The Moral Economy Part 12

VIII

Finally, art serves to _liberalize_ life, to make it expansive and generous in spirit. This is possible because, in the first place, art is unworldly. I mean simply that the enjoyment of beauty is not {210} a part of ambition; that it does not call into play those habits of calculation and forms of skill that conduce to success in livelihood or the gaining of any of the proximate ends of organized social life. It frees the mind from its harness and turns it out to pasture. I suppose that every one has had that experience of spiritual refreshment which occasionally comes when one has gone body and soul _out of doors_, or when one is delivered over to the enchantment of sober and elevating music, and suddenly made aware of the better things that have been long forgotten. Such experiences are a moral inspiration. It is as though, the clamor of the world being for the moment shut out, one hears at last the voices that speak with authority. For an instant the broad sweep of truth flashes upon eyes that have been too intently watchful of affairs near at hand. The good-will can be sustained only by a mind that now and then withdraws itself from its engagements, and expands its view to the full measure of life. For the momentary inhibiting of the narrower practical impulses, and the evoking of this quiet and contemplative mood, the love of nature and the love of art are the most reliable means.

But art promotes liberality of spirit in an even more definitely moral sense. For art, like all forms of culture, and like the service of humanity, {211} provides for the highest type of social intercourse.

The aesthetic interest is one of those rare interests which are common to all men without being compet.i.tive. All men require bread, but since this interest requires exclusive possession of its objects, its very commonness is a source of suspicion and enmity. Similarly all men require truth and beauty and civilization, but these objects are enhanced by the fact that all may rejoice in them without their being divided or becoming the property of any man. They bring men together without rivalry and intrigue, in a spirit of good-fellowship.

"Culture," says Matthew Arnold, "is not satisfied till we _all_ come to a perfect man; it knows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect until the raw and unkindled ma.s.ses of humanity are touched with sweetness and light."

'This,' he continues, 'is the _social idea_; and the men of culture are the true apostles of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a pa.s.sion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who have labored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the _best_ knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and light.'[20]

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Art, both in the creation and in the enjoyment of it, is thus true to the deepest motive of morality. It is a remoulding of nature to the end that all may live, and that they may live abundantly.

IX

I have sought to place before you what art may contribute to life. It will have become plain that while art is the natural and powerful ally of morality, it does not itself provide any guarantee of proper control; in the interests of goodness, on the whole, no man can surrender himself to it utterly. The good-will is not proved until, as Plato said, it is _tried with enchantments_, and found to be strong and true. Goodness can not be cast upon a man like a spell; it is a work of rational organization, and can not be had without discipline, efficiency, and service. But it is for art to surround life with fit auspices; to create an environment that reflects and forecasts its best achievements, thus both making a home for it and confirming its resolves.

Having modelled this moral criticism of art upon the method of Plato, I shall conclude with his familiar summary of all the wisdom and eloquence that there is in the matter:

Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of beauty and grace; then will our youth dwell in the land of health, amid fair sights {213} and sounds; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will visit the eye and ear, like a healthful breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul even in childhood into harmony with the beauty of reason.[21]

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CHAPTER VI

THE MORAL JUSTIFICATION OF RELIGION[1]

It is generally agreed that religion is either the paramount issue or the most serious obstacle to progress. To its devotees religion is of overwhelming importance; to unbelievers it is, in the phrasing of Burke, "superst.i.tious folly, enthusiastical nonsense, and holy tyranny." The difference between the friends and the enemies of religion may, I think, be resolved as follows:

Religion recognizes some final arbitration of human destiny; it is a lively awareness of the fact that, while man proposes, it is only within certain narrow limits that he can dispose his own plans. His nicest adjustments and most ardent longings are overruled; he knows that until he can discount or conciliate that which commands his fortunes his condition is precarious and miserable. And through his eagerness to save himself he leaps to conclusions that are uncritical and premature.

Irreligion, on the other hand, flourishes among those who are more snugly intrenched {215} within the cities of man. It is a product of civilization. Comfortably housed as he is, and enjoying an artificial illumination behind drawn blinds, the irreligious man has the heart to criticise the hasty speculations and abject fear of those who stand without in the presence of the surrounding darkness. In other words, religion is perpetually on the exposed side of civilization, sensitive to the blasts that blow from the surrounding universe; while irreligion is in the lee of civilization, with enough remove from danger to foster a refined concern for logic and personal liberty. There is a sense, then, in which both religion and irreligion are to be justified. If religion is guilty of unreason, irreligion is guilty of apathy. For without doubt the situation of the individual man is broadly such as religion conceives it to be. There is nothing that he can build, nor any precaution that he can take, that weighs appreciably in the balance against the powers which decree good and ill fortune, catastrophe and triumph, life and death.

Hence to be without fear is the part of folly. Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.

Religion is man's recognition of the overruling control of his fortunes.

It is neither metaphysical nor mythical, but urgently practical.

Primeval chaos, Chronos, the father of Zeus, and the long line of speculative Absolutes have no {216} worshippers because they take no hand in man's affairs. They may be neglected with impunity. But not so the G.o.ds who send health and sickness, fertility and death, victory and defeat; or He who sits in judgment on the last day to determine the doom of eternity. Religion is the manifestation of supreme concern for life, an alertness to the remotest threat of danger and promise of hope. A certain momentousness attaches to all the affairs of religion, because everything is at stake. Its dealings are with the last court of appeal, in behalf of the most indispensable good.

In form, religion is a case of _belief_; that is, of settled conviction.

There is no religion until some interpretation of life, some accommodation between man and G.o.d, has been so far accepted as to be unhesitatingly practised. The absurdity of doubt in matters of religion has been pointed out in the well-known parody, "O G.o.d, if there be a G.o.d, save my soul, if I have a soul." The quality of religion lies not in the entertaining of a speculative hypothesis, but in an a.s.surance so confident that its object is not only thought but enacted. G.o.d is not G.o.d until his unquestioned existence is a.s.similated to life. Indeed, it is conceivable that an object thus made the basis of action should still remain theoretically doubtful. To Fontenelle is attributed the remark that he "did not believe in ghosts, but was afraid of {217} them." This is a paradox until we distinguish theoretical and practical conviction; then it becomes not only credible but commonplace. If one prays to G.o.d, it is not necessary for the purposes of religion that one should, in Fontenelle's sense, believe in him. But I prefer to use the term "belief" more strictly, to connote such a.s.sent as expresses itself, not in a deliberate judgment made conformable to one's intellectual conscience, but in fear, love, and purpose, in habitual imagery, in any att.i.tude or activity that spontaneously and freely presupposes the object with which it deals.

By conceiving religion as belief we may understand not only its air of certainty, but also the variety of its forms and agencies. Belief sits at the centre of life and qualifies all its manifestations. Hence the futility of attempting to a.s.sociate religion exclusively with any single function of man. The guises in which religious belief may appear are as multiform as human nature, and will vary with every shading of mood and temperament. Its central objects may be thought, imagined, or dealt with--in short, responded to in all the divers ways, internal and overt, that the powers and occasions of life define.

This will suffice, I trust, to lay the general topic of religion before us. I shall employ the terms and phrases which I have formulated as a {218} working definition: _Religion is belief on the part of individuals or communities concerning the final or overruling control of their interests_.[2] I propose from this point to keep in the forefront of the discussion the standards whereby religion is to be estimated, and approved or condemned. On what grounds may a religion be criticised?

What would const.i.tute the proof of an absolute religion? History is strewn with discredited religions; men began to quarrel over religion so soon as they had any; and it is customary for every religious devotee to believe jealously and exclusively. There can be no doubt, then, that religion is subject to justification; it remains to distinguish the tests which may with propriety be applied, and in particular to isolate and emphasize the moral test.

II

In the first place, let me mention briefly a test which it is customary to apply, but which is not so much an estimate as it is a measure. I refer to the various respects in which an individual or community may be said to be _more_ or _less_ religious. Thus, for example, certain religious phenomena surpa.s.s others in acuteness or intensity. This is peculiarly true of the phenomena manifested in conversion and in revivals. In this respect the mysteries of the ancients exceeded {219} their regular public worship. Individuals and communities vary in the degree to which they are capable of enthusiasm, excitement, or ecstasy.

Or a religion may be measured extensively. He whose religion is constant and uniform is more religious than he whose observance is confined to the Sabbath day, or he whose concern in the matter appears only in time of trouble or at the approach of death. This test may best be summed up in terms of consistency. Religion may vary in the degree to which it pervades the various activities of life. That religion is confined and small which manifests itself only in words or public deeds or emotions exclusively. If it is to be effective it must be systematic, so thoroughly adopted as to be c.u.mulative and progressive. It must engage every activity, qualify all thought and imagination, in short, infuse the whole of life with its saving grace.

It is clear, however, that a measure of religion does not const.i.tute either proof or disproof. If a religion be good or true, or on like grounds accredited, then the more of it the better. But differences of degree appear in all religions. Indeed, the quant.i.tative test has been most adequately met by forms of religion the warrant of which is generally held to be highly questionable. We may, therefore, dismiss this test without further consideration. The application of it must be {220} based upon a prior and more fundamental justification.

There is one test of religion which has been universally applied by believers and critics alike, a test which, I think, will shortly appear to deserve precedence over all others. I refer to the test of truth.

Every religion has been justified to its believers and recommended to unbelievers on grounds of evidence. It has been verified in its working, or attested by either observation, reflection, revelation, or authority.

In spite of the general a.s.sent which this proposition will doubtless command, it is deserving of special emphasis at the present time.

Students of religion have latterly shifted attention from its claims to truth to its utility and subjective form. This pragmatic and psychological study of religion has created no little confusion of mind concerning its real meaning, and obscured that which is after all its essential claim--the claim, namely, to offer an illumination of life.

Religious belief, like all belief, is reducible to judgments. These judgments are not, it is true, explicit and theoretically formulated; but they are none the less answerable to evidence from that context of experience to which they refer. It is true that the believer's a.s.surance is not consciously rational, but it is none the less liable before the court of reason. Cardinal Newman {221} fairly expressed the difference between the method of religion and the method of science when he said that "ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt," that "difficulty and doubt are incommensurate." [3] Nevertheless, the difficulties are in each case germane; and the fact that every article of faith has its besetting doubt is proof that the thorough justification of faith requires the settlement of theoretical difficulties.

No religion can survive the demonstration of its untruth; for salvation, whether present or eternal, depends on processes actually operative in the environment. Religion must reveal the undeniable situation and prepare man for it. It must charge the unbeliever with being guilty of folly, with deceiving himself through failing to see and take heed.

Every religious propaganda is a cry of warning, putting men on their guard against invisible dangers; or a promise of succor, bringing glad tidings of great joy. And its prophecy is empty and trivial if the danger or the succor can be shown to be unreal. The one unfailing bias in life is the bias for disillusionment, springing from the organic instinct for that real environment to which, whether friendly or hostile, it must adapt itself. Every man knows in his heart that he can not be saved through being deceived. Illusions can not endure, and those who lightly perpetrate them are fortunate {222} if they escape the resentment and swift vengeance which overtook the prophets of Baal.

The grounds of religious truth will require prolonged consideration; but before discussing them further let me first mention a test of religion which belongs to the cla.s.s of psychological and pragmatic tests to which I have just alluded, but which has latterly a.s.sumed special prominence.

Though realizing that I use a somewhat disparaging term, I suggest that we call this the "therapeutic test." It has been proved that the state of piety possesses a direct curative value through its capacity to exhilarate or pacify, according to the needs of a disordered mind. As a potent form of suggestion, it lends itself to the uses of psychiatry; it may be medicinally employed as a tonic, stimulant, or sedative.

Now we can afford to remind ourselves that, at least from the point of view of the patient, this use of religion bears a striking resemblance to certain primitive practices in which G.o.d was conceived as a glorified medicine-man, and the healing of the body strangely confused with spiritual regeneration. Bishop Gregory of Tours once addressed the following apostrophe to the worshipful St. Martin: "O unspeakable theriac! ineffable pigment! admirable antidote! celestial purgative!

superior to all the skill of physicians, more fragrant than aromatic drugs, stronger than {223} all ointments combined! thou cleanest the bowels as well as scammony, and the lungs as well as hyssop; thou cleanest the head as well as camomile!" [4]

It is true that religion is in these days recommended for more subtle disorders; but even religious ecstasy may be virtually equivalent to a mere state of emotional exhilaration, or piety to a condition of mental and moral stupor. What does it profit a man to be content with his lot, or to experience the rapture of the saints, if he has lost his soul? The saving of a soul is a much more serious matter than the cessation of worry or the curing of insomnia, or even than the acquiring of a habit of delirious joy. Tranquillity and happiness are, it is true, the legitimate fruits of religion, but only provided they be infused with goodness and truth. If religion is to be a spiritual tonic, and not merely a physical tonic, it must be based on moral organization and intellectual enlightenment. I do not doubt that religion has in all times recommended itself to men mainly through its contributing to their lives a certain peculiar buoyancy and peace. There is such a generic value in religion, which can not be attributed wholly to any of its component parts. But, like the intensity or extent of religion, this may manifest itself upon all levels of development. _Sound_ piety, a tranquillity and happiness {224} which mark the soul's real salvation, must be founded on truth, on an interpretation of life which expresses the fullest light. Again, then, we are referred to the test of truth for the fundamental justification of religion. There is a generic value which is deserving of the last word, but that word can be said only after a rigorous examination of the more fundamental values from which it is derived.

Religious truth is divisible into two judgments, involved in every religious belief, and answerable respectively to _ethical_ and _cosmological_ evidence. Since religion is a belief concerning the overruling control of human interests, it involves on the one hand a summing up of these interests, a conception of what the believer has at stake, in short, an ethical judgment; and on the other hand, an interpretation of the environment at large, in other words, a cosmological judgment. Religion construes the practical situation in its totality; which means that it generalizes concerning the content of fortune, or the good, and the sources of fortune, or nature. Both factors are invariably present, and no religion can escape criticism on this twofold ground.

The ethical implications of religion are peculiarly far-reaching, since they determine not only its conception of man, but also, in part, its conception of G.o.d. This is due to the fact that {225} the term "G.o.d"

signifies not the environment in its inherent nature, but the environment in its bearing on the worshipper's interests. It follows that whether G.o.d be construed as favorable or hostile will depend upon the worshipper's conception of these interests. Thus, for example, if worldly success or long life be regarded as the values most eagerly to be conserved, G.o.d must be feared as cruel or capricious; whereas, if the lesson of discipline and humility be conceived as the highest good, it may be reasonable to trust the providence of G.o.d without any change in its manifestation.

Furthermore, as we shall shortly have occasion to remark, it is characteristic of religion to insist, so far as possible, upon the favorableness of the environment. But this favorableness must be construed in terms of what are held to be man's highest interests.

Consequently, the disposition and motive of G.o.d always reflect human purposes. This is the main source of the inevitable anthropomorphism of religion.

Conceptions of nature, on the other hand, define the degree to which the environment is morally determined, and the unity or plurality of its causes. Animism, for example, reflects the general opinion that the causes of natural events are wilful rather than mechanical. Such an opinion obtained at the time when no sharp {226} distinction was made between inorganic and organic phenomena, the action of the environment being conceived as a play of impulses.

Religion is corrected, then, by light obtained from these sources: man's knowledge of his highest interests, and his knowledge of nature. As a rule, one or the other of these two methods of criticism tends to predominate, in accordance with the genius of the race or period. Thus, the evolution of Greek religion is determined mainly by the development of science. Xenophanes attacks the religion of his times on the ground of its crude anthropomorphism. "Mortals," he says, "think that the G.o.ds are born as they are, and have perception like theirs, and voice and form." But this nave opinion Xenophanes corrects because it is not consistent with the new enlightenment concerning the _arche_, or first principle of nature. "And he [G.o.d] abideth ever in the same place, moving not at all; nor doth it befit him to go about, now hither, now thither." [5]

In a later age Lucretius criticised the whole system of Greek religion in terms of the atomistic and mechanical cosmology of Epicurus:

For verily not by design did the first-beginnings of things station themselves each in its right place guided by keen intelligence, nor did they bargain sooth to say what motions each should a.s.sume; but because many in number and shifting about in many ways throughout the universe they are driven and {227} tormented by blows during infinite time past, after trying motions and unions of every kind at length they fall into arrangements such as those out of which this our sum of things has been formed.[6]