Oh, Thou who man from basest clay didst make,
And e’en for Paradise devised the snake,
For all the sin wherewith the face of man
Is blackened, man’s forgiveness give—and take!
Some of Nature’s plans would appear to be specially designed to bring out the worst side of the diverse nature implanted in man. The plan of the struggle for existence is a palpable instance. Take another—take the plan for the reproduction of life. Could any Omnipotent Being be proud of it? Let alone the unfair division of pain, which the discredited Eden story can now no longer account for, is it helpful to man in his struggle to improve his nature? The plan being God’s plan, it is enjoined upon us that the procreation of children is a sacred duty; but it is also plainly intimated that to abstain from marriage altogether is yet more meritorious. Similarly in Mithraism, Buddhism, the religions of ancient America and other pre-Christian cults, the sanctity of the celibate life is upheld. If man is not doing his best in obeying the behests of his Maker, how can he do right? Has he been given a fair chance when an instinct so hurtful is implanted in him that even its natural gratification in the divinely appointed manner is likely to hinder him in the cultivation of his spiritual nature; this although matrimony was ordained—so our prayer-book tells us—for a remedy against sin? The truth is that this necessary instinct, quite apart from its responsibility for much sorrow and strife and quite apart from its terrible tendency to perversion, is innately prejudicial to our moral elevation, and, in order to preserve a healthy, happy mind, the less we allow our thoughts to dwell upon its fulfilment the better.
Again, “a very little disorder in the organisation of the brain suffices to cause hallucinations of the senses, to shake the intellect from its throne, to paralyse the will, and to corrupt the sentiments and affections.”224 “How precise and skilful,” remarks Dr. Flint, lost in admiration of the Designer, “must be the adjustment between the sound brain and the sane mind!” “How fiend-like,” says the horrified Rationalist, “would be the Intellect which could have exercised its ingenuity to devise a mechanism inherently liable to get out of order, and thereby to transform its unhappy possessor into a fool or villain.” In the event of the latter result, moreover, man, according to Christ’s teaching (if honestly interpreted), is to suffer eternal torment!
CONSCIENCE
Regarding theories of the origin of conscience such as those of J. S. Mill, Bain, Darwin, and Spencer, Dr. Flint remarks: “It does not matter whether conscience be primary or derivative; it exists.”225 That it does matter is shown by the fact that the bulk of the apologists still stoutly maintain that conscience is a special attribute of man—a divine instinct—and is not derived from the lower animals. We have, I think, gone into this sufficiently in the previous chapter, and I shall confine my remarks to another aspect of the question—the fallibility of the moral consciousness.
“The existence,” it is urged, “of a moral principle within us, of a conscience which witnesses against sin and on behalf of holiness, is of itself evidence that God must be a moral being, one who hates sin and loves holiness.”226 Given the existence of a personal God, this argument is plausible enough till we examine it more closely. The liability of conscience to err is, or should be, a platitude. Its two components—the reason and the emotions—both being fallible, it necessarily follows that conscience must have the same quality. We have only to think for a moment to discover innumerable examples in proof of this. An illustration which occurs to me, and which will hurt no one’s susceptibilities, is that of the Wa Daruma. This is an East African tribe practising a strict morality which is all the more remarkable on account of the gross immorality of the neighbouring tribes. Nevertheless, the conscience of the Wa Daruma bids them kill their twin offspring. If conscience, then, be fallible, how is it a Theistic proof? Because, though it may make a mistake through an untutored reason, or through a reason clouded by deceptive emotions, the consciousness that there is a right or wrong at all is sufficient proof of a moral intelligence? So be it; but it is passing strange that God should allow conscience to deceive us. John Locke well said, many years ago: “Children are travellers newly arrived in a strange country: we should therefore make conscience not to deceive them.” Are we not children of God in a strange country? We would not deceive our children. The acquittal of conscience gives pleasure, as the condemnation gives pain—remorse—and every man must obey his conscience if he would be happy. What a thousand pities it seems that it should ever lead him into error! Should it not be a divine intuition of the right both in our religious beliefs and in our conduct?
It is an intuition of the right, the believer will say, when it tells you to believe in Christ and God. I would gladly think so; but every believer of every creed on the face of the earth says the same about his belief, and hence the amazing persistence of erroneous beliefs. When the voice of conscience is composed of a blind reliance on intuition (i.e., on the emotions) and a distrust of reason, how can the result be otherwise? The whole question of the truth of beliefs hinges upon whether intuition can or cannot be relied upon. We know that mistakes do occur through trusting to intuition, especially in the matter of beliefs; how, then, can we assume that it is infallible? Strange as the freaks of faith among cultured persons may appear, they are perfectly intelligible. They are the result of reliance on intuition rather than on reason. I will give an example. Who more logical, apparently, than John Henry Newman, the coadjutor of Whately in his popular work on logic? His illogical conduct is, therefore, particularly instructive. In 1832, after a visit to Rome, he wrote describing the Roman Catholic religion as polytheistic, degrading, and idolatrous,227 and then, after all, entered the Roman Catholic Church in 1845. He did so because he found that the difficulties of the creed and of the canon of Scripture were insurmountable unless over-ridden by the authority of the Church. To escape becoming an agnostic he elected to join a Church calling herself infallible. He was able to come to this decision although, to his own knowledge, her infallibility was belied by her conduct! Further, so eloquent was his reasoning on the subject, so apparently logical, that some hundreds of clergymen joined him in making their submission to the Church of Rome. Underlying all this apparent inconsistency is the assertion, so eloquently pleaded by Cardinal Newman, of the supremacy of conscience and the correctness of intuition. So also have asserted the followers of every religion from all time, and to what have their consciences and intuitions led them—to truth, or to a pot-pourri of absurd and conflicting beliefs? We have the testimony of all history to prove the extreme fallibility of conscience. Conscience possesses no divine spark to keep a man from acting wrongly through ignorance. Even when knowledge is present we see, as in Cardinal Newman’s case, that the voice of conscience may still speak incorrectly; for reason is swamped when emotion’s flood-gate is left ajar.
Cardinal Newman’s opinions have a special interest for us at the present time. He held that, “apart from an interior and unreasoned conviction, there is no cogent proof of the existence of God”; that “the man who has not this interior conviction has no choice but to remain an agnostic, while the man who has it is bound sooner or later to become a Roman Catholic.”228
So inexplicable did his motives appear that Charles Kingsley accused him of saying that “truth for its own sake need not be, and, on the whole, ought not to be, a virtue of the Roman clergy.” Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua, however, leaves no doubt of the author’s own personal rectitude. His premises—the infallibility of conscience and intuition—were false. But that is not an unusual feature of Christian apologetics. The keen intellects of the two pious brothers, John Henry and Francis William, were really buried beneath a mass of preconceptions. That of the latter, however, being less submissive, proceeded to a slow and sure upheaval, and finally Francis Newman rejected Christianity altogether.229 In the Apologia pro Vita Sua we find, I think, the key to Cardinal Newman’s convictions. He was intensely superstitious, and inclined also to be timid. On the opening page, where he gives the recollections of his boyhood, we read: “I used to wish the Arabian tales were true.” And again: “I was very superstitious, and for some time previous to my conversion (when I was fifteen) used constantly to cross myself on going into the dark.”
FREEWILL
In my remarks on the “evil for which man is held responsible,” I have alluded to the Rationalist’s contention that man cannot be justly blamed for his actions, and that, if there be a God, He alone is to blame. This opens up the question of Freewill v. Determinism—a thorny question, which I should prefer, if only for considerations of space and my readers’ patience, to leave severely alone. A whole volume would be necessary to present the case for Determinism adequately, and I am fully aware that a few brief words will fail to convince; but, if I can remove a single iota of the misconceptions on this subject, I shall feel rewarded.
Kant defines an act of volition as an act which is determined by the anticipatory idea of the result of the act. Although he maintains that there must be a moral God, he fully admits that the forecast or anticipatory idea is the inevitable effect of precedent conditions, such as temperament (heredity), education (environment), and the like; and in a well-known passage he says that, if the whole history of the subject could be known, the voluntary acts of a man might be predicted with the same certainty as an eclipse. The tendency of modern psychology is in the same direction. All voluntary acts, we are told, depend on the memory of involuntary acts of the same sort previously performed. It is true that a few Christian psychologists leave room for a “sheer heave” of the will by means of which an idea naturally feeble is fortified and held in place; but when they speak in this wise they speak as metaphysicians. No metaphysical argument, it seems to me, can reconcile this inflexible causality with true freedom of will. How can the will be at one and the same time fettered and free? There is, I grant, every appearance of freewill; but it belongs to the category of appearances which deceive.
If we accept the Christian contention, we have to believe that a benevolent God gives us a free will, the power to choose between Him and the Devil, knowing, as in His omniscience He must, that the vast majority will make a sad use of their gift! The modern Christian admits that heredity and environment have their say also. Thus there are, in all, four forces struggling for the mastery—God, the Devil, heredity and environment; and it is the duty of the divinely-implanted free will to choose between them. Rather, is it not that there are two forces, and two forces only—heredity and environment—acting upon our brain, and our choice is the resultant of them? Undoubtedly man, as a self-conscious and reflecting animal, has what may be called the power of choice; but the way this power will be used would be a foregone conclusion did we know the sum-total of the effect of heredity and environment up to the moment of its use. “But,” it may be objected, “surely there is such a thing as will-power. We can overcome our heredity and environment by the exercise of our will. Temptations to which the weak-willed succumb do not affect the strong-willed. Here, at least, we have a distinct instance in which heredity and environment are overcome.” Yes, it is true, of course, that heredity and environment are continually being overcome by the happy possessor of sufficient will-power; but what we have to bear in mind is that it is not a portion, but the whole, of a man’s heredity and environment which must be taken into consideration. In the case of the man with the strong will, it is still his heredity and environment which have in the first instance settled the line of conduct to which, once resolved upon, he adheres so tenaciously. And, again, this particular quality of the mind which enables him to keep to his resolution is, like all other qualities of the mind, itself the product of heredity and environment.
The Determinism of science and the Freewill of metaphysics are essentially antagonistic. Determinism is completely subversive of Christian teaching. It is directly opposed to the Thirty-nine Articles of religion. Not only does it imply that man is not to blame for his actions, but that, if there be a God, He, and He alone, is to blame. Christian theologists are therefore its strenuous opponents. In their apologetic efforts one finds the strangest misconceptions of what is meant in a broad sense by heredity and environment. The best apology I have seen so far is by the Rev. P. N. Waggett, in a tractate called Science and Conduct.230 Father Waggett seems to realise better than most of his fellow-clerics the enormous influence of heredity and environment. Still he comes to the conclusion that “when, under given circumstances,” a man “does what, under those circumstances, and with his given constitution, he usually does not do,” he is exercising “some inward spring.” The fallacy in this argument is the common one. The effect of environment up to the moment of action has not been considered. The obscurity of the expression “given constitution” is doubtless unintentional, but it is none the less misleading. Father Waggett would be the first to admit that something must have occurred meanwhile to account for the new frame of mind. It is for him to show that an alteration in environment is not all that has occurred, and that there is room for this “inward spring.”
Will not the acceptance of this doctrine have a paralysing effect upon us? On the contrary. We shall be better able to discern where our salvation lies. We shall pay far more attention to the real forces which determine conduct. We shall devote our energies to combating bad heredity with good environment; and we shall do this with the knowledge that not only ourselves and our associates, but our descendants also, will reap the benefit. We shall fly from unhealthy thoughts, and avoid the surroundings likely to give rise to them. We shall welcome healthy thoughts and seek helpful surroundings.
The doctrine of determinism is thought likely to corrupt our moral character, but, in reality, it compares favourably with religious doctrines. The belief in God’s omniscience leads the Mohammedan to fatalism, and the Christian to the doctrine of predestination. If a Christian really believed as he professes, if he could honestly subscribe to the seventeenth article of his Creed—in which it is stated that “before the foundations of the world were laid God hath constantly decreed by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen [the italics are mine, of course] in Christ out of mankind”—God’s Predestination would indeed be “a dangerous downfall,” “thrusting men into desperation.” The doctrine of predestination, therefore, appears, without doubt, to be ethically mischievous. The doctrine of Determinism, on the other hand, teaches a man to fight pernicious hereditary instincts with the weapon of environment, and to keep a tender place in his heart for unfortunates who succumb.231 Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.
§ 5. Religious Experience
MYSTICISM AND CONVERSION
Of late, the argument from “Religious Experience” has been much to the front, and nothing written on the subject has created a deeper impression, or been more cordially welcomed by the supernaturalist, than Professor W. James’s book, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Professor James is a prominent member of the Society for Psychical Research, and no one is better able than he to give descriptions of psychic phenomena; but the conclusions he comes to as to the spiritual signification of some of them will strike the normal man as too absurd to be taken seriously. More than this. Indirectly he furnishes one of the very best weapons for attacking supernaturalism that has ever yet been put in the hands of the naturalist. I have already given some examples of so-called religious experiences (in Chap. II., pp. 59–61). These are still regarded by the superstitious as spiritual manifestations; but Professor James discovers a spiritual interpretation in still more palpable hallucinations. Unwittingly he spoils the case for religious experience by trying to prove too much. I will give an instance. He describes how an intimate friend of his kept experiencing a “horrible sensation” of the presence of something, which he “did not recognise as any individual being or person.” Professor James admits that “such an experience as this does not connect itself with the religious sphere.” [Why not? It might have been the Devil that time.] Later on his friend had a pleasanter experience. “There was not a mere consciousness of something there, but, fused in the central happiness of it, a startling awareness of some ineffable good. Not vague either—not like the emotional effect of some poem or scent or blossom or music, but the sure knowledge of the close presence of a sort of mighty person; and, after it went, the memory persisted as the one perception of reality. Everything else might be a dream, but not that.” Professor James then remarks: “My friend, as it oddly happens, does not interpret these later experiences theistically, as signifying the presence of God.” Why oddly? The explanation seems simple enough. It was just because his friend was not odd, but a normal individual of modern times. Perhaps, after all, the secret lay in the well-known reply to the question, “Is life worth living?”—It all depends on the liver. One may also recall the words of the celebrated clerical wit who said: “They think they are pious when they are only bilious.”
Professor James then relates various experiences of other persons who, unlike his friend, were positive they had felt “the presence of God.” And he tells us: “Nothing is more common in the pages of religious biography than the way in which seasons of lively and of difficult faith are described as alternating. Probably every religious person has the recollection of particular crises in which a direct vision of the truth, a direct perception, perhaps, of a living God’s existence, swept in and overwhelmed the languor of the more ordinary belief.” If this sort of thing accounts for the faith of every religious person, the mystery (in these days) of the great faith of the few and the little faith of the many is completely solved. So few, relatively speaking, have this experience; so few are by nature mystics. Also it helps to explain the prevalence of supernatural belief in bygone ages. Thoughtful unbelievers have long ago come to the conclusion that some such psychical experiences largely account for religious superstitions, and now an eminent psychologist and religious apologist confirms their theories.
Professor James argues that “the neurotic temperament naturally introduces one to regions of religious truth which are hidden from the robust Philistine type of nervous system, that thanks heaven it hasn’t a single morbid fibre in its composition.” This kind of “robust Philistine” is, one is glad to think, a very common type. I hope I am a fairly robust Philistine myself. The Rationalist may, or may not, be emotional, but he certainly prefers to be without morbid fibres. Why, of all the most undesirable states of mind, should morbidity assist the human being to have faith in God? Why should spirituality and strong faith be possible only for a person of nervous instability whose intellectual canon (unacknowledged no doubt) is “Credo quia impossibile”? Why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should spiritual experiences be the prerogative of exceptional temperaments only? Why, in all fairness, if there be any spiritual meaning in hallucinations, should not the Agnostic be at least vouchsafed the consciousness of the Devil’s presence to cure him of his unbelief?
Professor James thinks “there can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric.” He refers to “geniuses in the religious line,” who, “like many other geniuses … have often shown symptoms of nervous instability.” “Even more perhaps,” he says, “than other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations … often, moreover, these pathological features in their career have helped to give them their religious authority and influence.” All this is exceedingly instructive, coming as it does from the mouth of an earnest champion of religion232 specially suited, by his researches in psychical phenomena, to speak with authority on the psychology of religion. His belief in the interference in human life of spiritual agencies, and the whole tenour of his book, render it certain that he is not consciously bringing any arguments to bear against supernaturalism, but, on the contrary, intends to adduce new arguments in its favour.
Have we not here a satisfactory and perfectly natural explanation of the phenomena of conversion? The religionist is apt, I think, to lose sight of the fact that conversion is not confined to any one particular creed; that it cannot witness to the truth of the one and not of the other. “The mystical feeling,” remarks Professor James (pp. 425–6), “of enlargement, union, and emancipation … is capable of forming matrimonial alliances with material furnished by the most diverse philosophies and theologies, provided only they can find a place in their framework for its peculiar emotional mood.” The most striking examples of conversion are those of the instantaneous kind, of which St. Paul’s is held out to us as the most eminent. I have already outlined the probable explanation in St. Paul’s case, and other cases may be similarly explained. The supernaturalist’s interpretation of conversion cannot be considered seriously until proofs are forthcoming of an instance in which nothing was known previously of the truth alleged to have been revealed. Like Mr. Lowes Dickinson, I have never, for example, discovered a case in which a Mohammedan or a Hindoo, without having heard of Christianity, has had a revelation of Christian “truth.”
Of all visions, those of the death-bed especially invite our attention, for they are looked upon by many pious persons as sure evidence in favour of the truth of their Faith. Will this argument bear analysis? We know that good men and women have had heavenly visions during their last moments. We know also that others of equally blameless lives have been terrified at the last by the sight of some supreme horror. How can any argument be based upon the phantasms of a disordered brain? Do not these visions, too, usually take their form from the teaching with which the mind has been imbued? The Mohammedan sees a heaven peopled with houris; do we on that account accept the Koran as our guide? A dying Hindoo may have a vision of a heathen deity of questionable character, and derive comfort from it. I have myself stood by the bedside of a dying Mahratta whose ravings during the delirium of fever indicated such a vision. There are, it is true, cases where the visions of the dying may seem utterly unlike those we should expect. But the brain retains impressions of things of which the conscious memory has long ago passed away, and, if the early history of the ecstatic could be fully known, we should, as Proctor points out,233 find nearly every circumstance of his vision explained, or at least an explanation suggested. It may be said again of death-bed visions, as of visions generally, that there has never yet been a case of a Mohammedan or a Hindoo or any other non-Christian who has had a revelation of Christian “truth.”
Professor James is not the only person having the curious notion that an abnormal state of mind admits the nearer presence of God. To take a people possessing a marvellous self-control over their emotions, and, therefore, the last among whom you would expect to find such ideas, I may mention that the more ignorant and superstitious among the Japanese throw themselves into hypnotic trances, and then fondly imagine that a god is present in their body, and is making use of them as a mouthpiece.234 Again, no superstition is commoner among the ignorant natives of India, Mohammedan and Hindoo alike, than that people of unsound mind have some sort of special means of communication with God; but that educated persons, having fairly normal minds themselves, should hold such an opinion is yet another example of the hallucinations to which religious enthusiasts are liable.
The folly of attributing any spiritual significance to these experiences will be better understood if we compare them with cases where there is no religious element whatsoever. A lady, a friend of mine, is continually subject to a curious experience, which may serve to illustrate this point. I give the account of it in her own words:—
As a child I was always a bad sleeper, and got into the habit of making up stories to amuse myself when lying awake in bed. This habit continued as I grew older; but, after a time, the stories ceased to be connected in any way with myself. Years ago I began a story which has grown gradually through three generations, and there are signs of the coming of a fourth. The old house has remained as the centre of the story for years; most of the characters are men, and no one of either sex bears any possible relationship to me. They have all become far more real to me than my own relations; at bed-time, on long railway journeys (sometimes), or when I am walking or doing needlework, they are there. If I get to the house at bed-time, I sleep well. If I am there when travelling, I don’t get tired, and the characters grow and develop quite naturally. It is my inner life, and, if I were given that way, it might become a series of visions. I can quite understand men having ecstasies in which the ideals they have always before them become apparently materialised.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER
I cannot too strongly insist that all this is extremely instructive. It explains so many things that still have to be explained, if religion be untrue. The new science of psychology has already accounted for many abnormal phenomena that were formerly considered miraculous—“faith cures,”235 for instance. Does it not account for the effects of prayer? We know nothing of the efficacy of prayer in securing material benefits—there is no proof either way; but we do know that it has often an ethical value, and is also a means of strengthening faith. Does it necessarily follow that a Supernatural Being hears and answers the suppliant’s prayers? I think not. Suggestion, it is now known, exercises an extraordinary influence over the subjective mind. In prayer auto-suggestion undoubtedly plays its subtle rôle.
Let me give an example of the benign results that may be effected by suggestion without any appeal to the supernatural. Often a moral change for the worse in a most estimable person is distinctly traceable to causes over which he or she had no control, and the physician or surgeon, having diagnosed the case, proceeds to do his best to bring about a cure. Where it is some nervous malady, mental therapeutics or psychic healing is sometimes extremely efficacious.236 Vices and weaknesses are now looked upon by many in the light of diseases and ailments—curable, ameliorable, or incurable, as the case may be. Disease or Devil, the fact remains that medical treatment may effect a cure even where the patient’s disorder has been brought on by, as we say, his own fault. Dipsomania, morphinomania, kleptomania, nymphomania, satyriasis, and various moral perversions may yield to a purely natural treatment, whether it be the method of a Milne Bramwell (by suggestion) or of Keeley.
When denouncing Mariolatry (in his sermon at the opening of the Church Congress, October, 1905), the Bishop of London said: “It is not revealed that the cry to any saint or to the Virgin Mary ever reaches them at all.” Apparently, therefore, the Bishop admits that appeals to the supernatural may be wasted, and this in spite of the suppliant being very much in earnest. Yet who would be prepared to say that the Roman Catholic who prays to the Virgin Mary and to innumerable saints does not derive quite as much benefit from the process as the Protestant who directs his worship solely to the Holy Trinity, or the Shintoist who invokes the benign spirits of his ancestors?237 The effect of the suggestion is the same in each case, and has all the appearance of an answer to prayer.
Again, putting aside abnormal phases of the mind, is it not, as Ralph Waldo Trine puts it (in his little book, Character Building: Thought Power), a simple psychological law that any type of thought, if entertained for a sufficient length of time, will, by and by, reach the motor tracts of the brain, and finally burst forth into action? There seems no need for the introduction of a supernatural hypothesis to explain the moral effect of prayer. So, also, with regard to faith, it is only natural that the believer, racked with doubt, should find reassurance in prayer.
The Theist who lays store by the evidence from “religious experience” will do well to ponder over the following words of one of Professor James’s critics: “Instead of producing anything that would strengthen the belief in extra-human spirit agents influencing human destinies, psychology has made intelligible, conformably to the rest of our organised knowledge, most, if not all, of the striking phenomena which have been the empirical props of the popular faith in spiritism, whether Christian or not. We refer to anæsthesias, analgesias, hallucinations, monitions, trances, the sense of illumination in ecstasy, etc., including the facts considered in Professor James’ lectures. In making this statement, I do not forget the work of the Society for Psychical Research. Its achievements may be declared to have been so far, and without prejudice of the future, absolutely inconclusive with regard to spiritism.”238 In other words, psychical research, if conducted by the experimental method and without bias, may be pregnant with consequences hardly in accord with the hopes of either the spiritist or spiritualist (in its religious sense). For, should abnormal phenomena of all kinds admit of a natural explanation, their present obscurity will no longer furnish grounds for supernatural speculation.