4 ,at the same time1 no one need look for the disappearance of that speculative system known as modern ,catholicism4 ,the type1 the life indeed has gone1 and gone for ever2 but there will always be a crowd which no man can number1 who prefer to sit and submit to being up and doing for themselves4 ,reason and authority must ever continue to be the watchwords of the two great sections into which humanity is divided on the religious question4 ,they must ever be contrasted as habits of mind1 as sources whence faith arises4 ,but it needs no exceptional discernment to see that the religion of the strenuous and progressive1 the peoples who move the world and make its history1 cannot by any possibility known to us be a religion of undiluted authority4 ,as a man is1 so are the gods he worships1 for the gods are the ideal4 ,therefore the progressive nations who find it impossible to stand still1 not to speak of looking back1 will more and more recede from even the remnant of the ,helbeck ideal which remains to us to-day1 and find their inspiration in a religion which is advancing like themselves4 ,what6 science grow1 knowledge increase1 freedom advance1 and religion only stagnate6 ,perish the thought6 ,our religion1 like our knowledge1 grows from day to day1 because it is only through the deepening knowledge of the universe and of himself that man is enabled to rise to a proportionate knowledge of ,that of which all things are but transitory symbols4 ,creeds and systems1 prisons of the infinite spirit of man1 never can they befit the age in which the ideal of progress has entered1 like an intoxication1 into the soul4 ,the snare is broken and we are delivered4 ,woe to the man1 woe to the people1 who are content to sit or stand6 ,woe to them whose hope is in the dead past1 and not in their living selves6 ,woe to the faith that has no better message for the eager1 palpitating generations of to-day1 than a bundle of parchments from the third or fourth century1 or the impossible practices of an age when the life of the world stood still6 ,they shall never inherit the earth4 ,the new heaven1 the better land1 is reserved for the strenuous and the progressive alone1 for the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence1 and the violent bear it away4 #a ,the ,rev4 ,father ,clarke1 of the ,jesuit ,society1 in the ,nineteenth ,century of ,september1 #ahih1 refuses to recognise ,helbeck as true to the ,catholic type4 ,certainly1 he is not a modern ,roman ,catholic1 and probably ,mrs4 ,ward knows this as well as her critic4 ,the question is1 which conforms to type1 the old or the modern ,english ,catholic8 ,mr4 ,mivart's liberal catholic criticisms of ,father ,clarke in the ,october number of the same review are good1 very good1 reading4 ,,xiv4 ,,the ,,religion ,,of ,,tennyson4 ,prophecy and poetry are the embodiment in artistic form of the abstract conceptions of the philosopher4 ,as the philosopher thinks1 so the prophet preaches1 so the poet sings4 ,thinking1 speaking1 singing1 are the three acts in the ascending scale of the soul's self-manifestation4 ,generally speaking1 these high functions are not found in their perfection in one and the same soul2 rarely do you meet with the spirit of the philosopher1 prophet and poet incarnate in one mortal frame4 ,such enterprise is too great for all but the greatest1 and amongst these may possibly be classed the poet-prophet of ,israel1 ,isaiah1 the writers of some of the ,vedic hymns and ,hebrew psalms1 and ,jesus of ,nazara1 whose soul was full of music1 and whose thinking and preaching will probably fill the thoughts of man throughout all time4 ,the significance of philosophical and prophetic teaching in religion is a frequent subject of thought in our circles1 and now the recent publication of ,tennyson's life enables us to say something of the ,religio ,poetae--the idealism which inspired the soul of a nineteenth century poet4 ,the poet's name is not without significance and interest4 ,it is a ,greek word signifying maker or creator--,poits4 ,there is a philosophy in language however much we continue to ask1 ,what's in a name8 ,when those wonderful ,greeks wished to express the thinker's art1 they spoke of ,sophia or wisdom2 when they heard the first preacher who told them of their innermost selves1 they called him the ,prophts or prophet1 the man that speaketh forth as from an illimitable deep2 and when they listened to the soul of music coming from the lips of a ,homer or a ,sappho1 they called it by the most expressive name of all1 making or creation4 ,the poet was a creator4 ,and so he is if we come to think of it4 ,out of the materials supplied to him by the thinking of other intelligences1 he weaves his song of joy and beauty which holds our senses as in a spell1 and steeps our souls in ecstasy4 ,he is a reed1 to use an expression of ,tennyson himself1 through which all things blow to music4 ,he is the creator of the ideal world par excellence2 the keys of the ,unseen are in his keeping4 ,we say that he transfigures the thoughts of other intelligences1 that he turns his genius to the rhythmic expression of the towering fantasies of the philosopher4 ,and he does4 ,poetry without thought would be a jingle--a word which1 if we may trust the reviews1 is a satisfactory account of much of the minor poetry of the day4 ,if a man does not see somewhat deeper into himself and things than the average human being1 never among the sacred band of lyric souls can he find a lasting place4 ,philosophy is the propaedeutic of poetry4 ,but surely1 it may be urged1 the book of nature is open to every one1 and a poet's soul may sing of that without any need of the philosopher's interpretation4 ,has not some of the sublimest verse been ,nature poetry8 ,true1 but this undoubted fact only confirms our statement4 ,when ,wordsworth interprets nature in song1 he is borrowing from a philosopher2 he is reading the thoughts of an intelligence other than his own4 ,he is revealing to you the innermost thoughts of that supreme ,mind1 who conceived the beautiful whole1 and made it to be a thought of himself4 ,the deepest thinker is he who thinks his thoughts into deeds4 ,there is a ,first ,philosopher as there is a ,first ,poet or ,maker1 and because we are in our innermost selves of his kindred1 we have the power to think his thoughts again1 and create an ideal world which shall be the counterpart of his own4 ,men may be philosophers and poets because the ,first ,poet and ,first ,thinker is their ,parent4 ,this is not mysticism1 still less imagination1 but the soberest of realities4 ,in it you read the interpretation of the indisputable fact that the world's greatest poets were men of intensely religious feeling4 ,they come so near to the ,supreme ,poet that their sense of the ,infinite is extraordinarily developed4 ,it is gravely questionable whether a man can be a great poet unless the influence of his great prototype be a power in his life2 unless his religious instincts be reverently cultivated4 ,a religious sense is needful to the highest flights4 ,go over the greatest names of the past and present and you will see how the ,over-soul has been the truest source of inspiration4 ,the unknown singers of the ,vedic hymns1 ,homer1 ,sophocles1 ,virgil1 ,dante1 ,shakespeare1 ,milton1 ,goethe1 ,wordsworth1 and in our days1 ,tennyson and ,browning--in them all the religious sense1 the instinct of communion with the unseen world1 is a distinguishing mark and characteristic4 ,a name here and there may be quoted on the other side1 but as far as my memory serves me for the moment1 it would appear on closer examination that such were exceptions only in appearance4 ,an excess1 not a defect1 of reverential feeling is often the explanation of such non-manifestation of religious emotion as we may notice4 ,with ,goethe1 they would appear to feel the presumption of individualising1 the great ,soul of the worlds by even so much as naming him4 ,who dare name him1 and who confess ,i believe him6 ,there is a reverent as well as an irreverent impatience of forms associated with the ,formless and the ,infinite2 and because of it one never yet heard or read of a man truly great who had not the profoundest reverence for religion4 ,but1 however that may be1 it is plain that we are justified in speaking of a poet's religion1 and in discussing the religious conceptions which took shape in the soul of one of the two great poets of the ,victorian era4 ,five years ago ,tennyson passed hence1 crossing the bar on that tideless sea1 still as the silent life which left its worn-out frame to turn again home4 ,so much as the great poet desired that the world should know of his own aspirations1 his hopes and fears of the great ,hereafter1 has been given to us in his own sweet singing1 and a memoir written by his son4 ,it turns out that ,tennyson was no exception to his noble order4 ,like all the great singers he was a man of faith--a man penetrated to his heart's core with the sense of the indestructible character of the religious instinct1 and of man's deep need of communion with the ,great ,life which is within and beyond him--the ,soul of souls whom men call ,god4 ,the significance of this fact is not to be lost upon reflective minds4 ,in an age when positive science has made a progress which borders almost on the miraculous2 when discoveries of the innermost secrets of nature1 coupled with astounding combinations of her elements and forces1 which supply us with the chemical contrivances and implements for further research surpassing the wildest dreams of astrologers and alchemists of old1 there has been an unmistakable tendency to push the ,divine agency farther and farther back in the chain of phenomenal causation1 until it would appear that it had been finally thrust out of the world altogether4 ,i have swept the heavens with my telescope1 said ,lalande1 and ,i have not found your ,god4 ,the heavens are telling no more the glory of ,god1 said ,auguste ,comte1 but that of ,herschel and ,laplace4 ,is it indeed so8 ,the past has done all in its power to make it so1 and ,lalande and ,comte represent the inevitable and natural reaction against the incredible puerilities1 the stupid1 obstinate opposition to all science not in conformity with the ,nicene and ,athanasian ,creeds1 or the fables incorporated in the ,hebrew ,cosmogony4 ,but that past is past indeed1 and never can come back again4 ,the world returns no more to discarded ideals2 the conception of theology as queen of the sciences is as hopelessly impossible in the civilised world as the ,divine right of kings4 ,the result is that prophets and poets are men of ,god still1 and notwithstanding ,lalande and ,comte1 the heavens are not so dazzling as to quench for them the glory of a ,diviner revelation which they scarce conceal4 ,i frankly say that ,i had rather believe all the fables of the ,talmud and the ,koran than that the empty shadows of a vulgar superstition are all that lie beneath the stately verse of ,in ,memoriam1 or the ,rabbi ,ben ,ezra of ,browning4 ,the religion of ,tennyson is a perfume which fills much that he writes4 ,it is a spirit which broods over many a song1 but is incarnate1 so to speak1 in the elegy which immortalises the tomb of his lost friend4 ,for ,tennyson1 the spirit of poetry is the spirit of religion--a blowing to music of the deepest thoughts of the philosopher4 ,in ,merlin and the ,gleam we may read this as in an allegory3-- ,great the ,master ,and sweet the magic1 ,when o'er the valley ,in early summers1 ,o'er the mountain1 ,on human faces1 ,and all around me ,moving to melody ,floated the gleam4 ,the spirit of poetry1 which bade him follow on in spite of discouragement1 touched all on which it hovered with a mystic light1 moving him to melody4 ,it was the soul of religion1 binding the spirit of man to nature and to human faces in themselves1 and to the ,supreme1 in whom all is ,one4 ,but what is an allegory in the spirit of the gleam is a reality in the song of love1 passing the love of women1 which he laid as the noblest offering ever yet made at the bier of a departed friend4 ,the religion of ,tennyson is there1 but the poem must be carefully studied if its true inwardness is to be grasped4 ,isolating a few stanzas wherein the poet1 alarmed and perplexed at the cruelties and terrors of ,nature1 her dark and circuitous ways1 her astounding prodigality and wastefulness1 lifts up in his helplessness lame hands of faith1 and falters where once he firmly trod1 many writers have professed to see in ,tennyson the expression of a reverent agnosticism4 ,such agnosticism we may all respect1 for it is very different from the noisy1 clamorous thing which1 aping in name the humility of greater men1 insists that the sense limitations imposed upon its own intelligence shall forthwith be erected into a dogma to be accepted as infallible by everybody else's intelligence4 ,be as reverent as ,darwin in your agnosticism1 as tolerant as ,comte1 we would say to such men1 and there is much to commend in your teaching2 but spare us the ridiculous spectacle of a handful of pamphleteers and minor essayists arraigning the sublimest philosophy ever known to the world1 and consecrated by the homage of ninety out of every hundred thinkers who have ever approached its study1 as a system erected upon a mirage--the image of a man's own personality distorted by its projection into the infinite4 ,tennyson himself once said that the average ,englishman's god was an immeasurable clergyman1 and that not a few of them mistook their devil for their god1 ,that may very well be1 but the philosophers of the world who have built the house of wisdom are not average ,englishmen1 and to describe their theism as the imagination of an immeasurable man--surpliced clergyman or otherwise--is a criticism1 not of the philosophers1 but of their would-be critics4 ,non ragionian di lor1 ma guarda e passa6 ,but ,tennyson was a passionately convinced theist4 ,with that scrupulous voraciousness which1 according to those who knew him most intimately1 was his leading characteristic1 he surveys nature not only with the reverent eye of a mystic1 but with the exact vision of science1 and faithfully reports what he sees--so faithfully1 indeed1 that he was hailed by ,tyndall in1 the sixties as the poet of science4 ,loving truth1 by which no man yet was ever harmed1 he does not hesitate to portray nature red in tooth and claw with ravine shrieking against the creed of a moral and beneficent power4 ,and when no reconciliation is obvious he can but faintly trust the larger hope and point hence where possibly the discords of life will be resolved into a final harmony4 ,what hope of answer or redress8 ,behind the veil1 behind the veil6 ,but these facts1 however unmistakable1 are powerless to alter the main inevitable conclusion that beneficent power does rule the cosmos1 though they may modify it provisionally1 until a better insight into the workings of nature supplies us with a clue to the mystery's solution4 ,he is a sorry philosopher indeed who will insist that nothing whatever can be known because everything cannot be known1 that an established fact must be no fact because no explanation of it is forthcoming4 ,tennyson is not one of these thriftless people1 and the ,in ,memoriam1 read aright1 leads one upward upon the great world's altar-stairs that slope through darkness up to ,god4 ,the poem is a drama of life4 ,it was not written at one time or one place1 but over a path of some years4 ,those years and places are a symbol of the ever-changeful thoughts and moods of man who communes much with the world concealed behind the veil of sense4 ,it is the vivid portraiture of the soul1 its sorrows1 doubts1 anxieties1 and aspirations2 it tells of the eclipse as well as of the dawn and meridian of faith4 ,in fact1 it is ,tennyson's own religious life which is the life of uncounted numbers in these latter times4 ,before the supreme sad experience1 the sudden1 and to him incomprehensible1 death of ,arthur ,hallam1 the poet had agnostic leanings4 ,he did then veritably fail and falter before the questions of life and death which beset him4 ,his long years of comparative poverty1 the eternal want of pence1 his failure to attract any measure of attention1 his long-delayed marriage as far off as ever1 the res angusta domi which made his family dependent upon him1 all conspired to shut out the vision of anything but an iron necessity controlling him and everything4 ,such lives are infinitely pathetic1 and perhaps one had rather devote oneself to ministering to minds distressed like these than to any other form of charitable enterprise4 ,such souls have been wounded inexpressibly2 they are sore to the most delicate touch1 and gentle indeed must be the hand1 and soft the voice1 which would comfort stricken creatures like these4 ,to think of such afflicted spirits is to recall the picture of the ideal servant of ,jahveh1 of whom ,isaiah sings in words of unearthly beauty3 ,a bruised reed he shall not break and a smoking flax he shall not quench1 for only by ministrations such as these can they be healed4 ,strangely enough1 as it would seem1 it was the last and saddest experience of all1 the blow which almost crushed his life1 which brought the young soul back to health and strength4 ,it was the hand of death1 inopportunely touching the fairest and noblest thing he ever hoped to know1 which helped him to see that-- ,my own dim life should teach me this1 ,that life shall live for evermore1 ,else earth is darkness at the core1 ,and dust and ashes all that is4 ,the conception of such a life as that of his lost friend1 annihilated with the vanishing of the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice1 was plainly an impossible one1 and if one remembers all the bright hopes1 the extraordinarily brilliant future which1 in the judgment of all who knew him1 were buried with that young life1 it is impossible to marvel at the change his death produced in the heart of his poet friend4 ,now this temporary eclipse of faith is truthfully set forth in the poem1 together with the manifold reasons which weigh at times so powerfully1 even with the most devout minds1 suggesting that the universe is not righteous at heart4 ,we all know them well1 for we have felt them1 and it is a comfort for us to be assured that minds more penetrating1 consciences more sensitive1 and emotions far deeper1 have been enabled to withstand the shock which nature so rudely deals at our moral instincts1 and to believe with a fervour and enthusiasm conquering all obstacles1 that-- ,good ,will be the final goal of ill1 ,to pangs of nature1 sins of will1 ,defects of doubt1 and taints of blood2 ,that nothing walks with aimless feet2 ,that not one life shall be destroyed1 ,or cast as rubbish to the void1 ,when ,god hath made the pile complete4 ,it is the heart-piercing1 mind-bewildering mystery of evil and pain which has quenched the light in many a sincere and fervent heart4 ,but it is not for ever4 ,two things we may remember for our guidance amid all this weltering sea of sorrow and distress4 ,first1 it is not all nature4 ,it is only a side of it2 and if it is the most obvious1 it is only because it is a breach of the order and beneficence so uniformly obtaining4 ,and next1 the holiest hearts1 the spirits of the just made perfect on earth were not adversely influenced by it4 ,in spite of it all1 an elect spirit1 such as ,jesus of ,nazara1 could patiently endure a life of austerity1 and meet a death of unspeakable anguish with a calmness and resignation seldom equalled and never surpassed4 ,father1 into thy hands ,i commend my spirit1 is a serious rebuke to those who suffer so little and complain so loudly that the times are out of joint1 the world as probably as not the work of malignity or indifference1 and that he is no ,god who does not stretch forth an omnipotent hand to slay the accursed thing of evil where it stands4 ,this is in very deed the crying of an infant in the night4 ,we forget when we utter these foolish things that we ourselves should be among the first to fall beneath that avenging hand4 ,and so with ,tennyson4 ,it was the visitation of evil in its most mournful shape--the cold hand of death that fell upon the brow of his beloved friend--which opened his eyes4 ,his faith in goodness1 in beneficent purpose1 was restored4 ,the cloud was lifted for evermore4 ,he married4 ,wedded love1 mystic symbol1 sacramental image of a union higher still1 came at length as an added blessing1 after years of expectancy and disappointment4 ,when ,i wedded her the peace of ,god entered into my heart1 he wrote4 ,his cup was full2 out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh1 and therefore he sang that stately invocation1 that sublime ,magnificat which1 we may well believe with his own most intimate friends1 will endure while the lips of men frame the sounds of our ,english speech4 ,strong ,son of ,god1 immortal ,love1 ,whom we1 that have not seen ,thy face1 ,by faith1 and faith alone1 embrace1 ,believing where we cannot prove4 ,thou wilt not leave us in the dust3 ,thou madest man1 he knows not why2 ,he thinks he was not made to die2 ,and ,thou hast made him3 ,thou art just4 ,thus were the wild and wandering cries1 confusions of a wasted youth forgotten in the song of adoration1 which is in reality the epilogue of the elegiac drama4 ,we can almost imagine its coming after the closing glory of the bridal hymn which sings to its last note of ,god3-- ,that ,god which ever lives and loves1 ,one ,god1 one law1 one element1 ,and one far-off ,divine event1 ,to which the whole creation moves4 ,a wedding on earth--that of his sister--is thus for him the symbol of that love eternal which moves all things3 ,amor che tutto muove1 of ,dante's peerless song4 ,that light of love once seen anew he never lost4 ,as life declined it grew in intensity3 brighter and more reassuring than ever did it glow as the darkness of earth began to close round him4 ,it was borne in upon him with a depth of conviction too deep for utterance that death was but a fact1 like any other in our many-sided life1 that it was but a momentary occurrence1 in no wise impeding that progress of the individual spirit in that path which has been with philosophic accuracy described by the ,hebrew psalmist as the way everlasting4 ,the most perfect prayer is that3 ,lead me in the ever-lasting way1 for it is the destiny of man to one day reach that journey's end2 to be one day perfect2 to be absolutely conformed in mind and will to that most sacred of realities--the moral law4 ,it was this new vision which dawned on his soul1 when the face and form of his much-loved friend was taken away1 and filled him with a profound calm as the inevitable hour drew near4 ,i can no longer ,but die rejoicing1 ,for through the magic ,of ,him1 the ,mighty1 ,who taught me in childhood ,there on the borders ,of boundless ocean1 ,and all but in ,heaven1 ,hovers the gleam4 ,in the old days long past1 when1 tormented with doubts1 embittered by disappointment1 he would fain be rid of his burden1 the voice of the ,master kept ever repeating3-- ,follow the gleam4 ,and so he followed--followed it through life1 over the wide earth1 until the land's end was reached4 ,but even then the ,spirit did not forsake him4 ,the gleam still shone like a star in the deepening sky1 till it stood at length over the waters at the gates of the great bar that led out into the ,infinite4 ,and last of all1 the call1 clear and unmistakable2 and there sure enough1 waiting beyond the bar1 was the ,pilot1 the ,master of the gleam1 ready to receive the soul4#a #a ,jean ,valjean's death in ,les ,miserables4 ,,xv4 ,,the ,,unknown ,,god4 ,the ,god on whom ,i ever gaze1 ,the ,god ,i never once behold2 ,above the cloud1 beneath the clod1 ,the ,unknown ,god1 the ,unknown ,god4 --,,william ,,watson4 ,one great function of poetry is to keep open the road which leads from the seen to the unseen world1 and as the last echoes of this noble poem die away1 it would seem as though a door had been opened in heaven and an unearthly vision had been revealed to our wondering eyes4 ,it is as though some strange inspiration had fallen upon one suddenly1 like that which the seer in the ,apocalypse felt when he said1 ,and immediately ,i was in the spirit4 ,the truth is we have been led into the invisible world1 we have gained with the poet a sense of ,god4 ,the strange1 undefinable attraction of the infinite is upon us4 ,perhaps we have not yet learnt how strong that fascination is2 how that it is not only the source of that inner light which we see reflected in the countenance of the philosopher and saint1 but that it is powerful to arrest the attention of men who are for ever saying that no such reality exists1 or1 that even if it does1 man need no more concern himself about it4 ,has he not the solid earth and the realm of sense8 ,why should he seek what is beyond it8 ,o caecas hominum mentes6 ,man cannot help himself4 ,well does the ethic master say1 ,what is the use of affecting indifference towards that about which the mind of man never can be indifferent8 ,and why not8 ,because man came thence8 ,there is that in us which drew from out the boundless deep4 ,in some incomprehensible way the infinite is in us1 and we are therefore restless1 dissatisfied ultimately with all that is not it4 ,the eye is not filled with sight nor the ear with hearing1 for in us there is the capacity1 and therefore1 in our best moments1 the yearning to see and hear something which sense can never give4 ,greater than all that is here1 in silent moments1 when the senses are tired and disappointment steals over us1 the truth of the insignificance of things bursts upon us4 ,man is but a reed1 the feeblest thing in nature1 says ,pascal in the ,penses1 but he is a thinking reed4 ,the universe need not mass its forces to accomplish his destruction4 ,a breath1 a drop of water may destroy him4 ,but even though the world should fall and crush him he would still be more noble than his destroyer because he knows that he dies1 but the advantage which the world possesses over him--of that the world knows nothing4 ,and1 therefore1 the universe is nothing to him who is conscious that there is that in man which made all worlds and shall unmake them--the eternal ,mind1 one and identical throughout the realm of intelligence4 ,this is no dreaming1 but an interpretation of man and nature necessitated by the undeniable facts of life4 ,the finite does not exhaust man's capacities1 it cannot even satisfy them4 ,he was made for something vaster4 ,he is ever seeking the boundless1 the infinite4 ,hence the most positive1 the most scientific of philosophers1 ,mr4 ,herbert ,spencer1 believes that there is one supreme emotion in man1 utterly indestructible1 the emotion of religion2 and what is religion but the yearning ,i have described for communion1 not with the world1 vast and entrancing as it is2 not with humanity1 admirable1 even worshipful in its highest estate2 but with that which transcends them and all things1 the enduring reality which men call ,divine8 ,spencer and ,emerson are at one4 ,nothing but the ,infinite will ultimately satisfy man4 ,such are the thoughts awakened by the music of this poet's song1 which haunts one with a sense of the mystery of the illimitable4 ,i do not read it as a confession of agnosticism1 save in the sense in which all philosophers are ready to admit that our knowledge of the ultimate reality of existence is as mere ignorance compared with what we do not1 and cannot1 know of it4 ,i read it rather as a profession of the higher theism1 or1 if you will1 of the higher pantheism1 for it is immaterial how far we go in maintaining the ,divine immanence1 provided we safeguard the sovereign fact of individuality and abstain from all confusion of the human personality and the ,divine4 ,there is prevalent a most erroneous impression that the ,divine immanence and personality are two irreconcilable conceptions1 and that to assert that the ,all is a person or an individual is at once to limit its universality4 ,such is not the case1 as an analysis of the conception of personality will show4 ,the philosophic term person is utterly indifferent to the ideas of limitation or illimitation4 ,its essential significance1 its distinguishing note1 is that of self-sufficiency or self-subsistence1 prescinding entirely from all considerations of limits or their absence4 ,thus a stone1 a plant1 a brick is an individual1 because each is self-contained and is sufficient for the constitution of itself in being1 and were they endowed with intelligence they would be further distinguished by the honorific title of person4 ,man is a person1 because a subsistent1 self-sufficing individual1 furthermore endowed with reason4 ,a fortiori is the ,all a person1 because if the ,supreme is not self-sufficing1 then nothing or nobody is4 ,hence we have to point out in reply to the strictures of the opposite philosophic school that so far from infinitude being an obstacle to individuality or personality1 the ,infinite alone1 in the strict sense of the word1 can be called a person1 because in the ,infinite or the ,all alone is absolute self-sufficiency realised4 ,from the very fact1 then1 of the omnipresence of the ,divine1 because-- ,in my flesh his spirit doth flow ,too near1 too far for me to know2 because1 to use ,emerson's language1 ,god appears with all his parts in every moss and every cobweb1 or ,mr4 ,spencer's1 which comes to identically the same thing1 ,all the forces operative in the universe are modes or manifestations of one ,supreme and ,infinite ,energy--because of these momentous facts we ascribe personality to the ,infinite1 with no detriment to its immanence1 since of no other being could they by any possibility be true4 ,theist or pantheist1 it matters very little by what name men call themselves so long as they do not imprison themselves within the walls of the false version of the philosophy of relativity1 which binds them over to acknowledge nothing beyond their five external senses1 to identify the unseen with the unknown1 and thereby to stunt and ultimately to atrophy the sublime powers1 transcending the insignificant senses we share with the animal world1 as the sky towers above earth1 whereby this noble poem of the ,unknown ,god was given us by ,william ,watson4 ,and here we may turn our attention to the poem itself1 to see1 if ,i do not misinterpret it1 the evidences of that ethic creed1 the doctrine of the sovereignty of the moral law1 which we acknowledge as the only rightful basis of religious idealism4 ,in the first place1 it is only amid the silence of the soul1 when the voice of the senses is still1 that we gain a sense of ,god at all4 ,it is a vision of the mind--of mind knowing ,mind1 of soul transcending all distinctions and recognising itself4 ,it is the sublime region of the higher unity into which subject and object are taken up and their distinction forgotten or lost4 ,it is at night-fall1 in sight of the awful pathway of the stars which1 one would think1 should fill man with a sense of his immeasurable littleness1 it is then that he realises that this boundless splendour is nothing compared to him1 for something more than a million worlds is with him1 in the eternal ,mind whence all this majestic vision rose4 ,when1 overarched by gorgeous night1 ,i wave my trivial self away2 ,when all ,i was to all men's sight ,shares the erasure of the day2 ,then do ,i cast my cumbering load1 ,then do ,i gain a sense of ,god4 ,but of what ,god8 for there are gods many and lords many4 ,there is the known ,god1 of whom the ,western world has heard so much now these two thousand years1 the ,god of the most ancient ,hebrew ,scriptures1 themselves acclaimed as his unique and authentic revelation1 the embodiment of absolute truth4 ,that ,god has not been forgotten yet4 ,just now his temple is thronged with worshippers4#a ,ministers of religions in ,america1 archbishops in ,spain1 are eager in their invocations1 and if we may believe our newspapers1 the ,cardinal of ,madrid guaranteed the harmlessness of ,american cannon and rifles to those who will implore his assistance through the intercession of saints4 ,it is the war-cry of old3 ,the ,lord is a ,man of ,war6 ,but the moral sense1 the ,divinity within1 as contrasted with the ,divinity in the skies1 tells the poet that this old-world god is an idol1 a glorified image of man in his violent youth1 a giant shadow hailed ,divine4 ,not him that with fantastic boasts ,a sombre people dreamed they knew2 ,the mere barbaric ,god of ,hosts ,that edged their sword and braced their thew3 ,a ,god they pitted 'gainst a swarm ,of neighbour gods less vast of arm4 ,he is well known1 this ,god of ,hosts4 ,doubtless once he was the ,divinity of the worlds that stream across our sky1 subsequently transformed into the god of battles1 who ranged himself on the side of his favourites1 baffled their foes by super-human strategy or even knavery1 the god of carnage and bloodshed1 progenitor1 in direct line1 of him who afterwards was preached as the god of devil and hell4 ,what has taught the poet1 what has taught man to disavow such a ,divinity8-- ,a ,god like some imperious ,king1 ,wroth1 were his realm not duly awed2 ,a ,god for ever hearkening ,unto his self-commanded laud2 ,a ,god for ever jealous grown ,of carven wood and graven stone4 ,no church1 no official religion1 no cleric or synod of ministers appears to have raised a hand to inaugurate the emancipation of the ,western world from its degrading belief in a ,god of ,hosts4 ,it is only now1 during the last thirty or forty years1 that stragglers here and there are coming into camp and making their submission to the sovereignty of ethics1 the supremacy of the moral law1 which dooms to eternal death divinities such as ,odin1 ,jahveh and ,zeus4 ,it is to the emancipation of the conscience of humanity from the paralysing guidance of the great ecclesiastical corporations of the past that we owe that famous band of scholars1 who1 antecedently convinced on moral grounds that such conceptions of the ,divine were sheer profanities1 set about an exhaustive study of the origins and text of the biblical literature1 together with an equally painstaking research into the history of kindred religions1 which has resulted in the vindication of the root doctrine of prophetic and ethical religion--the absolute and unlimited sovereignty of the moral law1 and the consequent identification of morality with religion4 ,they have made sacerdotal1 sacrificial religion an impossibility to all who are at pains to inform themselves of the facts3 they have banished for ever the presence of that-- ,god whose ghost in arch and aisle ,yet haunts his temple--and his tomb2 ,and follows in a little while ,odin and ,zeus to equal doom2 ,a ,god of kindred seed and line2 ,man's giant shadow hailed ,divine4 ,and now there comes a stanza of haunting beauty1 the ethic creed set to music1 a pathetic pleading1 a self-abasement1 in the presence of the ,immensities around us1 and yet a passionate vindication of man's right to sit in judgment on an idol-god such as this6 ,o streaming worlds1 ,o crowded sky6 ,o life1 and mine own soul's abyss1 ,myself am scarce so small that ,i ,should bow to ,deity like this6 ,this my ,begetter8 ,this was what ,man in his violent youth begot4 ,the lesson of history and comparative religion could not be more perfectly summarised4 ,the sovereignty of conscience could not be more masterfully asserted4 ,of old we learned that man was made in the image of ,god1 but now we see that the-- ,god of our fathers1 known of old-- ,lord of our far-flung battle-line-- he to whom we still raise our supplicating cry-- ,lord ,god of ,hosts1 be with us yet1 ,lest we forget--lest we forget6--#b we know that he is made in the image of man4 ,unless a movement of retrogression sets in2 unless we have to submit to a paralysis of moral stagnation1 the day must inevitably come when the ,lord ,god of ,hosts1 the ,man of ,war1 the ,god of ,victories1 whom ,spanish viceroys and captains are incessantly invoking in their proclamations1 will be swept into oblivion with the curse of war which gave them birth4 ,but that hour of retrogression and decay shall never sound for humanity4 ,a nation here1 a people there1 may drop out of the ranks2 the last remnant of empire may fall from their unworthy hands1 but as ,i have faith in the eternal order1 as ,i bow before the everlasting ,power which makes for moral progress1 ,i know that war has served its purpose amongst men1 and that the day must come when it will be finally abolished as unworthy of rational beings4 ,at any rate1 the war-god is not he in whose image the perfected man was made1 for-- ,this was what ,man in his violent youth begot4 ,this god was made in the image of man4 ,and as the mist of the phantom deity floats aside1 there dawns a fairer vision of the veritably ,divine presence on the reverent soul of the poet4 ,no eye of man hath ever beheld him3 it is a vision of the spirit4 ,and as the language of souls is silent1 he can say nothing of his ,god1 though he is so conscious of his everlasting presence4 ,if even his solemn speech1 the voice of the poet1 far above music1 could tell of his ,god1 then would he be but the idealised image of himself4 ,he may think1 he does think far more deeply than the most adventurous theologian1 but he may never speak4 ,the mind must commune with itself4 ,the ,god ,i know of1 ,i shall ne'er ,know1 though he dwells exceeding nigh4 ,raise thou the stone and find me there1 ,cleave thou the wood and there am ,i1 ,yea in my flesh his spirit doth flow1 ,too near1 too far for me to know4 ,i must confess this fills one with an immense reverence1 a feeling of inexpressible awe4 ,yet1 there is no fear associated with the emotion1 but only a sense of unearthly peace which almost asks that the silence may be prolonged so that thought may have further scope4 ,raise thou the stone 4 4 4 cleave thou the wood1 and we are in the presence of the ,everlasting2 soul is face to face with the ,soul of the world4 ,yea1 in my flesh his spirit doth flow1 ,too near1 too far for me to know4 ,is this mysticism8 ,i know not by what name to call it1 except that to me it is a reality transcending any merely sensible experience one ever enjoys upon this earth4 ,it is the kingdom of the ,unseen2 but only the unseen things are real and eternal1 for they are the hidden springs of existence and life4 ,can one resist the melancholy1 the sense of tears in things when we reflect that1 like our own bodily frame1 the whole visible world is hastening to dissolution8 ,from the infinitesimal insect whose earthly career is rounded off in a few moments1 hardly come before gone1 to the longest-lived of living beings1 to the oaks that stand beyond a thousand years1 to the hills that seemed so enduring that the ,hebrew poet called them everlasting1 to this earth1 to planets away in the infinite azure1 from the grain of sand to the totality of creations1 from first to last1 it is true that all is passing away4 ,sunt lachrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt4 ,the melancholy ,heraclitus1 whose philosophy allures while it saddens us1 declares we never traverse the same river twice2 the water over which we once crossed has long since sped away to the eternal seas4 ,seneca1 centuries ago1 noted the same of our own bodies2 the process of dissolution is continuous1 until at length the restorative power itself will desert us and the process will be complete4 ,but at the heart of this universal impermanence there is a soul of reality which the poet discerns amid the fleeting atoms of the stone and the fibre of the growing tree4 ,it is as though we found ourselves in a vast hall1 filled to repletion with machinery in every condition of motion1 from the slowest and scarcely perceptible movements of the hour hand of a watch up to the incalculable rapidity of a fly-wheel4 ,all is flux1 change1 consumption of energy1 wear and tear of the machinery itself4 ,we know it must run down sometime1 we know one day it must all be renewed4 ,but amid all this instability we are well aware that there is a secret source of power1 a centre whence a renewal of energy ceaselessly arises4 ,without its incessant action not one single movement in that vast hall could be obtained4 ,it is the one real thing amidst a world of others which are wearing and wasting away and therefore in a true sense unreal4 ,the secret spring whence the energy is generated may be invisible1 but we know it is somewhere1 and if any one denied its existence we should not take the trouble to answer him4 ,a faint1 halting symbol is this of the eternal and unchanging reality at the heart of the worlds--a dim light whereby to illustrate the most solemn of truths1 that always and everywhere1 in the lightest as in the greatest movements of nature1 in the fragrance of a flower1 the iridescence of a crystal1 or the fierce energies which shoot up mountains of hydrogen flames hundreds of miles high from the crater of the sun1 we have the revelation of a ,power without beginning1 without end1 #c permanent while all is in a condition of ceaseless flux and change1 living while all around are hastening to their deaths1 the one only truly existent ,being anywhere1 the hidden source of all existence and life4 ,so far1 we are justified in saying that we stand on the ground of indisputable fact4 ,it is no mere hypothesis of science1 still less a figment of the metaphysician's imagination1 or an outpouring of a poet's inspiration1 that ,permanence is the indispensable postulate of the commonest facts of material existence4 ,we have no explanation to give as to the method of such action as has been described on the part of the invisible and universal ,energy1 for we cannot even explain the nexus between an act of human volitional energy and the raising of an arm4 ,there are the facts1 demonstrable and undeniable1 but the how of those facts1 no man on this earth knoweth or perhaps ever will know4 ,well may ,browning profess himself content to endure in patience the ignorance which is our lot here1 if only at length thy great creation-thought thou wilt make known to me4 ,the great creation-thought cannot be known now4 ,watson is as sure of it as his spiritual ancestor3-- ,i trust it not this bounded ken4 ,but though the creation-thought cannot be fathomed1 though we cannot comprehend the nature of the ultimate ,reality1 the fact of the great existence and omnipresence is clearly apprehensible1 and therefore must be acknowledged as a demonstrated fact by every man4 ,and1 if such be the case1 in what sense is ,god unknown8 ,unknown1 certainly1 in the sense that he is unseen1 but we now know that the only real things are those of the invisible world4 ,god is unknown because incomprehensible1 now and always1 here and hereafter1 in this life and in all possible lives4 ,the ,infinite must ever be beyond the comprehension of the finite4 ,though saint and sage their powers unite ,to fathom that abyss of light1 ,ah6 still that altar stands4#d ,but the ,divine is not beyond the apprehension of man's mind1 and as far as ,i can by diligent reading of ,mr4 ,spencer attain to his innermost meaning1 ,i do not think he denies this fact1 as he most unquestionably does not deny the validity of religious motion1 which1 arguing against the ,positivist philosophy1 he rightly contends cannot1 in its highest sense1 be associated with any being other than the ,highest of all beings4 ,what's in a name8 ,i ask1 and whether a man calls himself theist or agnostic--so that he does admit something greater than man1 and does give us scope and opportunity for the exercise of those powers and emotions which refuse to be bounded by1 or satisfied with1 the merely phenomenal and transitory1 but are ever seeking for communion with the ,noumenal and the ,eternal--in my judgment matters very little4 ,there is a higher synthesis in which partial truths are being constantly taken up and reconciled in some fuller and more luminous expression1 and ,i have no doubt that that scientific reconciliation of materialism and spiritualism which is now progressing so rapidly will eventually be effected between those who now call themselves theists and agnostics4 ,to ethical idealists the great question is this3 ,does your belief make for reverence2 does it subdue your soul with a sense of the wonder and mystery which are everywhere so conspicuous in nature2 does it foster the growth of your spiritual powers as opposed to the merely animal instincts of your body2 does it make you more moral1 fill you with an increasing enthusiasm for the good life for its own sake8 ,or1 on the other hand1 does what you profess dishearten you1 fill you with melancholy and foreboding and a sense of the unprofitableness of things1 of the apparent aimlessness of all that is going on or being done1 of the fruitlessness of all human endeavour8 ,is the sigh of the inspired sceptic1 ,vanity of vanities1 all is vanity1 ever and anon rising from your heart1 and are you losing your faith in yourself and humanity8 ,that is the test of a faith--what it does for you1 and you could have no better one4 ,the fact that he worships an ,unknown ,god means no shrinking of enthusiasm in him who believes that that everlasting ,power1 which science no less than philosophy commands him to believe1 is identical with that very ,power which is conspicuously working in the universe for universal aims which also are good4 ,outside a handful of men of no consequence amid the thundering assent of the overwhelming masses of mankind1 the course of things here is upwards4 ,instinct suggests it1 reason proclaims it1 history confirms it4 ,but there are no two supreme powers1 and therefore that ,power ,i reverence-- ,the ,god on whom ,i ever gaze1 ,the ,god ,i never once behold-- is also the everlasting ,power which makes for righteousness1 that is1 for moral progress1 the only progress ultimately worth caring about4 ,men crave to see ,god4 ,behold ,i show you a mystery4 ,there are two incarnations4 ,there is the incarnation of ,god in flesh and blood1 in ,chrishna in ,india1 in ,jesus in ,palestine4 ,men have1 men do worship these men as gods4 ,but there is a higher incarnation1 a sublimer theophany4 ,there is that before which all incarnations1 all saviours1 have ever bowed down in lowliest adoration2 there is that whose obedience they would not surrender if the whole world and the glory thereof were given to them4 ,there is that which is older than man and his redeemers1 higher than the stars1 vast as the ,immensities1 ancient as the ,eternities themselves1 and in this incarnation man may see ,god4 ,what is it8 ,it is the moral law1 the eternal sanction crowning the right1 inborn in rational man1 the very soul of reason within him1 inborn in things--the law which no man ever invented1 which never had beginning1 which can know no end1 because it is the ,divine order revealed to earth4 ,it is the necessary nature of the one essential ,being1 and we recognise it because we are his offspring1 because like him we are ,divine4 ,unknown ,god6 ,yes1 but not here4 ,as long as ,i have the instinct of ethics1 as long as ,i feel myself constrained to bow down in the dust before goodness1 to deem myself unworthy to tie the latchet of the shoes of the hero or the saint2 so long as ,i see the course of the world steadily1 undeniably1 ascending the sacred hill of progress1 so long must ,i confess that the ,power behind the veil1 behind the world1 is a moral ,power1 that that ,power recognises the validity of moral distinctions as ,i do1 that the ethic law is his law1 that when ,i live by that law ,i see ,god-- ,the ,god on whom ,i ever gaze1 ,the ,god ,i never once behold1 ,above the cloud1 beneath the clod1 ,the ,unseen ,god1 the ,unseen ,god4 #a ,these words were written during the opening days of the late ,spanish-,american war4 #b ,recessional1 ,rudyard ,kipling4 #c ,herbert ,spencer1 ,first ,principles1 passim4 #d ,mrs4 ,barbauld's fine hymn1 ,as once upon ,athenian ground4 ,,xvi4 ,a ,,chapel ,,in ,,the ,,infinite4 ,our little systems have their day2 ,they have their day and cease to be2 ,they are but broken lights of ,thee1 ,and ,thou1 ,o ,lord1 art more than they1 --,,tennyson1 ,in ,memoriam4 ,the supreme value of the two great poets of the ,victorian era is this1 that they have attuned their song to the expression of modern thought concerning those transcendent realities which must ever possess an inexhaustible interest for mankind4 ,thus we see1 in an age which acknowledges the complete emancipation of the human reason1 the supremacy of conscience1 the inviolable rights of private judgment1 ,tennyson has sung of an honest doubt wherein there lives more faith than in half the creeds and councils of ecclesiasticism4 ,browning has faced the riddle of the universe1 the bewildering mystery of a world of pain and sorrow1 with unconquerable courage and hope4 ,his musician1 ,abt ,vogler1 believes in eternal harmony1 with ,plato and ,carlyle3-- ,there shall never be one lost good6 ,what was1 shall live as before2 ,the evil is null1 is nought1 is silence implying sound2 ,what was good shall be good1 with for evil so much good more2 ,on the earth the broken arcs2 in the heaven a perfect round4 ,and1 being no dreamer or pessimist1 seeing reason at the heart of things1 and good the final goal of ill1 he ,at least believes in soul1 and is very sure of ,god4 ,here are the three imperishable realities--,god1 ,soul1 ,hereafter4 ,of all the rest is it ultimately true which the weary preacher said3 ,vanity of vanities2 all is vanity1 or1 as the modern ,ecclesiastes has it3 ,tout passe1 tout lasse1 tout casse4 ,in the words of the opening stanzas of the ,in ,memoriam1 ,tennyson is evidently affected by the spectacle the world exhibits to the thoughtful man in its multitudinous religious sects and segments1 and the strange contrasts the national1 political and ethical unities of mankind present1 with their theological divergencies4 ,as we have seen1 the etymology of the word religion signifies that its intent and purpose is to bind men together1 whereas1 as we mournfully confess1 it has hitherto proved a fruitful source of schism and division1 national as well as individual4 ,it is only since the much-despised and denounced world and its modern civilisation has effectually curtailed the offensive powers of corporations1 synods and inquisitions1 that religion has ceased to outrage the public conscience by repetitions of the enormities of former times4 ,as the sweep of his vision ranges over past and present1 the poet is enabled to estimate these fragmentary philosophies aright2 he sees them in their proper perspective1 in their relation to the infinite ,reality behind them4 ,he calls them little systems1 broken lights3 he is able to forecast their future2 they cease to be4 ,there is but ,one ,eternal1 without shadow of change or turning3 ,and ,thou1 ,o ,lord1 art more than they4 ,this is the fact which weighs so heavily with the thoughtful and discriminating minds of the day--that all the apocalyptic theologies and religious philosophies which purport to reveal the unspeakable mystery known to exist1 though hidden from our sight1 end only in belittling it4 ,doubtless an element of accommodation is discoverable and essential in the purest thought of the unseen order2 our thoughts of the ,soul of souls must be such as our spirits can supply4 ,men so divided in belief as ,kant and ,newman have both recognised this fact1 the only difference being that1 while the former understands the creeds and their tenets as symbols wherein man1 striving to express the inexpressible1 finds relief and rest to his spirit1 ,newman looks upon them as so much history1 which if a man shall not accept as fact1 without doubt he shall perish everlastingly4 ,to him1 as to all who really stand by their order1 the ,new ,covenant is a revelation1 complete and final1 of all that can or will be known of the transcendental order4 ,it claims that a door was opened in heaven1 and those mysteries made manifest to little ones which had been hidden from the wise and far-seeing philosophers of old4 ,it claims to be the tabernacle of ,god with men1 ,god manifest in the flesh1 or in sacraments1 rites and symbols--nay1 it is the city come out of heaven from ,god1 it is the cathedral of humanity4 ,this was believed profoundly1 almost universally1 in the days before the flood--the flood of knowledge let loose upon mankind1 beginning with the days of the ,renascimento and continuing down to our own4 ,but the philosopher-poet of the nineteenth century sees nothing of it in the altar and system set up in this ,western world4 ,like the rest1 it is1 to him1 a little system1 which ultimately ceases to be4 ,the heavenly city fades into an earthly chamber1 the vast cathedral of humanity dwindles to a spot on the horizon1 it shrinks to the dimensions of a chapel in the infinite4 ,the first great shock to the pretentious dogmatism of the ,western world came with the discovery of ,copernicus and ,galileo that the current astronomy was fundamentally wrong4 ,no sun-star or swarm of worlds in the infinite azure could be so precious in ,god's sight as this earth of ours1 it was believed1 for had it not been chosen as the scene and stage of that transcendent act whereby the ,deity had consecrated humanity for ever to himself8 ,now it turns out that the physical origin of this world of ours is precisely that of others1 while1 so far from being the centre of the universe1 it is but a speck in infinity1 positively invisible from any of the million suns that light the eternal way from our own central orb to the infinities that range beyond4 ,the ecclesiastical mind of those days astutely fastened on the charge of impugning the sacred record of ,moses--itself a phenomenal instance of incompetent infallibility--but the real explanation of ,galileo's persecution lies in the fact that1 with this earth in a dependent position and in ceaseless motion1 the whole system of theology suffered a serious shock4 ,where were heaven and hell in the new version astronomy gave of things8 ,where did ,jesus' spirit go on his death8 ,where is limbo1 and where is purgatory8 ,whither did he go when he ascended bodily into the air8 ,since this earth is uncounted myriads of miles from the spot in space which it occupied this morning when we awoke1 what became of the inspired geography of the terra incognita1 according to which the several receptacles of spirits were mapped out with such unfaltering precision8 ,with the vanishing of the pre-eminent claims advanced by a rudimentary science on behalf of this earth1 and supported by the unsuspecting theology of the childhood of the world1 the earth-born philosophy of things wrapped up in its fate must also disappear4 ,while the earth dwindles into a spot in endless space1 its little systems share its fate1 and our ,western cathedral shrinks to the dimensions of a chapel in the infinite4 ,or1 look at the matter numerically4 ,jesus1 who avowedly confined his missionary efforts to his own race1 for to them only am ,i sent1 is made by the writer of ,matthew's ,gospel to give a world-wide commission to his disciples on the very eve of his mysterious disappearance from earth3 ,go ye and teach all nations1 he is reported to have enjoined upon them4 ,peter1 doubtless1 was present upon this occasion1 or1 at any rate1 we cannot conceive him ignorant of the commission2 and yet we find him refusing point-blank to admit ,cornelius the centurion--the first candidate who offered himself--into the ,church1 and1 according to the ,acts1 a sheet full of animals had to be let through the roof of his house before he could be turned from his purpose of confining the new religion exclusively to ,jews4 ,the explanation1 of course1 of such universality as ,christianity has attained is mainly due to the influence of the cosmopolitan ,saul of ,tarsus1 though the idea of an ,oecumenical ,society was by no means his original thought4 ,the ,stoics were full of the ideal1 and the ,cynics before them1 while ,socrates refused to describe himself as a citizen of ,athens1 but claimed the whole world as his fatherland1 and the outer barbarians1 as the exclusive ,greeks styled them1 he called his brethren4 ,and1 now1 how many of the human family are enrolled as citizens of the holy places2 what numbers assemble for worship in the great cathedral8 ,statistics are unnecessary1 but we cannot but remember the temples to ,god raised in other ages and other lands1 which endure to this hour1 imperishable witnesses to a truth which is the light of life4 ,what that truth is1 we shall see later4 ,but when we remember the great pre-,christian systems of the ,east and of ,egypt1 and the very stones dug out of the earth cry aloud in witness to the eternal truths1 ,god1 ,soul1 ,hereafter2 when we realise the devotion of martyred ,israel to the faith of their fathers1 and the great ,mohammedan revolt against the dogmatical puerilities of the sixth century2 when1 ,i say1 we remember that one and all endure to this hour1 and in unimpaired vigour1 and still more1 when that absorbingly interesting study known as the science of ,comparative ,religion has shown us that of orthodoxy is true what is true of all religious systems--that it enjoys a monopoly of nothing save of errors peculiar to itself1 and that of its doctrines1 all that is true is not new1 and all that is new is not true--we are in a fairer position to estimate its precise place and influence in the world and the sources from which it has drawn its inspiration4 ,even of the comparatively few in the vast family of humanity who own its supremacy1 how many can repeat its shibboleths in common8 ,and if disunion1 the true mark of error1 be at work among them1 can we believe that the future is reserved for it8 ,it is unquestionable that the cultivated intellect of the ,continent is profoundly estranged from the version prevalent there1 while it is only the spirit of compromise1 so characteristic of the race1 carried into the domain of dogmatism which prevents a similar insurrection in ,england4 ,if the sacerdotal lion can lie down side by side with the ,broad ,church lambs1 it is only because the wicked world1 symbolised for the moment by the strong arm of the law and the public sense of decency1 curbs the ferocity of heresy hunters and bids them look to their manners lest some worse thing befall them4 ,it is felt instinctively that the popular phylacteries1 the peculiar trappings in which ,divine truth has been set forth in ,england1 are not worth discussion among serious men4 ,and this will help us to estimate at its true value the argument which lost ,john ,henry ,newman to rational religion and won him for ,roman ,catholicism4 ,what finally decided him that the ,ultramontane version of religion was the true one1 was the famous ,securus judicat orbis terrarum of ,augustine4 ,the verdict of the world is against you1 he had urged against the ,donatists1 and what was conclusive against them appeared to be conclusive against ,anglicans1 who could only appeal for support to their own kith and kindred4 ,however that may be1 what answer is forthcoming to the retort which the phenomena of to-day unmistakably suggest8 ,if the universal consent of the fourth century1 semi-barbarous1 uneducated1 profoundly credulous1 and avowedly uncritical1 serves to prove the truth of that form of ,gnosticism known as orthodoxy1 what are we to say of the uniform rejection of it1 as such1 by the decidedly cultivated intellect of the nineteenth century8 ,if the prior unanimity was adequate to prove its dogmatic truth1 why should not the spectacle offered by educated ,europe and ,america be sufficient to show its groundlessness8 ,whatever it may be to babes and little ones to whom it loves to appeal from the undue exaltation of intellect which can see no basis whatsoever on which to rest the historical ,christianity of the ,churches1 certain it is to those who know1 it is among those things which have their day and cease to be4 ,it cannot be a cathedral vast as the race1 it can never be more than a system among systems1 a chapel isolated in the infinite4 ,the truth of this will be more clearly seen if we reflect on the nature of the claim of the ,churches to be in exclusive possession of ,divine knowledge1 the sole revealer of ,god to man4 ,ever since the words of the ,gnostic gospeller1 ,he shall lead you unto all truth1 were written1 it has been claimed that the authentic medium of ,divine communications has been a corporation or a book1 one or the other being affirmed to be an exhaustive and infallible philosophy of ,god and man4 ,solomon is said to have had grievous misgivings as to the ,lord of heaven and earth being enclosed within the temple he had built1 but no such anxieties beset the framers of the ,nicene or ,athanasian ,creeds1 or their imitators in subsequent ages4 ,what a spectacle for gods and men6 ,all truth summed up in ,thirty-nine ,articles1 or a score of ,oecumenical ,councils6 ,it is the profanity1 ,i had almost said the sacrilege1 of it1 which is so shocking to the instinctive reverence of our minds4 ,and what truths1 too1 are commended to our keeping in these canons and articles6 ,beginning with the natural depravity of human affections1 purposely inflicted upon us because of another's transgression1 we are taught1 as a direct corollary from this1 that the ,deity is no more moral in his emotions than ourselves2 for1 in order to right the first wrong1 he is made to perpetrate another which no one would hesitate to pronounce immoral in us1 viz41 the chastisement of the innocent in the place of the guilty4 ,we need say nothing of the lie direct and overwhelming which the unanswerable facts of science1 in many of its departments1 give to the whole story of the fall of a first man1 and the consequent superstructure which the perverse ingenuity of man has erected upon it4 ,we need only confine ourselves to the plain fact that the so-called scheme is an outrage upon the ethical nature of man1 and therefore that it can never have emanated from ,god4 ,in the latest explanations of the ,atonement1 the ,anglican theologians explain it away1 the redemption of ,jesus being no more than the example of his saintly life and his uncomplaining submission to death4 ,the angry ,god1 who will not relax his frown save at the sight of blood1 is conveniently forgotten in the more refined circles of ecclesiasticism1 and is now left to the meditations of ,little ,bethel or ,breton peasants4 ,and this is a ,divine revelation1 a heavenly system of truth so far beyond human reason1 and so intrinsically unrelated to any of our faculties1 that it could never have been discovered by man's intelligence1 but only preternaturally communicated from without6 ,to ,paul1 who is alone responsible for the famous scheme1 this is the wisdom hidden from the ages1 which none of the princes of this world ever knew--his peculiar way of describing the superiority of his teaching to that of the ,greek masters like ,plato and ,aristotle4 ,but the civilised world--the orbis terrarum of the nineteenth century--holds with ,socrates that the moral law is supreme over gods and men1 and believes that ,mill and ,carlyle are safer guides when they teach1 that no less than the best moral emotion discoverable in man may be ascribed to the ,god of men4 ,depend upon it1 says the great man of his hero1 ,frederick the ,great1 it is flatly inconceivable that moral emotion could have been put into him by an entity which had none of its own4 ,meanwhile1 if the universe be good at heart1 if reason be indeed its soul1 the tendencies of modern thought must be leading mankind to some predestined end4 ,the movements known to history as the ,renaissance1 ,reformation and ,revolution1 accomplished results which must endure to all time2 they marked the great stages in humanity's onward march4 ,to-day1 when systems and schemes of religion are going to pieces like the dust of the dead1 when mystery and miracle are becoming unthinkable things in a world where all is law2 when the most imposing pretensions are subjected to so minute and pitiless an analysis2 when every dogma of council or creed can be tracked and traced with an unerring precision to root ideas which govern the human mind in its undeveloped stages2 to-day1 when1 in spite of the destructive work being done1 a reverence and a true zeal for truth reigns as it never did before in this world's history1 when the sense of the responsibility and solemnity of life weighs upon men so profoundly1 there must1 ,i say1 be some goal towards which humanity is moving1 there must be some synthesis which shall reconcile for them their aspirations and their knowledge1 some harmony which shall resolve the discordant notes of life--in a word1 there must be some ,far-off1 ,divine event ,towards which the whole creation moves4 ,what is that event8 ,unless a man is prepared to say that the present chaotic condition of religious thought is to perpetuate itself1 or that we are to revert to the ideal of mediaevalism--a world iron-bound by the dogmatism of self-appointed representatives of all truth1--or unless we are to expect a mental paralysis consequent upon a universal scepticism1 there must be some definite bourne for which the forces now at work in humanity are making4 ,we are not able to believe in the perpetuity of an unstable equilibrium in the world of mind any more than in the universe of matter1 nor does history show any warrant for the expectation that the world will return to the discarded ideal of a mediaeval theocracy1 nor does the language of modern agnosticism1 with its hesitations and falterings1 encourage one to believe that therein is a solution1 complete and final1 of those obstinate questionings which beset us4 ,no2 we believe with ,kant in the indestructibility of the religious sentiment4 ,we hold that if the soul of man have not whereon to feed1 it will feed upon itself to its own destruction4 ,we are persuaded that the ,infinite which is necessary to explain the finite1 is alone adequate to satisfy its desires4 ,our faith is in a religion within the boundaries of mere reason4 ,in the first place1 its beliefs are the one element of truth in all the little systems of this and of all time4 ,it is here they touch the confines of the eternal4 ,it is in this centre of changeless truth that all their wandering1 broken lights do meet4 ,this is the one reality behind the phantoms and phenomena wherewith they have been perplexing and confusing man's thoughts2 it is at the same time the great ideal1 the passion for which is the star of life4 ,what a majestic source of unity is there here6 ,the soul positively thrills at the thought of the boundless possibilities of good which centre in this conception of religion4 ,that which the faiths of the world aspired to do1 might hope to become an accomplished fact did their votaries believe with ,shelley that only ,the ,one remains1 the many change and pass2 did they obey the ancient prophet's command1 ,depart from your idols4 ,for what are all the current creeds and orthodoxies of every age and land but so many idols of the market place1 veritable simulacra or images of something ineffable1 beyond the power of man's mind to completely conceive1 or of his stammering tongue to utter8 ,they served their purpose in the childhood of humanity1 they were schoolmasters to train it to higher things1 tabernacles of skins wherein to enshrine the ,holy of ,holies in rude and uncultured times4 ,but now that humanity is reaching the full stature of its manhood1 is it not time to preach from the house-tops what philosophers have been thinking ever since the emancipation of ,european intellect1 aye and before it too1 in the great ,moorish schools1 which sprung up before the scholasticism of the middle ages8 ,is it not time that intelligent clergymen of every school in ,christendom should openly declare in their pulpits what they think1 believe and discuss in the privacies of their studies8 ,if truth is the one thing which never yet did men any harm1 tell them that the universe is not built upon the narrow plan they had been taught of old2 that its age is immeasurable2 that man has been an inhabitant of this fragment of it for a hundred thousand years at least2 that there never was any such being as a first man1 some seven thousand years old2 that his existence1 his history1 is a myth1 traced upon the cylinders of ,babylon2 that man never fell except to himself and his own conscience2 that the redemption scheme is an idiosyncrasy of ,paul2 that a priesthood is avowedly a pagan conception1 and sacrifice a relic of barbarism4 ,tell them this1 for you know it is true1 and that your creeds and confessions are false4 ,speak out as your conscience bids you speak1 that yours is no temple of truth1 no cathedral vast enough to hold the race1 nothing but the dim shadow of a great reality1 one of the many which change and pass1 a spot in boundless space1 a chapel in the infinite4 ,for the truth of rational religion is that into which all that is true in lesser faiths resolves itself4 ,where they agree with it they are in agreement amongst themselves4 ,where they depart from it1 there begins discord--sure sign of error--the confusion and strife of tongues1 the jangling contradictions of men4 ,are we then dangerously out of the way in believing that that wherein all the sons of men unite is the veritable goal towards which they are consciously or unconsciously reaching-- ,tendentes manus ripae ulterioris amore8 ,and there is one other unmistakable evidence that the stream of tendency is in our direction4 ,i allude to the predominant influence in our age of science1 not merely physical1 but science in all its departments4 ,it is welcome to us as the very handwriting of the ,eternal1 as a revelation of the workings of the ,infinite ,mind4 ,every new discovery is welcomed by us as a further revelation of the ,being who is for ever reason4 ,but to the little systems science can only be welcome in so far as it fits in with the petty scale upon which their theologies and theosophies have constructed the universe4 ,at first1 everything is passionately denied1 a cry of horror goes up in the land that science is engaged in an attempt to dethrone the ,god of their theology4 ,and then a few years elapse1 and for very shame's sake they set about explaining how that the ,god of knowledge #a has much in common with their theosophical ,deity1 and that by a dexterous manipulation of infallible texts and articles of religion1 a modus vivendi may be arranged between the two4 ,this is the kind of dialectic that goes on at every ,church ,congress--men who know in their hearts that the inspired anthropology of the ,bible is contradicted1 fully1 flatly1 irreconcilably1 by the undeniable facts discovered by science1 continue to mystify themselves and their hearers alike by all the pleadings1 glosses1 evasions and refinements at their command1 with a view to what they call a reconciliation between science and religion4 ,science and religion1 we protest1 need no reconciliation1 for they never were at war4 ,not religion1 but pseudo-philosophy and so-called theology--this it is to which science is an implacable and irreconcilable foe4 ,and she will never cease from her determined opposition until the ecclesiastical idol vacates the very last niche it occupies in its chapel1 clothes itself with the white robe of contrition1 and sits humbly upon the stool of repentance awaiting a scientific absolution4 ,for us1 such reconciliation is an unmeaning phrase4 ,we never professed to follow aught but reason's kindly light1 for that we know to be the ,divine ,light in us4 ,and1 therefore1 all that comes to us in reason's name1 comes accredited1 as though from the innermost court of the ,great ,presence itself4 ,we discard nothing but what offends reason and its ascertained laws2 we bring everything before its bar4 ,science is to us a ,divine revelation1 its teachings are among our inspired literature4 ,no need therefore of reconciliation between religion and science when we resolve both1 as in a final synthesis1 into the root fact of all this wondrous universe--eternal reason4 ,and because of this1 a faith such as ours is part of the order of imperishable realities1 for the kingdom of reason1 like the throne of the ,eternal1 is for ever and ever4 #a ,deus ,scientiarum ,dominus4 ,,xvii4 ,,the ,,over-,,soul4 ,the most serious errors in the philosophical and religious domains are generally found to be nothing but the exaggeration1 or the minimising1 of a truth1 very much as evil1 physical and moral1 is often the privation of a corresponding good1 the absence of something which ought to be present4 ,year by year the vast majority of religionists in this ,western world are seriously engaged in the commemoration of a transcendent mystery1 the humanisation1 or incarnation1 of the ,deity in the person of the ,prophet of ,nazara4 ,as might be expected1 the upholders of this belief are by no means all agreed as to the manner in which this momentous event came about1 and1 while there are many prepared to speak of ,our ,lord ,jesus ,christ--and we certainly feel no difficulty in so speaking of an elevated and saintly spirit such as he--all are not prepared to subscribe to the precise formulation of the mystery as given in an ,athanasian creed1 or a homily of a fourth century father4 ,beyond admitting in a general and rather vague way that ,jesus is ,divine1 many people are not prepared to go4 ,they would shrink from saying that he was the ,infinite and ,eternal1 from whom all things derive their being2 they see no necessity for believing in the story of his miracles1 or the legendary account of his appearance in this world2 above all1 his virginal conception and birth they often repudiate in terms4 ,they are coming to see--these open-minded men and women of the ,anglican body--that the pre-eminence of ,jesus must rest1 not upon miracles1 but on morals2 that it is not his mystic offices1 but his moral grandeur1 which makes him to be so great a figure in history4 ,in a word1 that it is not his miracles which prove his teaching1 but his teaching must authenticate his miracles4 ,now1 all this is1 of course1 very hopeful1 and makes directly for that reconstruction of religion on an ethical basis which we conceive it our duty to press upon the attention of our age4 ,venerable to us is the memory and teaching of the last of the noble line of ,jewish seers4 ,not one of the masters of the ,church ethical1 whom we obediently follow1 but has exhausted1 one might say1 the possibilities of speech in their reverence and admiration for the great spirit of ,jesus4 ,when ,immanuel ,kant published the ,critique of the ,practical ,reason1 old men and thinkers of the ,fatherland were moved to tears at the thought that the great deliverance had come at last1 that a man had at length arisen who had penetrated to the core the significance of the great prophet's teaching4 ,the only true commentator on ,jesus and his religion is ,immanuel ,kant4 ,heretofore1 men have followed ,paul1 ,athanasius and ,augustine2 it is high time the ethics of ,kant were substituted in colleges and seminaries of the clergy1 and our ministers of religion taught to interpret the ,gospel from the standpoint of the moral law instead of the imaginary dogmatics of ,paul1 and the dialectics of ,athanasius and ,augustine4 ,but the doctrine of incarnation unquestionably embodies a great element of truth1 which it were our very serious loss to overlook4 ,it supplies us with an admirable illustration of what was asserted in the beginning1 namely1 that an error is but a truth misstated1 either by excess or defect4 ,the ,christian1 or rather the ancient1 orthodox presentation of the dogma errs in both ways4 ,by excess1 because it proclaims a man to be the personal ,deity1 that the flesh and blood of a mortal being is adorable1 as is the highest ,being1 with the supreme offices of religion4 ,it proclaims that ,jesus was not a human individual or person at all1 but a ,divine being energising in two natures1 the ,divine and the human1 so that when he used the pronoun ,i1 it was the ,deity himself1 not a man1 who spoke4 ,i say this is a gross misstatement by exaggeration1 unknown to the prophet himself1 unknown to his followers and biographers1 and unknown to many ,christian writers before the fatal epoch of ,athanasius1 who emphatically assert that ,jesus is not to be worshipped as the ,father4#a ,the doctrine errs also by defect1 because it fails to recognise the divinity of all the sons of the ,supreme4 ,jesus is made to be exclusively ,divine1 the sole possessor of ,divine sonship1 and only through him are others put in the way of attaining to the same privilege4 ,but as many as received him1 says the ,alexandrian rhapsodist who wrote the prologue to the fourth gospel1 he gave them the power or the faculty to be made the sons of ,god1 as many as believe in his name4 ,this account of the matter we conceive to be immeasurably below the truth4 ,no mediator is needed between the soul and the ,soul of our souls2 no intercessor or redeemer4 ,this perverse conception originated in the supposition that man was1 and is1 a fallen and a falling being1 owing to the fatal legacy bequeathed by our presumptive parent1 ,adam2 but ,genesis being wholly and avowedly mythical in its opening chapters1 the ,pauline dialectic in the fifth chapter of the ,romans falls to the ground1 and with it the laborious argumentations of the epistle to the ,hebrews1 which essays to prove that the most sternly anti-sacerdotal prophet who ever lived was a full-fledged priest2 the man who never conducted a ritualistic service in his life set forth as a high priest for ever according to the order of ,melchisedech1 the only and eternal redeemer of humanity from the consequences of the misdeeds of an aboriginal parent who had no existence4 ,no2 before ,agamemnon men were brave1 before ,aristides they were just1 before ,jesus they were in their innermost selves divine1 and this in essence is the doctrine of the ,over-soul1 associated1 as far as this expression goes1 with the name of the latest of the prophets of ethics1 ,emerson4 ,we are all incarnations1 flesh-takings1 of the infinite4 ,not only so1 but the very unconscious universe1 the silent1 but ever-living nature is but the garment which clothes the ,invisible1 and in clothing reveals him2 the beauty of nature is the veil1 growing slenderer with every fresh access of knowledge1 which scarce conceals the ,great ,presence4 ,vanini was thrust into the dungeons of the ,inquisition at ,naples on a charge of atheism4 ,atheism6 contemptuously retorted the wretched captive1 ,i could prove ,god from that straw1 picking up with his feet a fragment of the bed on which he lay in fetters4 ,for the universal ,life was in the straw4 ,the life in that slender ear is one with the mighty pulsations of the ocean1 the growth of the forest1 and of the world of men1 and the illimitable stars beyond4 ,the being is one1 the life is one1 and above all1 the mind1 the exclusive endowment of man1 is one too--one in us1 one in the ,supreme2 we share it1 for we also are his offspring4 ,there is only one ,soul--the ,divine1 and the souls of the sons of men are1 not so much images of that1 made in its likeness1 as it itself1 in essence one1 yet1 participately1 in every human being4 ,i have said1 ye are gods1 and sons of the ,most ,high1 every one1 quoted ,jesus with approval4 ,so says ,emerson1 and this is his doctrine of the ,over-soul4 ,after thus indicating in general outline the essential features of this culminating teaching of ethical religion1 it may be well to trace its historical development4 ,it will be found to be1 not an original speculation of our own teacher1 but a precious belief held by elect souls in all ages to embody the truth of the relations between what is called the ,divine and the human4 ,i say called because this doctrine annihilates the distinction4 ,as the electricity in the atmosphere may annihilate space by enabling us to flash a thought instantaneously even to a world whose distance is measured in millions of miles1 so does this sublime conception of the great ,oneness shatter the foundations on which all outside redemptions1 priests1 sacrifices1 formalisms1 rituals1 sacraments1 devilry1 hell fire1 and the rest repose1 by showing every man that he is his own priest and sacrificer4 ,no anointing or ordering can make him more than he is in himself 7not through ,christ or any man71 the true-born son of ,god1 one in nature with whatsoever is ,highest in existence4 ,boldly does ,emerson fling out his challenge-- ,draw it thou canst the mystic line1 ,rightly severing his from thine1 ,which is human1 which ,divine4 ,we cannot4 ,in our innermost selves we are ,divine4 ,we may say with ,emerson1 on the heights of the holy mount1 when we have by long thought realised the truth1 and by living the life which is alone worthy of such a conception1 ,i the imperfect adore my own ,perfect4 ,we seek to pray1 we would fain worship4 ,then look no more into the skies2 there is nought but vapour there and the silent worlds that shine eternally4 ,look not in the churches and the temples1 for they are made by men's hands1 empty of the ,divine ,presence as a mausoleum is of life4 ,let us look into ourselves for the true ,shekinah1 the true manifestation of the ,divine1 nay1 the truly ,divine is there4 ,the ,good in man1 that is ,god2 that alone is worthy of our adoration and our love4 ,i do not think it can be questioned that this is a noble conception of man and ,god and their mutual relations1 and as far as one can judge of the trend of modern thought1 it would appear that only on some such grounds is the intelligence of the age prepared to recognise theism as a possible belief4 ,the conception of the ,deity as a ,being anterior to creation in existence1 eternally dissevered from it in being1 an external object1 so to speak1 of admiration1 reverence and fear1 seems incomprehensible to the modern mind4 ,it certainly did to the whole idealist school of ,germany1 to such thinkers as ,hegel1 ,schelling and ,fichte1 to deeply religious spirits like ,coleridge and ,wordsworth1 to ,emerson in ,america1 and ,carlyle in ,england4 ,the immeasurable clergyman #b view of the ,deity1 seated somewhere in the skies1 and listening all day and night to the ,hallelujah ,chorus1 is now wholly and absolutely impossible outside little ,bethel and ,bibliolatry4 ,but the truth must be confessed that in refusing to acknowledge what one may call an outside deity1 an absentee god1 who pays periodical visits to his creation and acts only at the instant request of prayer1 we are reverting to religious ideals that had their home in the land of the ,indus and the ,ganges1 a thousand years before ,christianity was heard of4 ,it is the knowledge of this fact that fills one with stupefaction when we think of ,exeter ,hall and the type of ,christian missioner who goes out to assail the venerable beliefs of ,hindooism1 when our cultivated men1 our ,emersons1 ,coleridges1 ,carlyles and ,wordsworths1 are positively reverting to the ideals of ancient ,india4 ,the doctrine of the ,over-soul1 essentially shared in by all men2 the belief that man is not in name1 but in reality1 not through the vicarious intercessions of another1 but by his own nature1 a ,divine son1 is in essence a form of ,hindoo thought1 and the recent translations of their sacred books enable us to read that truth there4 ,the ,jewish conception of the ,deity was utterly opposed to this4 ,in that theology the ,supreme ,being was ever transcendent1 and probably ,jesus1 a son of ,israel1 was not greatly removed from this belief4 ,salvation is of the ,jews1 he proclaimed4 ,certainly there are no indications in the three earlier gospels of any such teaching as that of ,emerson1 though it is found1 in suggestion at least1 in the fourth gospel4 ,christ is made to say in one of those lengthy speeches at the close of the book1 ,if any man will keep my words1 ,i will come to him and my ,father will come to him1 and we will take up our abode with him2 and again1 ,i and the ,father are one4 ,here is a suggestion1 faint enough1 of the teaching that the ,divine is present in the hearts of the just1 of the ethically good1 but there is a world of difference between that and the essential ,divinity of every human soul1 because part of the ,over-soul1 which is one in all men4 ,no2 ,jesus was a son of ,israel1 and his ideals were those of his race4 ,the few words quoted from the fourth gospel are in the spirit of the larger belief1 but they are ,neo-,platonic in their origin1 as is the whole ,johannine gospel1 and cannot be taken as fairly representing the mind of the greatest of the ,jewish seers4 ,if we would see the ,eastern teaching in the ,west1 we must search1 not the ,old or ,new ,testament1 but the pages of the ,alexandrian ,school1 of ,philo1 and above all1 of ,plotinus1 who believed that the supreme truths were learnt1 not by study1 nor by revelation from without1 but in an ecstasy of the soul1 losing itself in the contemplation of the ,divine--in the flight of the alone to the ,alone4 ,now1 that which ,plotinus considered an extraordinary occurrence1 an experience perhaps only possible to elect spirits1 men at length began to look upon as the truth of the normal relations between their ,maker and themselves4 ,of course1 so stupendous a change took centuries in evolution1 and1 naturally1 the ,christian ,church and its clergymen gave it no sort of encouragement4 ,it would never do to preach abroad that every man was his own priest1 and so we wade through the whole of mediaevalism without finding any recognition of the great teaching4 ,it is only when we are in the comparatively modern epoch of the fourteenth century that we find it in ,eckhart1 the ,german mystic4 ,there is1 he writes1 something in the soul which is above the soul4 4 4 4 ,it is absolute and free from all names and forms1 as ,god is free and absolute in himself4 ,it is higher than knowledge1 higher than love1 for in these there is distinction4 4 4 4 ,i have called it a power1 sometimes a light4 4 4 4 ,this light is satisfied only with the super-essential essence4 ,it is ever entering into that unity where no man dwelleth1 where there are no distinctions1 neither ,father1 ,son1 nor ,holy ,ghost4 ,it is the plain of the ,great ,silence1 the centre of the immovable peace1 an ,inner ,sea whose still waters are nevertheless bounded by no shores4 ,it is the sense1 rather it is the reality1 of the ,infinite in man1 that of which all seers have dreamed under many diverse forms4 ,i take it to be the ,nirvana of ,buddha1 the eternal silence that follows when the last of the avenues of sense has been passed1 and the soul enters at length into the possession of itself1 that is1 into the recognition of its infinitude4 ,it is what ,jesus means when he speaks of the faithful ones--they who have endured even to the end--entering into the joy of their ,lord4 ,it is the apostle's unspeakable peace1 the peace of ,god1 which passeth all understanding4 ,another of the school of ,eckhart1 ,tauler1 gives his own experience1 and it is not dissimilar4 ,he finds his soul so grounded in ,god that it is dissolved in the inmost of the ,divine nature4 ,no man1 he says1 can distinguish between the sunshine and the air4 ,how much less the light of the created and the uncreated ,spirit6 ,we are lost in the abyss which is our source4 ,from the place whence the rivers of waters go forth1 thither do they return4 #c ,those words always haunt one with a sense of the mysterious4 ,they seem to say that the beginning and the end of all are the same--the abyss of the ,infinite4 ,emerson believes that man came forth thence1 is there now1 and abides there for ever4 ,and surely ,tennyson's lines must occur to the memory of every one3-- ,when that which drew from out the boundless deep1 ,turns again home4 ,to begin to think at all1 is to be brought1 at length1 to thoughts such as these--the thought of the ,inner ,sea1 on whose still and boundless waters all is silence1 peace1 ,god4 ,after two centuries the teaching reappears1 not in the pages of professional divines1 or the denizens of the cloister1 but in the philosophy of modern ,germany4 ,schelling carries it still farther by pronouncing that there is but one reason1 one mind1 the human and the ,divine being identical4 ,the lines of ,paracelsus are inevitably suggested3-- ,o ,god1 ,thou art ,mind6 ,crush not my mind1 ,o ,god6 ,fichte1 in his ,characteristics of the ,present ,age1 pronounces the individual to be but a single ray of the one universal and necessary thought4 ,there is but ,one ,life1 one animating power1 one ,living ,reason 4 4 4 of which all that seems to us to exist and live is but a modification1 definition1 variety and form4 ,and1 finally1 he goes so far as to say that it is only by1 and to1 mere earthly and finite perception1 that this one and homogeneous life of reason is broken up and divided into separate individual persons4 ,what a piercing thought6 ,surely it is almost past believing that the eternal ,life is itself in us1 nay1 that it is we2 that in very literal truth we may say1 ,i and the ,infinite are ,one4 ,only one who could speak in tongues of men and angels is fit to hold discourse on thoughts so sublime1 but it is difficult to discern a flaw in the arguments of these prophetic souls who have dared to believe and to preach to men1 ,ye are gods1 and sons of the ,most ,high1 every one4 ,it is a doctrine we learn only from the new masters4 ,nothing half so fair1 so radiant1 did we hear in days of old1 so rich in promise1 so full of inspiration and helpfulness4 ,you are an adopted son of ,god1 it was said4 ,there is but one natural son1 the ,messiah and ,logos1 ,jesus ,christ4 ,through him alone we have access to the ,divine1 apart from him we are children of wrath2 only in him are we light in the ,lord4 ,he that believeth not the ,son hath not life1 but the wrath of ,god abideth with him4 ,to this hour do they say these things1 but we who have been privileged to hear wiser words1 diviner voices1 know that nothing can come between our lonely spirits and the ,great ,alone--no ,church1 no ,book1 no ,messiah1 or ,saviour4 ,we are greater than all that1 for the eternal soul of man is within us1 heir-at-law divine of the promises1 and in its own right a natural son of ,god4 ,but to continue4 ,the scattered rays of this wonderful gospel are focussed in the transcendental teaching of the last of the ethical prophets1 ,waldo ,emerson4 ,in him the truth shines forth as the sun4 ,we have seen the germ of the doctrine in the fourteenth and fifteenth century mystics1 its resurrection in the noble school of ,german idealism which grew out of the teaching of the great master himself1 ,immanuel ,kant4 ,the man who introduced it to ,england1 the link1 so to speak1 between ,fichte1 ,hegel1 ,schelling and ,emerson1 was ,coleridge1 for whom there is but one reason1 shared in by all intelligent beings1 which is in itself the universal soul4 ,to this profoundly reverent thinker reason is not a faculty1 much less a property of the human mind4 ,man cannot be said so much to possess reason as to partake of it4 ,he in whom reason dwells can as little appropriate it as his own possession1 as he can claim ownership in the breathing air or take in the canopy of heaven4 ,now1 this is essentially what ,emerson means by the ,over-soul4 ,it is the universal mind1 the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world4 ,it is one and identical in all men1 even as the sun in the high heavens is one and the same for every dweller in the solar system4 ,yea1 more than this1 we cannot shrink from the consequences of our affirmation1 the mind in man is not conceivably other than the ,mind which is self-subsistent and infinite4 ,after what manner shall we conceive of the intelligence which laid down the foundations of the world1 traced the pathway of the stars1 fixed the laws which nature has immutably obeyed from the eternal past even to this hour1 if we conceive it not after the manner of the mind in us which has at length discovered these laws8 ,how can we hold one intelligence to know and another to originate them8 ,as truth is one and identical for all minds1 so must be the intelligences which know and originate that truth4 ,hence1 you will see that for thinkers#d such as these agnosticism is the plainest of paradoxes--a bald contradiction in terms4 ,it affects to be unable to discern ,mind in the cosmos when it is exercising that very mind in formulating its doubts4 ,it is as though a man should go hunting his house for a light with a candle burning in his hand4 ,what on earth can we be searching for when the candle of the ,lord1 as ,locke called it1 is the very illuminant we must employ in our search8 ,tell me1 ,emerson would ask1 the truths your sciences establish1 the principle of your philosophies1 are they valid for all intelligences or only some8 ,surely1 for all intelligences1 you will reply4 ,then1 ,i will urge1 these truths must be one and identical if all intelligences admit them4 ,certainly4 ,how1 then1 can there be any doubt but that intelligence itself1 mind itself1 is one and identic in all men1 since all think alike of the cosmos1 and one and identic also in that everlasting ,cause of the cosmos whence1 you yourselves admit1 all things derive their being8 ,are we asked for the supreme object of religion8 ,here it is1 unveiled so far as mind and speech of man may discover the great reality4 ,it is the ,god1 not who dwelleth in inaccessible light1 who is enthroned on the floors of the heavens1 or walks on the wings of the winds2 it is the ,god who is not very far from any one of us1 for he is in us1 in very deed and truth2 he is the mind1 the intelligence2 he is the soul of man1 and yet the ,over-soul1 the soul of all souls1 and we are not so much made in his image1 as it was taught of old1 but we are he1 we are the ,divine1 there is no line of division 'twixt us and him2 the light in man1 the good in man is ,god4 ,pray no more1 then1 we urge1 to the skies1 nor in a holy city or consecrated shrine1 a temple1 though it were of gold4 ,like the angels that stood by the open1 empty grave of the ,christ and said1 he is not here1 your souls cry aloud that therein alone is the infinite ,soul whose truth and being alone can satisfy your own4 ,this is the temple not made with hands of man1 in which alone the ,supreme can be enshrined and worshipped1 ,foolish doctor1 foolish doctor1 says ,carlyle of ,johnson1 who went tapping for ghosts in ,cock ,lane1 thou thyself art a ghost6 ,foolish and superstitious beyond bounds1 we may say1 is the man that thinketh to find the light of life in a church when it cannot be found within himself4 ,he who has steeped his soul in this teaching will need no more to commune with an imagination in the heavens1 an anthropomorphic deity in the skies--it is a merciful thing we see no more of these painful profanities upon the canvases of our artists--nor will he need that his soul should rise on wings of fasting and prayer to pierce the clouds with his importunings and entreaties4 ,no1 his communings will be with himself1 his worship of the silent sort1 for he knows now that there is no ,god anywhere who is not within him4 ,he will need no ,chrishna1 ,buddha or ,christ to make intercession with the ,father for him1 no god-babe in a manger or deity walking the earth in sorrow or expiring in shame1 for lo6 the ,divinity is also every son of ,god1 and suffering humanity is ever with us1 the repression of the flesh is an unceasing sacrifice which we offer up in the temple of our bodies out of reverence for the ,divinity within them4 ,,note4--,the best account of ,emerson's ethical and speculative teaching is to be found in ,cooke's ,life of ,emerson1 obtainable through ,green ,co41 ,essex ,hall1 ,strand4 ,i am indebted to it for much of the expository portion of this chapter4 #a ,the fact that ,petavius1 a ,jesuit theologian1 felt it his duty to condemn several ante-,nicene writers as heretical1 though honest1 offenders against orthodoxy1 is evidence enough that ,athanasianism is a spurious development unknown to the earlier ages4 #b ,tennyson's description of the average ,englishman's theology4 #c ,ecclesiastes i4 #g4 #d ,and1 we add1 for ninety-nine out of every hundred philosophers of repute4