The Note-Books of Samuel Butler Part 63

Everything that catches on to realism and naturalism as much as Christianity does must be affected by any profound modification in our views of realism and naturalism.

G.o.d and Convenience

I do not know or care whether the expression "G.o.d" has scientific accuracy or no, nor yet whether it has theological value; I know nothing either of one or the other, beyond looking upon the recognised exponents both of science and theology with equal distrust; but for convenience, I am sure that there is nothing like it--I mean for convenience of getting quickly at the right or wrong of a matter. While you are fumbling away with your political economy or your biblical precepts to know whether you shall let old Mrs. So- and-so have 5/--or no, another, who has just asked himself which would be most well-pleasing in the sight of G.o.d, will be told in a moment that he should give her--or not give her--the 5/--. As a general rule she had better have the 5/--at once, but sometimes we must give G.o.d to understand that, though we should he very glad to do what he would have of us if we reasonably could, yet the present is one of those occasions on which we must decline to do so.

The World

Even the world, so mondain as it is, still holds instinctively and as a matter of faith unquestionable that those who have died by the altar are worthier than those who have lived by it, when to die was duty.

Blasphemy

I begin to understand now what Christ meant when he said that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was unforgiveable, while speaking against the Son of Man might be forgiven. He must have meant that a man may be pardoned for being unable to believe in the Christian mythology, but that if he made light of that spirit which the common conscience of all men, whatever their particular creed, recognises as divine, there was no hope for him. No more there is.

Gaining One's Point

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy, but he who has shown the most forbearance and the better temper.

The Voice of Common Sense

It is this, and not the Voice of the Lord, which maketh men to be of one mind in an house. But then, the Voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense which is shared by all that is.

Amendes Honorables

There is hardly an offence so great but if it be frankly apologised for it is easily both forgiven and forgotten. There is hardly an offence so small but it rankles if he who has committed it does not express proportionate regret. Expressions of regret help genuine regret and induce amendment of life, much as digging a channel helps water to flow, though it does not make the water. If a man refuses to make them and habitually indulges his own selfishness at the expense of what is due to other people, he is no better than a drunkard or a debauchee, and I have no more respect for him than I have for the others.

We all like to forgive, and we all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

So a man may lose both his legs and live for years in health if the amputation has been clean and skilful, whereas a pea in his boot may set up irritation which must last as long as the pea is there and may in the end kill him.

Forgiveness and Retribution

It is no part of the bargain that we are never to commit trespa.s.ses.

The bargain is that if we would be forgiven we must forgive them that trespa.s.s against us. Nor again is it part of the bargain that we are to let a man hob-n.o.b with us when we know him to be a thorough blackguard, merely on the plea that unless we do so we shall not be forgiving him his trespa.s.ses. No hard and fast rule can be laid down, each case must be settled instinctively as it arises.

As a sinner I am interested in the principle of forgiveness; as sinned against, in that of retribution. I have what is to me a considerable vested interest in both these principles, but I should say I had more in forgiveness than in retribution. And so it probably is with most people or we should have had a clause in the Lord's prayer: "And pay out those who have sinned against us as they whom we have sinned against generally pay us out."

Inaccuracy

I am not sure that I do not begin to like the correction of a mistake, even when it involves my having shown much ignorance and stupidity, as well as I like hitting on a new idea. It does comfort one so to be able to feel sure that one knows how to tumble and how to retreat promptly and without chagrin. Being bowled over in inaccuracy, when I have tried to verify, makes me careful. But if I have not tried to verify and then turn out wrong, this, if I find it out, upsets me very much and I pray that I may be found out whenever I do it.

Jutland and "Waitee"

I made a mistake in The Auth.o.r.ess of the Odyssey [in a note on p. 31]

when I said "Scheria means Jutland--a piece of land jutting out into the sea." Jutland means the Land of the Jutes.

And I made a mistake in Alps and Sanctuaries [Chap. III], speaking of the peasants in the Val Leventina knowing English, when I said "One English word has become universally adopted by the Ticinesi themselves. They say 'Waitee' just as we should say 'Wait' to stop some one from going away. It is abhorrent to them to end a word with a consonant so they have added 'ee,' but there can be no doubt about the origin of the word." The Avvocato Negri of Casale-Monferrato says that they have a word in their dialetto which, if ever written, would appear as "vuaitee," it means "stop" or "look here," and is used to attract attention. This, or something like it, no doubt is what they really say and has no more to do with waiting than Jutland has to do with jutting.

The Parables

The people do not act reasonably in a single instance. The sower was a bad sower; the shepherd who left his ninety and nine sheep in the wilderness was a foolish shepherd; the husbandman who would not have his corn weeded was no farmer--and so on. None of them go nearly on all fours, they halt so much as to have neither literary nor moral value to any but slipshod thinkers.

Granted, but are we not all slipshod thinkers?

The Irreligion of Orthodoxy

We do not fall foul of Christians for their religion, but for what we hold to be their want of religion--for the low views they take of G.o.d and of his glory, and for the unworthiness with which they try to serve him.

Society and Christianity

The burden of society is really a very light one. She does not require us to believe the Christian religion, she has very vague ideas as to what the Christian religion is, much less does she require us to practise it. She is quite satisfied if we do not obtrude our disbelief in it in an offensive manner. Surely this is no very grievous burden.

Sanctified by Faith

No matter how great a fraud a thing may have been or be, if it has pa.s.sed through many minds an aroma of life attaches to it and it must be handled with a certain reverence. A thing or a thought becomes hallowed if it has been long and strongly believed in, for veneration, after a time, seems to get into the thing venerated.

Look at Delphi--fraud of frauds, yet sanctified by centuries of hope and fear and faith. If greater knowledge shows Christianity to have been founded upon error, still greater knowledge shows that it was aiming at a truth.

Ourselves and the Clergy

As regards the best of the clergy, whether English or foreign, I feel that they and we mean in substance the same thing, and that the difference is only about the way this thing should be put and the evidence on which it should be considered to rest.

We say that they jeopardise the acceptance of the principles which they and we alike cordially regard as fundamental by basing them on a.s.sertions which a little investigation shows to be untenable. They reply that by declaring the a.s.sertions to be untenable we jeopardise the principles. We answer that this is not so and that moreover we can find better, safer and more obvious a.s.sertions on which to base them.