The Religious Sentiment Part 10

Inspiration, in its religious sense, we may, therefore, define to be that condition of mind in which the truths relating to deity and duty become in whole or in part the subjects of immediate perception.

That such a condition is possible will be granted. Every reformer who has made a permanent betterment in the religion of his time has possessed it in some degree. He who first conceived the Kosmos under logical unity as an orderly whole, had it in singular power; so too had he who looking into the mind became aware of its purposive laws which are the everlasting warrants of duty. Some nations have possessed it in remarkable fulness, none more so than the descendants of Abraham, from himself, who left his kindred and his father's house at the word of G.o.d, through many eminent seers down to Spinoza, who likewise forsook his tribe to obey the inspirations vouchsafed him; surpa.s.sing them all, Jesus of Nazareth, to whose mind, as he waxed in wisdom, the truth unfolded itself in such surpa.s.sing clearness that neither his immediate disciples nor any generations since have fathomed all the significance of his words.

Such minds do not need development and organic transmission of thought to enrich their stores. We may suppose the organization of their brains to be so perfect that their functions are always accordant with true reasoning, so self-prompting, that a hint of the problem is all they ask to arrive at its demonstration. Blaise Pascal, when a boy of twelve, whose education had been carefully restrained, once asked his father what is geometry. The latter replied that it is a method devised to draw figures correctly, but forbade any further inquiry about it. On this hint Pascal, by himself, una.s.sisted, without so much as knowing the name of a line or circle, reached in a few weeks to the demonstration of the thirty-second problem of the first book of Euclid! Is it not possible for a mind equally productive of religious truth to surpa.s.s with no less ease its age on such subjects?

As what Newton so well called "patient thought," constant application, prolonged attention, is the means on which even great minds must rely in order to reach the sempiternal verities of science, so earnest continued prayer is that which all teachers prescribe as the only avenue to inspiration in its religious sense. While this may be conceded, collaterals of the prayer have too often been made to appear trivial and ridiculous.

In the pursuit of inspiration the methods observed present an interesting similarity. The votary who aspires to a communion with the G.o.d, shuts himself out from the distraction of social intercourse and the disturbing allurements of the senses. In the solitude of the forest or the cell, with complete bodily inaction, he gives himself to fasting and devotion, to a concentration of all his mind on the one object of his wish, the expected revelation. Waking and sleeping he banishes all other topics of thought, perhaps by an incessant repet.i.tion of a formula, until at last the moment comes, as it surely will come in some access of hallucination, furor or ecstasy, the unfailing accompaniments of excessive mental strain, when the mist seems to roll away from the mortal vision, the inimical powers which darkened the mind are baffled, and the word of the Creator makes itself articulate to the creature.

Take any connected account of the revelation of the divine will, and this history is substantially the same. It differs but little whether told of Buddha Sakyamuni, the royal seer of Kapilavastu, or by Catherine Wabose, the Chipeway squaw,[146-1] concerning the _Revelations_ of St.

Gertrude of Nivelles or of Saint Brigida, or in the homely language of the cobbler George Fox.

For six years did Sakyamuni wander in the forest, practising the mortifications of the flesh and combatting the temptations of the devil,before[TN-8] the final night when, after overcoming the crowning enticements of beauty, power and wealth, at a certain moment he became the "awakened," and knew himself in all his previous births, and with that knowledge soared above the "divine illusion" of existence. In the cave of Hari, Mohammed fasted and prayed until "the night of the divine decisions;" then he saw the angel Gabriel approach and inspire him:

"A revelation was revealed to him: One terrible in power taught it him, Endowed with wisdom. With firm step stood he, There, where the horizon is highest, Then came he near and nearer, A matter of two bowshots or closer, And he revealed to his servant a revelation; He has falsified not what he saw."[147-1]

With not dissimilar preparation did George Fox seek the "openings" which revealed to him the hollowness of the Christianity of his day, in contrast to the truth he found. In his _Journal_ he records that for months he "fasted much, walked around in solitary places, and sate in hollow trees and lonesome places, and frequently in the night walked mournfully about." When the word of truth came to him it was of a sudden, "through the immediate opening of the invisible spirit." Then a new life commenced for him: "Now was I come up in Spirit through the flaming sword into the Paradise of G.o.d. All things were new: all the creation gave another smell unto me than before." The healing virtues of all herbs were straightway made known to him, and the needful truths about the kingdom of G.o.d.[147-2]

These are portraitures of the condition of _entheasm_. Its lineaments are the same, find it where we may.

How is this similarity to be explained? Is it that this alleged inspiration is always but the dream of a half-crazed brain? The deep and real truths it has now and then revealed, the n.o.ble results it has occasionally achieved, do not allow this view. A more worthy explanation is at hand.

These preliminaries of inspiration are in fact but a parody, sometimes a caricature, of the most intense intellectual action as shown in the efforts of creative thought. The physiological characteristics of such mental episodes indicate a lowering of the animal life, the respiration is faint and slow, the pulse loses in force and frequency, the nerves of special sense are almost inhibited, the eye is fixed and records no impression, the ear registers no sound, necessary motions are performed unconsciously, the condition approaches that of trance. There is also an alarming similarity at times between the action of genius and of madness, as is well known to alienists.

When the creative thought appears, it does so suddenly; it breaks upon the mind when partly engaged with something else as an instantaneous flash, apparently out of connection with previous efforts. This is the history of all great discoveries, and it has been abundantly ill.u.s.trated from the lives of inventors, artists, poets and mathematicians. The links of such a mental procedure we do not know. "The product of inspiration, genius, is incomprehensible to itself. Its activity proceeds on no beaten track, and we seek in vain to trace its footsteps.

There is no warrant for the value of its efforts. This it can alone secure through voluntary submission to law. All its powers are centred in the energy of production, and none is left for idle watching of the process."[149-1]

The prevalent theory of the day is that this mental action is one essentially hidden from the mind itself. The name "unconscious cerebration" has been proposed for it by Dr. Carpenter, and he has amply and ably ill.u.s.trated its peculiarities. But his theory has encountered just criticism, and I am persuaded does not meet the requirements of the case. Whether at such moments the mind actually receives some impulse from without, as is the religious theory, or, as science more willingly teaches, certain a.s.sociations are more easily achieved when the mind is partially engaged with other trains of ideas, we cannot be sure. We can only say of it, in the words of Dr. Henry Maudsley, the result "is truly an inspiration, coming we know not whence." Whatever it is, we recognize in it the original of that of which religious hallucination is the counterfeit presentment. So similar are the processes that their liability to be confounded has been expressly guarded against.[150-1]

The prevalence of such caricatures does not prove the absence of the sterling article. They rather show that the mind is conscious of the possibility of reaching a frame or mood in which it perceives what it seeks, immediately and correctly. Buddhism distinctly a.s.serts this to be the condition of "the stage of intuitive insight;" and Protestant Christianity commenced with the same opinion. Every prayer for guidance in the path of duty a.s.sumes it. The error is in applying such a method where it is incompatible, to facts of history and the phenomena of physical force. Confined to the realm of ideas, to which alone the norm of the true and untrue is applicable, there is no valid evidence against, and many theoretical reasons for, respecting prayer as a fit psychological preparation for those obscure and unconscious processes, through which the mind accomplishes its best work.

The intellect, exalted by dwelling upon the sublimest subjects of thought, warmed into highest activity by the flames of devotion, spurning as sterile and vain the offers of time and the enticements of sense, may certainly be then in the mood fittest to achieve its greatest victories. But no narrowed heaven must cloud it, no man-made G.o.d obstruct its gaze. Free from superst.i.tion and prejudice, it must be ready to follow wherever the voice of reason shall lead it. All inspired men have commenced by freeing themselves from inherited forms of Belief in order that with undiverted attention they might listen to the promptings of the divinity within their souls. One of the greatest of them and one the most free from the charge of prejudice, has said that to this end prayer is the means.[151-1]

He who believes that the ultimate truth is commensurate with reason, finds no stumbling-block in the doctrine that there may be laws through whose action inspiration is the enlightenment of mind as it exists in man, by mind as it underlies the motions which make up matter. The truth thus reached is not the formulae of the Calculus, nor the verbiage of the Dialectic, still less the events of history, but that which gives what validity they have to all of these, and moreover imparts to the will and the conscience their power to govern conduct.

FOOTNOTES:

[119-1] The "silent worship" of the Quakers is defended by the writers of that sect, on the ground that prayer is "often very imperfectly performed and sometimes materially interrupted by the use of words."

Joseph John Gurney, _The Distinguishing Views and Practice of the Society of Friends_, p. 300. (London, 1834.)

[119-2] Creuzer, _Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Volker_, Bd. I., s.

162.

[119-3] The learned Bishop Butler, author of the _a.n.a.logy of Religion_, justly gives prominence to "our expectation of future benefits," as a reason for grat.i.tude to G.o.d. _Sermons_, p. 155. (London, 1841.)

[122-1] The expressions of Confucius' religious views may be found in _The Doctrine of the Mean_, chaps. xiii., xvi., the _a.n.a.lects_, i., 99, 100, vii., and in a few other pa.s.sages of the canonical books.

[126-1] _An Inquiry into the Theory of Practice_, p. 330.

[127-1] _Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Volker._ Bd. I., ss. 165, sqq. One of the most favorable examples (not mentioned by Creuzer) is the formula with which Apollonius of Tyana closed every prayer and gave as the summary of all: "Give me, ye G.o.ds, what I deserve"--????te ?? ta ?fe???e?a. The Christian's comment on this would be in the words of Hamlet's reply to Polonius: "G.o.d's bodkin, man! use every man after his desert and who should 'scape whipping?"

[128-1] Aurelii Augustini, _De Dono Perseverantiae_, cap. xx. Comte remarks "Depuis St. Augustin toutes les ames pures ont de plus en plus senti, a travers l'egoisme Chretien, que prier peut n'etre pas demander." _Systeme de Politique Positive_, I., p. 260. Popular Protestantism has retrograded in this respect.

[129-1] Plath, _Die Religion und Cultus der alten Chineser_, s. 836.

This author observes that the Chinese prayers are confined to temporal benefits only, and are all either prayers of pet.i.tion or grat.i.tude.

Prayers of contrition are unknown.

[130-1] Numerous examples can be found in medical text books, for instance in Dr. Tuke's, _The Influence of the Mind on the Body_. London, 1873.

[131-1] The commission appointed by the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium on Louise Lateau reported in March, 1875, and most of the medical periodicals of that year contain abstracts of its paper.

[131-2] They may be found in the life of Pascal, written by his sister, and in many other works of the time.

[131-3] It is worthy of note, as an exponent of the condition of religious thought in 1875, that in May of that year the Governor of the State of Missouri appointed by official proclamation a day of prayer to check the advance of the gra.s.shoppers. He should also have requested the clergy to p.r.o.nounce the ban of the Church against them, as the Bishop of Rheims did in the ninth century.

[132-1] Tyndall, _On Prayer and Natural Law_, 1872.

[134-1] S. M. Hodgson, _An Inquiry into the Theory of Practice_, pp.

329, 330.

[135-1] The Rev. Dr. Thomas K. Conrad, _Thoughts on Prayer_, p. 54: New York, 1875.

[135-2] I. John, v. 15. "There are millions of prayers," says Richard Baxter, "that will all be found answered at death and judgment, which we know not to be answered any way but by believing it." _A Christian Directory_, Part II. chap. xxiii.

[137-1] "So wie das Gebet ein Hauptwurzel alter Lehre war, so war das Deuten und Offenbaren ihre ursprungliche Form." Creuzer, _Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Volker_, Bd. I., s. 10. It were more accurate to say that divination is the answer to, rather than a form of prayer.

[138-1] Joseph John Gurney, _The Distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends_, pp. 58, 59, 76, 78. An easy consequence of this view was to place the decrees of the internal monitor above the written word. This was advocated mainly by Elias Hicks, who expressed his doctrine in the words: "As no spring can rise higher than its fountain, so likewise the Scriptures can only direct to the fountain whence they originated--the Spirit of Truth." _Letters of Elias Hicks_, p. 228 (Phila., 1861).

[139-1] _Address to the Clergy_, p. 67.

[140-1] See an intelligent note on this subject in the Rev. Wm. Lee's work, ent.i.tled _The Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures_, pp. 44, 47 (London and New York, 1857).

[140-2] Rev. William Lee, _u. s._, p. 243.

[141-1] Blunt, _Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology_, s. v.

[141-2] There is a carefully written essay on the views of the Romish Church on this subject, preceding _The Revelations of Saint Brigida_ (N.

Y. 1875).

[146-1] Chusco or Catherine Wabose, "the prophetess of Chegoimegon," has left a full and psychologically most valuable account of her inspiration. It is published in Schoolcraft's _History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes_, Vol. I., p. 390, sqq.

[147-1] _The Koran_, Sura liii. This is in date one of the earliest suras.

[147-2] _The Journal of George Fox_, pp. 59, 67, 69.

[149-1] Wilhelm von Humboldt, _Gesammelte Werke_, Bd. iv., s. 278.