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MORALITY
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GOD
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��Pamphlets
for the People
No. 2
MORALITY
WITHOUT
GOD
CHAPMAN COHEN
THE PIONEER PRESS
��Morality Without God
i.
Christianity is what is called a “revealed” religion. That
is, God himself revealed that religion to man. In other
religions man sought God—some god—and eventually
found him, or thought he did. In the case of Christianity
God sought man and revealed himself to him. The revela
tion, judging by after events, was not very well done, for
although a book made its appearance that was said to
have been dictated or inspired by God so that man might
know his will, yet ever since mankind has been in some
doubt as to what God meant when he said it. Evidently
God’s way of making himself known by a revelation is
not above criticism. There seems a want of sense in giving
man a revelation he could not understand. It is like
lecturing in Greek to an audience that understands nothing
but Dutch.
What was it God revealed to man? He did not reveal
science. The whole structure of physical science was built
up very gradually and tentatively by man. He did not
teach man geology, or astronomy, or chemistry, or biology.
He did not teach him how to overcome disease, or its
nature and cure. He did not teach him agriculture, or
how to develop a wild grass into the life nourishing wheat.
He did not teach man how to drain a marsh or how to dig
a canal so that he might carry water where it was needed.
He did not teach him arithmetic or mathematics. He
taught him none of the arts and sciences. Man had no
revelation that taught him how to build the steam engine,
or the aeroplane, or the submarine, the telegraph or the
wireless. All these and a thousand other things which we
regard as indispensable, and without which civilization
would be impossible, man had to discover for himself.
There is not a Christian parson who would to-day say that
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
God gave these things to man. That, perhaps, is not quite
true. Some of the clergy will say that God gave every
thing to man, inasmuch as he let him find them out. But
at any rate none of the things I have named is said to
have been revealed to man. He had to discover or invent
the lot. And in inventing them or discovering them he
behaved just as he might have behaved had he never heard
of God at all.
What was there left for God to give man? Well, it is
said, he gave man morality. He gave man the ten com
mandments. He told him he must not steal, he must not
commit murder, he must not bear false witness; he told
children they must honour their fathers and their mothers,
but somehow he forgot the very necessary lesson that
parents ought also to honour their children. He mixed up
with these things the command that people should honour
him, and he was more insistent upon that than upon any
thing else. Not to honour him was the one unforgivable
crime. But, and this is the important thing, while there
is no need for an inspired arithmetic or an inspired geo
metry, while there was no inspired chemistry or geology,
there had to be, apparently, an inspired morality, because
without God moral laws would be without authority, and
decency would disappear from human society.
Now that, put bluntly, lies behind the common state
ment that morality depends upon religious belief. It is
not always put quite so plainly as I have put it—very
absurd things are seldom put plainly—but it is put very
plainly by the man in the street and by the professional
evangelist. It is also put in another way by those people
who delight in telling us what blackguards they were till
Christ got hold of them, and it is put in expensive volumes
in which Christian writers and preachers wrap up the
statement in such a way that to the unwary it looks as
though there must be something in it, and at least it is
sufficiently unintelligible to look as though it were good
sound theological philosophy.
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
Is the theory inherently credible? Consider what it
means. Are we to believe that if we had never received
a revelation from God, or even if there were no belief
in God, a mother would never have learned to love her
child, men and women would never have loved each other,
men would never have placed any value upon honesty or
truthfulness, or loyalty? After all we have seen an animal
mother caring for its young, even to the extent of risking
its life for it. We have seen animals defend each other
from a common enemy, and join together in running down
prey for a common meal. There is a courting time for
animals, there is a mating time, and there is a time how
ever brief when the animal family of male, female and
young exist. All this happened to the animals without
God. Why should man have to receive a revelation before
he could reach the moral stage of the higher animal life?
Broadly, then, the assertion that morality would never
have existed for human beings without belief in a God
or without a revelation from God is equal to saying that
man alone would never have discovered the value of being
honest and truthful or loyal. He would not even have
had such terms as good and bad in his vocabulary, for
the use of those words implies a moral judgment, and
there would have been no such thing—at least, so we are
told.
I am putting the issue very plainly, because it is only
by avoiding plain speech that the Christian can “get away”
with his monstrous and foolish propositions. I am saying
in plain words what has been said by thousands upon
thousands of preachers since Paul laid down the principle
that if there was no resurrection from the dead, “let us eat
and drink for to-morrow we die”.
Sometimes the theory I have been stating is put in a
way that throws a flood of light on the orthodox conception
of morality. It is so glaringly absurd to say that without
religion man would not know right from wrong, that it
is given a very slight covering in the expression, “destroy
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
religion and you remove all moral restraints”. Restraints!
That expression is indeed a revelation. To the orthodox
Christian morality stands for no more than a series of
restraints, and restraints are unpleasant things, because they
prevent a man doing what he would like to do. It is acting
in defiance of one’s impulses that makes one conscious
of “restraints”. A pickpocket in a crowd is restrained by
the knowledge that there is a policeman at his elbow7. A
burglar is restrained from breaking into a house by hearing
the footsteps of a policeman. Each refrains from doing as
he would like to do because he is conscious of restraints.
It may be God; it may be a policeman. God is an un
sleeping policeman—I do not say an unbribable one,
because the amount of money given to his representatives
every year, the Churches that are built or endowed in the
hopes of “getting right with God”, totals a very con
siderable sum.
From this point of view, what are called moral rules
are treated much as one may treat the regulation that one
must not buy chocolates after a certain hour in the evening.
The order is submitted to because of the “sanctions” that
may be applied if we do not. So to the type of Christian
with whom we are dealing the question of right or wrong
is entirely one of coercion from without. If he disobeys
he may be punished, if not here, then hereafter. He asks,
“Why should a man impose restraints on himself if there
is no future life in which he is to be rewarded or punished?
Why not enjoy oneself and be done with it?” On this
view a drunkard may keep sober from Monday morning
till Friday night on the promise of a good “drunk” on
Saturday. But in the absence of this prospect he may say,
paraphrasing St. Paul, “If there be no getting drunk on
Saturday, why should we keep sober from Monday to
Friday? If there is to be no drunkenness on Saturday,
then let us get drunk while we may, for the day cometh
when there will be no getting drunk at all”.
But all this is quite wrong. The ordinary man is not
conscious of restraint when he behaves himself in a decent
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
manner. A mother is not conscious of restraint when she
devotes herself to nursing her sick child, or goes out to work
to supply it with food. A man who is left in the house of
a friend is not conscious of restraint when he refrains from
pocketing the silver, or when he does not steal a purse that
has been left on the mantelpiece. A person sent to the
bank to cash a cheque does not feel any restraint because
he returns with the money. The man who is conscious
of a restraint when he does a decent action is not a “good”
man at all. He is a potential criminal who does not com
mit a crime only because he is afraid of being caught. And
when he is caught the similarity of the Christian frightened
into an outward decency and the detected pickpocket with
the policeman’s hand on his shoulder is made the more
exact by the cry of, “O Lord be merciful to me a miserable
sinner”, in the one case, and “It’s a fair cop” in the
other.
The religious theory of mortality simply will not do. It
turns what is fundamentally simple into a “mystery”, and
then elevates the mystery into a foolish dogma. It talks at
large of the problem of evil, when outside theology no
such problem exists. The problem of evil is that of re
conciling the existence of wrong with that of an all-wise
and all-good God. It is the idea of God that introduces
the conundrum. The moral problem is not how does
man manage to do wrong, but how does he find out what
is right? When a boy is learning to ride a bicycle the
problem is not how to fall off, but how to keep on. We
can fall off without any practice. So with so many oppor
tunities of doing the wrong thing the moral problem is
how did man come to hit on the right one, and to make
the treading of the right road to some extent automatic?
But in the philosophy of orthodox Christianity man is a
potential criminal, kept from actual criminality only from
fear of punishment or the expectation of reward in a future
life. If the Christian teacher of morals does not actually
mean this when he says that without the belief in God no
such thing as “moral values” exists, and that if there is
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
no after-life where rewards and punishments follow, moral
practice would not endure, then he is more than mistaken;
he is a deliberate liar. Fortunately for the world,
Christians, lay and clerical, are better than their creed.
11.
We are back again with the old and simple issue of the
natural versus the supernatural. This is one of the oldest
divisions in human thought, and there is no logical com
promise between them. Morality either has its foundations
in the natural or in the supernatural. In asserting the first
alternative I do not mean to imply that there is a morality
in nature at large. There is not. Nature takes no more
heed of our moral rules and judgments than it does of
our tastes in art or literature. A man is not blessed with
good health because he is an example of a lofty morality,
nor is he burdened with disease because he is a criminal
in thought and act. Nature is neither moral nor immoral.
Such terms are applicable only when there is conscious
action to a given end. Nature is amoral, that is, it is with
out morality. The common saying that nature “punishes”
us or “rewards” us for this or that is merely a picturesque
way of stating certain things; it has no literal relation to
actual fact. In nature there are no rewards or punishments,
there are only actions and consequences. We benefit if we
act in one way; we suffer if we act in another. That is
the natural fact; there is no ethical quality in natural
happenings. Laws of morals are human creations; they
are on all fours with “laws” of science—that is, they are
generalizations from experience.
So morality existed in fact long before it was defined
or described in theory. Man did not first discover the
laws of physiology in order to realize the need for eating
or breathing, to digest food or to inhale oxygen. Nor did
the rules, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, etc.,
first make stealing and killing wrong. A moral law makes
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
explicit in theory what is implicit in fact. The fact creates
the rule; it is not the rule that creates the fact.
Non-recognition of this simple truth is mainly respon
sible for the rubbish that is served up by so many teachers
of ethics, and also for the unintelligent attack on ethics
by those who, because they are, often enough, dissatisfied
with existing standards of moral values, feel justified in
denouncing moral values altogether. As we shall see
later, moral rules stand to human society pretty well as
laws of physiology do to the individual organism. They
constitute the physiology of social life, with the distinction
that whatever rules we have must be modified in form
from time to time to meet changing circumstances.
Let us feel our way gradually, and in as simple a manner
as possible. We begin with the meaning of two words,
“good” and “bad”. What is their significance? There
are many religious writers and many of those who aim
at founding a religion of ethics—as though the association
of religion with moral teaching had not already done
sufficient harm in the world-—who speak of certain actions
as being good in themselves, and who profess a worship
of the “Good” as though it were a substitute for “God”.
There are others who puff themselves out with a particu
larly foolish passage from Tennyson that to follow right
because it’s right “were wisdom in the scorn of conse
quence”, and there is a very misleading sentence cited from
the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, expressing his “awe” at
man’s moral sense. We should always be on our guard
when the sayings of great men become very popular. It
is long odds that they embody something that it not very
wise, or that its wisdom has been lost in the popularization.
It should be very obvious that it is the height of stupidity
to do things in “scorn of consequence”, since it is the
consequences of actions that give them their quality of
goodness or badness. If getting drunk made people happ;er,
better, and wiser, would anyone consider drunkenness a
bad thing? In such circumstances the moral rule would
be “Blessed is he that gets drunk”, and the more drunken
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
he was, the better the man. If we can picture any actions
that are without consequences, they would not come within
the scope of morals at all.
The first point to remember is that there is no such
thing as good in the abstract. A thing is good in relation
to its consequences, or as it realizes the end at which we
are aiming. Tennyson was talking nonsense. These ethical
and religious philosophers who “blather” about the
“reality” of good in itself, are talking nonsense. It is not
possible to do right in scorn of consequences because it
is the consequences that make the action either good or
bad. It may be unpleasant or dangerous to do what is
right, and we admire the one who does right in such cir
cumstances, but this does not affect our standard of value.
It must also be remembered when we are seeking a
natural basis for morals, that—if the teleological language
may be permitted—nature requires but one thing of all
living creatures. This is efficiency. The “moral” quality
of this efficiency does not matter in the least. A Church
without a lightning conductor is at a disadvantage with a
brothel that possesses one. A man who risks his life in a
good cause has, other things equal, no advantage over a
man who risks his life in a bad one. Leave on one side
this matter of efficiency and there is not the slightest
attention paid to anything that we consider morally worthy
in the organism that survives.
Finally, efficiency in the case of living beings is to be
expressed in terms of adaption to environment, a fish to
water, an air-breathing animal to land, a carnivorous
animal to its capacity to stalk its prey, a vegetable feeder
to qualities that enable it to escape the attack of the
carnivora, and so forth. An animal survives as it is able
to adapt itself, or as it becomes adapted to its environment.
It is well to bear in mind this principle of efficiency,
because while what constitutes efficiency varies from time
to time, the fact of its being the main condition determining
survival remains true whether we are dealing with organic
structure or with mental life.
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
Now if we take ethical terminology, it is plain that the
language used implies a relation, and one of a very definite
kind. The part of the environment to which these terms
are related is that of other and like individuals. Kindness,
truthfulness, justice, mercy, honesty, etc., all imply this.
A man by himself—if we can picture such a thing—could
not be kind; there would be no one to whom to be kind.
He could not be truthful; there would be none to whom
he could tell a lie. He could not be honest, or generous,
or loyal; there would be none to whom these qualities
would have any application. Every moral quality implies
the existence of a group of which an individual is a
member. And as the group enlarges so moral qualities
take on a wider application. But this cardinal fact, that
ethical qualities, whether they be good or bad, have no
significance apart from group life, remains constant
throughout.
Now let us revert to man as a theoretically solitary
animal, a condition that has nowhere existed, for the
sociality of man is only a stage in advance of the gre
gariousness of the animal world from which man has
descended. But as an animal he must develop certain
habits and tastes in order to merely exist. Somehow man
must usually avoid doing things that threaten his existence.
Even in matters of food he must develop a taste for things
which preserve life and a distaste for things that destroy it;
and, as a matter of fact, there are a number of capacities
developed in the body that automatically offer protection
in the case of food against things that are too injurious to
life. But it is quite obvious that if a man developed a
taste for prussic acid, such a taste would not become
hereditary.
Human life, in line with animal life in general, has to
develop not merely a dislike for such things as threaten
life, but also a liking for their opposite. The development
of this last capacity means that in the long run the actions
which promote pleasure, and those which preserve life,
roughly coincide. This is the foundation and the evolu
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�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
tionary basis of the theory of Utilitarianism, or one may
say, of Neo-utilitarianism.
But man never does exist as an individual only, one
that is fighting for his own hand, and whose thoughts
and tendencies are consciously or unconsciously concerned
only with his own welfare. Man is always a member of
a group, and the mere fact of living with others imposes
on the individual a kind of discipline that gives a definite
direction to the character of his development. The law of
life is, that to live an organism must be adapted to its
environment, and the important part of the environment
here is that formed by one’s fellow-beings. The adaption
need not be perfect, any more than that the food one eats
need be of the most nutritious kind. But just as the food
eaten must contain enough nutrition to maintain life, so
conduct must be such as to maintain some kind of harmony
between an individual and the rest of the group to which
he belongs. If an individual’s nature is such that he will
not or cannot adapt himself to his fellows then he is, in
one stage of civilization, killed off, and in another he is
subjected to pains and penalties, and various kinds of
restraints that keep his anti-social tendencies in check.
There is a selective process in all societies, and even more
rigid in low societies than in the higher ones, in which
those ill-adapted to the common life of the group are
placed at a disadvantage even in procreating their kind.
And side by side with this process of selection within
the group there is going on another eliminative process
on a larger scale in the contest of group with group. A
group in which the members show little signs of a com
mon action, of loyalty to each other, is most likely to be
subjugated, or wiped out and replaced by a group in which
the cohesion is greater and the subordination of purely
individualistic tendencies to the welfare of the whole is
greater.
The nature of the process by which man becomes a
moral animal is therefore given when we say that man
12
�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
is a social animal. Social life is in itself a kind of disci
pline, a training which fits a man to work with his fellows,
to live with them, and to their mutual advantage. There
are rules of the social game which the individual must
observe if he is to live as a member of the tribe. Man is
not usually conscious of the discipline he is undergoing,
but neither is any animal conscious of the process of the
forces which adapt it to its environment. The moralizing
of man is never a conscious process, but it is a recognizable
process none the less.
It may also be noted that the rules of this social game
are enforced with greater strictness in primitive societies
than is the case with later ones. It is quite a mistake to
think of the life of savages as free, and that of civilized
man as being bound down by social and legal rules. Quite
the opposite is the case. The life of uncivilized man is
bound by customs, by taboos, that leave room for but
little initiative, and which to a civilized man would be
intolerable.
But from the earliest times there is always going on a
discipline that tends to eliminate the ill-adapted to social
life. Real participation in social life means more than an
abstention from injurious acts, it involves a positive con
tribution to the life of the whole. A type of behaviour
that is not in harmony with the general social characteristics
of the groups sets up an irritation much as a foreign sub
stance does when introduced into the tissues of an organ
ism. Thus we have on the one hand, a discipline that
forces conformity with the social structure, and on the
other hand a revolutionary tendency making for further
improvement.
There are still other factors that have to be noted if we
are properly to appreciate the forces that go to mould
character and to establish a settled moral code. To a
growing extent the environment to which the human being
has to adapt himself is one of ideas and ideals. There
are certain ideals of truthfulness, loyalty, obedience, kind
13
�MORALITY WITHOUT GOD
ness, etc., which surround one from the very moment of
birth. The society which gives him the language he speaks
and the stored-up knowledge it possesses, also provides
him with ideals by which he is more or less compelled to
guide his life.
There are endless differences in the form of these social
ideals, but they are of the same mental texture, from the
taboo of the savage to the “old school tie”.
The last phase of this moral adaption is that which
takes place between groups. From the limited family
group to which moral obligations are due, we advance to
the tribe, from thence to the group of tribes that constitute
the nation, and then to a stage into which we are now
entering that of the relations between nations, a state
wherein, in its complete form, there is an extension of
moral duties to the whole of humanity.
But wherever and whenever we take it, the substance
of morality is that of an adaption of feelings and ideas
to the human group, and to the animal group so far as
they can be said to enter into some form of relationship
with us. There is no alteration in the fundamental
character of morality. Its keynote is always, as I have
said, efficiency, but it is an efficiency, the nature of which
is determined by the relations existing between groups of
human beings.
If what has been said is rightly apprehended, it will be
understood what is meant by saying that moral laws are
to the social group exactly what laws of physiology are
to the individual organism. There is nothing to cause
wonder or mystification about moral laws; they express
the physiology of social life. It is these laws that are
manifested in practice long before they are expressed in
set terms. Human conduct, whether expressed in life or
formulated in “laws”, represents the conditions that make
social life possible and profitable. It is this recognition
that forms the science of morality; and the creation of
conditions that favour the performance of desirable actions
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and the development of desirable feelings constitutes the
art of morality.
Finally, in the development of morality as elsewhere,
nature creates very little that is absolutely new. It works
up again what already exists. That is the path of all
evolution. Feelings of right and wrong are gradually ex
panded from the group to the tribe, from the tribe to
the nation, and from the nation to the whole of human
society. The human environment to which man has to
adapt himself becomes ever wider. “My neighbour’’ ceases
to express itself in relation to those immediately surround
ing me, begins to extend to all with whom I have any rela
tions whatsoever. It is that stage we are now entering,
and much of the struggle going on in the world is due
to the attempts to adapt the feeling already there to its
wider environment. The world is in the pangs of child
birth. Whether civilization will survive those pangs remains
to be seen, but the nature of the process is unmistakable
to those who understand the past, and are able to apply its
lessons to the present and the future.
There is, then, nothing mysterious about the fact of
morality. There is no more need for supernaturalism here
than there is room for it in any of the arts and sciences.
Morality is a natural fact; it is not created by the formula
tion of “laws”; these only express its existence and our
sense of its value. The moral feeling creates the moral
law; not the other way about. Morality has nothing to do
with God; it has nothing to do with a future life. Its
sphere of application and operation is in this world; its
authority is derived from the common sense of mankind
and is born of the necessities of corporate life. In this
matter, as in others, man is thrown back upon himself
and if the process of development is a slow one there is
the comforting reflection that the growth of knowledge
and of understanding has placed within our reach the
power to make human life a far greater and better thing.
If we will! !
Printed by G. T. Wray Ltd. (T.U.), 332 Goswell Road, London, E.C.l,
and Published by G. W. Foote and Company Ltd.,
103 Borough High Street, London, S.E.l.
����
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Morality without God
Creator
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Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 15 p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the People
Series number: No. 2
Notes: Printed by G.T. Wray Ltd., London; published by G.W. Foote and Company Ltd. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Pioneer Press
Date
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[1910?]
Identifier
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N160
Subject
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God
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pamphlets
^or the Peop/e
No* 6
THE DEVIL
CHAPMAN COHEN
THE PIONEER PRESS
�The Devil
The Devil is one of the foundation-stones of historic
Christianity. Jesus Christ is another. God the
Father lingers in the rear, and in modern Christianity
hardly appears; while the Holy Ghost forms, natur
ally, a shadowy background. But the foundations of
Christianity are Jesus Christ and the Devil. To
gether they form the two halves of what is signifi
cantly known as Christian truth. The necessity for
Jesus Christ lies in the activity of the Devil. With
out him there would have been no Fall, no Scheme of
Redemption, no Plan of Salvation, and every human
being would have had to bear the consequences of his
or her actions, instead of first blaming the Devil for
his ill-deeds and then “ passing the buck ” onto Jesus.
Without the Devil there would have been no gospel
to preach, and no Christian Churches in which to
preach it; indeed, there is considerable Christian
authority for saying that without the Devil there
would have been no human beings either to preach
or to be preached at. The whole population of the
world would have remained at two, and although
the woman might have preached at the man, the
listening half of the population would hardly have
justified the use of the term “ congregation.” At
any rate, there would have been no excuse for, and
small profit in, making a collection.
The clergy have a great deal for which to thank the
Devil. He is really their greatest benefactor. If one
studies the history of early and medieval Christianity
the Devil is the most prominent character that is men
tioned.
A multitude of stories centre round the
Devil, and most of the prominent religious characters
appear to have been engaged in constant struggles
with him, often of a personal character. Cathedral
2
<
�3
sculptures figure devils very prominently, and Devil's
Bridges, etc., are numerous in all countries. One
religious authority places the number of devils at
work in the world as 7,405,926. Such arithmetical
exactitude is very impressive. Fear of the Devil has
been responsible for very many of the benefactions
from which the Churches have benefited. The
Christian clergy have justified their existence by their
fight against the influence of the Devil, and have ex
plained their failures by his ceaseless activities. It is
one of the scandals of latter day theology that so little
is now said about him. It is monstrous that in the
whole of Christendom not a single monument has
ever been raised to the Devil in recognition of the
help he has been to the Church. It is the supreme
exhibition of Christian ingratitude.
There is the highest Christian authority for saying
that both Jesus Christ and the Devil came from the
same “ home town.” Jesus came from heaven, and
after a short and exciting stay on earth returned
thereto. The Devil also began his career in heaven,
but was “ cast out,” after which he appeared to have
enjoyed a free and wide run on earth. He is respect
fully referred to in the Bible as one of the “ sons of
God,” and appears in heaven discussing various
matters with his father. It was at one of these gather
ings that God entered into a controversy with Satan,
and a kind of wager was agreed upon as to whether
“ my servant Job ” could be weaned from his allegi
ance. Job was not consulted on the subject, and
from God’s point of view came well out of the test;
but while Job vindicated his character for steadfast
ness and God won the wager, it is quite evident that
in the discussion Satan came out on top. God was
good on boils, but weak in argument.
It may be noted that devils are common figures
in most mythologies. In primitive religions they are
THE DEVIL
�THE DEVIL
4
not so much devils as members of the numerous com
pany of gods, each ruling his particular sphere, as
princes of so many independent provinces. At a later
stage, when mankind has created definite categories
of good and bad, inferior and superior, devils are
often no more than degraded gods, who sink to a
secondary position as a result of conquest. They are
deposed kings who have been banished to another
region, but with their power little diminished and still
•bearing marks of their previous greatness. Even the
nimbus which surrounds the head of a Christian saint,
and in the old biblical pictures, of the deity, is
retained in the horns that decorate the head of Satan.
When a man is born in the purple, the “ sacredness ”
of kings will cling to him for a long while.
That the Christian devils were degraded gods was
the view of that great Christian, Justin Martyr; in
this he was following the lead of St. Paul who said
that the gods whom the pagans worshipped were
devils. But although some of the early Christian
writers modified this theory, and substituted the
Jewish rabbinical belief that devils were fallen angels,
there was no actual denial of the pagan gods as real
existences Until towards the end of the seventeenth
century. A Dutch author was the first to treat them
as completely fictitious. His book was rendered into
English by Mrs. Aphra Behn, the well-known play
wright, who appears to have had a decided streak of
heresy in her composition. But such a thing as deny
ing the existence of the pagan gods never appears
to have entered the heads of the early Christians.
They even used them as an explanation of the then
■unquestioned and unquestionable likeness between
the Christian and the Pagan doctrines, ceremonies
and symbols. Christian writers explained that the
Devil knew Christianity was coming, and in order to
discredit it he invented certain doctrines, and estab-
�5
fished them in the world before Christ came. It was
a case of “ queering the pitch,” a practice well known
in the political world of to-day.
It is only within recent years -that some leading
Christians have denied the existence of a personal
devil—but, it must be remembered that many leading
Protestants still assert his existence, and the Roman
Catholic Church affirms it as an unquestionable
dogma. Founders of sects such as Wesley, preachers
-such as Spurgeon, and a host of lesser lights, would
have considered a repudiation of a personal devil as
equivalent to a confession of Atheism. After all, hell
« part of the historic teachings of the Christian
Church as a whole, and hell implies devils just as
devils imply hell. It is also impossible to accept the
Jesus of the New Testament without also accepting a
personal devil. Jesus had personal conflicts with the
devils of the New Testament, and1 plainly accepted
as beyond doubt that all disease was caused by
devils. The clergy of the Church of England and of
the Roman Church are all endowed with the power to
cast out devils. Leave the devil out and it is impos
sible to understand a very large part of Christian
history.
We are too apt in this matter to take half-hearted
and humane believers as representative of Christians,
as a whole. They are not. There are millions of
believers in this country who still believe in a
personal devil and a literal hell. Their outlook is
as barbarous and as brutal as that of the primitive
Christians. Even with those Churches that have
ceased to preach what Harold Frederic called
“ straight flat-footed hell,” there is no definite and
explicit rejection of the belief. And there would be
a holy row in the Churches if a clear official repudia
tion of the doctrine was forthcoming. The clergy try
to keep their hold on the more backward by carefully
THE DEVIL
�6
THE DEVIL
chosen language that implies a belief in hell, and also
hope to retain the good-will of the more enlightened
by saying nothing about it.
But consider this, which up to about twenty years
ago, formed part of the Wesleyan Methodist
Catechism, and was written for “ children of tender
years.”
What sort of a place is hell?
A dark and bottomless pit, full of fire and brim
stone.
How will the wicked be punished there?
Their bodies will be tormented with fire, and their
souls by a sense of the wrath of God.
How long will their torments last?
The torments will last for ever and ever.
Or this from a Roman Catholic pamphlet, one written
for “ Children and young persons,” and published at'
one penny. It describes to a child what a room in
hell is like : —
Look into this room.
What a dreadful place it is.
The roof is red hot, the walls are red hot, the floor is
like a thick sheet of red iron.
See, on the middle of
that red-hot floor stands a girl. . . .
Look, she says(to the devil), at my burnt and bleeding feet.
Let me
go off this burning floor for one moment. . . .
The
devil answers her question. . . . No, not for one single
moment during the never-ending eternity of years shall
you ever leave this red-hot floor.
There is plenty more of this kind of thing published
by the criminals (I use the word advisedly), respon
sible for the essay, but I will return to the general
subject of hell in another pamphlet. All that it is
necessary to note now is that this was the common
doctrine of Christianity for many, many centuries.
The brutal savagery of it almost passes belief. Here
is a specimen from a Christian writer of the sixth
century, St. Fulgentius : —
Little children who have begun to live in their mother’s
womb and have there died, or who, having been born',
�THE DEVIL
7
have passed away from the world without the sacrament
of holy baptism administered in the name of Father, Son
and Holy Ghost, must be punished by the eternal torment
of undying fire.
And a greater writer than the one just cited, Peter
Lombard, wrote that “ the elect shall go forth . . .
to see the torments of the impious, and seeing this
t they will not be affected with grief, but will be
satiated with joy at the sight of the unutterable
calamity of the impious.”
Let us go to the devil, or rather let us get back u
him, although his company would certainly be pre
ferable to these “ fathers of the Church.” One
might get along with the devil with dignity; it would
be impossible to be with these “ Saints ” without
degradation. As the old lady remarked to the parson
who was trying to cheer her last moments with
thoughts of heaven, “ Heaven is all right for climate,
but hell is the place for good company.”
In many plays and tales the Devil appears as a
polished scholar.
But the pamphlet for children
from which I have just cited, presents us with the
following description of him: —
St. Francis saw him.
He was sitting on a long beam
which passed through the middle of hell.
His feet went
down into the lowest depths of hell.
They rested on
the. floor of hell.
They were fastened with great heavy
chains.
These chains were fixed to an immense ring
in the floor.
His hands were chained up to the roof.
One of his hands were turned up to heaven to blaspheme
against God. His other hand was stretched out pointing
to the lowest depths of hell. His tremendous and horrible
head was raised up on high and touched the roof. From his
head came two immense horns ... his enormous mouth
was wide open.
Out of it there was running a river of
which gave no light, but a most abominable
smell. ...
Round his neck was a collar of red-hot iron..
A burning chain tied him round the middle. The ugliness
of his face was such that no man or devil could "bear
it. . . .
One of the Saints who saw the Devil said she
�8
THE DEVIL
would rather be burnt for a thousand years than look at
the devil for one moment.
St. Francis saw him\ That guarantees the accuracy
of the description.
But most presentations of the devil are more
flattering than this one, written for children. Uncon
sciously most of the Christian biographers of the
devil have borne 'unwilling, perhaps unconscious,
testimony to his greatness and intelligence. They
have glorified God officially, but they have given their
real praise to the Devil. Thus Martin Luther refers
to “ the wonderful cleverness displayed by knowing
Satan against .poor half-witted God.” (Michelet’s
Life of Satan, Bonn’s Ed., p. 249.) Certainly, in
most of the contests between Satan and God, Satan
appears to have scored.
According to Christian theologians God made man
for his own glory. Also according to Christian theo
logians the majority of those whom God made for
himself go straight to hell and spend their best time
in serving Satan’ before going there. . God has to be
content with the fragments of the feast he prepared
for himself.
St. Augustine described the whole
human race as one damned batch and mass of per
dition.” (Cited by Alger, Critical History of the
Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 398). St. Chrysostomdoubted if of the 100,000 inhabitants of Antioch, 100
would be saved. Du Moulin, a writer of the seven
teenth century, was certain that from the time of
Adam, not more than one in a million would escape
hell. Jonathan Edwards was equally emphatic on the
limited number that would escape damnation. And
God made man for his own glory I As Martin Luther
said, “ Poor half-witted God! ” The world he made
becomes the playground of his greatest competitor.
The creatures he created for himself spend their time
in paying service to his enemy. God cast Satan out
�THE DEVIL
9
of heaven, but how much wiser it would have been to
have kept him there so that he might have had an
eye on him. It looks as though the evangelical cry
of “ Get right with God ! ” ought to give way to
“ Get right with the DevilT ”
Perhaps there is some recognition of the wisdom of
doing this in the comparatively respectful way in
which common usage treats the devil. One notes the
freely popular manner in which the name of God is
treated, from the “ Gawd blimey ” of the street to
the “ swelpmegawd ” of the police court. There is,
of course, the almost equally popular phrase, “ What
the devil ! ’ but that merely expresses uncertainty
as to what is likely to happen, or puzzlement as to
what the devil will do next. But there is a distinct
indictment implied in the common expression “ Good
God,” when one is told of a disaster at sea or an
earthquake. Such a saying as “ Trust in God, but
keep your powder dry,” is another illustration of the
riskiness of concluding That God will do the right
thing at the right time.
There is, on the other side of the ledger, such say
ings as “ having a devil of a time,” which implies a
rather jolly time. No religious writer that I know of
has ever spoken of having a jolly time with God.
There is also a popular saying that “ The Devil
looks after his own,” and it is believed he does this
in this world. But it is quite clear, from the nature
of the petitions to God that no one can rely upon him
doing what his followers would like him to do. It
really looks as though mankind has possibly been
backing the wrong horse,” and that we ought to
have paid greater attention to the devil than we have
one. Moncure Conway, in his Demonology and
Devil Lore, speaks of a lady who taught her children
always to rise and bow when the name of the devil was
mentioned. She explained that she thought it safer.
�10
THE DEVIL
We are not dealing with the natural, but the
Christian, origin of the Devil, and, according to the
Book of Revelation, he began his existence as one
of the chief angels in heaven. But there was “ war in
heaven,” and the revolt was led by the being whom
God had, with very questionable judgment, selected
as his commander-in-chief. In the end Satan lost the
war—and common sense suggests that God should
have treated Satan as the Allies did Napoleon, after
the return from Elba. Instead of that, he was given
a free pass to go where he liked and do what he
liked, and a new residence was prepared for him, the
character of which Hoes not appear to have hurt
either Satan or his followers, but was to be eternally
uncomfortable for men and women.
Satan was
really serving God as chief gaoler.
Two charges are, either directly or indirectly,
brought by the Christian Church against the Devil.
The first is that he was ambitious and wished men to
worship him. But ambition, while it may lead a man
into dubious paths, is not a very serious crime; any
person of moderate intelligence might get weary of
a place where the only form of dissipation appears to
be eternally singing songs of the Lamb. But the
Christian God does not like competition, and Satan’s
“ better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” was
bound to create friction.
For Satan to seek worship was a more serious
offence. It hit at both God and the Church. For
while the Church flourishes on belief, the gods live
on worship. All the gods of the past have lived upon
worship. While they were worshipped the gods of
Egypt, of Rome, of Greece, were fine, lusty fellows,
who gave their followers all that the Christian God
gives his worshippers. These gods of the ancient
world sent rain and gave their followers good health;
they answered prayers; they sent their faithful wor
�II
shippers to a prepared heaven and their enemies
to a prepared hell. But as man’s worship declined
so the objects of the worship declined also. Gods
are fragile things, they may be killed by a whifi
of science or a dose of common sense. They thrive
on servility and shrink before independence. They
feed upon worship as kings do upon flattery. That
is why the cry of gods at all times is “ "Worship us or
we perish.” A dethroned monarch may retain some
of his human dignity while driving a taxi foi- a living.
But a god without his thunderbolt is a poor object.
The second charge against Satan is one that reflects
credit upon him and discredit on the Christian
Church. Unconsciously the Church presented the
devil as the inspirer of knowledge, the fount of
human improvement. The first offence after the
creation of man, which the Bible attributes to Satan,
was that of inducing man to seek knowledge and
acquire independence. God had forbidden Adam and
Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge. Men were to
grow up as ignorant as cows and as docile as sheep.
And but for the devil they might have lived “ accord
ing to plan.” It was the devil that first set man on
the path of knowledge. And of all the leading figures
of the Christian mythology Satan is the most im
pressive. He is the hero of Milton’s Paradise Lost,
the central figure of Goethe’s Faust, and the most
interesting in Byron’s Vision of Judgment.
In most cases advances in scientific knowledge
were attributed to the influence of the devil. The art
and science and philosophy of ancient Greece came
undei the Christian fear of being due to the inspira
tion of the devil.
Scientific medicine was mainly
inspired by the devil because it interfered with the
traffic of the Church in miracle cures; and with St.
Gall curing epilepsy, St. Blaise curing sore throats,
St. Gervase curing rheumatism, and a special saint
THE DEVIL
�12
THE DEVIL
allotted to each disease, the inquisitiveness of medical
men was obviously a piece of Atheistic impertinence.
The printing press was an invention of the devil.
It was said that Copernicus was inspired by the devil
to teach his revival of the old Greek astronomy. In
oculation against smallpox was an invention of the
devil; part of the oppositon was that smallpox was
sent by God so that any attempt to prevent it was
inspired by Satan. The same objection was later
brought against the use of chloroform in the case of
women in child-birth, the objection here being that
God had ordained that women should bear children
in suffering, and any attempt to evade this could only
be inspired by the devil. Chemistry was clearly due
:to the same source of origin. So was the attempt to
prove that geological phenomena owed their origin
to known natural causes. When I was a youth, the
Prime Minister of England, W. E. Gladstone, was
denouncing the theory of evolution as an attempt to
turn God out of his own universe, an obvious device
of the devil.
The list need not be prolonged; there is not a single
advance in which the interests of the Christian
Church were threatened, and this at one time covered
everything not expressly sanctioned by the Bible and
the Church, that was not put down to the credit of
the devil. The things not put to the credit of the
devil were the rack, the thumbscrew, the burning of
heretics at the stake, the slaughter of thousands of
old women and children for witchcraft—these and
similar things were admittedly done to carry out
“ God’s will.”
If we are guided by Christian records we are war
ranted in considering the devil as the patron saint of
intelligence, invention, and discovery. The Church
never ceased to dwell upon his cunning, his mental
alertness, his readiness to induce men to tread new
�13
and unfamiliar paths. M?en like Bishop Barnes, who
profess to believe in the adventures of science, and
who somehow manage to still believe in a God, ought
to pray daily, “ Thank God for the Devil! ” With
out the devil, man might have been fit for heaven,
but not for anywhere else.
I only know of one case in which the Christian
Church has persistently cast discredit on the intelli
gence of Satan. This is the ever-recurring instance
in which the Church has depicted him as taking extra
ordinary means, and paying an enormous price in
order to capture the soul of a monk or a priest.
After all, there should be some kind of relation
between the value of the object purchased and the
price paid.
Robert Buchanan rightly made Satan say (in his
The Devil’s Case): —
THE DEVIL
In spite of the Almighty,
I have leavened its afflictions,
Teaching men the laws of Nature,
Wisdom, Love and Self-control.
This I have achieved entirely,
By the very means forbidden—
At the first by the Almighty—
Teaching men to see and know.
I’m the father of all Science,—
Master-builder, stock-improver,
First authority on drainage,
Most renowned in all the arts.
While the priests have built their Churches,
To a God who does not heed them,
I have fashioned decent dwellings,
Public hospitals and baths.
Thus for ages after ages,
I, the Devil, have drained the marshes,
Cleansed the cesspools, taught the people,
Like a true progressionist.
By the living soul within me, ■
I have conquered—tho’ for ages
I have been most grossly libelled
By the foolish race of mortals.
�14
THE DEVIL
A greater than Buchanan, Carducci, in his Hymn
to Satan, makes Satan say: —
I animate all who fight against servitude and
somnolence. The heroes and martyrs of liberty and pro■ gress in every age have drunk of the strength of my
spirit.
I inspire the revolter, the scorner, the sceptic,
the satirist. I still distribute the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge.
I am the soul of the world.
The fire of
my inspiration may consume, but it gives unspeak
able rapture.
I am the Prometheus of the universe,
and keep it from stagnating under the icy hand of
power.
Milton, Goethe and Byron made me the hero of
their greatest poems, and felt my power in despite of
themselves.
Burns spoke of me with a tenderness
he never displayed towards God.
Wits and humorists
own my sway.
I moved the minds of Aristophanes
and Lucian, of Erasmus and Rabelais, and through
the pen of Voltaire I shattered the mental slavery of
Europe. I am the lightning of the human mind.
I level thrones and altars, and annihilate binding customs.
With the goad of a restless aspiration I urge
men on, until they outgrow faith and fear, until the
•Slave stands erect before the Tyrant and defies his
curse.
But just as mankind is indebted to the Devil for the
development of the thirst for knowledge, so the
Church owes him all its power and the larger part of
its wealth. Fear of hell is responsible for a much
larger proportion of gifts and legacies to the Church
than is love of heaven. The only thing that could
possibly have made heaven worth entering was that
there was a hell to keep out of. It was for the sake of
securing release from purgatory, that most of the
legacies fell to the Church, and if the number of this
species of legacy has been fewer in recent times, it is
because the fear of hell has waned. The Church very
early seized upon hell as a powerful weapon for its
enrichment, and the following from Dr. G. G.
Coulton’s Medieval Studies, is worth noting in this
connexion: —
�THE DEVIL
15
Apart from the very small minority who were rich
enough to make written wills, every man was
obliged to dispose of his property on his death-bed by
word of mouth, in the presence of the parish priest.
Let us put ourselves for a moment in the dying man's
place. Whatever else the poor wretch may believe or
disbelieve of hell and purgatory he has never been allowed
to doubt. . . . Whenever he entered his parish church,
there stood the ghastly picture of the Last Judgment
staring down on him from the walls—blood and fire and
devils in such pitiless realism that, when they come to
light nowadays, even sympathetic restorers are often fain
to cover them again under decent whitewash.
A picture
of that kind, seen once or twice a week for fifty years,
is indelibly branded into the soul of the dying man, and
however little he may have allowed these things to influence
the conduct of his life, however deliberately he may have
overreached and cheated and robbed in his generation to
scrape his little hoard together, here on his death-bed he
has at least the faith of a devil—he believes and trembles.
He knows that gifts to the Church are universally held
to be one of the surest preservatives against the pains of
purgatory; he has even seen men burned at the stake for
denying a truth so essential to the Roman Catholic creed.
What wonder then if death-bed legacies to the clergy and
to the churches became so customary that the absence of
such pious gifts was taken for proof presumptive of heresy,
and that in some districts the dying man was compelled
as a matter of course to leave a third of his goods to the
Church. Moreover, this laudable custom, when once
established, would exercise a practically binding fore® over
the written wills, which were themselves also invalid until
they had been duly “ proved ” in the Church courts,
(pp. 135-6).
At the hands of the Christian Churches the Devil
has had what the Americans call a “ raw deal.” For
centuiies this historic figure, the subject of sculp
ture, song and story, has not a single monument in
any of the Churches, which without him would never
have been. Man’s ingratitude to man is said to be
great enough to make angels, weep. But what is this
compared with the ingratitude of the Church to the
greatest of its benefactors ?
�l6
THE DEVIL
But ingratitude brings its nemesis. The devil and
God are the components of a Siamese twin. Neither
has any existence apart from the other. In denying
the existence of the one, Christians have helped to
kill the other. If there need to be no fear of hell,
people may well ask what is the attraction of heaven ?
Gods and devils were born together.
Gods and
devils will die together.
PAMPHLETS FOR THE PEOPLE
By CHAPMAN COHEN
1. Did Jesus Christ Exist?
2. Morality Without God.
3. What is the Use of Prayer?
4. Christianity and Woman.
5. Must We Have a Religion ?
6. The Devil.
7. What Is Freethought ?
8. Gods and Their Makers.
9. Giving ’em Hell.
10. The Church’s Fight for the Child.
11. Deity and Design.
12. What is the Use of a Future Life?
13. Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to Live.
14. Freethought and the Child.
15. Agnosticism or ... ?
16. Atheism.
17. Christianity and Slavery.
Other Pamphlets in this Series to be published shortly
Twopence Each; Postage One Penny.
ZsswecZ for the Secular Society Limited, and
Printed and Published by
The Pioneer Press (G-. W. Foote & Co., Ltd.),
2 & 3, Furnival Street, London, E.C.4,
ENGLAND.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The devil
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Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the People
Series number: No. 6
Notes: Published for the Secular Society. Publisher's series list on back page. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Pioneer Press
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[1910?]
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N142
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Devil
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English
Devil-Christianity
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Pamphlets for the People
No. 3
WHAT IS
THE USE OF
PRAYER?
CHAPMAN
COHEN
THE PIONEER PRESS
�What is the Use of Prayer?
i.
“Without Prayer there would be no Religion.”
Dr. Ji. W. Inge, late Dean of St. Paul’s.
“Men would not pray unless they expected to get something
by it, and that their prayers would have the effect of
securing it.”—Archdeacon Paley.
Why do men pray? The obvious reason is that given
by Archdeacon Paley: they hope to get something
which they would not get without it. Whether we
pray for a change in the weather, for safety while at
sea, or for recovery from-sickness, the same thing holds.
Mankind has produced quite a number of varieties of
the genus “fool,” but there has never existed that kind
of a fool who would pray while convinced that it would
make no difference to the course of events.
But when man prays he must pray to some one, to
one that is able to listen and respond. No one prays
to a volcano to stop erupting, or to the rain to stop
falling. There is, of course, the childish rhyme.
Rain, rain, go away, come again another day
but no adult now believes the petition has any effect
on the weather. Yet, put the child’s rhyme in the
form of a solemn prayer, say it in proper form, recite
it in a church, and it is believed that some one listens
and stops the rain, although he might not have done
so had the prayer remained unsaid. We should like
someone to try to establish a real difference between the
child’s incantation and the adult’s prayer.
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
3
Prayer is a matter of a transaction between two
persons.
Mian asks and God grants.
If either of
the two terms is wiped out prayer is impossible. Or
if things would happen as they do whether one prays
or not, then prayer becomes a manifest absurdity.
Paley is right. Dr. Inge is also right when he says
that without prayer there would be no religion. The
practice of prayer is based on the belief that gods exist
and that they manipulate events in the interests of those
who pray.
Primitive peoples pray for rain and for success in
life exactly as Christians do to-day, but with more
logic and sincerity.
Roman Catholic papers out of
England—they are carefully trimmed for the British
public—give numerous accounts of recoveries from
sickness, of jobs gained, of good business deals done,
as a result of prayers to God or the Saints. In
continental churches stacks of crutches are exhibited
which are said to belong to those who have been
cured by .prayer. So medicine-men of a savage tribe
pray for their chief, exactly as the Archbishop in this
country prays for the King, and with equal results.
All Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and other places
of worship have their set prayers, and in the long run
they all boil down to the identical petition, “Oh Lord
give us something.’’ It may be that God made man
so that man might worship him, it is equally certain
that the worship would not continue for long unless
it was believed that God did something in return.
Gods are not worshipped for merely existing. They
are believed in and worshipped as in investment, and
the dividends received are duly published. The reason
for prayer is that God does something for those who
pray.
Without this belief prayer would die, and
“without prayer there would be no religion.’’
There is no real doubt why men pray; neither is
there any doubt as to why mankind developed the
practice of and the belief in prayer. Prayer origin
�4
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
ates at that stage of human development when man
thinks of the forces around him as akin to himself.
So far as he thinks about what is going on <n the
world outside himself, he reasons as a child would,
if it faced the world without the stored-up knowledge
and experience which is the heritage of all in a civil
ized society. Man feels that somehow or other he
must get on terms with these powers that are angry
with him in the storm, and pleased with him in the
smile of the sunshine. If the rain does not fall or if
the crops wither, or if a disease breaks out, it is be
cause the gods are angry with man. In these circum
stances f\e reacts to the different aspects of nature as
he does to those men who are stronger than himself,
or who exert authority. He praises, he flatters, he
worships. In other words he gives the gods service,
and he expects something solid in return.
But unlike the modern religionist, primitive man,
or even semi-civilized man, is not above “talking
back’’ to his gods. If the gods fail him he may turn
to others.
In a more advanced stage even the
temple of a defaulting god may be closed. He very
easily, as missionaries among primitive peoples, find,
swaps one god for another, if greater benefits are
promised.
Many amusing instances of this are given in that
great encyclopeadia of primitive customs, The Golden
Bough, by Sir James Frazer.
Here is one of them
concerning an incident that occurred in Sicily as recently
as 1893.
There had been- a very long drought. The earth
was parched, processions of priests and people had
marched through the streets of Palermo, and conse
crated candles had been burned in the churches in
honour of certain selected saints. At last the peasants
lost patience.
Many of the saints were banished
altogether. At Palermo they threw St. Joseph into a
garden, so that he might see for himself how bad things
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
6
were, and threatened to leave him there till the rain
fell. The golden wings of St. Michael were taken from
his. shoulders and replaced with pasteboard.
His
purple mantle was taken from him, and he was given
a mere clout for a covering. At Liacto, the patron saint
was reviled, put in irons and threatened with drowning
or hanging if he did not soon send rain. “Rain or the
rope,’’ was the cry of the people.
But it is not often that the modern believers thus
stand up to their gods. The worse they are treated the
lower they grovel. The more the gods punish them,
the louder they declare their unworthiness, and the
more vehemently they proclaim the greatness and the
justice of the god who is afflicting them.
In all this we have the persistence of the original
mentality which is enshrined in all our creeds and
catechisms, which is expressed in our spring festivals
when the god is asked to give us a good crop. In
the harvest thanksgiving when he is thanked for what
he has given, in the blessing of Ashing boats and nets,
in the official prayers for fain, for the health of the
King, and, in a more vulgar form, in the lavish use
of mascots, in the belief in lucky days, and in the
common conviction that when disaster occurs to a people,,
it is because they have offended or “forgotten’’ God,
there is the persistence of primitive beliefs.
But if we are certain of anything it is that when
there is a ,bad harvest it is due to bad soil, or bad
weather, or bad husbandry, or, other assignable causes.
If an Atheist and a Christian start farming, the
Christian is no better off than the Atheist.
Whether
a man reads his Bible daily or his Freethinker weekly,
makes not the least difference, other things equal. A
doctor who sent his consumptive patients for residence
to a Church in preference to a sanatorium would soon
find himself out of practice. And* those people in this
country who trust to the “Prayer of faith to save the
sick,’’ may, if their child dies, find themselves brought
�€
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
before a Christian judge and sent to a Christian prison
for the offence of trusting to the power of prayer. British
law and British common sense say that you may believe
in prayer, but it is criminal to rely upon it.
When prayers are offered up in churches for rain,
or for good crops, or for the health of the King, or
for our Members of Parliament to be dowered with
wisdom, who is it that is deceived? It cannot be the
Christian God, because we have it authoritatively
stated that he cannot be deceived.
It is not the
clergy, they are the operators. Who is’it that is fooled?
It must be the people.
II.
Dr. R.. W. Inge is one of the ablest of modern theo
logians. Until recently he was Dean of St. Paul’s
Cathedral, London.
At the modern Churchman’s
Conference held at Oxford, in August, 1936, Dr. Inge
gave an address on “What to Believe About Prayer.’’
He began by assuring his audience that there was no
subject “on which Christ spoke with more downright
explicitness than of the efficacy of prayer.’’ By example
and precept Jesus taught that prayer could accomplish
miracles. The dead were raised, the blind coukj be
made to see and the lame to walk. The Christian
Church, officially, teaches that all things may be
accomplished by prayer. There is not a critical occasion
in the life of the country when the Churches do not
announce a united service of prayer, as though by a kind
of mass volleying, high heaven will do what the people
want.
But Dr. Inge deliberately scoffs at the idea that our
prayers can have any influence on the weather. He
says: —
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
7
The more we know about the causes of clmatlc phenomena
the less likely we are even to dream of changing them
in order to save our hay crop, or to secure a fine day for
our garden party.
Which is exactly what Freethinkers have been trying
to drive into the heads of believing Christians.
Prayers for the sick come off quite as badly. Thus:—
But can we consistently give up praying for rain with
the expectation of altering the weather for dur benefit and
continue to pray fdr the recovery of a relation pr a friend
in sickness. Knowledge has been enlarged in this field
also during our lifetime. We know something about microbes;
how can they be affected by our prayers?
/
For generations Freethinkers have been insisting that
faith in prayer was only another name for igiiorance.
Here is one of the most prominent clerics of the Eng
lish Church saying the same thing without disguise.
We have said thousands of times what Dr. Inge is
now permitted to say to a congregation of his fellow
Christians.
Of course, it is said without acknow
ledgment of the work of Freethinkers, and when a
Freethinking trpth is admitted it is duly acknow
ledged—as a product of Christianity. We do make
headway, even among the leaders of the Christian
Church.
But if prayers for rain and for the sick are of no
value to-day, then they were of no value at any time.
Microbes did not begin to exist the other day.
Meteorological processes did not commence yesterday.
Prayers were as useless in the time of Christ as they
are in the time of Edward the Eighth. The teachings
of the New Testament that the prayer of faith shall
save the sick, were as false when the advice was
given as they are now. The teachings of the Churches
were completely wrong, the money taken by the
churches was money obtained by fraud, and the
buildings, the churches erected for the purpose of
�8
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
prayer, were so many monuments to fraud or folly,
or both.
This is not all. The Church of England has set
prayers for rain, for better harvests, for the sick, and
so forth. The Church of England prayer-book says
definitely that whatsoever one’s disease may be, it “is
certainly God’s visitation.’’ There is a kind of lunatic
logic in asking God to take away a disease he has
definitely inflicted, but lunatic logic is not unusual in
religious reasoning. When the late King George was
ill, prayers for his recovery were ordered by the
Churches*, and when he recovered, God was thanked
for what he had done.
The Church said it was
God’s visitation. Ex-dean Inge says it was a matter
of microbes, and the prayers were all so much rubbish.
Why thank God for the King’s recovery if the doctors
cured him? Why thank the doctors for the recovery
if God cured him? Was it to humour God that prayers
were offered, or was it to fool the doctors that they
were thanked for effecting a cure?
If prayer is of any value, why wait till a man is
dying, or the crops are perishing, or the land is
parched before prayers are said? Prevention is better
than cure, so why not set aside, saj*, a week at the
commencement of each year, apd offer an omnibus
prayer for all the things we want for the rest of the
twelve months? Is it only with God that we are to wait
for a preventable accident to happen before a move is
made to protect the public from danger? A local council
that behaved in this stupid manner would find itself held
up to public condemnation.
Still further. Dr. Inge was for many years Dean
of St. Paul’s. On official occasions he had to take
part in prayers for the health of the Royal Family,
for the victory of the nation in war, and for rain
when it was needed. How long has Dr. Inge held
these ideas about prayer? Was he always praying with
his tongue in his cheek, or had he to wait until he
retired from office before he reached a conclusion that
�WHAT IS THE USE OF
PRAYER?
9
was a commonplace with millions of people outside the
Church?
And how many other preachers inside the
Church hold the same belief as Dr. Inge without saying
anything about it?
Dr. Inge asks whether the consequences of prayer
can be tested by statistical methods. He implies they
cannot. But if prayer has any observable effect it must
be a calculable one.
Dr. Inge asks whether the
husband of a “prayerful wife’’ has a . better life value
to an insurance office than has a husband whose wife
does not pray? The answer is that insurances com
panies decline to recognize any such influence. They
require, other things equal, the same premiums, whether
people are Christians or Atheists. Insurance companies
enquire into a man’s family history, what were the ages
of father and mother when they died, are there certain
diseases in the family, and some ask whether a man is
a teetotaller or not.
But none of them asks whether
the applicant prays regularly. Even those companies
that cater specially for the clergy make no allowance
for very prayerful characters. If there is any building
in the world that is guarded by prayer it is a church;
but insurance companies will ask a bigger premium for
a church without a-lightning conductor than they would
for an Atheist lecture-haH with one.
The Royal Family are prayed for more th^n any
other family.
Have they a longer life or a better
life than other people have?
Everyone knows they
have not, and in several of the royal families of the
world, mental and other diseases are marked. Being
the defender of The faith did not give George the Fifth
robust health; it did not endow George the Second with
wisdom; nor did it save George the Third from insanity.
Thare is a special prayer in the Litany, “That it
may please Thee to endue the Lords of the Council
and the Nobility with grace, wisdom and understanding.’’
Has anyone been able to trace any marked result of
that prayer said regularly and with professional
competency ?
�10
WHAT'IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
Every Church Congress since the Christian Church
was established has been opened with prayer. Never
have these assemblies been cited, even by Christians, as
examples of wisdom, good feeling and a sense of justice.
There is no direction in which one can look for answer
to prayer.
There is also a special petition in the prayer book
for safety at sea—altered a few years back to one
for “seamen of the British Navy.” This may have
been done because it was thought that asking God to
look after all was too big a job, or because it was
considered that if God would look after the British Navy,
other navies could take their chance. But will anyone
say that the number of those lost at sea differs in
proportion to the prayers said? The Board of Trade
has a number of regulations for sea-going ships; it
makes no provision whatever in the matter of prayer.
It does say that ships carrying more than a certain
number of passengers must carry a qualified doctor, it
says nothing about parsons. It considers the famous
Plimsoll line of greater consequence than the prayers
of the united British churches.
There is no test to which the believer will submit to
prove that prayers are answered. Belief in praver is
nowadays a huge “bluff.” The Freethinker calls the
bluff—and the Christian runs away.
Dr. Inge says:—
The very definite promises made by Jesus Christ seem
to be contradicted by experience. Most of us would say
they have been contradicted by common experience. Hence
the problem troubles us all the time.
4‘Seem,” to be contradicted by experience!
The
belief in prayer is contradicted by all experience*. Dr.
Inge knows this as well as we do, but it is hard for
any cleric—active or retired—to be intellectually straight
forward where religion is concerned. Even a horse
gets attached to ^linkers in time, and a dog learns to
love its collar.
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
11
III.
But Dr. Inge still professes allegiance to something
which he may call religion, even though the very core of
religion is absent from it. He says:—
If prayer has no efficacy we must give up not only our
trust in the plain words of Christ, but all practice of
religion, for if prayer has no result, no one could care to
pray, and without prayer there can be no religion. Prayer
is * the very breath of religion; its most essential and
characteristic activity.
So Dr. Inge must find some use for prayer, and save
something that can be called religion; and as
the notion that the world is governed by natural laws
which may be modified or suspended at any time by divine
intervention is felt to be the least satisfactory of philosophies,
some place for prayer must be found, where its conse
quences cannot be tested, or even observed.
There are two pleas put in, both worthy of the
greenest of green young curates. The first is:—
If we ask why men pray, the simple answer is; because
they cannot help it.
This is very crude. There are many millions who
never pray, and the number of those who do pray is
steadily diminishing. Of course there is a sense in
which whatever one does, cannot be helped. It is as
true of a man crawling round a room on his knees as
it is of a man kneeling to pray. That kind of thing
ought not to pass muster in a Sunday school.
The second reason looks better: but involves mental
crookedness.
In so far as prayer is loving intercourse or reverent
homage, or thanksgiving, or meditation on the revered
�12
WHAT IS THE USE OF
PRAYER?
attributes of God, or contrition for sin, it is meaningless
to ask whether it is efficacious. No one doubts that as
an exercise it deepens character, strengthens the will, purifies
the affections, and brings peace, rest and blessedness.
This passage is priceless as an example of the sheer
verbiage a man of ability may put forth when he is
trying to rationalize an absurdity. Loving intercourse
with whom? For what? If God does nothing, if he
does not interfere with things, if things will happen
as they do happen, whether we pray or not, what have
we to thank God for? The only thing left is to thank
God for doing nothing. Does all this spiritual ’ “kow
towing” really mean no more than an Alice in Wonderland
performance?
Of course prayer brings comfort to most of those who
believe in it.
No one has ever disputed this. The
war-dance of the savage encourages him to fight. The
wearing of a mascot strengthens the confidence of those
who are idiotic enough to wear them. An hysteric may
be cured by faith in Jesus Christ, or in a doctor, or
in a bread pill, a gambler may feel strengthened by
carrying a rabbit’s foot, or warned not to gamble by
a black cat crossing his path. The question is not
whether people believe certain things benefit them—all
the quacks and humbugs in the worjd, political, religious,
social and literary—live on this belief.
The real
question is whether this kind of belief rests on more than
pure self-suggestion?
Dr. Inge must know that the science upon which he
relies says very definitely that “divine interference” is
not merely untrue of what takes place in the physical
world, but of the mental world also. And among the
things that science is rapidly bringing to an under
standing is the mechanism of this phenomenon of self
suggestion which plays so large a part in all cases of
hysteria, and its attendant ailments.
It is this grain of truth in tfie practice of prayer which
is used—often criminally used—by quacks of all kinds,
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
13
and, which forms the stock-in-trade of the travelling
evangelist, while it also forms the basis of the
megalomaniacal ravings of Mrs. Eddy and her benighted
followers. If Dr. Inge cares to call this kind of thing
“spiritual influence,’’ he may do so; but no one has
ever disputed the /ability of a man to deceive himself,
whether it be for goodness or badness. And if a man
will deceive. himself, he can have no better machinery,
than that provided by religion.
But is this process of self-deception what the world
really understands by prayer? Is it what Dr. Inge had
in mind when for many years he read the official prayers,
and when he stood in the pulpit and said to his
congregation, “Let us pray’’?
Did he really mean
to say:—
There is no answer to the prayer which I am asking
you to offer in the shape of any visible alteration in the
course of events. You must not expect rain to fall in
answer to your prayer, nor that disease will be cured. Microbes
are not influenced by prayer, nor are meteorological conditions
changed. Prayers will save neither the sailor at sea nor the
soldier on land. But if you can persuade yourself that there
is someone somewhere who will listen to your prayer and
will answer it as you desire, then you will find that prayer
will bring you peace and blessedness.
I think that if Dr. Inge had addressed his congrega
tion in these plain words he would soon have been
without a congregation to address. But he was only
following the example of large numbers of the more
intelligent of the clergy in thus using the old phrase
ology, while inwardly giving his words a new inter
pretation.
Preachers thus believe one thing and say
another. I admit that this1 kind of double-dealing is
not cofifinetf to the Church, but it is in the Church
that it finds its strongest and most popular expression.
Ministers of religion often indulge in this practice
�14
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
'because they think their congregations will complain if
told what the clergy really think. Congregations go on
pretending to believe what is told them, because they
do not wish to shock their parson. Open and honest
speech on both sides might lead to some startling results.
Belief in the efficacy of prayer belongs, as I have
said, to the childhood of the race.
It bejongs to a
time when mankind believed that nature was a com
plex of living forces that could be swayed in their
action by prayers and worship.
Thence arose the
elaborate ceremonies that belong to the religions of
the world. Prayer meant the establishment of diplomatic
relations between man and the gods.
But these
diplomatic relations were disturbed by the growing
knowledge that the forces of nature were not conscious
of man’s desires and needs, that they were not deviated
from their path by his prayers; and with that knowledge
there set in the decline of the belief in prayer.
To-day science will have nothing to do with prayer.
It cannot admit the slightest probability or possibility
that the course of natural happenings is to be influenced
in this way.
And, willy-nilly, other people follow
the line indicated by science. Their attitude is that
of Falstaff (adapted) “Will prayer mend a broken
arm? No. Will prayer mend a broken leg?
No.
Prayer hath no skill in surgery.
A fig then for
prayer; I’ll none of it.’’ History endorses the dictum
of wise old Montaigne, “We prav only by custom and
habit.’’
But the power of even custom and habit has its
limitations.
And Dr. Inge’s theory, that prayer is
good so long as one can persuade oneself that it is
good, will not work.
People have not prayed for
health, or for rain, or for protection, or for victory,
�WHAT LS THE USE OF PRAYER?
15
because they believed they were indulging in a kind
of mild mental exercise, or because they wished to
fool themselves with phrases.
They prayed because
they believed there were gods that took sides with
those who praised them and punished those who
did not. Let this belief die and religion exists as a
mere shadow of a shade, while the gods join that
lengthy procession of dead deities that wind like a
ghostly caravan across the face of history.
The position of the educated clergy to-day is not
one to be envied. In terms of historic Christian belief
and doctrine they are committed to the belief in, and
teaching of, the power of prayer.
In the light of
scientific knowledge, in view of their own self-respect,
they are bound to recognize the absurdity of belief
in prayer.
Some of those who have begun their
ministerial career have broken away, although family
and social connexions often keep them silent concerning
their opinions. Others decline the priesthood although
their parents had destined them to enter this ancient,
but hardly, to-day, wholly honourable profession. Those
who, despite their knowledge and understanding, enter
the ministry, find themselves on the horns of a dilemma.
On the one hand, if they openly discard prayer, without
which religion has no sense of reality, they will lose
the support of multitudes of simple-minded believers.
On the other hand, if they proclaim the power of prayer,
they know they will lose the respect, even though
they may retain a measure of deference, of more intelligent
and better-educated folk. And beyond all is the deeper
question as to the use of a God who does nothing to
help those who believe in him, and nothing against those
wbo do not. It is good to find a man of Dr. Inge’s
eminence repudiating the historic function or prayer. It
would also be interesting to know for how long he has
�16
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
held this belief about prayer. It would be still more
interesting to know how many thousands of the clergy,
in practice, share Dr. Inge’s opinions, and how many
of them awaA till their retiring age, before taking the
general public into their confidence.
The belief in prayer was
the religious world. To-day
and is fast becoming a
churches sre called upon to
prospect is—Bankruptcy.
once the greatest asset of
it is ceasing to be an asset
liability.
And when the
liquidate this liability, the
Published by
G W Foote & Co., Ltd.
702 Holloway Road
London N19 3NL.
Printed by
Aidgate Press
84b Whitechapel High Street
London El.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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What is the use of prayer?
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the People
Series number: No. 3
Notes: Published by G.W. Foote & Co. Ltd. Printed by Aldgate Press. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Pioneer Press
Date
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[c. 1910]
Identifier
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N169
Subject
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Prayer
Religious practice
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (What is the use of prayer?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
NSS
Prayer
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/fdb523bb56c4fc9d368f2cb66cf6da2e.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=R07NmZj1c5wL-8tsiE64dnU56%7EJma5pEg3kfQb8NiQ6MZsFpFO4iGlKkwCbkPI4XPmK72lc-59ua2HWABZsNOY-PtlzN2C3TBSITTJXI15EIZhZFdqVd4TfgFCIC2eywe7HZ-NedqKfc1ekl9aR05lVC7dy4daa1k4W5uSKuRjOiNGTZAVP1b9mTtnYgfKWTJMrtevCv1p-nvtsSK2ZAzVuzTPX821iM9r5Flc1iJCUigOfKFu7BTrgv3wBQpQNf4vzLJxUybtR7yV7Xp3OBXTfs0R1iwp2XU0wGrFwwUezq2XRuiFjcTu65lW3V%7EU-RX3gPJ8qopLzeBRAeBAEc3g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
41677df9f026c0d2336489ac966ff33f
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
FOURT& EDITION.
“TRUTH SEEKER” PAMPHLETS, No. 4.]
THE DECAY OF
BELIEF.
——
BY C. COHEN.
PRICE ONE
PENNY
�THE DECAY OF BELIEF.
“ If there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in
the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed.”
Professor Max Muller.
I.
Science impresses upon every careful student the universality
y*’’* of one process—change. Everywhere, in the heavens above
and on the earth beneath, in the growth of Society, and in the
development of ideas, we find change and decay, birth and death,
going on side by side. Serfdom gives place to Feudalism, Feudalism to
Industrialism, one system of thought succeeds another, but so gradually
that it is impossible to say just where the old order ends and the new
begins. So long as we confine ourselves to certain departments of life,
it is tolerably easy to make this process plain—even to the ordinary
understanding; it is when we attempt to apply the same comparative
principle to current religious ideas that we find it met with bitter
opposition. Nor is this surprising. The fundamental idea of religion
—particularly of revealed religion—is antagonistic to change. Religion
delivers its message, not as something to be improved upon as the race
develops, but as a message which contains the beginning and end of all
that may be said upon the subject. Infallibility and growth are
contradictory terms. A system that claims to be infallible closes the
door to development; and thus it is, that while in other departments of
life we readily recognise that the past is full of error, and that our chief
duty is to improve upon it, in religion we are taught—in effect if not in
so many words—that as we value the past we are bound to perpetuate
its follies and mistakes.
•Yet the “Time Spirit” makes its presence felt in religion as in
other matters, and as we look abroad we cannot but notice that the creed
which satisfied men and women for so long is steadily crumbling away.
A century and a half ago Bishop Berkeley could boast that Geology
failed to demonstrate that man had existed upon the Globe for a longer
period than the biblical 6,000 years, the doctrine of hell fire was being
preached with all it primitive warmth, the genesaic days of creation
were believed to be ordinary days of 24 hours each, Wesley was
declaring that to give up the belief in witchcraft was to give up the bible,
and educated Christians were asserting—as uneducated ones still assert
—that a refusal to accept Christian doctrines was merely an excuse for
aa^odern
�3
leading an immoral life. And now mark the change ; the vast antiquity
Of man is admitted by all who are capable of forming a correct judgment
upon the matter ; witchcraft is admitted by Christians to be an
imaginary crime; the days of creation are extended to indefinite periods
of may be millions of years each ; and, finally, even the bitterest
opponents of Secularism are driven to admit that a large number of
those who have rejected all religions lead lives that many (who pride
themselves upon their Christianity) would do well to imitate. The
breaking up of the old creed is observable in every direction. There is
not a church in England that is not honey-combed with unbelief; not
a single doctrine of Christianity which is not called into question by
men and women whose characters are beyond reproach, and whose
intellectual ability admits of no question. There is scarcely a prominent
preacher in England who does not lament the unwillingness of people
to attend church, and the lack of interest shewn in its teachings by
those who do. A speaker at a recent church Congress, held at New
castle, said: “Indifference to religion was prevalent among all classes of
the community, even the churches were not free from the prevailing
infection. If this indifference was old it had a new aspect; it was
instructed indifference. Many of its advocates knew the Bible as well
as they did. This added enormously to the gravity of the situation.**
Another pointed out that while the seating accommodation in places of
worship in England was only sufficient for one-fifteenth of the population,
even that was not half taken up. General Booth laments that “ A great
wave of infidelity is sweeping over the country, and Humanitarianism
is taking the place of soul saving.” Archdeacon Farrar informs a
reporter of the Newcastle Leader that: “ It would require a prophet to
arise to cause people to attend church.” And prophets are scarce
now-a-days. And meanwhile, in the hope of retaining a few within the
fold, Christ and his gospel are compelled to play an ignominious second
to a tea meeting, lantern entertainment, or a musical festival.
Nothing could demonstrate the decay of belief better than the
attempts made, more or less successfully, to tone down, or explain away
altogether, much that Christianity once prided itself upon teaching. You
read the Bible, the New Testament, early Christian literature, and then
in sweet simplicity set out expecting to find something like the same
sort of teaching, and something like the Jesus of the New Testament,
believed in by those who still pass under the name of Christian. But do
you? You discover from the lips of your religious teachers that it is not
absolutely necessary to believe in future rewards and punishments, nor
even in miracles; the Bible is not all inspired, only a part, though
which part eminates from God and which from man—God only knows.
As for Jesus, he undergoes a parallel transformation.
In apologetic
literature he appears in a quite up-to-date costume; and a fitting
introduction to many of the volumes of sermons upon such subjects as
“Christianity and the Social Question” would be a picture of Jesus in
corduroy and slouch hat, addressing the mob of Jerusalem upon the
“Living Wage.” Jesus, we learn, was a communist and a conservative:
a socialist and an individualist; an advocate of Papal infallibility and
“The greatest Freethinker that ever lived;” a charming variety of
�4
characters to suit all classes—you pay your money and you have your
choice. In the hands of modern apologists, the prophet of Nazareth
becomes like one of the characters in “ Pinafore,”—“ A living ganglion
of irreconcileable antagonisms.”
II.
The two principal causes responsible for this decay of religious
belief, are,'—The growth of scientific knowledge, and the development of
industrial life.
By familiarising the mind with the conception of
undeviating natural law, Science has, in the most effectual manner,
sapped dhe foundations of religion. Doctrines that possessed a certain
air of plausibility so long as men’s knowledge of natural processes was
small, became utterly ridiculous in the light of the positive knowledge
afterwards acquired. Previous to the development of Modern Science,
it was comparatively easy to entertain a belief in miracles, the
efficacy of prayer, and kindred doctrines; but now that our scientific
knowledge is becoming more perfect with each successive generation, we
find the acceptance of such beliefs becoming increasingly difficult. It
may be said to be almost a law of the mind,—answering to the first of
Comte’s three stages—that whenever the causes producing phenomena
are unknown, there is a tendency to endow such phenomena with
intelligence and will similar to our own. This tendency, noticeable
among even educated people, finds actual expression among uneducated
races, in the growth of their religious doctrines—from which our own
are remotely descended. We find this principle illustrated in the
deification of all natural forces by primitive man : and universally, we
find a decline in this personification of Nature wherever positive
knowledge is allowed to develop.
So long as Astronomy was in its infancy the planets were viewed,
and worshipped, as living beings. The demoniacal theory of disease, as
taught in the New Testament by Jesus, was believed in only so long as
the causes inducing disease were unknown. Not one to-day views a
comet as a messenger from God, shaking war and pestilence from its hair
—a conception dominant in the Christian world as late as the fifteenth
century.
The reason why these beliefs, once universally accepted,
are now rejected by all educated people, is obvious—every advance
in our knowledge of the order in which phenomena occur has involved
the overthrow of the conception of intelligent agencies at work in the
world around us, and the recognition of nature in all its departments
as a beautiful piece of machinery, unconscious, self-adjusting, self
repairing, and self-regulating. And thus it happens that as Science
has developed, religious beliefs have declined. The fundamental ideas
of religion and science are thoroughly antagonistic • one can only develop
at the expense of the other; and just as history shows that periods
of great religious activity have also been periods during which positive
knowledge made but small progress, so a study of the development
of the human mind shows that step by step with the growth of scientific
investigation then has gone on a decline of the religious sentiment. And
this brings me to a vital distinction between the present religious
�5
conflict and preceding ones. In previous contests the fight has been
between rival religions, involving as a result the acceptance of Paganism
On the one hand or Christianity on the other, or a selection of
one of the many forms of Christianity itself. The difference between
the contending parties was thus a difference of degree only, to-day it
is a difference of kind. The present struggle involves as a final issue
the affirmation of religion as a fundamental article of our social creed,
of its rejection as something artificial, hysterical, and useless ; the issue
involves the supremacy of either the volitional or the scientific theory of
the universe. In previous contests the result has been decided quickly,
because the same type of mind sufficed for either side ; the struggle is
longer to-day because a certain mental discipline is necessary before
one can rank oneself intelligently with the new order.
The second cause I have mentioned as producing the decay of belief
Operates in a more direct manner. Broadly it shows itself in binding
together people who were formerly leading isolated lives. Sydney Smith
who gave utterance to some very wise sayings—for a clergyman—once
said that, “ If Bears were only to meet together occasionally and
growl out their ursine grievances, their general behaviour would undergo
an improvement.” This applies with equal truth to human beings.
While people are separated they are unsocial; it is chiefly by association
that we become civilised ; in associating with people of different habits
and temperaments we acquire a breadth of character which it is almost
an impossibility to acquire in any other manner. The sharp corners are
rubbed off, our characters are rounded by this social friction, we begin
to have sympathy with each other's failings, and to admire each other’s
virtues. But in addition to this the development of our modern
industrial and commercial life which necessitates a rapidity and ease of
communication unknown to earlier times, introduces, almost uncon
sciously, a new principle by which to estimate conduct. Men begin to
judge their fellows by an altogether different standard; the very man
who, formerly, would have drawn back in horror at the bare idea of
associating with an Atheist, now finds himself embarked in the same
enterprises, working on the same platform, and cherishing the same
political and social ideals. The man whom he views, religiously, with
horror, he regards socially with respect—and even admiration. These
conflicting feelings at first neutralise each other, but gradually one of
them gains the ascendant, and from the whole tenor of our modern
lives, that one is bound to be the secular estimate of life and its duties.
Thus a new standard by means of which to judge conduct, is introduced;
instead of judging men and women by their adherence to a stereotyped
code, a tendency—and one which becomes more powerful year by year
—develops to judge them upon the grounds of the intrinsic worth of
their actions. Every social reform that helps to break down class
distinction, and to bring into closer relation different frames of mind
hitherto isolated, is thus helping to disintegrate religious beliefs.
Historically, civilisation has always followed the lines of commercial
enterprise, and in our own day we can note how each successive step in
the development of industrial life, or in the social emancipation of the
people, has involved a decrease of the religious sentiment.
�6
I do not pretend that these are the only causes operating against
religion, only that they appear to me to be the principal ones; and I
believe that all other causes, working in the same direction, will be
found to be merely modifications of one—or both—of these two.
III.
Necessarily the disposition of the mind towards the same object
varies from age to age, all mental growth implies this much. The beliefs
of the wise men of one generation become fairy tales for the children
of another. The Greek mythology was once believed in, so was the
Roman, so was witchcraft believed in by many of the leading men of
Europe two centuries ago. Who believes in these things now ? The
temper of the age has changed ; it no longer discovers in the history of
the Hebrew race the hand of divinity, nor in an earthquake the
anger of God. The old beliefs no longer live because the type of mind
which rendered their life possible is dying out. In the nursery there
may be life in the old tales yet, the mind of the child is fitted for
wonder, but in the church there is death. Tales that live in the child, die
in the man ; but the formulas belonging to the dead beliefs are not
always buried with them, and the result is that divorce between belief
and conduct which makes our modern English life such a living lie.
During the Middle Ages the Christian world possessed two kinds of
truth ; truth according to philosophy, and truth according to theology!
As a result of this convenient arrangement a statement might be true
in one department and false in another. Without acknowledging it in
so many words the modern Christian adopts the same vicious practice;
principles taught in church have no place out in the world, and so we go
on saying one thing and doing another. We shut out the Bible from
our legislation, we exclude it in practical politics as much as is possible,
we refuse to allow religion any place in five-sixths of our social life, and
then utter the frightful lie that our civilization is based upon the Bible
and its teachings. Ignoring, consciously or unconsciously, the fact that
over each successive generation Christianity exerts a lessening influence,
many of its adherents stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the signs of
decay everywhere confronting them.
But it is not by limiting our view of Christianity to our own day
or generation that we can hope to perceive how great the decline of
that creed really is, We need to go further back and bring under our
survey several centuries, and then we at once recognise what a poor
insignificant thing Christianity has become.
Time was when the
Church held within its grasp the entire life of man, when art crawled
to it for patronage, and music for shelter; when science and philosophy
clipped their wings and worked humbly in the sphere to which theology
had consigned them.
To-day all is changed ; people no longer
believe, despite their protestations to the contrary, that the Church
possesses any information that cannot be obtained by ordinary methods.
Men die and go out into the great unknown with far less fear than
they formerly did, when the priest stood at their bedsides croaking out
his miserable message—concern for the spiritual welfare of the patient,
not unmixed with the hope of becoming the possessor of his
�7
worldly* goods. Science, Art, Literature, and Music, are no longer
provinces of the Church’s kingdom.
Science pursues its course
and cares little whether the Church approves or disapproves; Art
no longer depends upon Church parronage for its existence ; Music has
established a kingdom of its own, and no longer exists to illustrate
Church doctrines, as it did only 300 years ago; while year by year the
proportion of books published upon theology become less and less. Like
a kingdom being dismembered, the Church has lost one province after
another; it stands to-day, a mere shadow of its former self, a follower
where it once led, obeying orders where it once issued commands,
receiving thankfully a kind word, thrown to her like a bone to a hungry
dog, from men whom she would have burned at the stake had they but
lived when the Church was still strong.
Decay is as true of systems of thought as it is of inanimate objects.
Just as the “ everlasting hills ” crumble away under the action of a
number of hidden forces, so system after system of religion crumbles
away before the advance of thought. It is not that the change is sudden
or abrupt; on the contrary, it is so gradual as to be almost imperceptible.
Like the sepulchre of Moses, no man knoweth the grave of a religion,
but the change takes place all the same; and it is only after a long
period has passed that we are able to look back and show that the
fundamental character of the creed has changed. Just as the seed by
sheer expansion breaks through the membrane that surrounds it, so a
religion finds itself shattered by the steady growth of thought. It
matters not the particular religion with which we are dealing, for all
present substantially the same features.
Everywhere, North, South,
Bast, and West, in Ancient and Modern times, we find men sooner or
later breaking through the bonds of ancient creeds and formulating
rules of life born of human experience, and more in harmony with
present needs and desires. In our own day we see this tendency at
work stronger than ever; on all sides we find the old order breaking up
and giving place to the new. Dogmatic authority has had its day; the
future is for Freethought.
“ Away, away from the darkened rooms,
Where they grudge you the light of day,
Where men low bowing in craven fear
To their mis-shapen idols pray.
Of superstitious worshippers
Enough in the years of old! To day
Have done with portent, myth, and ghost,
Leave them to your teachers gray.”—Goethe.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR :----
“Evolution and Christianity.” Price 2d.
“What is the Use of Prayer?” Price 2d.
“ An Outline of Evolutionary Ethics,”
Chapter 1.—Introductory. 2.—The Meaning of Morality. 3.—The Moral Standard.
4.—The Nature and Authority of Conscience. 5.—Society and the Individual.
London.—R. FORDER, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
Bradford.—TRUTH .SEEKER COMPANY, 36, Villiers Street.
�THE
Edited
by C. GOHEN.
A Monthly Journal devoted to Mental Freedom and Progress
Should be read by all Freethinkers.
PUBLISHED ON THE FIRST OF EACH MONTH.
LONDON!:—R. FORDER, 28, Stonecutter St., E.C.
BRADFORDTRUTH SEEKER CO., 36, Villiers St.
“TRUTH > SEEKER” PAMPHLETS.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
1.—GENESIS AND SCIENCE, by Stanley Jones
..
..
2.—CHRIST AND ALLY SLOPER, by Sam Standring
..
3.—SECULARISM, by John Grange
.....................................
4.—THE DECAY OF BELIEF, by C. Cohen.........................
5.—HIS SATANIC MAJESTY, by S. H. Alison
..
..
6.—BIOGRAPHY OF A. B. MOSS, by Wm. Heaford.
..
s.
0
0
0
0
0
0
d.
1
1
1
1
1
1
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The decay of belief
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 4th ed.
Place of publication: London; Bradford
Collation: 7 p. ; 21 cm.
Series title: Truth Seeker Pamphlets
Series number: No. 4
Notes: Portrait of author on front cover. Advertisement for monthly journal The Truth Seeker, on back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
R. Forder; Truth Seeker Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1897]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N139
Subject
The topic of the resource
Religion
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The decay of belief), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
NSS
Religion
-
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215c14e35028d04475c16375245daeb0
PDF Text
Text
Agnosticism or... ^
I admit that the title of this pamphlet is illogical. It
suggests an alternative where no alternative exists.
My excuse for the title is that this and the succeeding
pamphlet represent a single essay broken in halves
for no other reason than the matter of publication.
The purpose of this first half is to prove that a
genuine Agnosticism is Atheism masquerading under
a lesser socially objectionable name. As presented by
the Agnostic himself, no difference between the two
terms is discernible. An Atheist is one who does not
believe in God. An Agnostic is one who is without
belief in God. The difference between not having and
being without is too fine for my dull brain.
All important words have a history, and in the
present case the history of modern “ Agnosticism ’*
throws light on the intention which gave it birth.
“ Gnostic ” is a very old term, and in the early years
of Christianity gave considerable trouble to the
Church. The Gnostics were those who claimed, by
the aid of some “ inner light,” to know the mysteries
of God and the universe. So did the Church, but the
gnosis of the Church differed from the gnosis of the
Gnostic sects, and when rivals in the mystery busi
ness quarrel, the conflict is apt to be very fierce. And
it is fiercest of all when neither of the two principals
know anything of the matter which divides them.
One of the disputants in the quarrel we have in mind
has seized hold of this old. war-word, Gnostic, with
an addition. He does not claim any knowledge
(gnosis) of God or gods, he asserts his ignorance, his
irremovable ignorance, in the word “ A-gnosticism.”
2
�Nl3o
AGNOSTICISM OR ...
?
J
He agrees with the Atheist in. not having a belief in
God, but he disagrees with him as to how that ignor
ance should be expressed. The Atheist declines to
be led astray by the mere change of a word. So, too,
would the Christian if Atheism was not there to bear
the brunt of his hostility. But the Atheist insists on
an identity underlying the verbal difference. The
Agnostic accuses the Atheist of “ coarseness,” of
saying more than he ought to say, of being definite
where he should be hesitant. To this the Atheist
retorts that the Agnostic is thinking “ respectably ”
where he should be helping to rid a perfectly honest
and completely applicable word of the ill-odour with
which religious bigotry has surrounded it. That is
the existing position in a nutshell.
“ Agnostic ” was brought into vogue by the
famous scientist, T. H. Huxley, towards the end of
the ’eighties. Examining himself he found that he
was without belief in a god. In those days being
without belief in a God and spelling it A-T-H-E-I-S-T
was a much more serious offence than it is
to-day. And it was an offence that was peculiarly
English. It was not intellectually wrong, but it
was socially undesirable. It was coarse and common;
it reeked of quart pots and clay pipes, and had a
number of other objectionable connotations with
which Christian malignity had surrounded it. So
Huxley looked round and found a word that enabled
him to spell Atheism in another way. He tacked “ a ”
on to gnosticism, and Agnosticism was born.
In the interests of clarity let us take a number of
pertinent definitions from an authoritative modern
dictionary, always remembering that dictionaries do
not manufacture our vocabulary, they merely record
it, and speculate on origins.
Here are the relevant definitions numbered for ease
of reference: —
�4
AGNOSTICISM OR . . .
?
(i) God. Origin unknown. Probably an Aryan
word meaning that to which sacrifice is made. One
of a class of powerful spirits regarded as controlling
a department of nature or of human activity.
■ (2) Agnostic. One who does not believe in, and
who holds that nothing can be known about, God.
(3) Atheist. One who does not believe in the
existence of God.
(4) Agnosticism. The negative doctrine held by
Agnostics.
(5) Atheism. Disbelief in God.
It will be observed that in the first definition
“ God ” leaves us completely in the air. It has not
the slightest significance by itself. It implies nothing.
If I define a thing as wood, I can relate it to wood in
general, leaving the particularization of the many
forms of wood for after consideration. But “ God ’’
by itself? We cannot say that “ God ” by any other
name would mean as much, for it has no meaning
whatever.
“ God,” we are told, is probably an Aryan word.
But an Aryan language and an Aryan people were
both invented about the middle of the last century as
a working hypothesis, and are now discarded nearly
everywhere—except in Germany.
The rest of the definition does tell us something of
importance, but it is of no value whatever to Agnos
ticism; the definition tells us something concerning
gods, but the whole significance of Agnosticism is
that it indicates something of which nothing can be
known. I disclaim all responsibility for this last
seven words, it is the strict Agnostic position. And
the information given us in the latter part of the
definition is fatal to Agnosticism.
The latter part of the definition, “ One of a class ot
powerful spirits regarded as controlling a department
of nature or of human activity,” and “ that to which
sacrifice is made,” does tell us something about gods. >
�AGNOSTICISM OR ...
?
g
It indicates the known way in which the gods have
come into existence, and it is what people have in
mind when they use “ God ” with honesty and intel
ligibility. But that information is, again, fatal to
Agnosticism.
“ The God according to religion,” said the late
Lord Balfour, is “ a God to whom men can pray,
who takes sides, who has preferences.” In plain
words, a magnified man, not a mere unintelligible
abstraction. Gods, says the great anthropologist,
Westermarck, are made by man, and man “ endows
them with rights quite after human fashion, and
imposes on himself corresponding duties.” Sir James
Frazer says, “ By a God I understand a supernatural
being of a spiritual and personal nature, who controls
the world or some part of it. . . It has been not
unusual to apply the name God to very different con
ceptions. . . I cannot but regard them as illegitimate
extensions of the term, in short, an abuse of
language.” Professor F. H. Bradley (author of
Appearance and Reality') is more directly con
temptuous in his language. He says, “ Most of those
who insist on the personality of God are intellectually
dishonest. They desire one conclusion, and to reach
it they argue for another. . . The deity they want is,
of course ... a person like themselves. . . What
is not this is really nothing.”
, There is no need to multiply quotations to this end.
What I am driving at is this. A proposition to be
affirmed or denied, or about the truth of which we
suspend judgment, must be intelligible. If I am
asked whether my neighbour is guilty of burglary, I
may reply, Yes, or No, or say that I cannot decide
one way or the other. But then I have a clear con
ception of what I mean in any one of the three cases.
But if I am asked whether “ sloberkums ” “ corifies ” “ ketcherput,” I cannot say I am agnostical
on the matter, I can reply only that I do not under
�6
AGNOSTICISM OR . . .
?
stand what is the reference of the questions. I may
look as wise as the most learned fool that ever
existed, but my ignorance remains unaffected.
In other words, I am saying that a proposition to
be understood must be intelligible, its meaning- must
be more or less definite. The answer to whether a
“ Whoozelum ” exists is not, “ I do not know, I
must wait for evidence one way or the other,” the
answer, the only intelligible answer, is that I do not
know what my questioner is talking about.
Has the Agnostic when he says “ I neither affirm
nor deny the existence of God,” anything- in mind?
Is his declaration of Agnosticism intelligible to him
self? Does it really contain anything more than a
desire to guard against being identified with that
terrible thing “Atheism”? Candidly I can find
nothing more than this. Even if we pass the very
ambiguous word “ spirit,” the Agnostic cannot mean
that he is in doubt as to whether there is a number of
spirits controlling nature and human activities. That
would bring him straight back to fetichism.
By some, Agnosticism is described as a case of sus
pended judgment. Suspended judgment on what?
Does the Agnostic suspend judgment as to whether
God ” has ever meant anything other than a mag
nified man? Many modern religionists deny “ God ”
the possession of a physically animal structure. He
has not the shape of man. He has neither arms nor
legs, he has neither a physical head nor a physical
structure such as a-man has. But he is still capable of
love, anger, wisdom, etc. Yet these are as much
animal and human characteristics as arms and legs.
Intelligence, love, desire, are as human as red hair
and side-whiskers. What is it about which judgment
is suspended ? It is no use to keep up a steady chatter,
“ we do not say that God is or God is not,” if one
has not the least notion of what God is, and would
not know him if he were found. Looking for a black
�AGNOSTICISM OR ...
?
7
cat in a black passage on a black night is a very stiff
proposition, but at least we do know what “ cat ”
and “black” and “passage” stand for. The
Agnostic is looking for a “ what-you-may-call-ir "
in a “thingumajig ” and a “ whatsisname.” If he
ever found it he would never recognize his discovery.
The Agnostic warmly declares that he knows
nothing about God. That is the foundation of his
creed. But if that was all he implied, the statement
would hardly be worth making. He obviously means
more than this. What he says is, “I know nothing
about God.” What he implies as the justification of
his own credo is “ Neither does anyone else.” And,
as we shall see, when he justifies this, he is justify
ing precisely the position taken up by the avowed
Atheist.
Perhaps the most curious attempt to make the
Agnostic position intelligible was essayed by the late
Sir Leslie Stephen. In his Agnostic's Apology, he
solemnly informs us that “ The Agnostic is one who
asserts—what no one denies—that there are limits to
human understanding.” Of all the apologies that
have been put forward this is surely the poorest and
the weakest. Where is the necessity to coin a new
word to affirm what nobody has ever denied? One
might as reasonably establish a society of “ noseites ” and limit the human membership to those who
have nasal organs. There might be a certain
convenience in adopting a formula that puts one
in agreement with everybody, but it is hardly
worth while. After all, a definition must define—
that is, it must exclude as well as include. And if
the meaning of Agnosticism is as given by Sir Leslie
Stephen, in what way does it differentiate the
Agnostic from the Atheist, or from anyone else ?
The Agnostic apparently believes nothing that others
do not believe, and says nothing that all others do
not say.
�8
AGNOSTICISM OR . . .
?
Let us, as the professional evangelist would say,
get back to God. And I begin with something that
everyone actually does believe. The world as we
know it (which is the only world we can deal with) is
made up of things, or as some would prefer to put it,
of events. But all events, whatever they are like,
or wherever they occur, are single in their existence.
We have collective terms such as “tree,” “ man,”
bird,” and so forth, but there is not a tree separate
from particular trees, or “ Man ” distinct from par
ticular men.
I stress this consideration because a great deal of
the confusion connected with “ God ” is due to its
neglect. There are a multitude of gods in the world,
as there are a multitude of trees, and in the earlier
stages of civilisation g'ods are contemptibly common.
Many of them have passed away, and many new ones
have been created; but there is no such conceivable
thing as a God ” that is distinct from particular
gods. The gods can be collected, tabulated, and their
common characteristics noted, just as one can collect
different men, brown, red, yellow, white, tabulate
them and indicate what features they have.
Abstract words are very often useful instruments
of thought. Without them human thought could not*
get very far. But when we mistake abstractions for
concrete existences, confusion is certain to follow.
Now the gods of the world are as well known and
as well understood as the trees of the world. And if
we were to take all the g'ods that have ever existed,
and add to them the gods that do exist, the Agnostic
would not hesitate to dismiss them one after the
other as mere figments of the imagination. In the
end he would become a deicide on the most elaborate
and comprehensive scale. More than that, in terms
of his Agnosticism, he would deny the existence of
any other god that any people could ever conceive or
worship. The gods of existing savages, the gods of
�AGNOSTICISM OR ...
?
9
the Mohammedan, the Jew,- the Christian, would all
go. But if all gods, past and present, and future, are
rejected as having no better existence than the ghost
that haunts the old baronial castle, what has he in
mind when he says that he does not deny the exist
ence of God. He is denying the existence of any
conceivable god, and an inconceivable proposition is
just nonsense.
Or if, as is said, the Agnostic suspends judgment
as to whether “ God ” exists or not, what “ God ” is
it he has in mind ? As I have written elsewhere, if I
say that I don’t believe in the existence of the only
kind of bird, fish, or tree that is known to me, that I
believe they are all creatures of the imagination, but
add that I will not say that there does not exist any
where a fish that has not the structure of a fish and
does not live in the water, or that I think there may
be in existence a bird that is quite unlike a bird in
both structure and habits, or that there may. exist
somewhere a tree without roots, trunk or branches,
etc., I shall quite properly be told that if I run across
these things they are certainly not fish, bird, or tree.
Can anyone think of a thing existing which is quite
unlike any other thing of the same name or nature ?
The man who is looking for a god or a bird that is
entirely unlike the bird and the god he knows would
not know them for either god or bird if he ran across
either or both.
We have not vet reached the end of the confusion
and self-contradictions of the Agnostic. The only
helpful definition of “ God ” that we could find was
that God began as one of a company of spirits who
exercised control over some part of nature. I accept
that definition, not because it suits my own position,
but because my position has grown out of the anthro
pological account of the origin of gods. Every god
the world has known began existence as a good or
evil spirit, and he was dreaded or loved because he
�I©
AGNOSTICISM OR ... ?
was supposed to be capable of exerting a good or bad
influence on human affairs. These are incontro
vertible facts. No competent person seriously dis
putes them. Many of these gods have come down to
us as fairies, goblins, etc., and many of them have
died away altogether. The Agnostic has not the
least hesitation in brushing aside whole galaxies of
known or conceivable gods as figments of the
imagination. He says they are the outcome of an
unenlightened imagination, and I agree with him.
By what rule does he dismiss these dethroned gods,
and also all that are still ruling over very diminished
territories, but still insists that he cannot deny the
existence of something he knows not what, and
would be in no better state of mind if he met it ?
All my life I have been asking Agnostics to give
me some justification for their “ suspension of judg
ment.” What is there on which we are to suspend!
The Agnostic does pass judgment on the spirits he is
told about, and in whom other people believe. Is
there any better evidence, or any different evidence,
for the probable existence of a spirit called God, than
there is for another spirit who, instead of being
called God, is called Mumbo-Jumbo? There is sin
cerity of belief with both these gods, and the
evidence for the existence of each is of exactly the
same character and quality. Why the differentia
tion? If I may paraphrase a line in Wilde’s Lady
Windermere’s Fan, whenever religion is concerned
to be intelligible it is found out.
Still further. Less than two centuries ago the
belief that men and women might hold intercourse
with the devil was very generally held. Witchcraft
was then a criminal offence, and many thousands of
men, women, and children were tortured and killed
for intercourse with devils, in whose existence there
is the same religious and Christian warranty as there
is for the existence of God. This belief in intercourse
�AGNOSTICISM OR . .
II
with devils was killed, for intelligent men and
women, by the knowledge of the conditions that gave
this belief being and authority. Yet one never heard
an Agnostic say that he suspended judgment con
cerning that deposed god, Satan. Quite definitely
he says with the Atheist that so soon as the origin
and history of the belief in human intercourse with
the spirit, Satan (God) was known and understood
it was at once definitely rejected. He does not say
I am agnostic on the subject of demoniacal posses
sion. He says, I deny that any such being as Satan
exists; he owes his existence to the imaginings of the
uninstructed mind. The belief is condemned by its
history.
And this is exactly what has happened to the gods.
They have been found out. I do not mean that they
have been found out in the sense in which we find out
that someone is bad whom we have considered good,
or as a liar one whom we thought truthful. The
gods have been found out, as people discovered
ghosts and fairies an*d demons to be mere “ figments
of the imagination.” For the past three hundred
years this idea concerning the gods has been gaining
ground, and, with and since the publication of the
epoch-making Primitive Culture, by E. B. Tylor,
the gods have been tracked down and their origin
exposed with a devastating accuracy. Such primitive
peoples as exist have been carefully studied and the
process of god-making has been fully exposed. The
whole weight of modern scientific theory is thrown
upon the side of the conviction that all gods, ancient
and modern, savage and civilized, good and bad,
have had their origin in the uninstructed mind of man
reading his own feelings into nature, personifying
them, and then trembling before the creation of his
own imagination. There are, of course, divergences
of opinion as to the order of the different stages of
this development, just as there are differences
�12
AGNOSTICISM OR . . .
?
of opinion as to the precise nature and order of that
organic evolution which traces the development of
living matter from the simplest, to the hig'hest form.
From all sides, from that of the study of culture in.
general, from the essential nature of such ceremonies
as the Christian eating of the god, the incarnate god
walking the earth as a man, the general conception
of natural happenings as due to! supernatural or
superhuman beings, the whole of modern religion
can be traced.
Now it is possible, although it would be supremely
ridiculous at this time of day, for the Agnostic to
repudiate the demonstrable findings of the anthro
pologists. But I have never met an Agnostic who
takes up this position. With a lack of logic that runs
the Christian Scientist very close for a front place in
the race for the absurdity medal, what we find is an
acceptance of the scientific account of the origin of
the belief in gods, followed by an assertion that one
must suspend judgment on the whole question as to
whether gods exist. But if one really does accept
the account of modern science concerning- the origin
of the belief in God, what is there left on which to
express doubt? If all the facts of experience, sub
jective and objective, upon which primitive humanity
built the belief in “ spirits ” are otherwise explained,
the first interpretation is quite plainly ruled out of
court. We cannot, at least we ought not, to accept
a conclusion that follows from premises that are
demonstrably false. If the mental hesitancy and
illogicality displayed by the Agnostic in relation to
the idea of God was manifested with regard to the
ordinary affairs of life, existence would be
impossible.
I began this pamphlet with some definitions. I
may well end with some more. A correspondent
once asked me what reply I would give to a ques-
�AGNOSTICISM OR ...
?
13
tioner who at the end of one of my lectures put the
following question: —
Do you believe that the universe was created or set going
by a personal power?
I replied in substance to this question, which was
obviously considered clear and simple, that the
question needed clarifying because in any important
controversy a question should have a definite mean
ing. Words should have a reference to somethingthat one understands. Take, for example, the three
cardinal terms in this fifteen-wo rd sentence.
Created. In relation to the question this has two
meanings. It may carry the theological implication
that the world was made out of nothing. That may
be set on one side as pure nonsense. It might be
recited as an act of faith, but it could not be believed
apart from a first-rate miracle. The second meaning
of the term might be that indicated when we speak of
the creation of a painting, a piece of music, or the
design of a building. But this does not lift us out of
the realm of human effort, and so cannot have any
bearing on the question of Agnosticism. As used,
the word is either nonsensical or misleading.
Universe. There is a double sense here, that may
very easily mislead. The world, or the universe,'
whichever term we prefer, does not refer to one
thing, but to a vast number of individual things.
There is riot indicated in the word “ world ” an exist
ence that is separate from particular things.
“World ” is a short summing up of the total of
individual things. But a whole has never an existence
separate from the parts. The world, as I have already
said, is a world made up of particulars. They form
the material of and for our thinking. But there does
not exist these things plus another existence, the
world. To think otherwise is to get back to the
fallacies of the mediaeval schoolmen.
•
�M
AGNOSTICISM OR . . .
?
Personal Power. Power means, briefly, the ability
or capacity to do something, never any more than
this, even though it be spelt with a capital P. Per
sonal means something pertaining to a person, to a
human being, although if anyone chooses to extend
it to animals, I should raise no objection. But no
“ personal power ” is known or is conceivable that
can absolutely originate power. All that happens in
nature is the transformation of “ power,” or emerg
ence of power following from a rearrangement of
existing forces. (There is a suggestion of question
begging here, but it would require a lengthy discus
sion to put it otherwise, and the reader will, I think,
follow my meaning.) If we are to retain a sane
meaning to the words we use, the creation of the
universe by personal power is simply unthinkable.
We are mistaking words for things, which lands us
back into the early stages of savage thought.
As to how I would reply to one who put the
-question given at the end of a lecture I might
probably answer as follows : —
“ I will put this question into plain English before
replying to it. I have been asked whether I believe
that every thing has been created by some manlike
power—this is what I understand by personal power,
because if it means that everything has arisen ent of
preceding conditions, the question has no connexion
whatever with ‘ God.’ If the first meaning is in
tended, then I must know what it means. Until then
I cannot say I do not know, because even to say that
one does not know one must know what it is of which
he pleads ignorance. If a question is asked in Greek,
how can I say whether I agree with it or not unless
I have some understanding of Greek? I do not
know and cannot conceive any personal power except
that manifested by man. So will you please go home,
write out the question you have in mind, giving it
an intelligible meaning, so making it a topic for
�AGNOSTICISM OR ...
?
15
probable fruitful discussion, and I will see what can
be done. At present all the good that has been done
by your question depends upon whether I have made
it plain that philosophy does not consist in posing
unanswerable questions clothed in non-understandable language, but in properly framing an enquiry
resting on a known basis, and to work from that
known basis to further understanding, And in doing
this it may help to bear in mind the fact that profound
truth is nearly always simple. It is only complicated
error that looks intellectually impressive—until it
meets with exposure.”
I will conclude with one more attempt to clear up
a confusion, and by asking a question. The confusion
is a very common one with modern religious apolo
gists, and it appears to have fooled a great many who
are not religious. Jumbling together a purely arti
ficial question that belongs to a philosophy that has
not yet freed- itself from the influence of religious
associations, we are told that neither the Atheist nor
the Agnostic can solve the problem of the “ mystery
of the universe. ” But the mystery of the universe has
nothing whatever to do with the validity of the Belief
in “ God ” or gods. It is a heritage from the days
when neither science nor philosophy had completely
freed itself from theology. Besides, science knows
nothing of “ mysteries it considers only problems.
And a problem must be stated in intelligible terms; it
must have reference to knowable facts, and we can
only think of what is unknown so far as it falls into
the framework of the possible knowable. To use a
horse-breeding term, “ The problem of the
universe was born of bad metaphysics out of a
weakened theology.” The progeny of that line has
been simply awful.
The final question I put to the Agnostic is this : —
The Agnostic says he does not deny the existence of
�i6
AGNOSTICISM OR ...
?
“ God ” (this does not include the g'ods of all
theologies past and present), but denies that if
“ God ” exists he cannot be like the gods of any of
the religions, otherwise he would not call himself an
Agnostic. So my question is : “ As ‘ God ’ standing
by itself has no reference to anything known, or to
anything that is conceivably known, how would the
Agnostic recognize God as God if he ever discovered
him—or it ? In other words, how does anyone recog
nize something as being what it is, if it is totally
unlike anything he has ever seen, or anything he can
even think about? ”
By the time the Agnostic has carefully recon
sidered his question, I fancy he will have small use
for such a word as Agnosticism. .
PAMPHLETS FOR THE PEOPLE
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
1'3.
14.
15.
16.
Did Jesus Christ Ever Live?
Morality Without God.
What is the Use of Prayer?
Christianity and Woman.
Must We Have a Religion?
The Devil.
What Is Freethought?
Gods and Their Makers.
Giving ’em Hell.
The Church’s Fight for the Child.
Deity and Design.
What is the Use of a Future Life?
Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to Live.
Freethought and the Child.
Agnosticism Or ... ?
Atheism.
Postage One Penny.
Twopence Each.
Issued for the Secular Society Limited, and
Printed and Published by
Thb Pioneer Press (G. W. Foote & Co., Ltd.),
61, Farringdon Street, London, E.C.4,
ENGLAND.
71
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Agnosticism or...?
Creator
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Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the People
Series number: No. 15
Notes: "Issued for the Secular Society Limited." Publisher's series list on back cover. Date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Pioneer Press
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[1914]
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N130
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Agnosticism
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application/pdf
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English
Agnosticism
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pamphlets
^or the Peop/e
No* 11
DEITY AND
DESIGN
CHAPMAN COHEN
sa
THE PIONEER PRESS
�Deity and Design
The one certain thing about the history of the
human intellect is that it runs from ignorance to1
knowledge. Man begins knowing nothing of his own
nature or of the nature of the world in which he is
living. He continues acquiring a little knowledge
here and there, with his vision broadening and his
understanding deepening as his knowledge increases?
Had man commenced with but a very small fraction
of the knowledge he now possesses, the present state
of the human mind would be very different from what
it is. But the method by which knowledge is acquiredis of the slowest. It is by way of what is called trial
and error. Blunders are made rapidly, to be cor
rected slowly; some of the most primitive errors are
not, on a general scale, corrected even to-day. Man
begins by belieying, on what appears to be sound
evidence, that the earth is flat, only to discover later
that it is a sphere. He believes the sky to be a solid
something and the heavenly bodies but a short
distance away. His conclusions about himself are
as fantastically wrong' as those he makes about'the
world at large. He mistakes the nature of the
diseases from which he suffers, and the causes of the
things in which he delights. He is as ignorant of the
nature of birth as he is of the cause of death.
Thousands of generations pass before he takes the
first faltering steps along the road of verifiable
knowledge, and hundreds of thousands of genera
tions have not sufficed to wipe out from the human
intellect the influence of man’s primitive blunders.
Prominent among these primitive misunderstand
ings is the belief that man is surrounded by hosts of
�DEITY AND DESIGN
3
mysterious ghostly agencies that are afterwards
given human form. These ghostly beings form the
raw material from which the gods Of the various
religions are made, and they flourish best where
knowledge is least. Of this there can be no question.
Atheism, the absence of belief in gods, is a com
paratively late phenomenon in history. It is the
belief in gods that begins by being universal. And
even among civilised peoples it is the least en
lightened who are most certain about the existence
of the gods. The religious scientist or philosopher
says: “ I believe ”; the ignorant believer says: “ I
know.”
Now it would indeed be strange if primitive man
was right on the one thing concerning which exact
knowledge is not to be gained, and wrong about all
other things on which knowledge has either been, or
bids fair to be, won. All civilized peoples reject the
world-theories that the savage first formulates. Is it
credible that with regard to gods he was at once and
unmistakably correct ?
It is useless saying that we do not accept the gods
of the primitive world. In form, no; in essence, yes.
The fact before us is that all ideas of gods can be
traced to the earliest stages of human history. We
have changed the names of the gods and their
characteristics; we even worship them in a way that
is often different from the primitive way; but there
is an unbroken line of descent linking the gods of the
most primitive peoples to those of modern man. We
reject the world of the savage; but we still, in our
churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, per
petuate the theories he built upon that world.
In this pamphlet I am not concerned with all the
so-called evidences that are put forth to prove the
existence of a God. I say “ so-called evidences,”
because they are not grounds upon which the belief
in God rests; they are mere excuses- why that belief
�I
4
I
DEITY AND DESIGN
should be retained. Ninety per cent, of believers in
God would not understand these “ proofs.” Roman
Catholic propagandists lately, as one of the adver
tisements of the Church, have been booming the
arguments in favour of a God as stated by Thomas
Aquinas. But they usually preface their exposition—
which is very often questionable-—by the warning
that the subject is difficult to understand. In the case
of Roman Catholics I think we might well raise the
percentage of those who do not understand the argu
ments to ninety-five per cent. In any case these
metaphysical, mathematical, and philosophic argu
ments do not furnish the grounds upon which anyone
believes in God. They are, as I have just said,
nothing more than excuses framed for the purpose of
hanging on to it. The belief in God is here because
it is part of our social inheritance. We are born into
an environment in which each newcomer finds the
belief in God established, backed up by powerful
institutions, with an army of trained advocates com
mitted to its defence and to .the destruction of every
thing that tends to weaken the belief. And behind
-all are the countless g’enerations during which the
belief in God lived on man’s ignorance and fear.
In spite of the alleged “ proofs ” of the existence
of God, belief in him, or it, does not grow in strength
or certaintv. These proofs do not prevent the
number of avowed disbelievers increasing to such an
extent that, whereas after Christians proclaiming for
several generations that Atheism—real Atheism—does
not exist, the defenders of godism are now shriek
ing ag'ainst the g’rowing' number of Atheists, and
there is a call to the religious world to enter upon a
crusade against Atheism. The stage in which heresy
meant little more than an exchange of one god for
another has passed. It has become a case of accept
ance or rejection of the idea of God, and the growth
is with those who reject. This is not the way in which proofs, real proofs,
operate. A theory may have to battle long for
�DEITY AND DESIGN
5
general or growing acceptance, but it grows pro
vided it can produce evidence in its support. A
hypothesis is stated, challenged, discussed, and
finally rejected or accepted. On the question of the
hypothesis of God the longer it is discussed the. less
it is believed. No wonder that the ideal attitude of
the completely religious should be “ on the knee,”
with eyes closed and mouths full of nothing but
petitions and grossly fulsome praise. That is also
the reason why every religious organization in the
world is so keen upon capturing the child. The cry
is : “ If we lose the child we lose everything ”—which
is another way of saying that if we cannot implant a
belief in God before the child is old enough to under
stand something of what it is being told, the belief
may have to be given up altogether. Keep the idea
of God away from the child and it will grow up an
Atheist.
If there is a God, the evidence for his existence
must be found in this world. We cannot start with
another world and work back to this one. That is
why the argument from design in nature is really
fundamental to the belief in deity. It is implied in
every argument in favour of Th.eism, although
nowadays, in its simplest and most honest form, it is
not so popular as it was. But to ordinary men and
women it. is still the decisive piece of evidence in
favour of the existence of a God. And when ordinary
men and women cease to believe in God, the class of
religious philosophers who spend their time seeing
by what subtleties of thought and tricks of language
they can make the belief in deity appear intellectually
respectable will cease to function.
But let it be observed that we are concerned with
the existence of God only. We are not concerned
with whether he is good or bad; whether his alleged
designs are commendable or not. One often finds
people saying they cannot’ believe there is a God
�6
DEITY AND DESIGN
because the works of nature are not cast in a benevo
lent mould. That has nothing to do with the essen- '
tial issue, and proves only that Theists cannot claim
a monopoly of defective logic. We 'are concerned
with whether nature, in whole, or in part, shows any
evidence of design.
My case is, first, the argument is fallacious in its
structure; second, it assumes -all that it sets out to
prove, and begs the whole question by the language
employed; and, third, the case against design in *
nature is, not merely that the evidence is inadequate,
but that the evidence produced is completely irrele
vant. If the same kind of evidence were produced in
a court of law, there is not a judge in the country who
would not dismiss it as having nothing whatever to
do with the question at issue. I do not say that the
argument from design, as stated, fails to convince;
I say that it is impossible to produce an\> kind of
evidence that could persuade an impartial mind to
believe in it.
The argument from design professes to be one
from analogy. John Stuart Mill, himself without a
belief in God, thought the argument to be of a
genuinely scientific character. The present Dean of
St. Paul’s, Dr Matthews, says that “ the argument
from design employs ideas which everyone possesses
and thinks he understands; and, moreover, it sbems
evident to the simplest intelligence that if God exists
he must be doing something, and therefore must be
pursuing some ends and carrying out some purpose.”
(The Purpose of God, p. 13.) And Immanuel Kant <
said the argument from design was the oldest, the
clearest and the best adapted to ordinary human
reason. But as Kant proceeded to smash the argu
ment into smithereens, it is evident that he had not a
very flattering opinion of the quality of the reason
displayed by the ordinary man.
But what is professedly an argument from analogy
turns out to offer no analogy at all. A popular Non
conformist preacher, Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, whose
�DEITY AND DESIGN
7
book, Why do Men Suffer? might be taken as a fine
text-book of religious foolishness, repeats the old
argument that if we were to find a number of letters
so arranged that they formed words we should infer
design in the arrangement. Agreed, but that is
obviously because we know that letters and words
and the arrangement of words are due to the design
of man. The argument here is from experience.
We infer that a certain conjunction of signs are de
signed because we know beforehand that such thing's
are designed. But in the case of nature we have no
such experience on which to build. We do not know
that natural objects are made, we know of no one
who makes natural objects. More, the very division
of objects into natural and artificial is an admission
that natural objects are not, ftrima fade, products of
design at all. To constitute an analogy we need to
have the same knowledge that natural objects are
manufactured as we have that man’s works are
manufactured. Design is not found in nature; it is
assumed. As Kant says, reason admires a wonder
created by itself.
The Theist cannot move a step in his endeavour to
prove design in nature without being guilty of the
plainest of logical blunders. It is illustrated in the
very lang'uage employed. Thus, Dr. Matthews cites
a Roman Catholic priest as saying, “ The adapta
tion of means to ends is an evident sign of an intelli
gent cause. Now nature offers on every side
instances of adaptations of means to ends, hence it
follows that nature is the work of an intelligent
cause.” Dr. Matthews does riot like this way of
putting the case, but his own reasoning shows that
he is objecting more to the argument being stated
plainly and concisely rather than to its substance.
Nowadays it is dangerous to make one’s religious
reasoning so plain that everyone can understand the
language used.
Corisider. Nature, we are told, shows endless
�8
DEITY AND DESIGN
adaptations of means to ends.' But nature shows
nothing of the kind—or, at least, that is the point to
be proved, and it must not be taken for granted. If
nature is full of adaptation of means to ends, then
there is nothing further about which to dispute. For
adaptation means the conscious adjustment of things
or conditions to a desired consummation. To adapt
a thing is to make it fit to do this or that, to serve
this or that purpose. We adapt our conduct to the
occasion, our language to the person we are address
ing, planks of w’ood to the purpose we have in mind,
and so forth. So, of course, if nature displays an
adaptation of means to ends, then the case for an
adapter is established.
But nature show's nothing of the kind. What
nature provides is processes and results. That and
nothing* more. The structure of an animal and its re
lation to its environment, the outcome of a chemical
combination, the falling of rain, the elevation of a
mountain, these things, with all other natural
phenoipena, do not show an adaptation of means
to ends, they show simply a process and its result.
Nature exhibits the universal phenomenon of causa
tion, and that is all. Processes and results looked
like adaptations of means to ends so long as the
movements of nature were believed to be the expres
sion of the will of the gods. But when natural
phenomena are regarded as the inevitable product of
the properties of existence, such terms as “ means ”
and “ ends ” are at best misleading', and in actual
practice often deliberately dishonest. The situation
was well expressed by the late W. H. Mallock : —
When we consider the movements of the starry
heavens to-day, instead of feeling it to be wonderful that
these are absolutely regular, we should feel it to be.
wonderful if they were ever anything else. We realize that
the stars are not bodies which, unless they are made to
move uniformly, would be floating in space motionless, or
moving across it in random courses. We realize that they
are bodies which, unless they moved uniformly, would not
be bodies at all, and would exist neither in movement nor in
�DEITY AND DESIGN
9
rest. We realize that order, itistead of being the marvel
of the universe, is the indispensable condition of its
existence—that it is a physical platitude, not a divine
paradox.
But there are still many who continue to marvel at
the wisdom of God in so planning the universe that
big rivers run by great towns, and that death comes
at the end of life instead of in the middle of it.
Divest the pleas of such men as the Rev. Dr.
Matthews Qf their semi-philosophic jargon, reduce
his illustrations to homely similes, and he is marvel
ling- at the wisdom of God who so planned things
that the two extremities of a piece of wood should
come at the ends instead of in the middle.
The trick is, after all, obvious. The Theist takes
terms that can apply to sentient life alone, and
applies them to the universe at large. He talks about
means, that is, the deliberate planning to achieve
certain ends, and then says that as there are meads
there must be ends. Having, unperceived, placed the
rabbit in the hat, he is able to bring it forth to the
admiration of his audience. The so-called adapta
tion of means to ends—properly, the relation of pro
cesses to results—is not something that can be picked
out from phenomena as a whole as an illustration of
divine wisdom; it is an expression of a universal
truism. The product implies the process because it
is the sum of the power of the factors expressed by
it. It is a physical, a chemical, a biological platitude.
I have hitherto followed the lines marked out by
the Theist in his attempt to prove that there exists a
“ mind ” behind natural phenomena, and that the
universe as we have it is, at least generally, an
evidence of a plan designed by this “ mind.” I have
s also, pointed out that the only datum for such a con
clusion is the universe we know-. We must take that
as a starting point. We can get neither behind it nor
beyond it. We cannot start with God and deduce the
�7
IO
DEITY AND DESIGN
i
universe from his existence; we must start with the
world as we know it, and deduce God from the
world. And we can only do this by likening the uni
verse as a product that has come into existence as
part of the design of God, much as a table or a
wireless-set comes into existence as part of the
planning of a human “ mind.” But the conditions
for doing this do not exist, and it is remarkable that
in many cases critics of the design argument should
so often have criticized it as though it were incon
clusive. But the true line of criticism, the criticism
that is'absolutely fatal to the design, argument is that
there is no logical possibility of deducing design
from a study of natural phenomena. And there is no
other direction in which we can look for proof. The
Theist has never yet managed to produce a case for
design which upon examination might not rightly
be dismissed as irrelevant to the point at issue.
In what way can we set about proving that a thing
is a product of design ? We cannot do this by show
ing that a process ends in a result, because every
process ends in a result, and in every case the result
is an expression of the process. If I throw a brick,
it matters not whether the' brick hits a man on the
head and kills him, or if it breaks a window, or
merely falls to the ground without hurting anyone or
anything. In each case the distance the brick travels,
the force of the impact on the head, the window, or
the ground, remains the same, and not the most
exact knowledge of these factors would enable any
one to say whether the result following the throwing
of the brick was. designed or not. Shakespeare is
credited with having written a play called King Lear.
But whether Shakespeare sat down with the de
liberate intention of .writing Lear, or whether the
astral body of Bacon, or someone else, took posses
sion of the body of Shakespeare during the writing
of Lear, makes no difference whatever to the result.
Again, an attendant on a sick man is handling a
number of bottles, some of which contain medicine.
�DEITY AND DESIGN
II
others a deadly poison. Instead of giving- his patient
the medicine, the poison is administered and the
patient dies. An inquest is held, and whether the
poison was given deliberately, or, as we say, by
accident, there is the same sequence of cause and
effect, of process and result. So one might multiply
the illustrations indefinitely. No one observing the
sequences could possibly say whether any of these
unmistakable results were designed or not. One
cannot in any of these cases logically infer design.
The material for such a decision is not present.
Yet' in each of these cases named we could prove
design by producing, evidence of intention. If when
throwing the brick I intended to kill the man, I am
guilty of murder. If I intend to poison, I am also
guilty of murder. If there existed in the mind of
Shakespeare a conception of the plan of Lear before
writing, and if the play carried out that intention,
then the play was designed. In every case the essen
tial fact, without a knowledge of which it is im
possible' logically to assume design, is a knowledge
of intention. We must know what was intended, and
we must-then compare the result with the intention,
and note the measure of agreement that exists be
tween the two. It is not enough to say that one man
threw the brick, and that, if it had not been, thrown,
the other would not have been killed. It is not
enough to say if the poison had not been given the
patient would not have died. And it certainly is not
enough to argue that the course of events can be
traced from the time the brick left the hands of the
first man until it struck the second one. That, as I
have said, remains true in any case. The law is in
sistent that in such cases the intent must be estab
lished ; and in this matter the law acts with scientific
' and philosophic wisdom.
Now in all the cases mentioned, and they are, of
course, merely “ samples from bulk,” we look for
design ■ because we know that men do write plays,
men do poison other men, and men do throw things
�12
DEITY AND DESIGN
at each other with the purpose of inflicting bodily
injury. We are using what is known, as a means of
tackling, for the time being, the unknown. But our
knowledge of world-builders, or universe designers,
is not on all-fours with the cases named. We know
nothing whatever about them, and therefore cannot
reason from what is known to what is unknown in
the hopes of including the unknown in the category
of the known.
Second, assuming there to be a God, we have no
means of knowing what his intentions were when he
made the world—assuming that also. We cannot
know what his intention was, and we cannot con
trast that intention with the result. On the known
facts, assuming God to exist, we have no means of
deciding whether the world we have is part of his
design or not. He might have set about creating
and intended something different. You cannot, in
short, start with a physical, with a natural fact, and
reach intention. Yet if we are to prove purpose we
must begin with intention, and having a knowledge
of that see how far the product agrees with the
design. It is the marriage of a psychical fact with a
physical one that alone can demonstrate intention,
or design. Mere agreement of the “ end ” with the
“ means ” proves nothing at all. The end is the
means brought to fruition. The fundamental objec
tion to the argument from design is that it is
completely irrelevant.
The belief in God is not therefore based on the
perception of design in nature. Belief in design in
nature is based upon the belief in God. Things are
as they are whether there is a God or not. Logically,
to believe in design one must start with God. He, or
it, is not a conclusion but a datum. You may begin'
by assuming a creator, and then sayi he did .this or
that; but you cannot logically say that because
certain things exist, therefore there is a God who
made them. God is an assumption, not a conclusion.
�DEITY AND DESIGN
13
And it is an assumption that explains nothing. If I
may quote from my book, Theism or Atheism:—
To warrant a logical belief ■ in design, in nature, three
things are essential. First, one must assume that God
exists. Second, one must take it for granted that one has
a knowledge of the intention in the mind of the deity before
the alleged design is brought into existence.. Finally, one
must be able to compare the result with the intention and
demonstrate their agreement.
But the impossibility of
knowing the finst two is apparent. And without the first
two the third is of no value whatever. For we have no
means of reaching the first except through the third. And
until we get to the first we cannot make use of- the third.
We are thus in a hopeless impasse. No examination of
nature can lead back to God because we lack the necessary
starting point. All the volumes that have been written and all
the sermons that have been preached depicting the wisdom
of organic structures are so much waste of time and breath.
They prove nothing, and can prove nothing. They assume
at the beginning all they require at the end. Their God
ds not something reached by way of inference. It is some
thing assumed at the very outset.
Finally, if there be a designing mind behind or in
nature, then we have a right to expect unity. The
products of the design should, so to speak, dovetail
into each other. A plan implies this. A gun so de
signed as to kill the one who fired it and the one at
whom it was aimed would be evidence only of the
action of a lunatic or a criminal. When we say we
find evidence of a design we at least imply the
presence of an element of unity. What do we find ?
Taking' the animal world as a whole, what strikes
the observer, even the religious observer, is the fact
of the antagonisms existing in nature. These are so
obvious that religious opinion invented a devil in
order to account for them. And one of the argu
ments used by religious people to justify the belief in
a future life is that God has created another world
in which the injustices and blunders of this life may
be corrected.
For his case the Theist requires co-operative
�14
DEITY AND DESIGN
action in nature. That does exist among the social
animals, but only as regards the individuals within
the group, and even there in a very imperfect form.
But taking animal life, I do not know of any instance
where it can truthfully be said that different species
of animals are designed so as to help each other. It
is probable that some exceptions to this might be
found in the relations between insects and flowers,
but the animal world certainly provides none. The
carnivora not only live on the herbivora, but they
live, when and where they can, on each other. And
God, if we may use Theistic language, prepares for
this, by, on the one hand, so equipping the one that
it may often seize its prey, and the other, that it may
often escape. And when we speak of a creation that
brings an animal into greater harmony with its en
vironment, it must not be forgotten that the greater
harmony, the perfection of the “ adaptation ” at
which the Theist is lost in admiration, is often the
condition of the destruction of other animals. If
each were equally well adapted one of the competing
species would die out. If, therefore, we are to look
for design in nature we can, at most, see only the
manifestations of a mind that takes a delight in
destroying on the one hand what has been built upon
the other.
There is also the myriads of parasites, as clear
evidence of design as anything, that live by the infec
tion and. the destruction of forms of life “ higher ”
than their own. Of the number of animals born only
a very small proportion can evbr hope to reach
maturity. If we reckon the number of spermatozoa
that are “ created ” then the number of those that
live are ridiculously small. The number would be
one in; millions.
Is there any difference when we come to man ?
With profound egotism the Theist argues that the
process of evolution is justified because it has pro
duced him. But with both structure and feeling
there is the same suicidal fact before us. Of the
�DEITY AND DESIGN
15
human structure it would seem that for every step
man has taken away from mere animal nature God
has laid a trap and provided a penalty. If man will
walk upright then he must be prepared for a greater
liability to hernia. If he will live in cities he must
pay the price in a greater liability to tuberculosis.
If he will leave his animal brothers behind him, he
must bear reminders of them in the shape of a use
less coating otf hair that helps'to contract various
diseases, a rudimentary second stomach that pro
vides the occasion for appendicitis, rudimentary
“ wisdom teeth ” that give a chance for mental
disease. It has been calculated that man carries
about with him over one hundred rudimentary
structures, each absorbing- energy and giving
nothing in return.
So one might go on. Nature taken from the point
of view most favourable to the Theist gives us rro
picture of unified design. Put aside the impossi
bility of providing a logical case for the inferring of
design in nature, it remains that the only conception
we can have oif a designer is, as W. H. Mallock, a
staunch Roman Catholic, has said, that of “a
scatter-brained, semi-powerful, semi-impotent mon
ster . . . kicking his heels in the sky, not perhaps
bent on mischief, but indifferent to the fact that he
is causing it.”
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Deity and design
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Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 15 p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the People
Series number: No. 11
Notes: "Issued for the Secular Society Limited." Date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Pioneer Press
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[1912]
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N140
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Deism
Free thought
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English
God
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tUilX
Pamphlets for the People
No. 18
Christianity
and Ethics
I
BY
CHAPMAN COHEN
2d.
THE PIONEER PRESS
�Christianity and Social Ethics
The whirligig of time brings many changes. Time was
when Christianity imposed rules upon mankind, and in the
plentitude of its power decided what should or should not
be permitted to exist. Today thinkers are no longer under
the necessity of proving that their teachings are in harmony
with religion; it is Christianity that feels called upon to
show that its teachings are in agreement with established
truth. The support of a scientific name is angled for,
fought for, and when obtained advertised with the
persistence of a quack medicine vendor advertising his
cures. Contemporary Christianity not only craves the
assistance of forms of thought which it denounced as born
of the devil and tried its hardest to suppress, but every
passing mental fashion, every social movement or political
agitation—provided it commands a fair measure of public
support-—finds Christian organisations ready with ex
pressions of friendship and promises of support.
It is, therefore, only to be expected that as there is
to-day less faith and interest in religious questions, and
more concern for social and humanitarian ones, the attitude
of church and chapel should undergo a corresponding
change. Purely religious doctrines are kept discreetly in the
background, those bearing a social aspect are brought to the
front, and the public is informed, sometimes by inuendo,
sometimes by direct statement, that the social betterment
of the people is the prime, if not the only concern of
genuine Christianity. Instead of being openly taught,
purely religious beliefs are implied or suggested. Vague
texts that may be anything, everything, or nothing are cited.
Professions of good will, such as no system, secular or
religious, is without, are produced as authoritative endorse-
�3
ments of the most definite of modern social theories. Above
all, the name of Jesus is kept constantly to the fore. On
the strength of a handful of moral commonplaces—all
perfectly familiar to the people of his day—he is accounted
the greatest of social reformers. That he seized upon a
little child as an illustration of the type of mind necessary
to gain eternal felicity in the next world, is proof positive
of his profound care for children in this. His preaching
to the poor—although there is no evidence that the poor
were specially selected—is proof of his deep concern for
their social welfare. His obvious belief in the approach
ing end of the world—a belief shared by his immediate
followers—is made to mean the redress of social and
political injustice only. His dependence upon super
natural methods of help, supernatural methods of curing
disease, and the fact that once eliminate the supernatural
there is no reason whatever for his existence, all these con
siderations are slurred over or their relevancy flatly denied.
And so by eliminating objectionable aspects and over
emphasising favourable ones, by ignoring all the circum
stances of time, place, and culture, a poor Jewish peasant
is transformed into the ideal leader of modern social
reform. No other person is treated in such a manner, and
if any were, there is hardly one who could not be elevated
to the same pinacle of excellence.
In spite, however, of such apologetic tactics, the con
viction that ourely Christian morality is at best inadequate,
and at worst dangerous, steadily gains strength. And this
conviction is really more inimical to Christianity than
would be an equally widespread conviction of its falsity.
For the average person will more easily tolerate a false
teaching than a palpably dangerous one. Thousands of
people give Christianity their support because they believe
it to be socially useful, not because they have, a conviction
that its teachings embody any vital truth. Meanwhile it is
the developing moral consciousness of the public that is
testing Christianity most severely. That we no longer hear
�4
from the pulpits so much of the cruder and more brutal
Christian teachings is due in part to the sustained criticism
of recent years; but something is also due to the fact that
people are outgrowing such teachings, and that were they
now generally preached, congregations would be filled with
contemptuous pity* or sheer disgust. To evade the intellec
tual attack apologists have talked largely of Christianity’s
ethical value, and of the "moral homage to Christ." And
now that the public at large is beginning to have doubts
upon this point, the end would seem to be approaching
with rapid steps.
What are the objections that may be properly raised
against Christianity from the standpoint of a sane social
morality?
They may be stated as follows:—
Christianity is " a negative or ascetic ideal, and can
not therefore be the true ideal of such a being as man
in such a world as this. It not merely invalidates the
instincts and interests of the healthy-minded man, it
further degrades and enslaves the human spirit itself,
and paralyses, instead of stimulating its highest powers.
Its morality is not merely lacking in virility and
strength; it destroys the virile qualities in human
nature, and substitutes servility and cowardice for the
masterfulness and courage which are inseparable from
strength of purpose and self-respect and its anti-social
tendencies which make it impossible to construct any
social order in accordance with its principles.’’
Asceticism is not a transient phenomenon in Christian
history; it is more or less constant, and such a general
phenomenon must be attributed to more than a mere
accident.
Asceticism is so deeply embedded in Christianity that all
the efforts of the churches have never yet been able to
suppress it. Its ideal figure, Jesus, was a celibate. His
�s
great disciple, Paul, declared that it was better to remain
unmarried than to marry, and only sanctioned marriage for
the lowest of reasons. In heaven there was to be neither
marriage nor giving in marriage (Matt, xxii., 30), a teach
ing emphasized by the writer of Revelations, who saw
144,000 around the Throne, all virgins (Rev. xiv.? 3);
while the saying of Jesus (Matt, xix., 12) bore its fruit in
the practice of self-mutilation among some of the Christians
of the early centuries. Asceticism was deliberately taught
by the early Christian fathers as the most desirable state.
Denunciation of " worldly pleasures,” and the duty of
mortifying the flesh, has been one of the stock features
of the Christian teaching from the earliest ages to the
present, with Catholic and Protestant alike . . . and we do
not yet know how to take life in a frankly, healthy spirit,
with the result that we are always oscillating between
unhealthy outbursts of over indulgence in purely sensual
pleasures, and equally unhealthy displays of a prurient
puritanism.
Now it is certainly far easier to trace the influence of
Jesus and of historic Christianity in this direction than in
that of sweetening and purifying life. That those who
took the ascetic view were mistaken is at best an assump
tion : that they were sincere does not admit of question.
It may also be noted that there is a strange dearth of teach
ing in the New Testament concerning the family. True it
is not condemned, but it is in part deprecated, and in part
ignored. One might go carefully through the New Testa
ment without finding enough counsel therein on which to
bring up a family. Among the Christain writers of the
first few centuries the teaching that family life was more
or less of a drag on spiritual development held a high
place.. A few—and a very few—do pay a little attention
to this topic, but with all there is an absence of any
adequate conception of the influence of family life in
refining and elevating human nature. It will be noted how
seldom children are mentioned in the Christian writings of
�6
the first three centuries, and the less pleasing features of
the succeeding centuries can be attributed to this omission.
The Christian appeal was to the individual as such, and not
always to the individual at his best. The clarifying con
ception of the individual as an expression of family and
social life is quite absent.
And when we add to these grave faults of omission
and commission the inculcation of indiscriminate almsgiv
ing, the contempt of riches, and the blessings of poverty, the
teaching of non-resistance, the behest to trust in God who
will care for man as he cares for the birds of the air and
the lilies of the field, with the exhortation to the disciples
to trust for support to the charity of those amid whom they
preach, the absurdity of parading genuine Christian morality
as an adequate social ethic becomes apparent. We are
not dealing with a gospel of social regeneration, but with
a teaching of asceticism perfectly familiar to students of
Eastern religions.
Far from Christianity presenting us with an adequate
social ethic, it is positively deficient in both a rational com
ception of the nature of morality and of the conditions of
its development. The mere enunciation of superficially
attractive moral precepts does not—to modern minds, at
least—constitute a man a great moral teacher, and it is cer
tain the world is not perishing for want of moral counsel
of this description. Moral maxims and precepts have always
been sufficiently plentiful, generally ignored, and largely
useless. Those who by nature could appreciate them stood
in small need of their guidance: those who did need their
guidance were unable to appreciate them. Moreover,
general precepts of the nature of those attributed to Jesus,
and which Christian teachers have been always pleased to
preach-—and ignore—are necessarily vague in character, and
correspondingly useless in practice. To be of use we require
with such precepts some rule of interpretation that would
allow of their application to the changing circumstances of
a developing society. To love one’s neighbour as one’s self
A
�7
may be a good enough rule, but its value will depend upon
the circumstances determining its application. Christians
who made the dungeon and the stake the reward of heresy
were often enough convinced that they were acting in the
best interests of their neighbours in seeking to enforce
uniformity of belief upon all. So, too, with such a teaching
as " The labourer is worthy of his hire.” One cannot well
conceive anyone disagreeing with this : and the agreement
robs it of all practical value. What is needed is not the
vague counsel that he who labours should receive adequate
payment, but some equitable rule of determining what the
social value of labour really is. The truth is that such
precepts were never intended to apply to such social
problems as confront modern society, and therefore they
break down with any attempt! to apply them.
o
" On the greater number of moral questions on which
men require moral guidance Jesus has left no direction
whatever.”
The teaching of Jesus ignores the problems of industry,
of civilisation, and of culture, and in so doing does
positively nothing to develope the essential and all im
portant element in life. The great fault of all Christian
teaching and of Christian teachers has been the assumption
that morality can develope without appropriate material and
social conditions. Morality has been treated as though it
existed in vacuo. It was in life, but it had no organic
connection therewith, while social and material conditions
have been looked on more as hindrances to a perfect
morality than as the indispensable medium of its existence.
People have been surfeited with moral teaching, while the
conditions that would have made it of any value have been
persistently ignored. Yet morality neither develops out
of teaching nor does it altogether depend upon teaching
for its development. The primary obligation to morality
is not from precept, but from life. Precept only sum
marises a portion of what life has made manifest. The
�8
purest flower of human conduct has its roots in the
material conditions of life, and purely animal instincts
of the human organism. Divorced from such conditions
morality not only loses all meaning, it ceases to exist-—it
is as valueless as a plant from which one has cut the roots.
In their action Christian teachers have doubtless followed
the lead of the New Testament Jesus, and their failure is
the result. Pagan philosophy gives us a much higher
presentment of ethical truths, a much more satisfactory
analysis of moral states. It is from the Pagan writings
that we get a glimpse of the truth that it is a sanely
ordered and developed intelligence that provides the
surest guarantee of a satisfactory moral life. Purely Chris
tian teaching knows it not; and the result is seen not only
in the constant opposition of organised Christianity to
scientific thought, but also in the continuous depreciation
of character under its influence. Ignoring both the material
and social conditions that make for a higher ethical life, it
has prevented the little good that might have accrued from
the doleful repetition of official moral platitudes.
The absurdity of parading the gospel Jesus, as a social
reformer, is still more apparent when we note that the New
Testament is silent on precisely those questions that con
cern the scientific sociologist. To commence with, the con
ception of the State as a definite organic structure is quite
outside its purview. In the New Testament the only
counsel concerning the State is of a kind to which modern
thinking will attach little value. We are to render
obedience to the " powers that be,” for they are " ordained
of God,” and to resist them merits damnation. Historically,
Christianity has carried out this teaching with a consider
able degree of faithfulness. Every form of political and
social tyranny has in turn received the unquestioning
support of organised Christianity. Occasionally when the
secular power has threatened the interests of the; Church—
often in the interests of the people—there have been signs
of insubordination-—but in the main its subservience has
�9
been complete. So far as the early Christians are concerned
political liberty and social reform were the things that
concerned them least. It will be noted that as the Roman
Empire became more Christian, so it became more sub
missive to the oriental form of government. The people '
lost their love of liberty, their taste for political indepen
dence. In the Christian spirit there was no turn for
liberty, no rebellion, no assertion of right. The process
was practically completed by Constantine, who found
Christianity his most useful ally. And for obvious reasons.
" It strengthened in them (i.e., the people) the feeling of
submissive reverence for government as such; it encouraged
the disposition of the time to political passiveness. It was
intensely conservative, and gave to power with one hand as
much as it took away with the other. Constantine extended
his patronage to the church and by so doing, he may be
said to have purchased an indefeasible title by a charter.
He gained a sanction for the Oriental theory of government.
In all disputes between authority and liberty the traditions
of Christianity are on the side of authority . . . The whole
modern struggle for liberty has been conducted without
help from the authoritative documents of Christianity. In
the French Revolution men turned from the New Testament
to Plutarch. . . . Plutarch furnished them with the teaching
they required for their special purpose, but the New Testa
ment met all their new-born political ardour with a silence
broken only here and there bv exhortations to submission.
Jt R. Seel&y.
. Nothing was further from the minds of primitive Chris
tians than social reform; nothing more foreign to the whole
of the New Testament than a political philosophy. That the
State—in the sense of the entire social structure—could be,
and in fact is, the great determinant in the life of man, is
a view of things never once reached by the New Testament
writers. The individual is addressed as an individual, not
as a member of an organic whole. Yet in any really scien
tific view of the case general individual improvement is to
be realised through social life, or not at all. For an ulti
mate analysis will show that man as an individual is an ex
pression of social forces—forces that precede and survive
his personal existence. Language, habit, frames of mind
�10
and forms of belief are all a product of the social medium,
and are only properly explainable by reference to social
conditions. To consider man apart from this social medium
is, to use an old metaphor, like considering the structure
’of a bird while ignoring the existence of an atmosphere.
Divorce the individual from society, and from both the
standpoints of psychology and natural history, he is an
insoluble enigma.
Such a conception is, however^ quite foreign to the New
Testament, as is also that of a sense of obligation to the
public at large. In this respect Christian ethics is much
inferior to Pagan teaching. The question of the con
stitution of the ideal State, studies of existing social struc
tures, with teachings concerning the duties of the individual
to society, were common enough among Pagan writers.
The narrowing influence of Christian teaching at its
best may be seen by a single illustration. In the Republic
(Bk.v., c. 10) Plato had likened the State to the human or
ganism, the parts of which suffer with any injury to the
whole, the whole losing or gaining with injury or benefit to
any of its parts. There is an obvious echo of this in one
portion of St. Paul’s teaching. The same illustration is
used, but with an important difference. The Pagan applies
it to the State as a whole; the Christian teacher carries it no
further than a petty organism within the State. In the
hands of Plato the principle was essentially inclusive and
social. In the hands of Paul it is essentially exclusive and
sectarian. The one is based upon a perception of the fact
that the interdependence of human beings is a natural, an
organic fact, transcending and embracing all smaller
differences. The other is no more than an appreciation of
the necessity of common action and mutual support among
a select community united by the bonds of a common belief.
Under such conditions the conception could only serve as
a social bond in the improbable event of the whole of the
members of a society being in voluntary agreement on
questions that must always be of a speculative character.
�11
And, as a mere matter of historical fact, Christianity has
always served more as a cause of social division than of
social union.
Christian teaching, on this head, is on a much lower
plane than that current among the Pagans. Instead of
teachings concerning the nature and function of the State,
we have either an ignoring of the subject, or the doctrine
that the State is to be accepted as a fact wherever it exists,
and whatever its form, and that its commands are to be
obeyed whenever they do not directly traverse Christian
teachings and practices. The legitimate fruit of the Chris
tian conception of social duty was seen in the advice of
Luther given to the princes, that they might shoot, stab,
poison, or put out of the way like mad dogs, those peasants
who had risen against the hereditary feudalism of their
time.
The case against Christian social morality is still further
enforced when we note the New Testament teaching con
cerning the position of woman and the question of slavery.
In both cases Christian teaching fails to reach the highest
level of Pagan thought. Women are commanded to keep
silence in the churches; they are not to be permitted to
teach; the man is to be looked upon as the head of the
woman, as Christ is the head of the Church; and wives are
ordered to obey their husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham—a form of obedience that would get a husband lynched now
adays, were it insisted on. In the early Christian literature
women are denounced as incurably vile; opprobious epithets
are showered upon her; she is everwhere treated as an in
ferior creature. Certainly no literature the world has yet
seen has taken a lower view of women than that assumed in
the Christian writings of the first few centuries, nor have
centuries of subsequent development quite destroyed, in the
average Christian mind, the poor conception of woman
engendered in the early centuries of this era.
So, again, with slavery. The only form in which Chris
�12
tianity encountered a labour problem in early times was in
the form of the question of slavery. And with what result?
In all the recorded utterances of the Gospel Jesus, there is
not a single condemnation of slavery as an institution. In
the Pagan world the question of the legitimacy of slavery
was already beginning to excite interest; slaves themselves
were exhibiting symptoms of unrest; but the Gospel Jesus
appears oblivious to their existence. Further, we find St.
Paul sending back a runaway slave to his master, and com
manding slaves (wrongly translated " servants ” in the
English New Testament) to be obedient to their masters, in
fear and trembling, whether they be good or bad, and to
count them as being "worthy of all honour,’’ whether the
masters be believers or unbelievers; while to bear unmerited
punishment in silence and patience is to be counted to their
honour hereafter. The influence of this Christian teaching
and spirit was seen in the absolute cessation of the Pagan
legislation for the betterment of the lot of the slave,
followed by a re-introduction, under Christian emperors,
of some of the harsher features that had been removed.
The modern black-slave trade, it must also be noted, was
pre-eminently a Christian traffic—instituted by Christians,
and at a time when the supremacy of Christianity was
practically unquestioned. And it remained, backed up by
Christians, who quoted thq New Testament and " the pure
Christianity of Apostolic times ” as their authorities, until
the writings of Thomas Paine, with the perception that
free labour was economically more advantageous than
forced labour, led to its abolition. And the glaring fact
remains that no Christian country has ever abolished slavery
while its continuance was economically profitable. Thus
an examination of the one point on which both the teaching
and influence of Christianity on the position of the poor
could be decisively tested, results in an emphatic con
demnation.
A defence of Christian morality is often attempted, not
from the standpoint of direct teaching, but from that of its
�13
sympathy with weakness and suffering, and the spirit of
compassion it has evoked. Now no one, so far as I am
aware, has any complaint to make against sympathy with
suffering, or with the desire to help such as fall by the way
in the struggle of life. Still it could, I think, be shown that
even in this direction Christianity, bv placing sympathy on a
sectarian rather than a humanitarian basis, has given its
development anything but a healthy turn. But the point
of any criticism against Christianity is that, by its lack of
desirable social teaching and intellectual discipline, it has
tended to make sympathy with suffering maudlin and in
jurious instead of sane and helpful. Had Christianity merely
taught kindness towards the unfortunate, criticism would
have been impossible. But it has done more. It has
glorified weakness and suffering, and held them up as
necessary elements in an ideal character. It has taught
people to be patient under wrong and oppression, where
a preaching of discontent would have been far more help
ful. It has preached patience—not the patience that results
from the stern resolve to bear the inevitable with courage,
but the patience that recognises in misery the work of an
all-powerful providence whose decrees it is blasphemy to
question. Patience of the former kind may have its uses;
patience of the latter and Christian kind only makes the
continued existence of wrong the more certain.
All that Christian teaching has ever done is, at most, to
make the lot of the sufferer a little more tolerable. But,
so far as our sympathies lead to this, without our know
ledge causing us to essay the task of preventing the per
petuation of evil social conditions and the continued exis
tence of an undesirable type, our sympathies tend to' become
our deadliest enemies instead of our best friends. The
problem before us is a simple one, so far as its statement is
concerned. Nature’s method of securing a desirable type
is by a process of sheer elimination. The growth of
sympathy and knowledge places a check upon this process
in human society. Both unite in keeping alive those who,
�14
under other conditions, would have been killed off. I am
not aware that anyone would wish it to be otherwise, only
while this is the case all would be better pleased did an
undesirable kind not exist. Still more pleased should we
be at the destruction of those social conditions of which an
undesirable type is, in part, an expression. But to per
petuate a poor kind of human nature is desirable from
neither a biological nor a social point of view. The great
question before society today is really this : Having sus
pended the operation of natural selection in a particular
direction in relation to human society, what are we doing to
bring about the birth of a better type, or to secure its
survival, once it is brought into the world? And, from
the standpoint of this enquiry, the question is : What has
Christianity ever done, either in teaching or in practice, to
give'a satisfactory lead on the matter?
A candid enquiry would show that Christianity, by its
foolish glorification of suffering and pain, by the very fact
of the quality of its ideal character, has not only done
nothing positive, but it has blinded people to the real
gravity of the danger. From thousands of pulpits it has
preached that pain develops character, that suffering
sweetens and ennobles life. They do nothing of the kind.
They deaden and degrade. The world is full of broken
and blasted lives that would have been far different from
what they are but for their experience of pain and misery.
This teaching has been a useful one for the few whose
power has been consolidated by its acceptance; it has been
a disastrous teaching for the many. By its influence the
public conscience has been deadened to the existence of the
mass of removable misery in its midst. Christian sympathy
may have made its existence bearable; a healthy intelligence
would have made its continuance an impossibility.
In truth, the intellectual insight and foresight necessary
to frame a satisfactory moral or social code is quite lacking,
both in Christianity and in its titular founder. Taking the
character of Jesus as it stands in the New Testament, its
�15
intellectual calibre is far below that of Zoroaster, Confucius,
or Buddha. In the case of either of these we encounter
flashes of wisdom, deep insight into many of the problems
of life. In the case of the Gospel Jesus we never leave the
region of moral platitude. Instead of the thinker wrestling
with the world’s problems, we have the religious enthusiast
exhorting the people to submit to the will of God. We
find him insisting on the value of blind faith, while
ignoring the need of right enquiry and the conditions of
rational belief, and threatening vengeance against such as
reject his message. Even in the case of the injunction
against oath-taking, it is the lower, not the higher ground
that is taken. The reason given is a religious one, where
it should have been rejected as a slur upon a person’s
honesty, and an appeal to his fear of punishment instead of
to his love of truth.
Surrounded by all forms of superstition, Jesus rejected
none. All were accepted without question. Outside Judea,
Pagan science had propounded correct theories as to the
shape of the earth, the true nature of disease, the causes of
many natural phenomena, while the conception of natural
law was steadily gaining ground. Never for a moment does
Jesus show himself superior to the ignorance of the Jewish
peasantry amidst whom he moved. The belief in legions
of angels and devils and in demoniacal possession is held
with a gravity that would be laughable but for its sorrow
ful after-consequences. For it was his example that gave
a fuller measure of authority to the witch hunts of the 16th
and 17th centuries, and to the practice of exorcism as a
cure for lunacy. The teachings upon this head are plain
and unmistakable. No one doubts their meaning, and no
one believes them. And yet the teacher who laid down
this ignorant doctrine, who looked for legions of angels
to carry out his bidding, and who walked with, talked with,
and cast out devils, whose whole teaching was based upon
a discredited supernaturalism, is held up before us as an
ideal social reformer and perfect moral guide!
�16
What do we really find when we carefully and honestly
test Christian morality? We have a founder who has
nothing to do with civilisation, with culture, with work, or
industry. We have an ideal character, himself a celibate
and encouraging celibacy in others, its greatest apostle
recommending celibacy as the more desirable state, and
celibacy upheld by the greatest of Christian Churches
throughout the whole of its existence. We have the whole
question of the State ignored, with a complete absence of
any recognition of the fact that man is a member of a
social organism, whose salvation is only to be gained
through the salvation of the whole. We find slavery
endorsed, and women deliberately relegated to an inferior
position, with an absence of an adequate code for the
rearing of a family. We have a number of moral maxims,
largely useless because of their vague character, some harm
ful because of the extravagant form in which they are
cast, and all without the intellectual perception of the
conditions that make a sane morality possible. And finally,
we have the whole of these teachings crystalised in organisa
tions that have admittedly acted with disastrous influence
on the world’s welfare. People of all shades of political
and social opinion, it is sometimes said, look to Jesus for
guidance. They may, but their doing so is surely evidence
that no clear rule of guidance is to be found in that quarter.
For real help, man is thrown back upon himself, and
although many—some for interested purposes, sjme for
other reasons—continue to cloak the fruits of human
experience with a religious covering, one day we may
hope the non-essential will be discarded, and honour given
where it is due.
Issued for the Secular Society, Ltd., and Printed and Published by
The Pioneer Press (G. W. Foote & Co., Ltd.), 41 Grays Inn Rd.,
London, W.C.I.
�
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Christianity and ethics
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Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the People
Series number: No. 18
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Christianity
Ethics
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
OUTLINE
AN
EVOLUTIONARY
ETHICS
BY
C.
COHEN.
Vice-President National Secular Society.
PUBLISHED
BY
R. FORDER,
28,
STONECUTTER STREET.
LONDON, E.C.
1896.
�PREFACE.
The object of the present essay is disclosed in the title;
it is that of presenting, in as few words as possible, an
outline of a System of Ethics based upon the doctrine of
Evolution.
Accordingly, I have avoided entering into a
discussion of the value of any of the special virtues—to do
so would require a volume, not a pamphlet—being content
with putting forward what I conceive to be the essential
principles of a Science of Ethics, leaving it for those who
are interested, to pursue the subject further. There is,
therefore, no attempt at completeness in this essay ; it is
meant as an outline, and an introduction, nothing more.
Nor is there in any sense, a claim of originality on behalf
of the ideas suggested ; that, again, has not been my object.
I doubt whether there is a single original idea throughout
the whole. I have simply aimed at putting in a small
compass, and in plain language, conclusions that are at pre
sent locked up in bulky and expensive volumes, which
the average individual has neither time nor opportunity
to consult or study 'systematically.
Students of Mr.
Herbert Spencer’s Works, Mr. Leslie Stephen’s “ Science
of Ethics,” and Mr. Henry Sidgwick’s “ Methods of Ethics,”
will recognise readily how much I am indebted to these
writers.
‘
Where direct quotations occur, I have named the
sources from which they are drawn ; to have particularized
my indebtedness further would have meant more notes
than text. My one object has been to place the subject
in a brief, clear, and convincing light; if I have succeeded
in doing that, I am quite content.
�B2J347
I.—Introductory.
In endeavouring to carry out the oracular utterance :
*' Man know thyself,” there is no branch of study at once
so interesting and so important, as that which relates to
■conduct. At bottom, all our social, religious, and political
■questions find their supreme justification or condemna
tion in their influence upon human behaviour. A question
that had no reference to conduct, one that could not
possibly influence it for better or worse, might interest
the mere spinner of words, but to the earnest thinker
■or sober reformer, it would be valueless. It is true that
the seeker after knowledge has not always an ethical end
as the conscious object of his studies ; he—to use a com
mon phrase—“ seeks knowledge for its own sake ; ” but
it is clear, on reflection, that the only reason why increased
knowledge should be regarded as of value, is, that it will
enable us to better adjust our actions to the varying
circumstances of life. The fears often expressed, lest
some new theory of knowledge should weaken the force
■of accepted moral precepts, is, again, a tacit admission of
“ the sovereignty of ethics; ” and, when genuine, may
be regarded with a certain amount of favour. Even un
willingness to depart from old forms and customs, when
not pushed too far is good ; a querulous dissatisfaction,
with existing conditions being quite as foolish as a slavish
adherence to obsolete customs.
But customs and ideas, be they ever so firmly rooted,
reach, eventually, a stage when they are either summarily
dismissed, or are called upon to show decisive proof of
their title to our respect and obedience. This fate, which
sooner or later overtakes all institutions has in our own
day beset ethics; and at the great bar of human reason,
our ethical codes and teachers are called upon to show
reason why we should still follow their lead. In the
region of morals, as elsewhere, old lights are fading and
new ones are beginning to dawn ; and, perhaps, the
fading of the old lights would be matter for unalloyed
gratification, were it not that while many have lost faith in
the old teaching, they have not yet advanced sufficiently to
have a sincere trust in the new.
Much of this want of confidence in such guides as
�4
modern science has furnished us with, is doubtless due to
the inability of many to accustom their minds to funda
mentally different conceptions from those in which they
were nurtured; but much also is due to the unnecessary
obscurity of writers upon ethical subjects. May I venture
to say—and I say it with all becoming humility—that a
number of needless difficulties have been allowed to encum
ber the subject of morals. Writers have approached the
subject with such an amount of religious and transcen
dental prejudice; have dwelt so strongly upon the
sacredness, the sublimity and the difficulty of the subject,
that their method has served to create difficulties that
have no right to exist. Plainly, if we are going to make
any real headway, we must sweep away all this rhetorical
and metaphysical fog, and deal with human conduct in.
the same careful and unimpassioned manner that we deal
with the subject matter of any of the sciences.
That this subject has its special difficulties, none will
deny—the complexity of the factors renders this inevit
able—but these difficulties need not be increased by the
discussion of a number of casuistical questions that have
scarce an existence in real life ; nor need they blind us to
the fact that a science of human conduct is both necessary
and possible. Human actions are among the facts of
existence ; their causes and results—when they can be
ascertained—are constant, and they must, therefore, be
collected, arranged, and studied, in precisely the same
way that the geologist or chemist deals with the facts
that come within the scope of his respective department
of knowledge.
But before ethics could assume anything like a thoroughly
scientific form, it was essential that many other branches
of knowledge—particularly physiology and psychology—
should be fairly well developed ; and the shortcomings of
earlier systems may be partly attributed to the incom
pleteness of the necessary data. A scientific system of
ethics can only be constructed upon data furnished by a,
number of other sciences ; and this necessary knowledge
has only been forthcoming within very recent times.
But where facts were wanting, fancy filled the gap, and
theories of morals were propounded which satisfied
without enlightening, and darkened that which they pre
tended to explain.
�5
The great weakness of all theological and meta
physical systems of morals, is, that they take man as
he is, without reference to his past history or evol
ution, and proceed to frame rules for his future
guidance. The result is just 5frhat might be expected.
It is precisely what would happen to a man who set him
self to write a description of the British constitution,
without any reference to the history of its gradual
•development : certain features would be misunderstood,
others under or over rated, while many would be left out
of sight altogether. The only way to understand what is,
is to find out how it became so; and this rule is as true
of moral ideas as it is of social institutions and national
customs.
It is in this direction, in emphasising the
importance of the element of time in our speculations
concerning the universe, that Evolution has left its clearest
impress upon modern thought.
Until very recently,
writers—with rare exceptions—were agreed in taking the
order of the universe as fixed from the beginning. Crea
tion being thus taken for granted, there remained merely
a constitution to discover ; and all enquiries as to how
this constitution reached its present condition were looked
upon as beside the mark, or were met by the dogma. “ and
God said, let there be —” Gradually, however, first in one
department, then in another, there grew up the idea of
development, and instead of the present condition of things
being regarded as having come into existence fully formed
the conception of its gradual formation, through vast
periods of time began to gain ground. As philosophers
regarded the physical universe, so they regarded man’s
moral nature. No matter how widely moralists differed,
they were in substantial agreement thus far—they all
viewed the moral nature of man as being constant, as
having been always as it is ; and from this hypotheti
cally constant human nature, proceeded to elaborate their
ethical theories—with much satisfaction to themselves, if
not with benefit to others. As a matter of fact, however,
human nature is as variable as the conditions amid which
it exists—or even more so—while our moral instincts,
appetites, and aversions, which were taken as primary
endowments of the race, in the light of more correct
knowledge, are seen to be the results of slowly acquired
experiences stretching over thousands of generations. As
�6
I have said, it is in this direction that the influence of
Evolutionary thought is mo9t apparent. What others
took for granted, we now find it necessary to explain —
the problem from being—“ given certain instincts what isour reason for calling them moral ? ” has expanded intoHow have the moral feelings come into existence, what
is their nature, and how far should their authority
extend ? ”
It is these questions that I purpose attempting to>
answer in the following pages.
II.—The Meaning of Morality.
The business of the following essay, be it repeated, is a
study of conduct from a purely scientific standpoint;
that is, to establish a rational foundation for moral actions,
and a reasonable motive for their performance, apart from
all religious or supernatural considerations. To the
student of ethics there are two sources from which may
be drawn those facts upon which moral rules or laws are
based. The first is the study of all those mental states to
which praise or blame may be attached. The subjective
view of ethics has hitherto claimed by far the larger share
of attention, at times utterly excluding any other aspect of
the subject; and whatever good might have resulted from
a close examination of mental states, has been frustrated
owing to its neglect of an equally important division of
ethics, namely, the study of conduct from the objective and.
historic side. It is this aspect of the scientific treatment
of ethics that is brought into prominence by the doctrineof evolution. Its main features are comparative and histor
ical ; it embraces a study of customs as affected by race and
age, and even the actions of all animals whose conduct
exhibits any marked degree of conscious forethought. The
importance of this branch of study can hardly be exagger
ated : introspection unchecked by objective verification is.
responsible for most of the errors that abound in philoso
phical writings; while the historical and objective
method has thrown as much light upon mental and moral
problems in fifty years, as had been shed by the intro
spective method in as many generations. Following Mr.
Herbert Spencer, we may define the subject matter of
ethics as “the conscious adjustment of acts to ends;”’
and the object of ethics the statement of such rules as
�7
will lead to the realisation of the welfare of those for
whose benefit such rules are devised.
The main questions that ethical systems are called upon
to answer are :—What is morality ? Why are some
actions classed as moral and others as immoral ? How
did our moral instincts and feelings come into existence ?
and, What are the conditions of their preservation and
improvement ?
In the discussion of all questions such as these,
much time is saved, and much confusion avoided, by
setting out with a clear idea of the meanings of the
cardinal terms in use. All things that we seek to avoid
or possess, whether they be actual objects or states of con
sciousness, fall under one of two heads : they are either
good or bad. Health, riches, friendship, are classed as
good ; disease, poverty, enmity, are classed as bad. We
speak of a good horse, a good knife, a good house, or the
reverse. Upon what ground is this division drawn ? In
virtue of what common quality possessed by these differ
ent objects is the above classification made ? Clearly it
is not because of any intrinsic quality possessed by them.
Considered by themselves they would be neither good
nor bad A knife viewed without regard to the purpose
of cutting, or as an object exhibiting skilled workmanship,
would be subject to neither praise nor censure. An
action that neither helped nor hindered self or fellows,
would awaken no feelings of approbation or disappro
bation. It is only in relation to some end that we have
in view that an object becomes either good or bad, or an
action moral or immoral. Further, an object that may be
classed as good in relation to one end, would be classed
as bad in relation to another. A horse that would be
valuable for deciding a wager as to speed, would be of
little use for the purpose of ploughing a field.
As
Professor Clifford pointed out, the fundamental trait that
determines goodness is efficiency—the capability of an
object or an action for reaching a desired end. A thing
must be good for something or for someone ; a knife for
cutting, a horse for carrying or drawing, a house for
shelter; fresh air, pure water, good food, because they
promote a healthy physique ; and each will be classed as
possessing a greater degree of goodness as it reaches the
desired end in a more effectual manner. A good action,
�8
may, therefore, be defined as one which attains the end
desired with the least expenditure of time and energy.
A further distinction needs to be pointed out between the
terms good and moral ; for in the light of the above
definition, the two terms are by no means always synony
mous, although they may be so in special cases. A man
who so adjusted his actions as to commit a burglary in
the most expeditious manner, might be rightly spoken of
as a good burglar, but no one, I opine, would speak of
him as a moral one. Nevertheless, an action becomes
moral for the same reason that an action becomes good,
that is, in view of a certain result to be attained, although
in this case certain ulterior considerations are involved.
Now, in examining all those actions classed as moral,
I find them to be either socially or individually bene
ficial, while those actions classed as immoral are injurious
either to the individual or to society ; while actions which
neither injure nor help are classed as indifferent.
Even
in the case of those actions that are performed instinc
tively, the justification for their existence or practice is
always to be found in reasons arising from their social or
individual utility. Analyse carefully the highest and
most complex moral action, and it will be found in its
ultimate origin to be an act of self or social preservation.
Press home the enquiry why the feeling of moral obliga
tion should be encouraged, and the answer will be the
same. This fundamental significance of the terms used,
is frequently veiled under such phrases as Duty, Perfec
tion, Virtue, etc. Thus Immanuel Kant declares that
“ No act is good unless done from a sense of duty.” But
why should we act from a sense of duty ? What reason
is there for following its dictates ?
Clearly a sense of
duty is only to be encouraged or its dictates obeyed
because it leads to some desired result; there must be
some reason why a sense of duty is to be acted upon,
rather than ignored, and in the very nature of the case
that reason can only be found in the direction indicated.
Nor can we on reflection and in the light of modern
science, think of moral actions as having any other origin
or justification than their tendency to promote the well
being of society. Given a race of animals with a
particular set of surroundings, and the problem before it
will be “ How to maintain a constant harmony between
�9
the species and its medium ; how the former shall adjust
its movements in such a manner as to ward off all
aggressive forces, both conscious and unconscious, to
rear its young and preserve that modifiability of actions
requisite to meet the needs of a changing environment ;
without which death rapidly ensues.” This is the problem
of life stated in its plainest terms; a problem which
presses upon savage and civilised alike, and one with
which we are all constantly engaged. It may be said that
we are all engaged in playing the same game—the game
of life —and ethics may be spoken of as the rules of the
game that we are always learning but never thoroughly
master. The one condition of existence for all life, from
lowest to highest, is that certain definite lines of conduct
—determined by the surrounding conditions—shall be
pursued ; and just as any invention, be it steam engine,
printing press, or machine gun, is the result of a long
series of adjustments and readjustments reaching over
many generations, so our present ability to maintain our
lives in the face of a host of disturbing forces, is the
result of a long series of adjustments and re-adjustments,
conscious and unconscious, dating back to the dawn of
life upon the globe. Self-preservation is the fundamental
cause of the beginnings of morality, and only as the
sphere of self becomes extended so as to embrace others
does conduct assume a more altruistic character. At
beginning these adjustments by means of which life is
preserved are brought about unconsciously, natural selec
tion weeding out all whose conduct is of an undesirable
or life-diminishing character; but with the growth of
intelligence and the conscious recognition of the nature of
those forces by which life is moulded, these unconscious
adaptations are superseded—or rather have superadded to
them—conscious ones. It is this conscious recognition of
the nature of these forces by which life is maintained,
and of the reason for pursuing certain courses of conduct,
that is the distinguishing feature of human society.
Human morality seeks to effect consciously what has
hitherto been brought about slowly and unconsciously.
It aims at this, but at more than this; for a system of
ethics not only seeks to preserve life, but to intensify it,
to increase its length and add to its beauties. It declares
not only what is, or what may be, but what ought to be.
�10
Moral principles or laws, therefore, consist in the main in
furnishing a reason for those courses of conduct which
experience has demonstrated to be beneficial, and the
acquisition of which have been accentuated by the struggle
for existence.
In this case, however, progress is effected much more
rapidly than where the evolution is unconscious, while
the ability to discern more clearly the remote effects of
our actions renders that progress more certain and perma
nent. We maintain ourselves, we rear our young, and lay
up the means of future happiness in virtue of the
presence of a particular set of instincts or the formulation
of a number of rules which experience has demonstrated
to be beneficial.
It is a detailed account of these actions
and the reason for their existence that constitutes our
moral code. Long before moral principles are formulated
society conforms to them. Custom exists before law;
indeed, a large part of law is only custom recognised and
stereotyped; the law, so to speak, does but give the
reason for the custom, and by the very exigences of exis
tence such customs as are elevated into laws must be
those that have helped to preserve the race, otherwise
there would be a speedy end to both law and law-makers.
As, therefore, in the course of evolution only the societies
can continue to exist whose actions serve, on the whole, to
bring them into harmony with their environment, and as
it will be these actions the value of which will afterwards
come to be recognised and their performances enforced
by law, there is brought about an identification of moral
rules with life preserving actions from the outset, and
this identification tends to become still closer as society
advances. The impulses that urge men to action cannot
be, in the main, anti-social or society would cease to exist.
In the last resort, as will be made clear later, a man will do
that which yields him the most satisfaction, and unless
there is some sort of identity between what is pleasant
and what is beneficial, animate existence would soon
cease to be. Morality can, then, from the scientific stand
point, have no other meaning except that of a general
term for all those preservative instincts and actions by
means of which an individual establishes definite and har
monious relations between himself and fellows, and wards
off all those aggressive forces that threaten his existence.
�11
We have now, I think, reached a clear conception of
what is meant by a “ Moral Action.” A moral action is.
one that adds to the “ fitness” of society; makes life fuller
and longer; adds to the fulness of life by nobility of
action, and to its duration by length of years. An.
immoral action is one that detracts from the “ fitness ” of
society, and renders it less capable of responding to the
demands of its environment. The only rational meaning:
that can be attached to the phrase “a good man,” is that
of one whose actions comply with the above conditions ;
and his conduct will become more or less immoral as it
approaches to or falls away from this ideal.
III.—The Moral Standard.
Although I have but little doubt that the majority of
people would on reflection yield a general assent to the
considerations set forth above, yet, it may be complained,
that they are too vague. To say that moral actions are such
as promote life, it may further be said, is hardly to tell us
what such actions are, or to provide us with a rational
rule of action, since our verdict as to whether an action is
moral or immoral must clearly depend upon our view as
to what the end of life is. The man who holds that all
pleasure is sinful, and that mortification of the flesh is the
only way to gain eternal happiness, will necessarily pass
a very different judgment upon actions from the one
who holds that all happiness that is not purchased at the
expense of another’s misery is legitimate and desirable.
The justice of the above complaint must be admitted ; it
remains, therefore, to push our enquiries a step further.
Ethical Methods, in common with other systems, pass
through three main stages—Authoritative, critical, and
constructive. The first is a period when moral precepts
are accepted on the bare authority of Priest or Chieftain.
In this stage all commands have an equal value, little or
no discrimination is exercised, and all acts of disobedience
meet with the most severe punishment.
*
The second
period represents a season of upheaval occasioned either
by the growing intelligence of men perceiving the faults or
shortcomings of the current teaching, or a healthy revolt
against the exercise of unfettered authority. And then,
*As in the Bible where picking up sticks upon the Sabbath merits
the same punishment as murder.
�12
finally, there ensues a constructive stage, when an attempt
is made to place conduct upon a rational foundation.
It is not very easy to point out the line of demarcation
between the different stages, nor is it unusual to find
them existing side by side, but they are stages that can be
■observed by a careful student with a tolerable amount of
■ease. And in this latter stage the difficulty is, not so
much the formulation of moral precepts, as furnishing
the reason for them. The great question here is, not so
much “ How shall I be moral,’’ as—“ Why should I be
moral,” it is this question we have now to answer.
All Ethical systems are compelled to take some
standard as ultimately determining the rightness or
wrongness of conduct, and we may roughly divide all
these systems into three groups—two of which regard the
moral sense as innate, and the third as derivative. These
three groups are, (1) Theological systems which take the
will of deity as supplying the necessary standard, (2)
Intuitional which holds the doctrine of an innate moral
sense that is in its origin independent of experience, and
professes to judge actions independent of results, (3)
*
Utilitarian, which estimates conduct by observing the
results of actions upon self and fellows, and holds that
■our present stock of moral sentiments have been acquired
by experience both individual and racial.
Concerning the first of these schools—the theological—
its weakness must be apparent to all who have given any
serious attention to the subject. For, setting on one side
the difficulty of ascertaining what the will of deity is, and
the further difficulty that from the religious world there
■comes in answer to moral problems replies as numerous
as the believers themselves, it is plain that the expressed
will of deity cannot alter the morality of an action to the
slightest extent. It does not follow that spoiling the
Egyptians is a moral transaction because God com
manded it, nor are we justified in burning witches or
stoning heretics because their death sentence is contained
in the bible. It would be but a poor excuse after commit
* We have used the term “Intuitional” to denote the method which
recognises rightness as a quality belonging to actions independently of their
conduciveness to any ulterior end. The term implies that the presence of
the quality is ascertained by simply looking at the actions themselves
-without considering their consequences.—Sidgwick, “ Methods of Ethics”
bk. I. c. viii, sec. i.
�13
ting a crime to plead that God commanded it. The
reply to all such excuses would be, “ crime is crime no
matter who commanded it ; wrong actions must be
reprobated, the wrong doer corrected, or society would
fall to pieces,” and such a decision would have the sup
port of all rational men and women. A belief that my
actions are ordered by God can only guarantee my honesty
as a believer in deity in carrying them out, but can in no
way warrant their morality.
Further, those who claim that the will of God as ex
pressed in a revelation or discovered by a study of nature,
furnishes a ground of distinction between right and
wrong, overlook the fact that all such positions are self
contradictory, inasmuch as they assume a tacit recognition
at the outset of the very thing they set out to discover—
they all imply the existence of a standard of right and
wrong to which God’s acts conform. To speak of biblical
precepts as good implies that they harmonize with our
ideas of what goodness is ; to say that God is good and
that his actions are righteous, implies, in the same manner,
a conformity between his actions and some recognised
standard. Either that, or it is a meaningless use of terms
to speak of God’s actions as good, and at the same time
claim that it is his actions alone which determine what
goodness is. In short, all such terms as good and bad,
moral and immoral, take for granted the existence of some
standard of goodness discoverable by human reason, and
from which such terms derive their authority. This much
appears to me clear:—either actions classed respectively as
moral and immoral have certain definite effects upon our
lives or they have not. If they have, then their effects remain
the same with or without religious considerations; and
granting the possession of an ordinary amount of common
sense, it will always be possible to build up a code of
morals from the observed consequences of actions. If
actions have no definite effects upon our lives, then those
who believe that our only reason for calling an action
moral or immoral lies in the will of God, given in revela
tion or expressed in the human consciousness, are com
mitted to the startling proposition that theft, murder and
adultery would never have been recognised as immoral
had these commands not have been in existence. This
last alternative is rather too ridiculous to merit serious
�14
disproof. In brief, neither the theologian nor, as we shall
see later, the intuitionist can avoid assuming at the outset
■of their investigations all that he seeks to reach as a con
clusion. The very phrases both are compelled to use have
no validity unless there exist principles of morality derived
from experience—and this thay are constantly seeking to
disprove.
Nor do the advocates of a dim religious sense mani
fest in the human mind, fare any better than those who
hold the cruder form of the same doctrine. The strength
•of their position is apparent only ; due to the vagueness
of language rather than the logical force of their ideas.
Dr. Martineau—who may be taken as one of the best
representatives of the religious world upon this subject—
declares that if there be no supernatural authority for
morals, “ nothing remains but to declare the sense of
responsibility a mere delusion, the fiduciary aspect of
life must disappear; there is no trust committed to us,
no eye to watch, no account to render ; we have but to
settle terms with our neighbours and all will be well.
Purity within, faithfulness when alone, harmony and
depth in the secret affections, are guarded by no caution
ary presence, and aided by no sacred sympathy ; it may
be happy for us if we keep them, but if we mar them it
is our own affair, and there is none to reproach us and
put us to shame.”* To all of which one may say that
that conduct can hardly be called moral which needs the
constant supervision of an eternal “cautionary presence”
to ensure its rectitude
To refrain from wrong-doing
because of the presence of an “ all-seeing eye,” whether
its possessor be a supernatural power or a mundane
policeman can hardly entitle one to be called
virtuous ; and society would be in a poor way indeed did
right conduct rest upon no firmer foundation than this.
A man so restrained may not be such a direct danger to
society as he would otherwise be, but he is far from being
a desirable type of character. Surely purity, faithfulness
to wife, children and friends, honesty in our dealings,
truthfulness in our speech, and confidence in our fellows,
are not such poor, forlorn things as to be without some
inherent personal recommendation ?
Indeed, Dr.
* “ A Study of Religions,” II. p. 40.
�15
Martineau himself is a splendid disproof of his own
position, for if there is one thing certain about a man of
his type, it is that the absence of religious beliefs would
influence his conduct but little for the worse, while it might
even give more breadth to his sympathies and character.
True morality finds its incentives in the effects of actions
upon self and fellows, and not in fears inspired by either
god or devil. As Mr. Spencer has said, “ The truly moral
deterrent from murder is not constituted by a represen
tation of hanging as a consequence, or by a representation
of tortures in hell as a consequence, or by a representation
of the horror or hatred excited in fellow men, but by a
representation of the necessary natural results — the
infliction of death agony upon the victim, the destruc
tion of all his possibilities of happiness, the entailed
suffering to his belongings.
Neither the thought of
imprisonment, nor of divine anger, nor of social disgrace,
is that which constitutes the check on theft, but the
thought of injury to the person robbed, joined with a
vague consciousness of the general evils caused by a
disregard of proprietory rights .... Throughout, then,
the moral motive differs from the motives it is associated
with in this ; that instead of being constituted by repre
sentations of incidental, collateral, non-necessary conse
quences of acts, it is constituted by representations of
consequences which the acts naturally produce.”* Of all
moral sanctions the religious sanction is the most delusive
and unsatisfactory. Changing as human nature changes,
reflecting here benevolence and there cruelty, sanctioning
all crimes at the same time that it countenances much
that is virtuous, it is an authority that people have
appealed to in all ages to justify every action that human
nature is capable of committing. Surely a sanction which
justifies at the same time the religion of the Thug and
the benevolence of the humanitarian must be an eminently
fallacious one ? And yet we are warned that the removal
of the religious sanction will weaken, if it does not destroy,
morality! I do not believe it.
Conduct can gain no
permanent help from a false belief, and no permanent
strength from a lie ; and had the energies of our religious
teachers been devoted to impressing upon the people
“ Data of Ethics,” sec. 45.
�16
under their control the natural sanction of morality they
might have been kept moral without a sham of a priest
hood, or the perpetuation of superstitious beliefs that are
a stain upon our civilisation. But we have been taught
for so long that religion alone could furnish a reason for
right living, that now that time has set its heavy hand upon
religious creeds and death is claiming them for its own,
many honestly fear that there will be a corresponding
moral deterioration. Yet of this much we may be certain,
so long as men continue to live together morality
can never die ; so long as suffering exists or injustice
is done, there will not be wanting ;those who will
burn to release the one and redress the other.
Nay, rather will the value of life and of conduct
during life be enhanced by stripping it of all false fears
and groundless fancies. Whatever else is proven false
this life remains certain ; if it is shown that we share the
mortality of the brute we need not share its life, and we
may at least make as much of the earth we are now in
possession of as the heaven we may never enter. As
George Eliot says, “ If everything else is doubtful, this
suffering that I can help is certain ; if the glory of the
cross is an illusion, the sorrow is only the truer.
While
the strength is in my arm I will stretch it out to the
fainting ; while the light visits my eyes they shall seek
the forsaken.”*
The intuitional theory of morals while displaying
fewer errors than the scheme of the theological
school, yet presents a fundamental and insurmountable
difficulty. With the general question as to the nature
and authority of conscience, we shall deal more fully
when we come to treat of the “ Moral Sense.” The
question at issue between the intuitionist and the upholder
of the doctrine of evolution is, not the present existence
in man of a sense of right or wrong, but whether that
sense is an original endowment of the species or has been
derived from experience. According to this school ight
*
and wrong are known as such in virtue of a divinely
implanted sense or faculty = soul or conscience; we
recognise the virtue of an action as we recognise the
presence of a colour, because we possess a special sense
* “ Eomola.”
�17
fitted for the task ; and it is impossible to furnish any
other reason why it should be so. Right and wrong are
immediately perceived by the mind as such, and there is
an end of the matter. .A plain and obvious comment
upon this position is that the intuitions of men are
neither uniform nor infallible in their judgments.
Instead of finding, as the intuitional theory of morals
would lead us to expect, that moral judgments are every
where the same, we find them differing with race, age,
and even individuals. The only thing common to the
moral sense is that of passing judgment, or making a
selection of certain actions, and this much is altogether
inadequate for the purpose of the intuitionist. The
moral sense of one man leads him to murder his enemy ;
that of another to feed him ; in one age the moral sense
decrees that polygamy, death for heresy, witch burning,
and trial by combat are legitimate proceedings, and in
another age brands them as immoral. Obviously, if our
intuitions are to be regarded as trustworthy guides, there
is no reason why we should adopt one set of intuitions
more than another. All must be equally valuable or the
theory breaks down at the outset. If, however, we pro
nounce in favour of the intuitions of the cultured European
and against that of the savage, it must be because of a com
parison of the consequences of the different intuitions
upon human welfare ; and in this case the authority of
the moral sense as an arbitrary law-giver disappears.
If
the moral sense be ultimate, then our duty is to follow
its dictates. Any questioning of what the moral sense
decides to be right involves an appeal to some larger fact,
or to some objective guide. To arbitrarily select one
intuition out of many and label that and that only as good
is simply to set up another god in place of the one
dethroned. All moral growth implies the fallibility of
our intuitions, since such growth can only proceed by
correcting and educating our primary ethical impulses.
There is one point, however, which seems to have escaped
the notice of intuitionists, and that is, that the existence of
their own writings is a direct disproof of the truth of
their position. For if all men possessed such a faculty as it
is claimed they possess, its existence should be sufficiently
obvious as to command the assent of all; there could
exist no such questioning of the fact as to necessitate the
�18
existence of the proof offered. No man ever yet needed
to write a volume to prove that the sun gave light, or
that men experience feelings of pleasure and pain, and an
intuition that is co.extensive with humanity, which is not
reducible to experience, and which is the very ground
work of our moral judgments should be so obvious as to
be independent of all proof. The mere fact of it being
called into question is sufficient disproof of its existence.
But, as already said, the diversities of moral judgments
are fatal to the hypothesis. Press the intuitionist with the
question why he should prefer the intuition of one man
to that of another, and he is compelled to forsake his
original position and justify his selection upon the grounds
of the beneficial effects of one and the injurious effects
of the other; thus constituting experience as the final
court of appeal. The conclusion is, then, that neither the
theologian nor the intuitionist can avoid taking into con
sideration the effects of action in the formation of moral
judgments ; both of them when pressed are compelled to
fall back upon something outside their system to support
it; neither can justify himself without making an appeal
to that experience, which according to his hypothesis
is unnecessary and untrustworthy.
Turning now to the last of the three schools named—the
utilitarian—let us see if we can derive from it a satisfactory
standard of right and wrong. Practically the question has
already been answered in our examination of “the meaning
of morality,” where it was determined that moral actions
were such as led to an increase of life in length of days
and nobility of action ; but as this may be thought too
vague it becomes necessary to frame some more detailed
expression.
The essence of Utilitarianism may be stated in a sen
tence it asserts that “ actions are right in proportion as
they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is in
tended pleasure and the absence of pain ; by unhappiness
pain and the privation of pleasure. ” Act so as to ensure
*
the happiness of all around you, may be said to be the
one great precept of Utilitarianism. According to this
doctrine all things become of value only in so far as they
minister to the production of happiness, while the end of
*J. S. Mil), “ Utilitarianism ” p. 9.
�19
action is always the production of an agreeable or pleas
urable state of consciousness. The correctness of this
position admits of ample demonstration. Indeed, the
fact that happiness is the end contemplated by all is so
plain as to scarcely need proof, were it not that the means
to this end have by long association come to stand in con
sciousness as ends in themselves.
Yet a very little
analysis will show that each of the prudential or benevo
lent virtues must find their ultimate justification in their
tendency to increase happiness. As Mill says: “The
clearest proof that the table is here is that I see it ; and
the clearest proof that happiness is the end of action is
that all men desire it.” Upon every hand we are brought
face to face with the truth of this statement. It matters
little whether we take the honest man or the thief ; the
drunkard in his cups or the reformer in his study,
the one object that they have in common will be
found to be the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of
pain. The difference between men does not consist in
the fact that the motives urging them to action are gener
ically different, they are not; the difference consists
rather in the kind of happiness sought after or the means
adopted to obtain it. As will presently be made clear,
feeling induces action at all timesand under all conditions.
The immediate cause of conduct is the desire to bring
into existence a pleasant state of consciousness or to subdue
a painful one—although there is plainly much diversity
in the pleasures sought after. The biological reason for
this pursuit of pleasure will be seen later ; but that the
tendency of actions to produce happiness is our sole reason
for classing them as good will be seen by imagining the
contrary to be the case. Suppose, to quote Mr. Spencer,
“ that gashes and bruises caused agreeable sensations, and
brought in their train increased power of doing work and
receiving enjoyment; should we regard assault in the
same manner as at present; or, suppose that self-mutila
tion, say by cutting off a hand, was both intrinsically
pleasant and furthered performance of the processes by
which personal welfare and the welfare of dependents is
achieved ; should we hold as now that deliberate injury
done to one’s own body is to be reprobated ; or again,
suppose that picking a man’s pocket excited in him joyful
emotions by brightening his prospects; would that theft
�20
be counted among crimes, as in existing law books and
moral codes ? In these extreme cases, no one can deny
that what we call the badness of actions is ascribed to
them solely for the reason that they entail pain, immediate
or remote, and would not be so ascribed did they entail
pleasure.”*
The difference between a selfish and an unselfish action
is not that in the latter case the feeling itself is absent—
this is never the case—the difference is that in a selfish
action a man’s happiness is in things confined to himself,
while in an unselfish action his happiness embraces the
happiness of others likewise. Does a man give away his
last shilling to one poorer than himself ; it is because he
escapes the greater pain of witnessing distress and not
relieving it. Does the martyr go to the stake in vindica
tion of his belief ?
It is because to hide those beliefs, to
profess a belief which he did not enjtertain, to play the
hypocrite and escape persecution by an act of smug con
formity, would be far more unbearable than any torment
that intolerence could inflict.
Whatever man does he acts so as to avoid a pain and
gain a pleasure ; and the function of the ethical teacher is
to train men to perform only those actions which eventu
ally produce the greatest and most healthful pleasures.
And let it not be imagined for a moment that in thus
reducing the distinction, between good and bad, to the
simpler elements of pleasure and pain, that we have
thereby destroyed all distinction between them. Far
from it. The perfume of the rose and the evil smell of
asafcetida remain as distinct as ever, even though we
reduce both to the vibrations of particles; and we shall
not cease to care for one and dislike the other on that
account. And so long as a distinction is felt between a
pleasurable and a painful sensation, so long will the
difference between good and bad remain clear and distinct;
it is a distinction that cannot disappear so long as life
exists.
A complete moral code is but a complete statement of
actions that are of benefit to self and society in terms of
pleasure and pain ; and, therefore, until we can cease to
distinguish between the two sets of feelings we can never
* “Data or Ethics,” sec. 2.
�21
cease to know the grounds of morality and to find a
sound basis for its sanctions.
Every individual then acts so as to avoid a pain or
cultivate a pleasure. A state of happiness to be realised
at some time and at some place, is an inexpugnable ele
ment in all estimates of conduct; is the end to which all
men are striving, no matter how they may differ in their
methods of achieving it. Unfortunately, such considera
tions, as have been pointed out. are disguised under such
phrases as “ Perfection,” “ Blessedness,” &c. And yet, to
quote Mr. Spencer once again, “ If it (Blessedness) is a
state of consciousness at all, it is necessarily one of three
states—painful, indifferent, or pleasurable,” and as no
one, I presume, will say that it is either of the first two,
we are driven to the conclusion, that after all, “ Blessed
ness ” is but another name for happiness.
Or take as an illustration of the same principle, a plea that
is sometimes put forward on behalf of self-denial, which,
it is urged, contravenes the principle of utility. It is
claimed that that conduct is highest which involves self
sacrifice. But, clearly, self-sacrifice, as self-sacrifice, has
little or nothing to commend it. The man who denied
himself all comfort, who continually “mortified the
flesh,” without benefiting any one by so doing, would be
regarded by all sane thinking people as little better than
a lunatic. The only possible justification f or self-sacrifice
is that the happiness of self in some future condition of
existence, or the happiness of society in the present, will
be rendered greater thereby. Even the fanatical religionist
indulging in acts of self-torture, is doing so in the full
belief that his conduct will bring him greater happiness
hereafter. So that once more we are brought back to the
same position, viz., that no individual can avoid taking
happiness in some form as the motive for and sanction of
his conduct.
Here, then, upon the widest possible review of human
conduct, we are warranted in asserting that the ultimate
criterion of the morality of an action is its tendency to
produce pleasurable states of consciousness. To speak of
an action as good or bad apart from the effect it produces
upon human life, is as absurd as to speak of colour apart
from the sense of sight. An action becomes good because
of its relation to a human consciousness, and apart from
�22
this relation its goodness disappears. As Spinoza says—
“We do not desire a thing because it is good, we call it
good because we desire it.”
This, then, is our test of the morality of an action—
will it result in a balance of painful feelings ? Then it
is bad. Will it produce a surplus of pleasurable ones ?
Then it is good,
But although, in ultimate analysis, to desire a thingand call it good, or the performance of an action
and call it moral, is merely another way of saying the
same thing, it by no means follows that all desires are to
be gratified merely because they exist. Nothing is plainer
than that the gratification of many desires would lead to
anything but beneficial results. Our desires need at all
times to be watched, controlled and educated. It is in
this direction that reason plays its part in the determin
ation of conduct.
Its function is, by the perception and
calculation of the consequences of actions, to so train the
feelings as to lead us eventually to gratify only such,
desires as will ultimately lead to individual and social
happiness.
And not only is it clear on analysis that the avoidance
of a painful state of consciousness or the pursuit of an
agreeable one, is the underlying motive for all our actions,
but it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. An
ethical relation between ourselves and an object can never
be established by simple perception ; nor is perception
ever the immediate cause of action.
The immediate
cause of action is, as I have already said, feeling ; that is,
we associate pleasurable or painful feelings with an
object perceived, and shape our conduct in accordance
with past experience.
*
No abstract conception of life
and its duties could ever give rise to action, were
not such conduct closely associated with pleasant or
* May we not justly affirm, as we clearly perceive, that the intellectual
life does not supply the motive or impulse to action ; that the understand
ing or reason is not the cause of our outward actions, but that the desiresare? Our most effective energies spring from our most urgent needs. . .
The desire is the fundamental expression of the individual’s character. . ►.
In fact the power of the understanding is reflective and inhibitory,
being exhibited rather in the hindrance of passion-prompted action, and in
the guidance of our impulses, than in the instigation of conduct; its office
in the individual, as in the race is, as Comte systematically and emphati
cally pointed out, not to impart the habitual impulsion but deliberative.
—Maudesley, “ Physiology of Mind,” p. 357.
�23
painful feelings—as escaping censure, personal approba
tion or disapprobation, direct personal reward or punish
ment, or the admiration of our neighbours. We may
put the case briefly as follows : Every action consciously
performed aims at calling into existence a particular state
of consciousness. States of consciousness, so far as they
are the subjects of ethical judgments, are of two kinds—
agreeable and disagreeable, or pleasant and painful. The
former we desire to maintain, the latter to destroy. By
experience pleasurable feelings have become associated
with a particular object or the performance of a particular
action, and the possession of the object or the performance
of the action is the means by which such agreeable sensa
tions are revived It is upon this principle only that the
past can serve as a guide in the present; although the
past can never induce action, the future alone can do
this. Our conduct is necessarily based upon the belief
that the future will resemble the past, and that actions
which resulted in happiness in the past will have the
same effect in the future. If, then, the motive resulting
in action is the wish to revive and return some state of
consciousness, and if all states of consciousness are either
painful or pleasurable, and if it is further admitted that
pleasurable states are sought after and painful ones
avoided, then it becomes clear that the ideal state is one
in which pleasurable states only are experienced ; or, as
it is briefly described, a state of happiness.
And now having reached the conclusion that the pro
duction of a pleasurable feeling is the end of all our
actions, the question remaining to be answered is, “ why
should happiness be the end of action, what is it that
constitutes happiness, and what justification for the
pursuit of happiness is there to be found in a study of
the laws of life ? ”
Here we may be met with the remark that happiness is
an extremely variable factor, that it varies at different
times and with different individuals ; the happiness of the
drunkard or the debauchee is quite as real as the happi. ness of the philosopher, and therefore upon what grounds
do we class one as bad and the other as good ? The
drunkard may say, “ my conduct yields me pleasure,
while to imitate yours would prove extremely irksome
and painful, and therefore I prefer to keep on my present
�24
course in spite of all that may be said concerning other
sources of happiness, the beauty of which I am unable to
appreciate.” In what way, then, the evolutionist may be
asked, can we prove the drunkard to be in the wrong ?
This objection, although a fairly common one, yet repre
sents an entire misunderstanding of the utilitarian position.
Certainly pleasures of a special kind accompany such
actions as those named, for, as I have shown, conduct
must always be produced by feeling, and feeling always
aims at the one end ; but it is not by taking into con
sideration the immediate effects of actions only and
ignoring the remote ones that any sound conclusions
can be reached, this can only be done by combining both,
and when it is shown, and it will not be disputed, that
the immediate pleasures of the drunkard carry with them
as final results a long train of miseries in the shape of
ruined homes, shattered constitutions, and general social
evils, we have shown that these actions are not such as
produce ultimate happiness, and therefore have no valid
claim to the title of good.
But waiving the discussion of such objections as these,
the problem facing us is, “granting that the end of action
is as stated, in what way can we identify what is with
what ought to be ; or how can it be shown that actions
which rightly viewed yield happiness and actions that
preserve life are. either identical or tend to become so ? ”
This question, it is clear, can only be thoroughly answered
by determining the physiological and psychological con
ditions of happiness.
The incentives to action, it has been shown, is the desire
to call into existence, or to drive out of being a particular
state of consciousness. All changes in consciousness are
brought about either by sensations directly experienced,
or by the remembrance of sensations previously ex
perienced. We receive sensations by means of what are
called faculties—including under that term both organ
and function. Of a certain number of possible sensations
some are pleasant, others are unpleasant; the former we
seek, the latter we shun; and the desire to revise the
agreeable states of feeling is the immediate motive for all
our actions. A pleasurable feeling, then, results from the
*
* To say that we seek the revival of a disagreeable feeling would be a
contradiction in terms.
�25
exercise of our energies in a particular direction ; the ques
tion is, in what direction ? It is in answering this question
that Mr. Spencer has made one of his most important con
tributions to ethical science, and thereby placed the utilitar
ian theory of morals upon a thoroughly scientific footing.
Clearly, the indiscriminate exercise of our faculties, or
the promiscuous gratification of our desires, will not lead
to ultimate happiness. Apart from the existence in our
selves of desires which being either of a morbid character,
or survivals from times when the conditions of life were
different, and the gratification of which would therefore be
looked upon as anything but desirable ; even the exercise
of what may be termed legitimate desires needs to be care
fully watched and regulated. Indeed a large part of
wrong doing results, not from the existence of a faculty,
but from its misdirection; an intemperate gratification
of desires that, rightly directed, would yield but good.
No one, for example, would condemn the desire of people
to “ make a name,” a perfectly legitimate and even laud
able aspiration ; yet, owing to the method adopted, there
are few desires that lead to greater wrong doing.
Again, over indulgence in any pursuit, as in over eating,
over studying, or over indulgence in physical exercise, is
likely to lead to extremely injurious results. And equally
significant are the pains—cravings—that result from too
little exercise in any of these directions. If, therefore,
conduct that approaches either extreme leads to painful
results, the implication is that a pleasurable state of
consciousness is the accompaniment of actions that lie
midway between the two. But actions that leave behind
naught but a diffused feeling of pleasure, imply that the
body has received just that amount of exercise necessary
to maintain it in a state of well being, and are, therefore,
healthful actions; or in other words, pleasure—using that
term in the sense given to it above—will result from the
exercise of each organ of the body up to that point
necessary to maintain the entire organism in a healthy
condition. Concerning the quantity of exercise required
no hard and fast rule can be laid down, it will differ with
each individual, and even with the same individual at
different times, the amount of exercise necessary to keep
one man in a state of health would kill another, and vice
versa.
�26
Thus, from a biological standpoint we may define
happiness as a state of consciousness resulting from the
exercise of every organ of the body and faculty of the mind,
up to that point requisite to secure the well being of the
entire organism; and from the psychological side, the
gratification of all such desires as lead to this result. Now
if this be admitted as true, it follows that pleasure
producing actions and pain-producing actions are, in the
long run the equivalents of life preserving and life
destroying actions respectively ; that as Spencer says,
“ Every pleasure raises the tide of life ; and every pain
lowers the tide of life,’’ or as Professor Bain has it—“ States
of pleasure are connected with an increase, and states of
pain with an abatement of some, or all, of the vital
functions ; ” * and therefore to say .that the tendency of an
action to produce happiness is the ultimate test of its
morality, is simply saying in effect that that conduct is
moral which leads to a lengthening and broadening of
life.
And not only is this the conclusion reached by an
examination of animal life as it now is, but it is a con
clusion logically deducible from the hypothesis of
evolution and the laws of life in general. The connection
between pain and death, and happiness and life, is too
deeply grounded in general language and thought not to
have some foundation in fact. The general accuracy of
this connection is witnessed by all physiologists and
medical men, the latter of whom readily recognise how
importantian element is cheerfulness in a patient’s recovery,
while the former demonstrates that pain lowers and
pleasure raises the general level of life.
And upon no other condition could life have developed
upon the earth. As has been pointed out, actioii springs
directly from feeling and seeks to obtain pleasure either
immediately or remotely ; therefore, unless the pleasures
pursued are such as will preserve life the result is
extinction.
Imagine for example that life-destroying
actions produced pleasurable sensations—that is a state of
consciousness that animals sought to bring into existence
and retain—that bodily wounds, impure foods, and
exhausting pursuits generally, yielded nothing but
pleasure, and would, therefore, be performed eagerly,
* “ Senses and the Intellect,” p. 283.
�27
it is obvious that such a state of things would cause a
rapid disappearance of life altogether. Illustrations of
this may be readily found in individual instances, for
example, opium eaters or excessive drinkers, but it is
clear that such habits could not maintain themselves for
long upon a general scale. Something of the same thing
may even be seen in the case of lower races, that, coming
in contact with European culture and finding pleasure in
the performance of actions suitable to their past life but
unsuitable to their present one, have become extinct.
Thus, as Mr. Spencer puts it. “ At the very outset, life is
maintained by persistence in acts which conduce to it,
and desistence from acts which impede it; and whenever
sentiency makes its appearance as an accompaniment, its
forms must be such that in the one case the produced,
feeling is of a kind that will be sought—pleasure, and in
the other case is of a kind that will be shunned—pain.” *
And again, “ Those races of beings only can have survived
in which, on the average, agreeable or desired feelings
went along with activities conducive to the maintenance
of life, while disagreeable and habitually-avoided feelings
went along with activities directly or indirectly destruc
tive of life; and there must have been, other things being
equal, the most numerous and long-continued survivals
among races in which these adjustments of feelings to
actions were the best, tending ever to bring about perfect
adjustment.” f The answer, therefore, to the question,
“Why should we pursue happiness ? ” is, that we cannot
do otherwise and live. Pursuit of happiness, properly
understood, means conformity to those conditions that
render a continued and healthful life possible. The final
and ultimate reason for performing any action is that a
special desire exists urging me to do so, and the reason
for the existence of that desire must be sought for in
deeper ground than consciousness—which is relatively a
late product in biologic evolution. It is to be found in
those laws of life to which all living beings must conform,
and to which natural selection, by weeding out all of a
contrary disposition, secures an intrinsic or organic com
pliance. Morality is evidenced in action before it is
explained in thought ; its justification, the causes of its
* “ Data of Ethics.”, sec. 33.
+ “ Principles of Psychology,” Vol. i. sec. 128.
�28
growth, and the nature of its authority, are to be found
in the natural conditions of existence, and depends no
more upon the presence of a mysterious self-realising ego
than upon a conception of God furnished by current or
future theologies. It is a false and ruinous antithesis
that places virtue and happiness as two things distinct
from each other.
Virtue has no meaning other than
can be expressed in terms of pleasure ; as Spinoza said,
“ Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.”
The utilitarian formula that actions are right which
promote pleasure, and wrong which promote pain receives,
therefore, the fullest possible justification from an ex
amination of the laws of life. Highet authority than that
can no system have.
The various steps of the above argument may now be
recapitulated.
(1) Conduct is always immediately dependent upon
feeling.
(2) The immediate object will be to invite agreeable,
and obviate or modify disagreeable states of consciousness.
(3) Therefore, unless there is a general agreement
between conduct that preserves life and conduct that
produces agreeable feelings, the race must die out; while
life will increase in length and breadth as that general
agreement becomes explicit and complete.
(4) But in the course of evolution the inevitable result
is the weeding out of all such organisms as pursue life
destroying acts with pleasure, and there is thus produced
a gradual identification between the performance of life
preserving actions and the production of agreeable states
■of consciousness
It is in supplying us with these generalisations that the
•doctrine of evolution has placed morality upon a perfectly
secure and impregnable foundation, and ethics upon the
same level as other departments of scientific knowledge.
It makes morality incumbent upon the individual and
society alike by showing its identity with those processes
that make life worth living. That at present many find
pleasure in the performance of actions that lower the tide
of life, does not militate against the truth of the doctrine
.stated above. We are in a transitional state, partly
military and partly industrial, we have clinging to us
many traces of the savagery, from which we are just
�29
emerging, and there is necessarily a conflict between
many of our inherited instincts and present ideals. But
there can be little doubt that this conflict between what is
and what should be will decrease as the course of
evolution proceeds ; until becoming weaker by disuse,
the lower and undesirable instincts shall have finally
disappeared. Meanwhile a scientific ethic should do
precisely what a law of astronomy or of biology does—
describe what takes place and explain how it takes place.
Astronomical and biological laws give nothing new, they
merely formulate in comprehensible terms what takes
place in their separate departments. The function of a
science of ethics is, similarly, to describe accurately the
actions of men and why and how such actions take place ;
to trace the causes of morality, to formulate the con
ditions and nature of perfect conduct, and leave such
rules to be put into operation as rapidly as wisdom may
devise or circumstances permit.
IV.—The Nature and Authority of Conscience.
It may be asked, “ If the foregoing account of the
nature of morality is admitted to be correct, what becomes
of the authority of conscience ? Is it merely a name, or is
it, as the ordinary man believes, a divinely implanted
faculty enabling one to distinguish finally and decisively
between a right and a wrong action ? ‘ Ordinary experi
ence,’ it may further be said, ‘ shows that men do not
determine the rightness or wrongness of actions by any
mathematical calculation as to the pains or pleasures
resulting from them, but rather by a direct appeal to
conscience, and when conscience declares in favor of or
against a particular course of conduct there is no more to
be said upon the matter.
“ Upon this hypothesis man does right for pretty much
the same reason that a dog ‘ delights to bark and bite,’
because ‘ ’tis his nature to.’
Now, there is in the presentation of the case a certain
amount of truth, but it is entangled with a much larger
amount of error. For example, no one denies the exis
tence in man of a moral sense now ; all our language pre
supposes its existence. Neither is it denied that men are
swayed by the dictates of what is called ‘ Conscience.’
As Mill says:—‘The ultimate sanction of all morality is a
�30
subjective feeling in our minds.” A man will act as his
conscience directs, and provided that he has fulfilled
certain preliminary conditions, we hold that he is right in
doing so. The phrase—‘A conscientious man ’ has quite
as definite a meaning to the Utilitarian as to the Intuit
ionist. It is in the carrying out of these preliminary
conditions—i.e. instructing, checking, and improving our
conscience, comparing its deliverance with the deliverance
of that of others—upon which the dispute mainly turns.
The question really at issue is not the existence of a
moral sense, but whether this moral sense is always trust
worthy in its decisions ; whether it does not need to be
constantly checked and corrected ; and whether instead
of beiug a single indecomposable faculty it may not be
resolved into simpler parts, as a chemical compound is
shown to be made up of a number of simpler elements ?
This is substantially the whole of the matter in dispute
between the evolutionist and the intuitionist. The latter
regards the moral sense as innate and virtually indepen
dent of experience ; the former asserts that it has been
built up from much simpler feelings acquired during the
development of the race, and that examination proves
that, just as a single nerve centre is composed of clusters
of ganglia, which are again composed of fibres and cells,
so the apparently simple moral sense is really a highly
complex process, due to the gradual accumulation of the
experiences of simpler sensations acquired during ages of
past evolution. It would, indeed, be quite possible to
take successively all the vices and virtues upon which our
present moral sense passes a rapid and decisive verdict,
and show how gradually each feeling of approval and
disapproval has been built up. There is, for example,
no action upon which the moral sense of the cultured
European passes such a ready condemnation as the taking
of life. And yet it is quite certain that this special feeling
of aversion is a- comparitively late product in human
evolution. With many of the lower races the wrongness
of taking human life is confined almost entirely to the
family—and not always there; but within the tribe
personal vengeance is permitted, and even when that is
disallowed by public opinion the murder of the member
of another tribe only serves to exalt the murderer in the
eyes of his fellows. In the dark ages a man’s life was
�31
valued in an inverse ratio to his social importance, and
the church drew up a scale of punishments in accordance
with that estimate, murder of an ecclesiastic being
punished by torture and death, that of a serf by a fine of
a few pence. Even in modern civilised Europe, hundreds
or thousands of lives may be shed to satisfy political
passion or national vanity ; and only in the higher types
of the race is there a lively and constant repugnance to
the taking of life, whether if friend or foe. Indeed, the
fact that moral sense is acquired and not innate appears
on reflection, to be so plain as to cause some little surprise
that the opposite opinion should ever have been seriously
entertained for any length of time.
But apart from the historical aspect of the subject,
what we are more directly concerned with here is the
nature of those conditions which have resulted in the
growth of conscience. It would take too long to discuss
fully the nature of consciousness—even if it were not a
matter of psychology rather than of ethics—but we may
put the matter briefly in the following manner :—
Reflex action is of two kinds ; the first, irritability, is
due to the simple excitation of a piece of living matter,
and is shared by all living tissue wherever it may be
found. In virtue of this quality the organism responds
to certain stimuli and shrinks from others; and it is
plain that unless the stimuli to which the organism
responds are such as are beneficial the result will be death.
The second class of reflex actions is that in which actions
have become instinctive by frequent repetition. It is a
matter of common observation that any action frequently
performed tends to become organic, or instinctive : that
is, a purposive action is preceded by certain molecular
rearrangements in the fibres and cells, and centres of the
brain ; a repetition of the action means a repetition of the
disturbance; and by the frequent recurrence of such
rearrangements there is set up a line of least resistance
along which the nervous energy flows, with the final
result of a modification of nerve tissue, and the existence
of a structure which in response to a certain stimulus acts
automatically in a particular manner. “ The order of
events/’ says Maudesley, is presumably in this wise :
by virtue of its fundamental adaptive property as
organic matter, nerve-element responds to environing
�32
relations by definite action ; this action, when repeated
determines structure ; and thus by degrees new structure,
or—what it really is—a new organ is formed, which
embodies in its substance and displays in its function
the countless generalisations, so to speak, or ingredients
of experience, which it has gained from past and contri
butes to present stimulation,” * Now the mental side of
this physical acquirement expresses itself in the principle
known as the association of ideas. When in the course
of experience a certain set of ideas is constantly occurring
in the same order, the revival of any one of the term
will bring about a revival of the remainder of the series.
As illustrative of this we may note how when any par
ticular object is presented to the mind, as for example an
orange, the mind calls up the associated sensations of
taste and smell, neither of which is immediately presented
to it; and there may even be present the idea of certain
injurious or beneficial effects following the easing of the
fruit. Here it is evident the secondary sensations are
revived because they have always accompanied the primary
one, and it is clear that the mind has gone over a chain of
causes and effects, although we may not be conscious—
indeed we seldom are—of all the steps intervening
between the first and last term of the series. But to any
one who pays attention to the working of the mind it is
obvious that this power of rapid summing-up has been
acquired very gradually, and that what the mind now
does rapidly and decisively, it once did slowly and
hesitatingly; just as the firm steps of the man are pre
ceded by the faltering steps of the child, or the rapid
adding up of columns of figures by the trained accountant
becomes a long and wearisome process in the hands of
the amateur.
Now the verdict passed upon action by the moral sense
is merely another illustration of the same general principle.
Just as we have learned to associate a certain number of
qualities with an object the moment it is perceived, so we
have acquired by experience, individual or social,
the habit of associating a balance of pleasures or pains
with a particular action or course of conduct, even when
an entirely opposite conclusion is immediately presented
to the mind. Apart from certain actions which give rise
♦“Physiology
of
Mikd,” p. 397.
�33
to painful or pleasurable feelings as long as their effects
endure, experience has shown that certain actions while
directly painful are ultimately pleasurable, while others
immediately pleasurable are ultimately painful. This
experience has been repeated so frequently that the desire
attaching to the end has become transferred to the means :
as in the case of a man who begins by loving money because
of its purchasing power, and ends by loving it for itself,
the means to an end becomes thus all in all. Thus, the
means and the end become jammed together, so to speak,
in thought, and the mind having in view the after results
of an action, passes an instantaneous judgment upon it.
A trained biologist will draw from a very few facts a
conclusion which is by no means apparent to the untrained
mind ; long experience has familiarised him with the
process, and the conclusion suggests itself immediately to
the mind ; and one might as well postulate an innate
biological sense to account for the one process as postulate
an innate moral sense to account for the other.
The existence of a moral sense in man is simply an
illustration of the physiological law that functions slowly
acquired and painfully performed become registered in a
modified nerve structure, and are handed on from
generation to generation to be performed automatically or
to take their place as moral instincts.
Two things have prevented people seeing this clearly,
first, the problem has been treated as being purely psycho
logical, and, secondly, moral qualities have been viewed
as innate instead of acquired, and the question of develop
ment consequently ignored. Both of these causes have
helped to confuse rather than to clear. Underlying all
mental phenomena there is and must be a corresponding
physical structure; and it is only by carrying our
enquiries further and studying this physical structure
that we may hope to understand those mental qualities,
feelings, or emotions to which it gives rise, and, secondly,
it is not by contemplating the moral instincts of man as
they are to-day that we can hope to understand them.
This can be done only by reducing them to their simpler
elements and carefully studying the causes and conditions
of their origin and development. And when we analyse
the contents of our moral judgments, we find precisely
what the hypothesis of evolution would lead us to expect,
�34
namely, the majority of such actions as it sanctions are
found in the light of sober reason to be conducive to
individual and social welfare, while such as it condemns
are of a directly opposite character.
The decisions of the moral judgment are thus neither
more nor less than verdicts upon conduct expressed by
the summed-up experience of the race; and although such
judgments carry with them undoubted authority in virtue
of their origin, they, nevertheless need to be constantly
watched over and corrected when necessary. For, granting
that a certain presumption exists in favour of a verdict
passed by “ conscience,”—since it argues the possession of
a mental habit acquired by experience, and which would
never have been acquired had not such conduct as led to
its formation been once useful,—such verdicts cannot be
admitted to be final; for nothing is of commoner occur
rence than to find that habits and customs that are useful
at one stage of human development are dangerous at
others.
All that the existence of a moral instinct can prove
beyond doubt is that it was once useful, whether it is
useful now or not is a matter to be decided by ordinary
experience and common sense. A function owes its
value to its relation to a particular environment, and
therefore can only retain its worth so long as the condi
tions of life remain unchanged ; any alteration in the
condition of existence must involve a corresponding
change in the value of a function or in that cluster of
moral tendencies classed under the general name of
“ conscience.” While, therefore, conscience may urge us
to take action in a particular direction, it cannot give us
any guarantee that we are acting rightly. All that we can
be certain of is the existence of a feeling prompting a
particular action, and with that our certainty ends. To
discover whether the dictates of conscience are morally
justifiable we need to appeal to a higher court. The voice
of conscience is, as experience daily shows, neither uni
form nor infallible in its decrees ; its decisions vary not
only with time, place, and individual, but even with the
same individual at different times and under different con
ditions. In brief “acting up to one’s conscience,” to
use a common phrase, is indicative of honesty only,
not of correctness, it can mean merely that we
�35
are acting in accordance with certain feelings of
approbation or disapprobation that have been called
into existence during the evolution of the race and by
the early moral training of the individual. Nothing
is plainer than that the conscience needs correction
and admits of improvement; the fact of moral growth
implies as much, and this alone should be sufficient to
prove that conscience is an acquired and not an original
activity.
That conscience represents the stored up and consoli
dated experiences of preceding generations, subject of
course to the early training of the individual, there can
be little doubt. Given living tissue capable of responding
to certain stimuli and shrinking from others, and we
have the raw material of morality; for the only tissue
that can continue to exist will be such as responds to
stimuli favourable to its existence and shrinks from such
as are unfavourable. The reverse of this it is impossible
to conceive. Once the conditions under which life
persists becomes fairly understood, and the above con
clusion becomes almost a necessity of thought. There is
thus secured from the outset a general harmony between
actions instinctively performed and life-preserving ones;
and natural selection by preserving the lives of those
animals whose actions serve to establish the closest
harmony between themselves and their environment
serves to accentuate the formation of such habits as
render the performance of life-preserving actions certain
and instinctive. This feeling of moral approbation is, as
I have already said, not the only example of the principle
here emphasised, viz. : that separate and successive
acquisitions become so blended together as to form an
apparently single faculty. It is exemplified alike in the
skilled mathematician and the trained mechanic, and is,
indeed, co-extensive with the world of sentient life.
From monad to man progress has meant the acquisition
of such habits—physical, mental, and moral, Our moral
equally with our intellectual faculties have been built up
gradually during the course of human development. We
each start life with a certain mental and moral capital
that comes to us as a heritage from the past. Functions
that took generations to acquire are found as parts of our
structure, and their exercise has become an organic
�36
necessity.
Frequent repetition has converted certain
actions into habits ; physiologically these habits imply the
existence of a modified nerve structure demanding their
performance ; while mentally and morally such structures
and functions express themselves in the much debated
and misunderstood, moral sense.
V.—Society and the Individual.
In the foregoing pages morality has been dealt with
almost exclusively from the standpoint of the individual;
I have purposely omitted certain factors that aid moral
development in order that fundamental ethical principles
might not be obscured. I have shown the groundwork
of morality to lie in the very constitution of organic
matter; and that rules of ethics are merely generalized
statements of those courses of conduct which serve to
establish a harmony between organism and environment,
or, in other words, to maintain life.
Yet it must be evident to the student that one very im
portant factor—the social factor—must be considered if
our system is to btf complete. The influence of society in
developing morality must, it is plain, be considerable ;
for although the reason for right conduct, and the motives
that lead to it, must ultimately be found in the nature of
the individual, yet, if we seek for a full explanation of
the individual’s character, we must be referred back again
to the structure of that society of which he is a part. For
at bottom, the only reason why each individual should
possess a certain number of moral qualities of a particular
character, is that he belongs to a society that has developed
along special lines. The individual, as he is to-day, is a
product of the race, and would no more be what he is
apart from social organization, than society could be what
it is apart from the individuals that compose it. Each
quality or action is good or bad in virtue of its adaptation
or non-adaptation to an environment ; and to speak of
goodness or badness apart from such relations is to use
words that are void of all meaning. From whence do
such words as “honest,” “justice,” “duty,” Ac., derive
their significance if not from the relations existing between
the individual and his fellows ? Place a man upon a
desert island, and what becomes of ariy of these qualities ?
All moral conduct requires a medium ; in this case society
�37
is the medium in which morality lives and breathes ; and
it could no more continue without it than a bird could fly
without the atmosphere. The proof of this is seen in the
fact that any disturbance in the social structure involves a
corresponding change in the relationships of men and
women. All periods of change, religious or social, have
influenced for better or worse existing ethical institutions
and ideas, and few will doubt that should any great econ
omic change occur to-day there would ensue a speedy
re-arrangement of moral ideals.
*
It is therefore in the structure and development of the
social organism that we must seek for an explanation of
existing moral principles ; by this method only can we
understand how it is possible to obtain from a race of
beings, each of which is primarily moral by the instinct
of self-preservation, a social morality.
The general
manner in which this result has been attained has been
already indicated, but it remains to trace out the process
in greater detail.
In his profoundly suggestive book, “ Physics and
Politics,’’ Bagshot has pointed out that the great problem
early society had to face was, “ how to bend men to the
social yoke,” to domesticate him in short. Man untrained
and savage needed to have his energies checked, his im
pulses educated, and the whole of his nature practically
transformed before he could become either social or ethical.
A number of forces, natural, religious, social and political,
have contributed to bring about the desired result; and
although they overlap one another, still it is easy to deter
mine their position and approximate value.
Not to reckon with the possession of certain fundamental
life-preserving instincts, which are an inevitable product
■of the struggle for existence, and which must be the
common property of all sentient being, the struggle
against natural forces must early have driven men into
the adoption of additional life-preserving courses of con
duct. The conduct that furthered a fuller life may not
have been consciously adopted, but from the fact that all
who did not adopt it would disappear, its performance
would be rendered tolerably certain. Further, even were
not social organisation a heritage from man’s animal
* The fact of a movement of change proceeding from an ethical impulse
in no way affects this statement.
�38
ancestors, the struggle against nature would soon havedriven man into co-operation with his fellows. The
advantages of combination are too great not to give those
who are more amenable to the restraints of social life a
tremendous advantage over such as are not. The cohesion
and discipline of a tribe would be of far-greater importance
in the primitive than in the modern state. Natural selec
tion would, therefore, work along the lines of favouring
the preservation of the more social type of character. In
a tribe where some of its members showed but little in
clination to work with their fellows or submit to the
discipline laid down, such individuals would be weeded
out by a dual process. They would fall easy victims to
the tribal enemies, and the type would be discouraged by
public opinion. They would thus leave few or no des
cendants to perpetuate their qualities ; and by this dual
process of elimination the type would tend to die out,
and there would be gradually formed in its place one that
to some extent regarded individual and general welfare
as being inextricably blended. But this living together
necessarily implies the existence and cultivation of certain
sentiments and virtues that are not purely self-regarding.
If people are to live together and work together, there
must of necessity be some sense of duty, justice, confi
dence and kindness, let it be in ever so rudimentary a.
form; but these virtues must be present, or society disin
tegrates. Without confidence there could be no combina
tion, and without justice combination would be useless.
But the great thing in the first stage is to get the indi
vidual to obey the voice of the tribe and submit to its
judgments; and so long as a quality brings this end about
it is of service. It is in this direction that the fear of
natural forces, represented by early religions, and fear of
the chief as the representative of the gods on earth, have
played their part in domesticating man. The chief and
the priest both dictated and enforced certain lines of
conduct; where the conduct enjoined gave the tribe an
advantage over its competitors, it flourished ; where the
conduct enforced was of an opposite character, it was
either altered or the race went under in the struggle. So
that here again there would be brought about an identifi
cation of habitual and life-preserving conduct. The
discipline thus enforced was stern, the after results were
�39
disastrous, but it was useful then ; and, as Bagehot says,
“ Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early
food had not been the late poison.”
Mr. Francis Galton has shown that a want of self*
reliance has been of great benefit to many species of
animals, inasmuch as it led to their presenting a united front
to an enemy that could not have been successfully resisted
by any other means; and undoubtedly, as he proceeds to
argue, a too great tendency to break away from custom
and initiate movements on one’s own responsibility, would
at the outset destroy whatever social life existed. Of
course these coercive forces by means of which man is
first domesticated, are not altogether consciously directed
or invented ; it cannot be said that any man invented a
custom, although it may be said humanity invented them.
Custom among savage races will grow out of the most
trifling circumstances or coincidences. Many customs
rise up and die out, and eventually out of a multitude
that are tried only a few survive; pretty much as out of
a number of seeds that may be scattered only those strike
root that find themselves amid favourable conditions.
The first step, then, in the growth of the state and
morality, is for each individual to recognise that living
with others implies that all his impulses shall not be
gratified promiscuously ; that it is wrong to go against the
expressed opinion of the tribe, or, better still, that his
interests are in some mysterious manner vitally connected
with the interests of the whole. This is secured, primarily, by the operation of natural selection, later by
conscious innovation ; the sphere of self unconsciously
extends until it takes in the whole of which the individual
is but a part. But apart even from those influences which
serve to foster moral feelings, the existence of family life
gives us a very definite point from which to commence
our investigations. It has been made pretty clear by
numerous investigators that the genesis of the state is to be
found in the family. From that it passes by natural
growth through the patriarchal and tribal stages to the
nation ; and therefore one must seek in the structure of the
family for the beginnings of much that is afterwards
expressed in the tribe.
*" Human Faculty,” pp. 70-79.
�40
The young human being has a longer period of infancy
and helplessness than any other animal. For several years
its existence, and consequently the existence of the species,
is dependent upon the unselfish feelings of others.
*
The family is, therefore, a much more powerful influence
in the moulding of the human character, than it is with
other animals, and it is consequently in the family that we
must look for the first clear outline of the social virtues.
Most of the virtues that are not purely self-regarding will,
I imagine, be found to have had their origin in this source.
Here must first have found clear expression the virtues of
forbearance, kindness, and a certain rough sense of justice.
The sense of justice is however very slight, being little
more than the arbitrary dictates of the head of the family,
a condition of things that lingers even when the family
has blossomed into the tribe. Still the main point to be
noted is that it is in the family that the individual is first
brought into constant relationship with creatures similar
to himself ; these others constitute a part, a very important
part of his environment, and he is necessarily compelled to
adjust his actions accordingly. It has been shown above
that “ Goodness ” consists essentially in a relation—the
maintenance of a balance between an organism and its
environment. Whether that environment be organic or
inorganic the principle remains the same, although in the
former case the influence of the environment is clearer and
more direct. As, however, in the family the surroundings
of each unit is partly made up of similar units, and,
further, as the medium of each is tolerably uniform,
adjustment will involve here (1) development along pretty
similar lines, and (2) adjustment in such a manner, that
the welfare of all the units becomes in some measure bound
up with and identical with that of each. Each one is
affected in somewhat similar manner by the same
influence, and the presence of pain in any member of the
family gives rise to similar representative feelings in self.
In this circumstance we find the beginning of sympathy
which plays such a large part in evolved conduct, and
which consists essentially in the process sketched above.
The next expansion of self occurs when the family
* I adopt the conventional terms here, but the precise meaning to be
attached to the words “Selfish” and “ Unselfish,” will be considered
later.
�41
developes into the tribe or state. Here the relations of
man become more varied, the interests wider; and the
constant clashing of interests renders necessary the
framing of laws for the general guidance. What had
already taken place in the family now takes place in the
state, a re-adjustment must be effected in order to establish
a more satisfactory relation between the individual and
the new environment. In particular, the ideas of justice
and duty must undergo a great expansion and elevation.
But even here the demands of right conduct are strictly
limited to the tribe; duties and obligations have no
reference to outsiders. Very plainly is this shown in the
Bible, “ Thou shalt not steal ” did not mean the Israelites
were not to “ spoil the Egyptians,” nor “ Thou shalt not
bear false witness ” mean that they were to be truthful to
their enemies; nor did the command “ Thou shalt not
commit murder” prevent the Jews putting to death the
people whose lands they had invaded. Virtue here was
purely local. It was not until a much later stage of human
development, when the tribe had grown into the state,
and the expansion of the state had given rise to a com
munity of nations with a oneness of interest running
through all, that the idea of virtue as binding alike upon
all was finally reached ; although we have still lingering
much of the tribal element in that narrow patriotism
which finds expression in the maxim, “ My country, right
or wrong.”
In the history of Rome we can trace these various stages
with tolerable clearness. One can watch Rome developing
from the patriarchal stage to the tribal, thence to the
nation, and finally to the world-wide Empire with its far
reaching consequences. At each of these stages we can
discern a corresponding development in moral ideals.
Confined at first to the tribe, morality grew until it
absorbed the nation ; and finally its universal dominion
involved as a necessity rules of ethics that should press
with equal force upon all, and which expressed itself
generally in the doctrine of human brotherhood. As
Lecky says, “ The doctrine of the universal brotherhood
of mankind was the manifest expression of those social
and political changes which reduced the whole civilised
globe to one great empire, threw open to the most distant
tribes the right of Roman citizenship, and subverted all
�42
those class distinctions around which moral theories had
been formed.” *
It is by such natural and gradual steps as those outlined
above that morality has developed. Its rise is upon
precisely the same level as that of the arts and sciences.
Given living tissue and the struggle for existence, and a
moral code of some sort is the inevitable result. Just as
inventions grew out of individual needs, so morality grew
out of social necessities. One feature in the process of
development is clear, and that is that the expansion of
moral theories, and their purification, has at each step
been dependent upon an expansion of the organic
environment. As this grew wider and more intricate
there was necessitated a re-adjustment of moral ideas.
Feelings that at first applied only to the family were
afterwards extended to the tribe, then to the nation, and
lastly, as a recognition of a oneness of interest indepen
dent of nationality began to dawn upon the human
reason, to the whole of humanity.
I have endeavoured to make this process of develop
ment as plain as possible by keeping clear of many con
siderations which, while bearing upon the subject, were not
altogether essential to its proper consideration. Yet, it is
obvious, that if the above outline be admitted as sub
stantially correct, the relation of the individual and society
is put in a new light; it is no longer the attributes of a
number of independent objects that we have to deal with,
but the qualities of an organism; and hence will result
very important modifications in the use of terms and in
the structure of our moral ideals.
In the first place the arbitrary division hitherto drawn
between self-regarding and social acts can no longer be
maintained, or at least not without serious modification.
The distinction usually drawn between self-regarding and
social conduct, although valuable enough for working
purposes, cannot be an ultimate distinction. It can mean
no more at bottom than the division of mind into emotion,
volition, and thought. Man’s moral, mental, and physical
nature forms a unity, and all divisions that may be made
are divisions erected to suit our conveniences and not such
as exist in nature. As the individual is an integral portion
Hist. European Morals. Ed. 1892. I. 340.
�43
of society, is indeed a product of social activity, his actions
have necessarily a double aspect, his fitness as an individual
determines his value in the social structure, and con
versely the perfection of the structure has a vital bearing
upon his own value ; and therefore although we may fix
our minds upon one portion of his conduct to the exclusion
of the other, such a state of things no more exists in
reality than the Euclidean line without breadth, or a point
without magnitude.
But it does not follow that because the distinction
usually drawn between the two classes of actions is
inaccurate that there is, therefore, no such thing as
gratifying individual preference at the cost of injury to
others. That is by no means the case. The important
thing is having a correct understanding of the sense- in
which the terms are used.
It has, I think, been made clear that however it may be
disguised the main end of the action is always the pursuit
of pleasure or the avoidance of pain; and therefore,
unless we choose to confuse ourselves with what Bentham
called “ question begging epithets,” it is plain that a man
can only desire the well-being of others in so far as their
happiness becomes in some manner bound up with his
own.
This result is brought about by two methods :
directly, by the growth of the sympathetic feelings which
makes the sight of suffering painful, and indirectly
through the desire of the good opinion and friendship of
those with whom we are living. Sympathy, although not
so important as many have imagined it to be, is yet an
extremely potent factor in moral evolution. Indeed, sym
pathy, which may be defined as the process of presenting
to the mind the pleasures and pains endured by others,
and making them our own, so to speak, is involved in the
very nature of knowledge and in the structure of society.
Social life is impossible, bearing in mind our fundamental
maxim, unless animals find some amount of pleasure in
the mere fact of being together. Were it otherwise there
would be disunion. This simpler form of sympathy
quickly gives rise to other forms of a much more complex
character. Beside the general circumstance that creatures
living amid the same general set of conditions come to
have nearly identical feelings aroused by similar stimuli,
it is obvious that a large part of the value of gregarious
�44
ness will depend upon the ability of certain individuals
to arouse by their actions feelings of a desired kind in
others. A member of a herd of animals scenting a special
danger, excites by its actions sympathetic feelings on the
part of the other members, thus enabling them to prepare
for defence in a similar manner. Otherwise the warning
that is given on the approach of danger would be of little
or no value. Thus, the development of a society involves
a capacity of entering into the pleasures and pains of
others ; and this power is further heightened by those
social sanctions which prescribe and enforce certain lines
of conduct—sanctions which are much more powerful in
primitive societies than in modern ones, owing to the
smaller individuality of its members.
The distinction, therefore, between a selfish and an
unselfish act is not that in the latter case egoistic feelings
have no place; this would be impossible ; it is simply
that in the evolution of society a transfusion of the
egoistic feelings occurs owing to which their distinctive
features are lost, pretty much as the special properties of
a number of elements are lost when merged into a
chemical compound. In the conflict of mutual self
regarding interests a number of re-adjustments and
compromises occur, until the result assumes a different
character from that presented by the individual elements.
The discussion about egoism and altruism has, as a result
of ignoring these considerations, been largely a barren one.
It is impossible to live for others unless one lives for self,
it is equally impossible to live wisely for self and ignore
duties to others. Therefore, as Maudesley says, “It is
not by eradication but by a wise direction of egoistic
passions, not by annihilation but by utilisation of them, that
progress in social culture takes place ; and one can only
wonder at the absurdly unpractical way in which
theologians have declaimed against them, contemning and
condemning them, as though it were a man’s first duty to
root them clean out of his nature, and as though it were
their earnest aim to have a chastity of impotence, a
morality of emasculation.” *
A second and no less important consideration is one that
has been already pointed out generally, namely, that a
* “Body and Will” p. 167.
�45
science of ethics can only reach safe generalisations by
taking into consideration the social structure of which the
individual is a part. To separate man from society and then
hope to understand his moral nature, is like attempting
to determine the function of a leg or an arm without
reference to the body. Such qualities as duty and justice
are, as I have said, purely social, and therefore the reason
for their existence cannot be found in the nature of the
individual considered apart from his fellows, any more
than the movements of the earth could be understood
apart from the influence of the rest of our planetary sys
tem. Indeed, a great many of the objections commonly
urged against a scientfic system of ethics will be found to
be based upon this short-sighted view of the matter ; and
thus as Mr. Stephens has pointed out, must lead to error
and confusion.
That man is a social animal is a statement frequently
made and easily illustrated, although few of those who use
the phrase have apparently considered all that is involved
in the dictum. Yet in that sentence lies the key to the
whole problem. As G. A. Lewes says, “ The distinguishing
feature of human psychology is that to the three great
factors, organism, external medium and heredity, it adds a
fourth, namely, relation to a social medium, with its product
the general mind.”* It is this “ fourth factor ” which gives
rise to a purely human morality and psychology, and so
speak, lifts the individual out of himself and merges him
in a larger whole.f From the first moment of his birth
man is dependent upon the activities of others for ninetenths of those things that render life endurable, and the
feelings engendered in the course of evolution bear an
obvious relation to this dependence. The love of offspring,
regard for the feelings of others, readiness to act in
unison with others, all form part of those conditions that
make the perpetuation of the specieS possible ; and conse
quently without such instincts and sentiments the
individual as he now exists would be an impossibility.
And in such cases where these sentiments were absent—the
+ To live for self is as scientifically and ethically absurd as to live for
others. The true ethic consists in giving to self-regarding and other re
garding claims their due weight, while at the same time demonstrating
their interdependence.
* “ Study
of
Psychology.”
�46
love of offspring for example—these individuals would
leave few behind to perpetuate their qualities, and the type
would thus tend to disappear. On the other hand, the
kindly disposed person, the sympathetic, or such as come
up to the tribal ideal of excellence, would be held up for
imitation and respect; and thus by a dual process of
weeding out anti-social specimens, and by cultivating
social ones, the development of a higher type would
proceed. Indeed, we can scarcely conceive the cause of
evolution to have been otherwise. Natural selection
works by favouring the possessors of such qualities as
establish a more perfect balance between organism and
environment, and in developing customs and instincts
the course of social evolution has been to bring out and
cultivate such as were favourable to the welfare of social
structure and repress those of a contrary character. Each
of the social virtues may have its rise traced in this
manner, by showing how it has contributed to individual
and social development.
*
The tendency of natural
selection in preserving those communities in which the
members are most at one in feeling and action is to bring
about not merely an ideal, but an actual identification of
individual and social welfare, and this in such a manner
that each one finds the fullest expression of his own wel
fare in the combined happiness of all around him.
This truth, that man might properly be regarded as a
cell in the “ social tissue,” was recognised in a vague and
rather fanciful manner long ago ; t but it is owing to the
unparalleled scientific activity of the last half century that
this conception of man has been placed upon a solid
foundation, and a scientific view of human life and conduct
made possible. We now see that the phrase “social
organism ” or “ social tissue” is something more than a
mere figure of speech, that it expresses a fundamental fact
and one that must be constantly borne in mind in the
consideration of social problems. What, indeed, is society
or the social medium but a part of the individual ? One’s
whole being, intellectual and moral, is composed of
* A very interesting inquiry might here be opened concerning the
influence upon the general character of leading or much admired
individuals.
+ Plato, Republic, book v. 462.
�47
innumerable relations between it and others. My nature
has been and is being so continually moulded by this social
medium that my pleasures and pains have become indis
solubly connected with the pleasures and pains of others
to such an extent that I could no more be happy in
a society where misery was general than 1 could travel in
comfort or indulge in the pleasures of art, science, or
literature, apart from the activities of those around me.
The mere fact of being brought up in a society so
identifies all our ideas and customs with that society as to
defy their separation from it. This is well illustrated in
the case of young men and women who are brought up
within the pale of a particular church. They become part
of its organisation, they identify themselves with it, and its
losses and gains become their own. If all this is witnessed
in a single generation, how much more powerful must the
co-operate feeling become when society has been constantly
developing along the same lines for countless generations
with its sanctions enforced by organic necessity ? The
process must obviously result in the direction above
indicated, that of bringing about a union of individual
desires and actions with social well-being; while the
growing intelligence of man, by perceiving the reason and
value of this mutual dependence of the unit and society,
must be constantly taking steps to strengthen the union
and increase its efficiency.
Here, then, w have reached a conclusion, or at least to
e
*
go further would involve a lengthy discussion of matters
into which we have no desire to enter. But if the fore
going reasoning be sound, we have reached a point from
which the reader will be enabled to lay down a clear and
satisfactory theory of morals such as will place the
subject upon the same level as any of the arts and
sciences.
The principles involved in the preceding pages may be
briefly summarised as follows :—
(1) Maintenance of life depends upon the establish
ment and continuance of a definite set of actions between
the organism and its environment.
(2) In the ceaseless struggle for existence this is
secured by the preservation of all those animals whose
�48
habits and capabilities best equips them to meet the
demands of their environment, natural selection thus
the
*
accentuating
value of all variations in this direction.
(3) As all conduct has as its immediate object the pur
suit of pleasurable, and the avoidance of painful feelings,
and as life is only possible on the condition that pleasur
able and beneficial actions shall roughly correspond,
there is set up a general and growing agreement between
pleasure-producing and life-preserving conduct.
(4) As experience widens and intelligence develops,
those actions that make for a higher life become more
certain and easy of attainment; while the pleasures
formerly attached to the end of action become transferred
to the means, these becoming an end in themselves.
(5) The conditions of life bearing upon all with a
certain amount of uniformity, and therefore demanding
a like uniformity of action, leads to a gradual modification
of nerve structure and the creation of corresponding
general sentiments, which, handed on and increased from
generation to generation, express themselves in our exist
ing moral sense.
(6) The moral sense, therefore, while possessing a
certain authority in virtue of its origin, needs to be con, tinually tested and corrected in accordance with the
requirements of the age.
(7) All progress involves the specialisation and integra
tion of the various parts of the organism, individual and
social. By the operation of this principle there is
brought about an identification of individual and general
interests ; inasmuch as each one finds his own happiness
constantly dependent upon the happiness of others, and
that a full expression of his own nature is only to be
realised in social activity.
Frcm all of which we, may conclude that:—
“ The rule of life drawn from the practice and opinions
of mankind corrects and improves itself continually, till
at last it determines entirely for virtue and excludes all
kinds and degrees of vice.
*
For, if it be correct to say
Hartley, “Observations on Man,” II. p. 214.
�49
that the moral formula is the expression of right relations
between man and the world, then it follows that the pres
sure urging man to the performance of right actions—i.e.,
actions serving to broaden and perpetuate life—must on
the whole be more permanent than those impelling him
to the performance of wrong ones. This, it will be
observed, is merely making the broad and indisputable
statement that evolution tends to maintain life.
The course of evolution is therefore upon the side of
morality. By the operation of the struggle for existence
we can see how “ the wicked are cut off from the earth ; ”
and the more righteous live on and perpetuate the species.
Right conduct is one of the conditions of existence, and
is as much the outcome of natural and discoverable laws
as any of the sciences to which we owe so much. What
has prevented it assuming a like positive character has
been the extreme complexity of the factors joined to the
want of a proper method. Here, again, we are deeply
indebted to the doctrine of evolution for having thrown
a flood of light upon the subject, and making tolerably
clear what was before exceedingly obscure. Under its
guidance we see the beginnings of morality low down in
the animal world in the mere instinct of self-preservation,
and its highest expression in the sympathetic and kindred
feelings of men living in society. And between these
two extremes there are no gaps ; it is an unbroken
sequence right through. As I have said, the process has
practically assumed the shape of an expansion of self,
from the individual to the family, from the family to the
state, and from the state to the whole of humanity.
Morality thus rises at length above the caprice of the
individual or the laws of nations, and stands a law
giver in its own right and in virtue of its own inherent
majesty. That which was a matter of blind instinct
at the outset, and later of arbitrary authority, becomes
in the end a matter of conscious perception pressing upon
all alike with the authority of natural law.
The outlook, then, to the rationalist is a perfectly
hopeful one. From the vantage ground afforded him by
modern science he can see that a constant purification of
conduct is part of the natural order of things, and
although in a universe of change one can hardly picture
�50
a time when there will cease to be a conflict between
good and bad motives, yet the whole course of evolution
warrants us in looking forward with confidence to a time
when the development of the permanently moral qualities,
or of such powers as serve to keep men moral, will be
sufficient to hold the immoral and anti-social tendencies
in stern and complete subjection ; for however much the
forms of morality may change with time and place, that
in virtue of which right conduct gains its name, must
ever remain the same.
�
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An outline of evolutionary ethics
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Text
FOREIGN
MISSIONS
THEIR
DANGERS AND DELUSIONS
BY
C. COHEN
London:
THE FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING CO., Ltd.,
1 Stationers’ Hall Court, E.C.
Price Ninepenee.
��NI 44
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
THEIR
DANGERS AND
DELUSIONS
BY
C. COHEN
London:
THE FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, Ltd.,
1 STATIONERS’ HALL COURT, E.C.
1901
�BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
AN OUTLINE OF EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS
s. d.
0 6
EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIANITY ..
..02
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER? ..
..0
2
THE DECAY OF BELIEF
.............................. 0
1
PAIN AND PROVIDENCE
.............................. 0
1
London:
THE FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING CO., Ltd.,
1 Stationers’ Hall Court, E.C.
�NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
FOREIGN MISSIONS.
I.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
If anything had been needed to impress upon the
public mind the necessity for a clearer understanding
of missionary methods and results, recent events in
China would have made good the deficiency.
That
missionary activity in that country should have been
largely instrumental in producing, not only a lament
able loss of life and a serious dislocation of commercial
relations, but also the conditions for a quarrel between
various European Powers, is a state of affairs that must
give rise to a strong feeling of uneasiness concerning
these Evangelistic societies.
The control by a few
London societies of some thousands of agents, who
hold themselves responsible to none but the officers of
their own society, the presence of these people among
uncivilised or semi-civilised races, creates an element
of danger against which we cannot be too carefully
guarded.
If all these missionary ladies and gentlemen were
persons of judgment and tact, the danger would still be
great; but they are far from being that. It is the common
experience and the common testimony of travellers and
others that, while they may be often honest and earnest,
they are usually ill-balanced, fanatical, and greatly
lacking in the necessary judgment for dealing with
people who, in manners and customs, differ radically
from themselves. Throughout the reports issued by
the various societies—and these are bulky enough, in
all conscience—one rarely meets with the slightest
�4
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
indication of respect for the customs or feelings of the
people on whom the missionary gratuitously thrusts
himself. Whatever is not Christian is of the Devil
seems to be the general rule ; and one can faintly
imagine, from the fanatical impertinence of the lower
class of Evangelists at home, where they are restrained
to a considerable extent by the common sense of their
neighbors, what their conduct would be when these
restraints are removed.
But the danger of missionary activity is not con
fined to, nor has it commenced with, recent events in
China. Far from that being the case, it is scarcely
too much to say that wherever missionary work is
going on, the danger of it causing trouble is. always
present in a greater or less degree. As it is, a
great many troubles can be partly traced to this
source. In New Zealand most of the outbreaks in
the early part of the century were caused by the action
of missionaries in grabbing the land belonging to
the natives. The Church Missionary Society’s agents
alone claimed 216,000 acres, for which nothing but a
few axes and similar things had been given in ex
change. The native chiefs, who imagined that they
had received the axes in exchange for their hiero
glyphics at the foot of the deeds of exchange, naturally
objected to the transaction when they discovered its
real meaning, with the inevitable result.1 In India
the missionary bodies, by repeated remonstrances,
induced the governing powers to withdraw from the
maintenance of the Hindoo temple funds that had
been taken over on the express understanding that
they should be used in their interest, and thus played
no mean part in inflaming the native mind and
preparing for the mutiny.2 Of West Africa Miss
Mary Kingsley says: “ The evil worked by what we
1 For full particulars see Thomson’s Story of New Zealand, i. 269
and ii. 154-58.
2 See article by Sir A. C. Lyall in Fortniyhtly Review for April,
1872. ■
�GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
must call the missionary party is almost incalculable.”
She asserts that it has led to our policy of destroying
the native states, and is the cause of our wars in West
Africa.1 And now in China wTe have had brought
home to the public mind, what has been lying buried
in Parliamentary papers issued during the last thirty
years, that here, too, it is missionary zeal, missionary
indiscretion, the outraging of native susceptibilities by
fanatical Evangelists, that are chiefly responsible for
the existing condition of affairs.
The good results of missionary labors would, indeed,
need to be striking to compensate this constant source
of danger; and, in order to see what the results are,
one requires something more than the vapid, mawkish
statements given at missionary meetings, or issued in
missionary circulars. Unfortunately, however, the
materials for forming an exact judgment can hardly
be said to exist. For many reasons—some obvious,
some otherwise—travellers seem remarkably shy of
criticising missionary work. Probably the kindness
which they receive from the missionaries, as one white
man from another ; probably the force of religious
organisations, which are still strong enough to make
people pay for attacking any of their agencies—may
account for their comparative silence; but the fact
remains.
What is equally remarkable is what
we may call their negative testimony. • If they
do not criticise adversely as much as one would
expect, neither do they praise; and this is extremely
significant. One may rest assured that if the number
or character of the natives Christianised was striking
enough to command notice, then notice would be taken
by men who are often themselves Christian, and often
have friends among the missionaries. As it is, we
get accounts of the amiability and self-sacrifice of
some missionaries—accounts that we need neither
question nor discuss ; but there is a suspicious silence
1 JEcst African Studies, p. 322.
�6
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
concerning the success of their enterprise. Where
the statements are clear and definite they are usually,
as will be seen later, condemnatory.
From the missionaries themselves we can neither
expect nor receive unprejudiced statements of their
work.
Either we get the accounts of ill-balanced
enthusiasts, who see in every pretended conversion
in India, Africa, or China the promise of the conver
sion of an entire people, or we get reports from another
class who write with a too obvious eye upon home sub
scriptions.
A long study of missionary reports has
only served to convince me of the utter unreliability
of many of the statements contained therein. The
idle curiosity of one native is transformed into “ a
heart hunger for the gospel,” and subscribers are
warned to prepare themselves for great results, which
never arrive. The request of another for a Bible,
probably because he thinks it may be of use as a
fetish, although he may be unable to read it, is strong
evidence of the “ power of Jesus over the forces of
evil.”
Uneducated, uncivilised Africans are represented
as giving utterance to semi-poetic speeches that
have an obvious smack of London training-colleges;
and in one case I noted a sentence, said to have been
used by the Bomans concerning the early Christians,
put into the mouth of a poor woman in Yoruba.
Canon Isaac Taylor, and many other friends of the
missionary movement, have not hesitated to label
these high-flown speeches as so many pieces of de
ception practised on the British public ; and Sir H. H.
Johnson says they are all so much “gammon” to
“ encourage the British people to find funds.”1
Native life, too, is usually misconceived, sometimes
deliberately misrepresented.
Native customs, which
may be harmless enough in the native eyes, and
wdiich only become obscene under the influence of
1 British Central Africa, p. 191.
�GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
7
missionary teaching, are adduced as proofs of
unbridled immorality, and there is served up for home
consumption a distorted picture of the African;
because, “ unless it were stirred up by horrors, the
English public would refuse to subscribe.”1
Unfortunately, however, so far as the number of
the converted is concerned, one is compelled to depend
upon the missionary returns; and, with whatever
reservations these may be taken, we can at least feel
assured that these under-estimate neither the quantity
nor the quality of the work done. It has also to
be borne in mind that these reports do not meet the eye
of the general public as they leave the hands of the
agents abroad, but only after they have passed through
those of their London superiors, who naturally take
care that nothing of a too unfavorable character
shall appear. It is tolerably certain that, if an
impartial committee of investigation were appointed,
missionary work would appear in a far different light
from that in which it is usually presented to the world.
Even on the reading of their own reports a great
many of the conversions are obviously fictitious, while
the quality is enormously exaggerated.
On the surface all may appear well; but when one
takes such general statements as “A great and
wondrous door opened to the Gospel,” “A great
outpouring of the spirit,” “People turning with
eagerness and desire to the message of the
Gospel,” etc., etc., and compares them with actual
results, or checks one year’s returns with those of
previous years, or one society’s account with that
of another society, it is then that one sees how utterly
insignificant the positive results are—so insignificant
that the annual increase in the number of the
followers of the non-Christian religions, from the
surplus of births over deaths, far outnumbers the
converts to Christianity in all parts of the world.,
1 Kingsley’s West African Studies, pp. 321-2.
�FOREIGN MISSIONS :
In what follows I have not thought it advisable to
take into consideration the work of all the missionary
societies in the places passed in review. To do so
would only be to increase the reading matter without
there being any corresponding increase in the informa
tion derived from its perusal. There is such a weari
some monotony in missionary reports, the same tales
appearing year after year, and with society after
society, and such a constant relation borne by the
number of converts to the number of missionaries
employed, that one may fairly take four or five
societies as being typical of the whole. Nor have I
thought it necessary to examine at length the purely
financial aspect of missionary work—although much
might be said on this head. All that is needful is to
give to the reader some idea of the resources of the
societies with which we shall have to deal.
II.
FINANCIAL.
The annual expenditure of the whole of the mis
sionary agencies of Great Britain is roughly estimated
at about one-and-a-half millions sterling. Of these
societies the Church Missionary Society comes first,
with an income for 1899-1900 of £404,906 and an
expenditure of £367,268. These sums, however, do
not include moneys raised and expended in the
missions, which form no inconsiderable item, and
about which no very clear information is given.
There is appended to the financial statement a very
cautiously-worded certificate from a firm of ac
countants, who confine themselves to the curiously
empty statement that the balance-sheet is in agreement
with the books of the C. M. S. Payments to mis
sionaries is included under so many different heads—
�FINANCIAL.
9
salaries, allowance for house, conveyance, education
of children, etc.—that it is impossible to make an exact
calculation; but it cannot be less than £500 per head,
and is possibly more. The collection of funds runs
into an item of £25,843 4s. 7d., and their administra
tion to £15,917 15s. 2d. Nineteen clergymen receive
between them £5,432 6s. 8d.—an average of just over
£284 each, as “association” secretaries, and whose
sole duty, so far as I can discover, is to preach a
missionary sermon once now and again. The agents
in the society’s employ abroad, white and colored,
number 8,077. We shall see the nature of their
performances later.
Next in size conies the London Missionary Society,
with an income of £150,168 14s. lOd. and an expen
diture of £171,903 19s. 7d. The foreign secretary,
the Rev. M. Wardlaw Thompson, receives £800
per year, the Rev. A. N. Johnson, secretary, £500,
the Rev. G. Cousins £400 as editorial secretary. The
retiring allowance for secretaries seems to run to
£200 and £250. This society employs about 5,665
agents, and there is the same difficulty in finding out
the cost per head as I have pointed out exists in the
case of the C. M. S.
The foreign missions of the Wesleyan Methodist
Church are carried to different European cities as well
as to the customary missionary hunting-grounds—a
form of propaganda both needless and impudent.
The number of agents, the majority being unpaid,
reaches the enormous figure of 8,946. The income
from January 1 to December 31, 1899, amounted to
£133,690 9s. Id., the expenditure to £133,738 9s.
The home expenses include the salaries of four secre
taries (all clergymen), £1,000; and, as usual, there is,
Gn account of the same gentlemen, further charges for
“ Children, Rent, Rates, Taxes, House Bill, House
Repairs, Repairs and Replacement of Furniture,
Coals, Gas,” etc., amounting to £872 6s. 6d. One
wonders what they are supposed to spend their
�10
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
salaries on, particularly as they all appear to have
churches in addition to their secretarial salary and
allowance.
The Baptist Missionary Society has under its con
trol 5,464 agents.
Its expenditure for the year
ending March 31, 1900, was £73,716 ; income,
£66,593 11s. 5d. Salary of general secretary, £500 ;
association secretary, £450.
It will be seen from the above brief epitome' of the
resources of four of the principal missionary societies
that the work is carried on on a fairly large scale;
and, on the whole, there is a gradual increase in the
number of agents employed, and consequently in the
money raised.
One word further before coming to an examination
of the work in detail. A very ready reply to all criti
cism on missionary work is that the men and women
engaged in the work are honest and earnest, and that
a great deal of good is done in introducing education
and the different civilised arts among undeveloped
races. I do not see that either reply can fairly meet
the objections disclosed by a careful examination of
the facts of the case. That some of the men and
women engaged in the work are in deadly earnest
need not be questioned; but it is a poor movement
that cannot boast as much. Nor need it be questioned
that in some cases good may be done by the intro
duction of purely secular elements, such as schools,
medical knowledge, etc. But, after all, these are the
incidentals of mission work, not the essentials; and if
the missionaries were limited to these secular agencies,
their ardor would soon cool. The main object of these
organisations, the purpose for which huge sums of
money are subscribed, is to bring the non-Christian
people to a belief in Christianity; and it is conse
quently by the success of the missionaries in doing
this, as well as the influence of the new faith on the
livesof those who are converted, that the value of
missionary work must be ultimately decided.
�INDIA.
11
III.
INDIA.
The Number of Converts.—India is the classic
ground of missionary enterprise.
We read of
flourishing churches being established there as
early as the fifth century, with proselytising being
vigorously carried on in all directions. But, like
many other and more modern missionary enter
prises, it came to nought. The converts dwindled
away, the organisations disappeared, and at the
beginning of the present century the churches found
in India practically virgin soil. Since the opening
of the century the work of propagandism has been
vigorously prosecuted; and if the reports of the
number of people converted were really genuine,
or the conversions lasting, Christians should by
this time represent a much larger portion of the
population than the beggarly one hundred and fiftieth
they are said to muster.
In India, too, missionary work is carried on under
peculiarly favorable conditions. It is true that the
Government of India stands aloof from all religions,
protecting all, but patronising none—a procedure not
by any means to the taste of the missionaries ; but
still its representatives are professedly Christian, and
this must always have its due influence on the people
at large. What, then, are the results of missionary
enterprise in our Indian Empire ? We will take, first
of all, the question of the number of converts, and deal
with the societies operating in the order of their im
portance.
The Church Missionary Society comes first both in
the amount of its expenditure and the number of its
�12
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
agents.1 For the year 1899-1900 these latter numbered
3,424, Europeans and natives, and there was sent out
for their support £113,630 17s. 6d.
These 3,424
agents baptised during the year 8,423 people. Out
of this number, however, 5,978 were children, and
there is nothing in the Report to indicate whether
they are the children of existing Christians, of the
adult converts, or simply children that have been
baptised without their parents. As there is evidence
that a very large number of the adult conversions
are those of unmarried people, it is clear that these
are, for the most part, the infant children of existing
church members, in which case the Report is so far
misleading, since it sets up the idea of converts gained
from non-Christian religions.
The baptism of children in any case can hardly
rank as a serious performance; and if we put these
on one side we get a balance of 2,445 adult baptisms
as the work of 3,424 agents for an entire year. This
is not a very striking effect of the work of so
large an army, but even this result has to be dis
counted. The report for the previous year returned
the number of communicants at 33,804. Adding to
this number the 8,423 adults and children for 18991900, the number should now stand at 42,227,2 whereas
the actual number is only 35,640. This registers a
decrease in one direction of 6,587, against an increase
in another of 8,423, and leaves a net gain of 1,836 as
the fruits of 3,424 people working for a year, and
receiving from home over £113,000.
1 I have placed under the heading of “Agents” missionaries,
teachers, medical missionaries, etc. All help in the work of evangeli
sation, and we have to reckon their united efforts in estimating the
results. In speaking of expenditure I am referring to the sums
transmitted from Great Britain only.
2 I am aware, of course, that all the children would not become
communicants at once, but this should be made good by the increase
of communicants from the baptisms of previous years. As I am
seeking to test the permanence of these results, it will be seen that
this is not an unfair method,
�INDIA.
13
If instead of taking one year’s work we take three
or four, the results are poorer still. Comparing the
report for 1900 with that for 1896, we note that the
total increase of communicants only numbers 3,631,
which, instead of giving us even 1,836, just about
halves the number, or 918 per year ; or, in round
figures, each convert represents an expenditure of
£110 of English money, and the year’s labor of four
missionaries, and these latter backed up by numerous
charitable agencies, such as schools, dispensaries, etc.
We have reached this result by taking the work en
bloc. Let us see how it looks in detail. The Bengal
missionaries have been at work since 1814. The last
report placed the number of agents at 443, who re
ceived from home over 15,000. During the year 101
adults have been baptised.
But even here some
reduction has to be made, as during the past four
years the net increase has been but 334, out of which
number at least 120 would be accounted for by the
increase of births over deaths among the Christian
community already existing, which would leave a
paltry 214 as the outcome of four years’ work by
443 agents, and an expenditure of about £60,000.
At Allahabad, the report informs us (p. 215),
“ most of the educated classes appeared to have a real
conviction of the truth of Christianity” ; yet on
comparing results we find the communicants have
decreased by 28 since 1896. One of the agents, Mr.
Waller, remarks plaintively: “What can a man do
in the face of such objections as I heard the other
day—‘ Christ did not suffer willingly, for he cried,
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”’
Or again: ‘ Christ did not know the future, for He
said to the twelve (including Judas), “ Ye shall sit on
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Now we know Judas went to hell, and never will judge
the tribes.” ’ It is a great pity that ingenuity should
be exercised in such a wrong direction.” Mr. Waller
has our sympathy.
�14
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
Benares, with a staff of 27 agents, has 23 fewer
communicants than it had in 1895. Madras, with a
staff of 66 agents, has increased by 93 in four years.
In Tinnevally there are 1,018 agents : 373 adults
were baptised last year, but the total increase since
1895 is only 227. Yet nothing is said in the annual
report of the losses, while much is written concern
ing the encouraging nature of the conversions, which
are obviously lost almost as soon as made. The
Punjab and Sindh Mission, with 228 agents, has,
while reporting hundreds of conversions, 60 less than
it had four years ago, and has received from home
during that time between £80,000 and £90,000. Yet,
again, nothing is said of these losses ; and the sub
scribers are led to believe that the missions are
stronger by these reported conversions. I am wrong,
though, in saying nothing is said of the losses.
There is mention of two cases of “backsliding,” and
a casual remark that the plague has prevented any
“ great advance ” in the work. This, in face of the
figures cited above, is instructive. One would like to
hear a missionary’s definition of what is meant by
“ obtaining money under false pretences.”
The London Missionary Society has in India 1,844
agents, for whose support there was sent out, during
1899, the sum of over £47,000. Except incidentally,
the number of people converted each year is not
given—a circumstance which reflects more credit on
their shrewdness than on their straightforwardness.
But as in the report for 1896 the Church members
were returned at 9,809, and in that for 1900 at
10,998, there has been a consequent gain of 1,189 in
four years. This gives us an average growth of 297
per year, without allowing for the increase of births
over deaths ; or, to look at the matter from another
point of view, each additional church member repre
sents the work of six missionaries for twelve months,
and an expenditure of £158 per member. At this
rate the conversion of India would cost the trifling
�INDIA.
15
sum of 45,346 million sterling.
Fortunately, this
expenditure is not likely to be consummated in a hurry.
Details of the work show pretty much the same
features as I have noted in connection with the C. M. S.
In Calcutta, we are warned, “ the actual number of con
versions seems very small when the very large staff of
workers, European and native, is taken into account.”
How many conversions there were we are not told;
but judging from the fact that, in spite of an army of
eighty-three agents, there are sixty-five fewer church
members than there were four years ago, they cannot
have been very numerous. Mr. Young, one of the
missionaries, may well lament that “the number of
those won for Christ is appallingly small ” (1900,
p. 101). Perhaps some light is thrown on the situa
tion by a remark in the report for ’96 to the effect
that ‘ ‘ there is need of a class of workers intellectu
ally stronger and more capable of successfully meeting
argument and criticism” (p. 59).
At Berhampur there are forty-six members after
seventy-six years’ work. And the result of four years’
labor, with a present staff of forty-eight agents, has
been eight members—one convert to every twenty-four
missionaries per year. Yet the report declares, “ In
all parts of the district and in all branches of the
work there is movement” (p. 110). At Benares “the
native church is slowly growing in numbers ” (Report
for ’96, p. 63). Very slowly, since, whereas in that
year there were forty-six members, after seventy-six
years’ work, to-day, with a staff of thirty-seven, there
are
—a decrease of ten. Still, Mrs. Greaves
reports, “We believe a quiet work is going on among
the women.” Methinks there is some humor in this
“believe.” At Mirzapur, with twenty-three agents,
there are forty-seven members after sixty-three years’
work. In ’95 there were fifty-one. At Almora, where
there are fifty-six agents, it is admitted that the
members do not increase very rapidly, “ because the
losses very nearly equal the gains ” (p. 122). When
�16
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
so much is admitted more may be expected, and we
are not disappointed—the church members have
decreased by just about half since ’95. At Bellary
there were, in ’95, 172 members. In 1900, in spite of
the efforts of forty-six agents, these had dropped to
166. Kadiri, with fourteen agents, has dropped from
twenty-one in 95 to nineteen in ’99. The report for
1896 said of Salem (p. 95) : “ The hostility which was
so painfully manifest a couple of years ago has now
almost entirely ceased, and Mr. Devasagayam has
been much encouraged by the attentive hearing of the
crowd, and also by the friendly and sympathetic
attitude of the educated classes.” An altogether
cheerful account until the discovery is made that there
is now one member less than was returned in the ’96
report—in spite of there being seventy-eight agents
at work. The population of Salem is over 50,000;
the L. M. S. numbers 234 church members after
seventy-six years’ work. In Madras missionaries of
the L. M. S. have been at work for seventy years.
There are now 201 church members and sixty-three
agents. During the past four years these latter have
secured ten new members. At Tittuvlei thirty-six
agents have managed to lose six of their members in
four years. It is only when we thus compare actual
results with the statements made, concerning the
progress of the work, that we are in a position to
estimate the value of sermons delivered by returned
missionaries and others. And let it be noted, again,
that I am . taking these results not from the lips of
hostile critics, but from their own published reports.
The Wesleyan Methodists-have in India 904 paid
and 1479 unpaid agents—2,383 in all. Its expenditure
on India for 1899-1900 amounted to A28,479 Is. Id.
In Madras there are 332 paid and 242 unpaid agents.
These 574 ladies and gentlemen baptised last year
ninety-seven persons; the church membership, how
ever, only increased by sixty-four. In the Mysore district
679 agents baptised sixty-two adults. The native church
�INDIA.
17
Membership has, however, increased but by five during
the year-—a condition of things concerning which, with
becoming candor, they say : “It cannot be pretended
that these figures are satisfactory” (p. 89).
In
Calcutta 189 agents baptised fifty people and lost
thirty. They are “ looking for the mighty workings
of the Holy Spirit in the coming year.” In Lucknow
and Benares 241 agents have secured the baptism of
twenty-five persons.
Inquirers, we are informed,
were plentiful; but “their motives were not so pure
as we require them to be, and none have been
accepted.”
Altogether in India the 2,883 agents
secured the baptism of 604 adults ; but as the
church members have increased by 309, we have to
write 295 off this magnificent result.
Next to the Wesleyan Methodists come the Baptist
missions with a staff of 12721 agents, and an expendi
ture of £25,989 12s. 2d. There are all the usual
flowery statements of the progress made, with the
customary insignificant results in the shape of actual
growth. One or two specimens may serve. The
Beport for 1899 contained the following from one of
the society’s agents in India: “I have never before
experienced such a general desire on the part of vast
multitudes of the people to listen attentively and
thoughtfully to the preaching of the old, old story of
Jesus and his love” (p. 16). From another : “ I have
seen an audience of out-and-out idolaters and Moham
medans held spell-bound many times since I came to
India” (p. 17). And the result of all this “spell
bound” attention, and “general desire of vast multi
tudes ” to listen to the Gospel ? Well, in 1898-9,
919 agents baptised 435 persons and lost 261,
leaving a balance of 174. In 1899-1900, with 1,272
agents, there was an increase of 369 and a decrease
of 385.
1 This number includes 720 day and Sunday-school teachers, who
play quite as important a part in securing converts as the clergy and
evangelists.
�18
FOREIGN MISSIONS: •
Again I have to point out that when we compare
statements with facts there can be little doubt of the
deliberately misleading nature of the reports. It is
difficult to conceive, even with the assistance of the
inane twaddle with which the reports are filled, that
men and women on the spot could be so blind to their
real position, as the assumption of absolute honesty
on the part of the writers would involve.
Here, then, are the grand results in India of four
of our principal missionary societies.
They have
maintained in round figures over 8,900 agents, have
sent out from Great Britain in solid cash over
T215,000, and have secured an increase in the native
Christian community of about 2,500 persons. And
meanwhile the bare increase of births over deaths
among the non-Christian population must number at
least a million per year. Instead of making progress
they are actually, in proportion to population, losing
ground.
Bogus Conversions.—But the figures concerning
conversions that are supplied to us by the different
societies have to be yet further discounted, if we
would form anything like an exact idea concerning
missionary operations. I have assumed in the fore
going that the converts gained represent a change
from “heathenism” to “Christianity.”
This is
undoubtedly the impression formed by all who read
the reports of conversions.
It is, however, very
largely an erroneous one, since in numerous instances
the cases are simply those of people who have left one
mission, for more or less interested reasons, and have
joined another.
By thus going from mission to
mission, posing first as a hopeful inquirer, next as a
convert, a single individual may be transformed into
a dozen or more before he reaches the British public;
not one of the reports making the slightest reference
to the fact that many of their cases have been “ con
verted ” before reaching their hands. If we were to
deduct the number of these “ rice Christians,” people
�INDIA.
19
whose only object is to secure a certain payment per
month, and who leave whenever the payment ceases
or whenever they see a chance of getting more else
where, the statistics of baptisms would undergo a
remarkable shrinkage.
That this is no exaggeration on the writer’s part
one or two citations from the report will prove conclu
sively. The L. M. S. complains that the Seventh-day
Adventists raided some of their stations, and a
pamphlet had to be published so as to enlighten the
people (Report 1900, p. 99). In other places they
complain of the same people, and also Roman
Catholics, Mormons, and others (pp. 232-8).
The
Baptists in their Report for ’96 say : “ Among other
discouragements under which our missionaries in
Bengal have labored, our Barisal brethren have been
greatly distressed by the action of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel.” And again: “Like other
stations of our society in Bengal, the church at Soory
has suffered greatly by the strain upon her that has
been made by several adjoining missions. Mention
might be made in particular of the Church Missionary
Society, the Wesleyan Society, and the American
Episcopal Methodist Society.”
The C. M. S. accuse the Roman Catholics of steal
ing over 400 families belonging to their congregations,
and generally enticing away converts by dishonorable
methods (1896 Report, pp. 323-344).
The Roman
Catholics in turn blame the Protestants for stealing
their converts, and, as they are far more successful as
missionaries, there seems little reason to doubt the
genuineness of the charge.
The Salvation Army comes in for specially severe
censures. The C. M. S. report for 1900 asserts that at
Kangasha the Army enticed away nearly half the con
gregation (p. 324). The report for 1896 asserts that
all the Army’s converts are drawn from other Christian
bodies, and that the native agents employed “ are
such as it is impossible to respect.” It further states
�20
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
that there is no evidence to show that “ one Moham
medan or Heathen has ever been brought by Salvation
Army effort to professing in his home his adhesion
even to unbaptised Christianity ” (p. 216).
Still
more serious charges were made against the Army by
a Mr. Gillespie, of the Irish Presbyterian Mission,
Ahmedabad. In a pamphlet published in 1896 he
declares that the agents employed by the Army are
often men of evil reputation, and those who join
suffer both spiritually and materially from the change.
A large portion of the pamphlet is devoted to proving
the unreliability of the figures furnished by the Army
concerning its work in India. Thus, on the Bareja
Farm Colony Mr. Booth-Tucker reports twenty-five
families regularly at work.
Mr. Gillespie found
only one. At Gugerat the Army claimed 75,000
“ adherents,” and 10,000 enrolled adult soldiers.
Mr. Gillespie challenges them to produce 100 real
converts. He says that, knowing Gugerat thoroughly,
he knows of only one man who could be called a
genuine convert. In the Paneh Mahala Mr. Tucker
reported 3,000 members. Mr. Gillespie failed to find
one after a diligent inquiry. He also says that the
parade of Salvationists before General Booth on one
of his Indian tours was secured by selling red jackets
at a quarter of their value, and promising food and
clothing gratis on future occasions.
Now, I have no intention of sitting in judgment
on any one of these statements ; they are probably
all well founded. I quote them to show that in a large
number of cases these so-called “conversions” are not
conversions at all. They are simply a transfer of pro
fessional cadgers from one Christian body to another.
No announcement is made in any of the reports that
many of their “ converts ” come from other Christian
bodies ; that might give rise to awkward questions at
home ; and so the public are carefully encouraged in
the belief that their conversions are drawn from the
non-Christian population. Let any reader look back
�\
\
INDIA.
21
at the figures I have given, showing the extent of the
growth of the native churches ; let him or her allow
for the natural increase due to the birth-rate, and
deduct the proportion that have simply stepped from
one mission to another, and then look at the result in
the shape of genuine conversions. If raising nearly a
million and a half sterling annually on the strength
of such reports is not obtaining money under false
pretences, what is it ?
Schools and Conversions.—In addition to the direct
attack made on non-Christian religions in India, there
is an indirect attack made through the medium of
medical dispensaries and schools. That good is done
by these secular agencies need • not be denied,
although there is a wide difference between destroying
faith in Hinduism and creating faith in Christianity.
Still, neither dispensaries nor schools are there with
the primary object of dispelling disease or spreading
education, but for the purpose of manufacturing
Christians; and it is on this success in this direction
that they must stand or fall. The C. M. S. Report
declares that ‘ ‘ the educational work in India continues
‘ to demonstrate its usefulness as an evangelistic
agency’” (p. 347), and other societies report pretty
much the same thing.1 The position of affairs in
India in regard to education, it is worth noting, is not
very unlike the position in England, the religious
schools running in rivalry to the Government schools,
which they seek to supplant.
Thus, the C. M. S.
report expresses “ the great need for missionary
schools which are capable of holding their own with
the well-equipped Government institutions” (p. 252);
and the L. M. S. Report states that at Trevandrum more
than 150 girls have left “ Mission schools to secure
1 “The primary object of every missionary college... .should be the
conversion or salvation of the pupils. It was for this purpose such
institutions were originally founded, and there is no reason to make
any alteration ” (Report of Centenary Conference of Foreign Missions
1888, ii., p. 242).
�22
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
a higher standard of education in Government insti
tutions, a fact which we very deeply deplore ” (p. 181).
The last phrase shows clearly enough the real object
of these schools, and how very sincere is the concern
for the people’s educational welfare.
What, then, is the value of these schools as instru
ments, of conversion? None of the societies give the
least information on the subject—except indirectly:
we are left to find out as we may. We shall, how
ever, get some idea of their value if we compare the
number of scholars with the number of conversions.
In 1896 the number of scholars in C. M. S. schools
in India was 52,004.
But as the increase in the
number of communicants, from all quarters, between
1896 and 1900, was only 3,631, and as the reports of
the various missionaries attribute nearly the whole of
these to the influence of their preaching, it is difficult
to see in what way these schools “ demonstrate their
value as evangelistic agencies.” The fact is that but
very few of those who pass through missionary schools
ever become Christian ; while some of the bitterest
native opponents of Christianity are those who have
had such training. The truth of the first portion of
this statement can be seen by two or three quotations
from the C. M. S. reports. At Bannu, Punjab, out of
340 scholars two were baptised. At Karachi the con
version of one boy out of 476 scholars is referred to as
a “ noteworthy event.” At Amritsar among 691
scholars there were “no conversions.”
The L. M. S. had in India in school 33,184 scholars;
since then the total gain from all quarters has been
1,189. The Baptists register 6,000 scholars. In 1898
they gained 52 converts; in 1899 they lost 16.
Finally, . at the Centenary Conference, held in
London in 1888, the Rev. Mr. Matthieson declared
that “ there are some who have been brought
to Christ through these colleges, but it is
notorious that the great majority of them remain in
decided unbelief in regard to the Gospel” (ii., 247).
�INDIA.
23
Another speaker held “that the outcome of these
institutions, considering the vast sums of money spent
upon them, is not adequate; the Christian influence
that comes from them is of a very meagre descrip
tion” (p. 250). And yet another confessed: “ We have
no conversions outside the mission schools, and the
Christians that are brought out of them are
very few.”
Where, then, are the glorious results that we are
assured flow from the educational work ? Certainly they
are not evident in the published returns; and it is
not unfair to assume that missionary modesty is
hardly great enough to hide these results if they
existed. The truth is that, while the Hindoo is
willing enough to avail himself of the chances of a
European education, he decisively turns his back on
the religious instruction. The case referred to on p. 17
of the C. M. S. Report of a man who had no objection
to his son becoming a Christian because “I have
noticed Christians are coming to the front, and I want
my son to come to the front,” is typical of the pre
dominant motive in attending mission schools. One
may place at the side of the empty assurances of
interested parties the explicit declaration of Mr. W. S.
Caine, M.P., on his return from India, that
“Educated India is looking for a religion, but turns
its back on Christ and his teaching as presented by
the missionary.......As far as turning the young men
they educate into Christians is concerned, their
(the missionaries’) failure is complete and unmis
takable.” 1 And a well-informed writer in the Con
temporary Review for February, 1888, sums up his
Indian experience in the following words :—
“Christianity has taken but a poor grip on Hindoo India. The
creed has, except in Tinnevally, no perceptible place in any one
province. Its votaries are nowhere really visible among the popula
tion. Its thoughts do not affect the life, and perplex the orthodoxy
of the creeds. No Indian Christian is a leader or even a quasi-leader
1 Birmingham Daily Post, February 14, 1889.
�24
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
among the Indian peoples; and a traveller living in India for two
years might leave it without full consciousness that any work of
active proselytism was going on at all.”
_ Quality of Converts.—One more aspect of mis
sionary work in India demands notice before turning
to other countries. I have said enough of the quantity
of conversions; what of the quality ? That this i's
poor is admitted on all hands. Indeed, if we were to
take a map of India and note the places where the
most numerous conversions are recorded, we should
find the population to be principally the lower
Aboriginal races. With the higher races and the
educated classes Christian missions altogether fail to
secure a foothold. With unconscious satire Sir W.
Temple declared, addressing a missionary audience :
“ There is a sect called Hindu Theistic Reformers.
It is for you, my Christian brethren, to direct that
movement in the direction of Christianity. There is
difficulty in so attracting it, because these people have
considerable intellect, they are not easy to reason with,
and cannot possibly be talked over.”2
Much outside testimony concerning the quality of
Christian converts might be cited from the testimony
of Sydney Smith, at the opening of the nineteenth
century, that the native who bore the name of Chris
tian was “ commonly nothing more than a drunken
reprobate, who conceives himself at liberty to eat and
drink anything he pleases, and annexes hardly any
other meaning to Christianity,” down to almost
similar evidence in our own day. I prefer, however,
to keep to the missionary reports, as being more
conclusive. The C. M. S. Report for 1900 states that
the Bengali Christian Church, “ here as elsewhere, is
suffering from the effects of a deep-rooted tendency to
look upon Christianity as God’s method of excusing
sin, rather than God’s means of removing it.” (A
missionary euphemism for saying converts are worse
2 Oriental Experiences, p. 163.
�INDIA.
25
after conversion than before.) “ The result is a low
ideal of Christian possibility and attainment fatal to
real aggression and usefulness” (p. 191). To the
question, “ What is the character of the converts ?”
the reply is : “ While year by year there is a distinct
growth in spirituality, yet at present there is a rather
low standard of Christian living ” (p. 301). The
evangelisation of the heathen, we are informed
(p. 286), depends ultimately upon the native preachers.
Yet of these the Rev. Mr. Stone writes that he is dis
tressed, above everything else, at the ignorance of
some, and the utter lack of earnestness of others
(p. 307).1 Of Tinnevally the Rev. Mr. Walker writes :
“ To the superficial observer all seems fair and
hopeful. It has taken us missionaries a long time
to. look under the surface to the inner reality of
things. There is a sensitive plant in South India
which is green and fair, and bears a flower of lovely
hue.......But if you touch it the flowers droop and the
leaves curl up into a shapeless skeleton.’ I have
often thought of that shrinking plant as, in some
respects, an emblem of the Tinnevally Church”
(p. 319). At Pulga the whole of the population of
the village turned out to meet the missionary, and
would not rest until he had sent back for medicine
chest and magic-lantern (p. 266).
There were no
converts.
The London Missionary Society refers sorrowfully
to the fact that “We have but little to record in the
way of open success among the high castes.” The
more, successful work is “ among the lower castes who
live in the outskirts of the city. These poor and
degraded people work as coolies in the streets.......are
wonderfully ready to receive teachers. They may not
always be so, as the Government is talking of giving
them an education—and, of course, this means a
1 _ The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel also notes that the
native agents regard preaching as a means of enjoyment (Report for
1899, p. 81).
�26
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
Christless education” (’96 Report, p. 113).
The
Report for 1900 contains the following from different
agents: “ Our people are gathered together from the
lower castes, are poor in the extreme ” ; but sub
scribers are encouraged “not to despise the low ideas
and motives with which they come to us” (p. 186).
Again : “A very large proportion who profess them
selves Christians, and are baptised, are so very
ignorant that great care and patience are required to
make them intelligently acquainted with the funda
mental truths of Christianity” (p. 145). That is,
they are converted first, and taught Christianity
afterwards.
This may, perhaps, account for the
numerous lapses. In the Yercaud Church “ certain
of its members have had to be severely disciplined”
(p. 157). In. Northern Travancore “the Myanadu
Church....... might be one of the most successful and
influential churches.......But its spiritual power has
gone.”
The members “frequently spend their
leisure time in quarrelling among themselves ”—a
form of Christian enjoyment not strictly limited to
India. “ Aggressive Christian work is impossible.
The past year has witnessed a long series of unhappy
quarrels in the Church” (p. 188). At Trevandrum
“ only a third of the Christian adherents can read”
(p. 190). Among the Mala Christians, a lady worker
writes: “ When one questions them by themselves,
the one appalling factor that forces itself upon one is
their unimaginable ignorance.......In most, the anxiety
for the daily bread is the largely bulking factor in
their consciousness” (p. 137). It is the Maias that
the Wesleyan Methodists say “ furnish us with the
great majority of our converts ” (’99 Report, p. 76).
A very interesting table might be constructed,
showing the relation between poverty-stricken dis
tricts, famine years, and the number of “ inquirers.”
Hunger and “ inquiring ” seem to go hand in hand.
Thus an agent of the “ Friends’ Foreign Mission ”
writes : “To our own mission the famine year, 1897,
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
27
will stand out as a memorable one, on account of the
unprecedented ingathering of inquirers and orphans.
These two classes can be numbered by the hundred,
and almost by the thousand. The converts ice cannot
number.” And if any ask, “ Are not there people
coming because of the distress ?” the triumphant
rejoinder is : “ May not God be sending the distress
to arouse people from their sins ?”x
It is needless to multiply quotations of this char
acter. One might go on indefinitely, and reinforce
them, if necessary, by the opinions of outsiders. The
fact that the native churches have to be maintained
by money sent out from England is a sufficient indi
cation of their character.
And that hundreds of
thousands of pounds should be wasted year after year
on enterprises of this description, always unneces
sary and often positively injurious, is one of the
many glaring follies—or frauds—that characterise our
religious life.
IV.
CHINA AND JAPAN.
China and the Gospel.—During the past twelve
months special attention has been directed towards
missionary work in China, and, whatever else has been
brought about, its evil influence in that country has
been made tolerably clear. In India, as we have seen,
we have to chronicle, in proportion to effort, failure ;
but in China there is not only a record of failure,
but the exercise of an influence prejudicial to the
welfare of the Chinese people and to their friendly
relations with other countries. For the outbreaks in
China point to a much more serious matter than the
1 See Samuel Baker: a Sketch of Friends’ Missions in India by
C. W. Tumphrey, pp. 12-5, 160, 182.
�28
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
mere failure of a religious propaganda. It is one of the
most significant features of all the Chinese outbreaks
during the last forty years that they should have been
specially aimed against missionaries of all descrip
tions.
Among many people who are strongly
influenced by religious feeling this would not be
surprising, but with such a people as the Chinese this
circumstance is strange enough to call for explanation.
It must always be borne in mind that the Chinese
are both a naturally peaceful and a religiously tolerant
people ; and, provided decent respect be shown to the
normal customs and institutions of the country, out
breaks need neither be expected nor feared. Mr.
Alexander Michie, in his book on Missionaries in
China, after declaring, as the result of a longpersonal experience, that “ hatred of missionaries
is practically universal throughout China ” (p. 9),
altogether denies that this hatred is due to the
native dislike of Christianity. Not that the Chinese
are developing any feeling of attachment for it; they
are simply indifferent to it. He says :—
“ Against the easy-going assumption of the missionaries, that when
they are hated it is their Master who is hated, there stands the broad
historical fact, in China, of toleration and patronage extended to the
two great foreign religions, Mohammedanism and Buddhism........ So
far as religion pure and simple is concerned, the Chinese bear the
palm among all the nations of the earth for toleration, and the pre
sumption is therefore irresistibly strong that it is never the religious
but some other element in the missionary propaganda that rouses the
passions of the Chinese ” (p. 11).
So also Prof. R. K. Douglas :—
‘ ‘ The Chinese have always shown themselves singularly tolerant
of faiths other than their own, more especially when the new religions
are professed only by strangers, and are of a non-proselytising nature.
They have allowed Mohammedans to live in their midst, and to hold
offices of all ranks, without imposing on them the slightest disability ”
(China, p. 370).
Clearly we have to look for some cause outside the
mere fact of a strange religion being preached, to
account for this intense hatred of missionaries. True,
the Chinese dislike the Christian teaching, and those
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
29
who are acquainted with the written attacks on mis
sionaries know that the bitterest of all are composed
of texts selected from the Bible, such texts as could
not be read to a mixed audience at home. Mr. Michie’s
remarks on this head are worthy of note. He says :—
‘ ‘ What is an educated heathen likely to make of the evidence of the
central truth of Christianity, the miraculous birth, as presented to him
for the first time in the New Testament ? What the Chinese literati
do make of it the missionaries know very well, and have known for a
long time, though few dare speak out.
“ It so happens that, impure as the Chinese imagination may be,
the whole body of their classical literature does not contain a single
passage which needs to be slurred over or explained away,
and which may not be read in its full natural sense by youth or
maiden. And to people nurtured on a literature so immaculate in
these respects there are things in the Bible which are calculated to
create prejudice against its teachings, even in well-disposed minds ”
(pp. 66-7).
It is also clear that missionaries, by their general
conduct, apart from teaching, excite great dislike.
Not only are harmless or even admirable associations,
such as societies whose bond of union is abstinence from
alcohol, opium, tobacco, meat, or impurity, branded
by missionaries as “wiles of the devil,” since they
teach the Chinese to trust to their own efforts to be
virtuous,1 instead of embracing Christianity; but
the missionaries’ conduct in dealing with Chinese
worship is such that, if a foreigner were to behave in a
similar manner to English Christians, his protection
by the police would be a matter of urgent necessity.
One missionary boasts of having in a Chinese temple
stood “ with his back towards the tablet of Confucius
(and) addressed the assembled crowd on the folly and
sin of worshipping deceased men—perhaps the first
Gospel discourse ever delivered in a temple dedicated
to the worship of the Chinese sage ” {Social Life of the
Chinese, Rev. J. Doolittle, ch. 14). Another, a lady
this time, stood on the steps of one of the principal
temples playing the concertina and singing, “ Come to
the Savior; make no delay!” (cited by the Rev.
1 See Michie, pp. 56-7.
�30
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
Dr. Wenyon, Wesleyan, in an address in London, on
November 12, 1900). What would happen to an
Atheistic lecturer who attempted to attack Christianity
in Westminster Abbey, or deliver an address on the steps
of St. Paul’s, need hardly be said. Mr. A. B. Freeman,
in his book, The Attache at Peking, published last
year, observes that the picture of a Chinese Buddhist
preaching Buddhism in pidgin English to an audience
at Charing Cross would give “ some measure of the
effect produced on a Chinese crowd' by a missionary
whom I have seen perched upon a cab outside the
Tartar city of Peking, haranguing a yellow crowd of
gapers in bastard Chinese, delivered with a strong
Aberdonian accent.”
There is small wonder, on the face of such facts,
that more than one traveller has reached practically
the same conclusion as Mr. Little, who doubts “ if
China will ever be Christianised, especially now that
innumerable different sects of Protestants from
Europe and America have entered the field and
rendered confusion more confounded to the naturally
sceptical Chinese mind,” and believes that “ the
millions spent by the good people at home in placing
the teaching before them, in its present shape, is
money thrown away, and which would be spent to
more advantage in reclaiming the ignorant poor
around them.”1
But neither the eccentricities of missionary be
havior nor the objectionable character of missionary
doctrines are enough to account for the bitter feeling
amongst Chinese of all classes against missionaries.
It is a very real and a very practical grievance that
would seem to be chiefly responsible for Chinese illfeeling ; and its nature can be best stated, perhaps,
in the missionaries’ own words. The C. M. S. Report
for 1899 (p. 329) says :—
“It is now a very common practice for men whose sole object is to
plunder, to avoid paying their debts, and to escape punishment by the
1 Through the Yang-Tse Gorges, pp. 232-4.
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
31
authorities, to place their names as Romanists on the register of the
Roman Catholic Church. They are then entitled to the protection of
the Roman priest, and bishop, and of the French Consul, and can,
and do, commit acts of violence with impunity.”
The Report for 1900 also says :—
“ The anti-foreign and anti-Christian sentiment finds some pallia
tion and excuse for its existence, alas ! in the arbitrary acts of inter
ference with native tribunals.... to serve the interests of a religious
propaganda ” (p. 360).
And on page 883 we are told of “ churches ” that have
been organised by natives for the express purpose of
affording protection in law cases.
Of course, the Protestants confine the charges to
the Catholics ; the Catholics are equally ready in
bringing the same charge against Protestants. There
is. plenty of evidence, however, that this interference
with native tribunals is pretty common to all. The
L. M. S. Report asserts that their missionaries care
fully avoid interference in law cases, except “ where
downright oppression and interference with religious
liberty are involved.” There could hardly be a more
complete admission of guilt. It is exactly the plea
that is used by Roman Catholics to justify their acts
of interference. Besides, who is to say where there
is an act of interference with religious liberty ? Could
anything be more preposterous than a number of
evangelists claiming the right to override the legal
tribunals of a foreign country in the interests of their
converts ? What the average evangelist is at home
most of us.know ; and what he is likely to be abroad,
with, all his natural narrowness and fanaticism in
tensified, we can faintly imagine. And far from it
being true that it is Roman Catholics only who
interfere in law cases, a very large number of the
Parliamentary papers issued during the last thirty
years, dealing with China, contain repeated warnings
to Protestant missionaries on this very matter.
As far back as Nov. 13, 1869, the Foreign Office
wrote of and to Protestant missionaries :—
“ There is good reason to suppose that the animosity which has
�32
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
lately been more intensely shown towards missionaries on the part of
the ruling authorities in China is in a great measure to be attributed
to the injudicious conduct of the native converts to Christianity....
There seems sufficient reason to believe that converts assume, and have
acted on, the assumption that by embracing Christianity they released
themselves from the obligations of obedience to the local authorities,
and from the discharge of their duties as subjects of the Emperor,
and acquired a right to be protected by the European Power whose
religious tenets they had adopted.”1
The Chinese Government has raised protest after
protest against the fact that “missionaries set them
selves above the law, and their converts, improving on
this, oppress and insult those who are not of their
faith.”2
Our Ambassador at Peking at the time, Sir Ruther
ford Alcock, in transmitting the protests of the Chinese
Government to our own Foreign Office, denied that
the hostility to missionaries was due to the Chinese
dislike of foreigners, asserted that the presence of
missionaries inland was adverse to the development
of China, and said that, if the British Government
refused protection to missionaries inland, “ certain
pretensions of the missionaries to supersede the civil
power would either cease to exist or be less boldly
pushed.......while their converts, learning wisdom and
moderation from their religious teachers, would no
longer provoke the hostility of surrounding popula
tions.”3
1 Parliamentary Paper on China, No. 9, 1870, p. 13.
2 See China Papers, No. 9, 1870, and No. 3, 1871.
3 China No, 9, 1870, pp. 16-18. This opinion is endorsed by
M. Little in 1888—Yang-Tse Gorges, pp. 234-5. The circumstances
under which missionaries claim the right to settle in all parts of
China are of a piece with missionary “sharp practices” in other
directions. The treaty of 1859 between China and Great Britain
gives British missionaries the right to settle in certain areas. The
French treaty, concluded at the same time, has the same provision
for French subjects. But a supplementary convention was drawn
up a year later, and a clause inserted, without the knowledge of the
Chinese signatories, giving French missionaries the right to settle
anywhere. The Chinese Government submitted to this fraudulent
transaction, because it wq.s not strong enough to resist. Thus .the
�33
CHINA AND JAPAN.
It will be seen from the above statements that the
complaint against missionaries is both old and wellfounded ; and it is clear that no self-respecting
Government can quietly tolerate a band of men and
women setting themselves up as an independent
power within its dominions. In one case, at least,
the Chinese Government drew up a series of sugges
tions for the future conduct of missionary work which,
if they had been adopted, might have prevented later
troubles. After the Tientsin riots of 1870 the Govern
ment presented its famous “ missionary circular ” to
the different foreign consuls for their consideration.
The circular consisted of eight propositions, of which
the following were the most important. In China all
the child asylums, of which there are very many, are
under Government supervision. A register is kept for
each child admitted, who is carefully trained in the
religious belief of its parents or guardian, and may be
adopted by childless people or reclaimed by its
parents.1 The refusal of missionaries to comply with
these regulations, as well as the much higher rate of
mortality in Christian orphanages, has always
excited the dislike and distrust of the people, and
more than one riot has resulted from this cause.2
The riots of 1870 and 1891 owed their origin to the
refusal of the missionaries to hand back children
to their parents, because to do so would plunge
them into heathendom and imperil their immortal
soils.
French claim the right to settle anywhere on the strength of an act of
deliberate fraud, and English missionaries claim the right because
the French do. It is a fine lesson on the value of missionaries as
“ moralisers.”
1 It is almost needless to point out to those who have studied
China that the accounts of infanticide furnished by missionaries are
enormously exaggerated. It is done with a view to raising subscrip
tions ; and one might read all the missionary reports published with
out discovering that such institutions as orphanages existed in China.
2 See Mr. Howard Vincent’s From Newfoundland to Cochin China.
Appendix, p. 368, and Miss Simcox’s Primitive Civilisations, ii_,
p. 378, and China Paper No. 1, 1892, p. 56.
C
�34
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
With these facts in mind, the Chinese Government
suggested (1) that Christian orphanages should be
placed under Government supervision ; (2) the legal
status of missionaries in the interior to be clearly
defined, and steps taken to prevent their converts
successfully defying the local authorities ; (3) exami
nation into the antecedents of converts (to prevent mis
sionary stations becoming refuges for wrong-doers), and
regulations to be drawn up concerning the mixed atten
dance of men and women at places of worship—a pro
ceeding which greatly scandalised the Chinese sense
of propriety.1
This circular was presented to all the foreign
Powers represented in China, but, owing largely to
the protests of missionaries, its suggestions were
peremptorily declined. The truth of the matter would
seem to be that the missionaries are not averse to
foreign intervention, but rather court it. • Anyone
who reads missionary reports attentively will see that,
with nearly all, the break up of the present political
constitution of China is regarded as an essential
preliminary to the conversion of the Chinese. Seeing
that China, as it is, will not have the Gospel, the next
thing is to create a China that will. Consequently,
every fresh act of intervention is hailed with gladness ;
while it seems to be the general policy of missionaries
to irritate both people and Government as much as
possible, and then appeal to their respective countries
for protection against assaults which their own illadvised conduct has provoked. This point was put,
with all a seaman’s bluntness, by Admiral Richards in
one of his communications to the British Government
in 1892. He says :—
‘ ‘ It seems to be the special aim of missionary societies to establish
themselves outside treaty limits; and, having done so, they are not
prepared to take the risks which they voluntarily incur, but, on the
contrary, are loudest in their clamor for gunboats, as their contribu
tions to the Shanghai press sufficiently demonstrate.... It appears to
1 For full text of circular see Pari. Paper China No. 1, 1872.
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
35
be necessary, after the lessons taught by these occurrences, that some
understanding should be arrived at with regard to missionary societies
in China.... It seems altogether unreasonable that the societies should
exercise absolute freedom in going where they please, and then their
agents should look to her Majesty’s Government for protection.”1
But, despite the repeated protests of the Chinese and
the warnings of the British Government, interference
with and defiance of Chinese authorities by missionaries
has increased to such an extent that, as one of the
speakers at the Newcastle Church Congress of 1900
admitted, “ It is at times impossible for a heathen to
obtain justice in his own courts.” And Sir B. Hart,
who probably knows more about China than any other
man living, points out as one of the principal causes
of the last outbreak that “ Missionary propagandism
was at work all over the country, and its fruits—
Chinese Christians—did not win the esteem or good
will of their fellows, for....... they shocked the official
mind and popular opinion also, by getting their
religious teachers, more especially the Roman
Catholics, to interfere on their behalf as litigants.”2
The complaint of the Chinese that missionaries
serve as a centre of disorder must, therefore, be
admitted as well-founded; and if the complaint is
oftenest heard against Roman Catholics, it is not so
much that they are ethically more blameable, but that
their converts outnumber Protestants by something
like fifteen to one. And it is also plain that, as long as
missionaries persist in their present methods, a per
manent solution of the Chinese question is impossible.
The Chinese are not savages; they have their customs,
habits, their civilisation, as we have ours, and pride
themselves on their preservation and perpetuation.
Travellers who do not write with an eye to the effect
of their stories in increasing subscriptions at home
speak of the Chinese as peaceful, industrious, thrifty,
and tolerant, possessing all the charitable institutions
1 Pari. Paper China No. 1, 1892, p. 24,
2 Fortnightly Review, November, 1900.
�36
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
upon which we pride ourselves, and with a degree of
commercial honesty that will compare favorably with
that manifested by Europeans.1 It is simply absurd,
not to say dishonest, for missionaries to write and speak
of the Chinese as though they were absolute savages, and
on this assumption refuse to pay any respect to the
institutions of the people on whom they gratuitously
thrust themselves. And it may well be questioned,
after the tales that have reached Europe concerning
the conduct of missionaries during the occupation of
Peking by the allied troops, their wholesale looting,
and inciting officers to burn down the houses of the
Chinese,2 whether their presence is likely to have a
beneficial effect on the practical morality of the
Chinese people.
After all, as Dr. Dillon has pointed out in his
picture of European robbery, brutality, and indis
criminate slaughter in China, all the Chinese ask of
Europe is to be let alone, or at least that missionaries who
thrust themselves upon them shall respect their customs
and institutions. It is, too, one of the ironies of the
situation that Russia, one of the “ civilising ” powers,
would not permit missionaries within its own borders
1 “ It must not be supposed that, to quote one of the many false
impressions derived from missionary reports, that the Chinese are so
steeped in materialism as to be callous in regard to moral training,
and have to be dependent on Western charity for their spiritual food.
... .That a people so generally well read as the Chinese, and possess
ing in the teaching of Confucius a doctrine in no sense inferior to
Christianity... .should ever pin their faith to a work like the Hebrew
books of the Bible seems to a layman preposterous ” (Little, work
cited, pp. 257-8). “No doubt Europe has much to teach the Chinese
in the art of war, in pure science, and in those mechanical and other
arts which have developed with such leaps and bounds in the Western
world... .But apart from these subjects... .Europe cannot teach them
much; while it has something to learn from them. Their code of
ethics is as high as ours, and their systems of local government (by
parish councils) had, until the first intrusion of Europeans, a
durability which every Western nation must admire and envy ” (Sir G.
Goldie in the Daily News, July 13, 1900.
See also Simcox’s
Primitive Civilisations, ii., chapters 28 and 32.)
2 See article in the Daily Mail for January 4, 1901.
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
37
the liberty they have in China. In Russia no mis
sionary would be allowed to preach for a moment.
Yet the missionary societies do not seem anxious to
send agents there. China, however, is not a Christian
Power ; she has no huge army or navy to protect her
interests; she is consequently open to the exploitation
of the world, and is the easy prey of every society
of fanatical evangelists and clerical office-holders that
cares to take advantage of her weakness. How long
it will be before their action drives China into
becoming a huge military force, or European common
sense sees the necessity of restraining the impertinent
ardor of irresponsible evangelists, the future alone can
decide. But that China will not have the missionaries
or their gospels seems the one certain feature of an
uncertain situation.
Missionaries and their Converts.—The society operat
ing on the largest scale in the Chinese Empire is the
China Inland Mission, conducted by the Rev. Hudson
Taylor, who seems as irresponsible as General Booth,
if not more so. This gentleman appears to possess
all the intolerance and mental narrowness of the lowclass evangelist; and his agents, of whom there are
1,525 in China, are said by Mr. Michie to be among
the most peculiar and eccentric of Chinese mission
aries, being looked at askance even by other Christian
agencies. I must again remind readers that in dealing
with figures concerning conversions and church mem
bership we have no means of testing their accuracy,
except in seaports ; and it is worthy of note that it is
in precisely these places, where the figures might be
tested by Europeans on the spot, that the fewest cases
of conversion are reported. The most numerous cases
of conversion occur, if we are to trust the reports, in
places where almost the only Europeans are mission
aries. Still, we have to rely upon their unsupported
statements, and it will be seen that even then the case
is none too rosy.
According to the annual statement for 1899, the
�38
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
China Inland Mission has been evangelising China
since 1854. Since its commencement, forty-six years
ago, it claims to have baptised 11,495 men, women,
and children. As a matter of fact, the total number
of “communicants in fellowship’’—whatever that may
mean—is returned at 7,895 only; so that 3,600,|a
fairly respectable proportion of the whole, must rank
as backsliders, or doubtless figure as “converts” of
some other society. During 1898 the 1,525 agents
baptised 1,164 people, including children of existing
converts.
This would give us an average of four
missionaries for every three baptisms, and an average,
cost of £45 10s. 6d. per baptism. Not an enormously
successful result in view of China’s five hundred
millions of population, even granting the genuineness
of the statistics, and allowing nothing for cases of
reversion.
Taking some of the provinces separately, the results
work out curiously. In the province of Kan Suh 110
have been baptised in twenty-four years, fifty-three of
which have gone back. In ’98 fifty-seven agents
worked for twelve months without securing a single
convert. In Shen-Si 116 agents baptised eighty-four
cases. In Chih Li sixteen agents labored for twelve
months; result nil. In Shan Tung 192 have been
baptised in twenty-one years, but only seventy-five of
them are left. In ’98, with fifty-six agents, there were
three conversions—eighteen missionaries to each
convert. In Kiang Su there have been 184 baptisms
in forty-six years, . sixty-nine of which have disap
peared. In ’98, with seventy-seven agents, there was
one baptism. In Yun-Nan there have been forty-three
baptisms in twenty-three years, but only fourteen
remain. There was one baptism in ’98, with twenty
seven agents. In Hu-Nan there have been nineteen
baptisms in twenty-five years, with eleven agents at
work. 'When one compares these results with the
population of the Chinese Empire it is evident that
not only are the societies failing to convert the people;
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
39
they are not even keeping pace with the increase of
population. This alone would give an increase of
nearly two million per year.
Taking the societies in the order of extent of opera
tions, the Church Missionary Society comes next with a
staff of 576 agents and an expenditure of £31,321 6s. lid.
The returns are given for the three districts into
which the work is divided—South, West, and Mid
China. In the first-named 314 agents baptised during
’99 744 adults and 343 children—a surprisingly large
proportion of the latter. In Mid China 162 agents
baptised 276 adults and ninety-six children. In West
China forty agents baptised six adults and two
children, forming a grand total of 1,026 adults and
411 children as the result of the work of 576 mis
sionaries for twelve months.
As the figures stand, and counting all as genuine, we
should have the unusually large total of nearly two
converts per missionary. But the society says nothing
of losses, a by no means inconsiderable item, and is
thus in the position of a business that takes no notice
of bad debts in balancing accounts. We must, there
fore, attempt the calculation unaided.
Comparing
the number of communicants in ’95 with those in ’99,
we find, not an increase of between five and six thou
sand, as the figures published each year would lead
us to expect, but of 1,621 only; so that at least two
out of every three converts are subsequently lost, and
of this nothing is said in the report. Or to put it in
another way, over 500 missionaries working for four
years have secured 1,600 out of China’s huge popula
tion, and at a cost of over £100,000—an average cost
of over £60 per convert. At this rate and at this
cost it would take over twenty-seven thousand million
sterling to convert the present Chinese population,
while the year 1126900 will have dawned ere the
conversion of the last Chinaman will be celebrated.
The London Missionary Society, while employing
fewer agents than the 0. M. S—413 only—has a
�40
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
somewhat larger English expenditure, which reaches
£36,851 11s. 2d. This may be accounted for either
by their operations being more costly, or by their
agents raising less money locally than the agents of
the C.M. S. This society gives no tables of “Baptisms
for the Year,” nor does it mention the number of
converts, except incidentally. There is instead vague
talk of progress made, and it is only when the facts
leak out that we see how misleading such assertions
are.
The only method I have of estimating the
success of the L. M. S. in China is by taking the
church members for the current year and comparing
them with the numbers given in previous years’
reports.
This method brings out some rather
curious results. At Hong Kong there were in ’99
forty-three agents, in ’95 there were forty-seven. In
the report for the year ending March 31, 1896, it
was said that “ audiences behave with decorum and
listen with apparent interest to Christian teaching,”
while “the native Christian church is steadily, though
at present very slowly, increasing ” (pp. 21-22). The
reliability of such statements may be determined from
the fact that, while in ’95 the church members mus
tered 266 after fifty-three years’ work, in ’99 they had
fallen to 225. This is the result of the steady increase.
Yet the 1900 report makes no mention of losses, and
has still the same vague talk of progress.
At Canton there are 253 church members after
ninety-three years’ work. At Chiang Chiu, although
there has been a “ marked improvement in the atten
dance and greater eagerness to hear the doctrine,” there
has only been an increase of fifty-two in four years,
with twenty-five agents at work, the members number
ing 357 after forty-eight years’ work. At Shanghai
there are 450 church members, including Europeans,
after fifty-seven years’ preaching.
“ The people,”
we are informed, “ mostly listen with attention, as if
wishing to understand the message and its claims on
their faith and obedience. Still many seem to get no
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
41
farther ” (1900 Report, p. 57). At Wu Chang the mis
sionaries “ have frequently to dismiss the congrega
tion on account of the lateness of the hour, when our
hearers themselves would gladly stay longer ” (p. 68).
Comparing statement with results, we find that,
whereas in ’95 there were sixty-six church members,
in ’99 there were eight only, with a staff of eleven
agents. A pretty result of congregations being un
willing to leave, and of thirty-three years’ preaching !
At Tientsin, where there are twenty agents, there
were in ’95 106 members after forty-nine years’ labor.
The ’96 Report dwelt on the “abundant signs ” of
better things. The only trace of them is an increase
of twenty-seven in four years, unless we count the
“spirit of discontent and faction ” which has “wrought
serious mischief ” (1900 Report, p. 78) among Tientsin
Christians.
At Peking there are 291 members after twenty-one
years’ work with a staff of twenty-five. The Report
for 1900 dwells on the cheering fact that no less than
160 people recorded their names as “inquirers.”
This is a fine example of the suggestio falsi. The
assumption is that these “inquirers” will later
become Christians. Their own Report hardly bears
out such a view. In 1895 101 put themselves under
instruction as “inquirers.” How far did they pro
gress? The missionary’s own confession is: “Our
list of inquirers is always a fairly large one......But
for one reason or another most of these, sooner or
later, like the seed on stony ground, wither away;
few are gathered into the church ” (’96 Report, p. 52).
Bearing in mind, also, that the church members have
decreased from 520 in ’98 to 291 in ’99, one hardly
sees the promise of their “ inquiry.” And with this
decrease of 50 per cent, before us, the remark in
the Report for the current year, that “ the large
majority of the converts remained staunch and true,”
is peculiarly “ childlike and bland.” The real purpose
of so many writing themselves down as inquirers is
�42
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
told unconsciously in two sentences in the Annual
Report to the effect that “ With few exceptions it is
from among the poor that wre gather our converts,”
and “ The Chinaman is ready to take all that he can
get, without giving anything in return.”
The expenditure of the Wesleyan Methodists in
China amounted to £6,815 14s. lOd. There were 125
paid agents and 73 unpaid—198 in all. There is no
mention of the number of baptisms or conversions in
the usual table of statistics; but, checking the figures
for 1900 by those of ’99, the church membership
shows an increase of 158—less than one per mis
sionary.
There is a striking uniformity in these
results, no matter the society or country with which
we are dealing.
The only other organisation calling for notice is the
Baptist Mission. This body employs in China 274
agents, who last year received from England
£11,244 19s. Id. In 1898 the agents numbered
298. These baptised 293 and lost 156, leaving a net
gain of 137. In 1899 the efforts were unusually suc
cessful, 271 agents securing a net gain of 352—an
average of abouff one and one-fourth of a convert per
missionary. There are no uncommon features about
the Baptist mission calling for special note, but there
are the same delusive general statements of progress
being made.
The Rev. C. Spurgeon Medhurst
visited 147 villages in ’98 in which preaching had
been carried on, but found converts in 26 only. The
same gentleman, writing a year later, has “no con
versions to report,” yet he is “ hopefully watching
inquirers who are groping towards the light,” and
“ confidently looks forward to annual baptisms by the
thousand after a few more years’ persistent work.”
And from the Rev. Mr. Burt comes the ingenuous
confession that “ Chang Chiu is a specially difficult
field owing to the superior social position of the
people”—a confession that has its i’s dotted and t’s
crossed by the Rev. Mr. Nicholls’ remark, that it is
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
43
“ in these stricken counties we have most of our
church members.” One need not look much farther
for the cause of people writing themselves down as
“ inquirers.”
A good illustration of the utter unreliabilty of the
statements contained in missionary reports concerning
the work done or the outlook before the missions is
contained in the following sentences from the Baptists’
Report for 1899, pp. 54-80 :—
“Notwithstanding all drawbacks, China to-day is one of the most hope
ful mission fields in all the world.... The Government of China, imperial
and provincial, by the stress of circumstances, is coming to be theprotectors
of missionaries and their work. The people of China are turning with
respect and desire to the message of the Gospel........There never was
such a spirit of inquiry in regard to Christianity as is manifested
now.”
To those acquainted with the history of missionary
work in China, such statements bear upon their face
the. impress of either ill-balanced enthusiasm or
deliberate misrepresentation; and had not recent
events decisively proved their falsity, such statements
might well impose on the class for whom these reports
are written. As it is, and in the light of Chinese
history during 1900, one can safely say that no man
moving among the Chinese people and coming into
continuous contact with Chinese officials could
honestly have written such words as the above. Such
a state of blindness, such inability to comprehend
feelings that must have been only too obvious, as the
writer’s belief in the statements quoted would imply,
is. simply incredible. There does not exist in my
mind the shadow of a doubt that such statements,
with many others of a similar kind that might be
quoted, are deliberately manufactured with a judicious
regard to their effect on home subscriptions.
The quality of the Chinese convert is as poor as the
quantity is limited. It would be too much to expect
the missionaries to dilate on this aspect of their work,
especially as their reports pass through the hands
of the home authorities, who naturally delete all
�44
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
that is most unfavorable to their enterprise. Still,
reading between the lines of the reports, some indi
cation may be found of the quality of the “ saved
souls.” I have pointed out above the motives animat
ing “ inquirers,” who seem to look on missionary
stations as charitable organisations run by a compound
of knavery and folly. They are ready enough to
avail themselves of the opportunity of an English
education, but, as the L. M. S. says, “A desire for
English education has sprung up, and knowledge of
the English language is eagerly sought for, both for
commercial and political reasons.......this movement
....... is mainly, if not entirely, secular in its inspira
tion and motive” (Report for 1897, p. 22). And in
the Report for 1900 it is said: “The present wide
spread movement in favor of English is not likely to
work much good to the Chinese race (i.e., not likely to
make Christians of them) so long as the vast majority
of those who study English do so for hand -to-mouth
commercial reasons” (p. 38).1 These admissions
effectually dispose of the schools as means of Christian
propaganda. The incident related on p. 26 of the
Report for 1896, where the converts turned the church
into a loan office, and refused admissions into the
church, so as to limit the profits to as few as possible,
also casts a curious side-light on the character of
Chinese Christians. In the light of these and similar
confessions, one can understand the lament of
Missionary Pearce : “It grieves me to see so little
apparent advance in things divine....... church mem
bership set down in the ‘ form of statistics ’ means, in
a large number of instances, only a weak type of
Christianity” (1900; p. 36). Nor is the suspicion
awakened by such expressions likely to be destroyed
by the feeble defence that the accusation of “ converts
1 Mr. Little says (work cited, p. 236) that “ In Ichang the Bibles that
are distributed broadcast are largely used for the manufacture of boot
soles,” and, further, that no respectable Chinaman would admit a mis
sionary into his house.
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
45
professing Christianity for what they can get ” is
untrue, “ except in a few cases.”
There is much
virtue in a “ few.”
A missionary, the Rev. Griffith John, who is de
scribed as the most experienced in China, openly
lamented “the lack of spiritual discernment in the
great bulk of his converts.
The truths that are
lodged in their intellects do not appear to move them
deeply.
Their spiritual nature is not intensely
quickened and greatly expanded by the things of
the Spirit of God, neither are their moral activities
powerfully energised by them” (quoted by Michie,
p. 3). The testimony of the C. M. S. Report fully
bears out this opinion. In West China, where forty
agents have twenty-two communicants after eight
years’ work, a woman had to be excommunicated
for practising sorcery as a means of livelihood
(p. 409), and at another station “the number of
baptised Christians was the same as in 1898, and
some of them were anything but satisfactory.” Many
“ expressed a desire to join ‘the religion,’ ” but “ their
motives, on investigation, were found to be unworthy ”
(p. 407)—a euphemism for “ on the make.” It is
admitted that “ inquirers come in from a variety of
motives—not ideal ones, perhaps ” (p. 386); and of
the Christians at Fuh Ang we read that, “of the six
or eight Christian shop-keepers in Fuh Ang city, not
one closes his shop on Sunday. Gambling by Christians
is at present also a great cause of sorrow to us ; not
only gambling, but gambling in which they invariably
win, proving they are professional tricksters. In the
more idle times.......they make a living in this way. I
am afraid, after some further trial, that a large num
ber of names will have to be struck off the rolls of
some of the Fuh-Ning stations” (p. 380). As the
total number on the rolls muster only ninety-two, the
prospect is a hopeful one. We read of one case of
conversion brought about by the desire of a woman to
have healthier babies (p. 410), while the following will
�46
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
well illustrate the mental calibre of both missionary
and convert:—
After feeling our way up a dark staircase... .we reached a very
dirty loft, where the girl lived
It was a very bad case; she had once
before been possessed, and the devil had been cast out by the prayer
and faith of Patience and others; but as soon a>s she was well she
returned to her idols, and her last state is worse than the first. At the
name of Jesus she sneered in a horrible way, and we really felt the
presence of the Evil One” (379).
It is useless to multiply instances. It will be seen
that. missionary work in China, both in quantity and
quality, runs on all fours with missionary work in
India. Only in China we have the added evil that we
are dealing with a foreign power, and the arbitrary
acts of fanatical evangelists in forcing upon a people
a religion they do not want and will not have serve
but to cast upon the nation an additional burden in
the shape of sending out troops to quell disturbances
that have been largely created by missionary zeal.
Missions in Japan.—From China to Japan is a
natural and an easy transition, although the transition
is far from a favorable one so far as missionary work
is concerned. Indeed, Japan is, perhaps, the most
hopeless case of all, since the societies have to face an
educated opposition that is fully alive to the nature of
European culture, and quite as fully opposed to the
Christian religion. In China the usual reason given
by missionaries for their failure is Chinese hatred of
Western ideas. In Japan this excuse is obviously
futile. If anything, the Japs are too eager to embrace
European ideas and customs ; and the really remark
able thing is that they have not been induced to take
Western religion along with Western culture. That
they have not done so, and do not intend doing so, the
following very brief review of the work in Japan will
prove.
Neither Baptists nor Methodists seem to have any
agents in Japan. There are American societies repre
sented there, with which we are not concerned; but
the principal English societies are the C. M. S. and
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
47
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. This
last-named body had, in 1899, seventy-nine agents,
who baptised seventy-three adults—less than one per
missionary, without reckoning losses—and received
from England £2,812 9s.
The C. M. S., which
operates on a larger scale, had in Japan, in 1896, 206
agents ; in 1900, 241. The figures for the various
years are as follows :—In 1896, 206 agents baptised
292 adults ; in 1899, 249 agents baptised 296 adults ;
in 1900 the baptisms numbered 461. So much for
the gains ; now for the losses. In 1896 the communi
cants numbered 1,646 ; in 1900 they are returned at
1916. This gives us an increase of 270 in four years,
or an average of sixty-eight per year, the 270 costing
over £50,000. The losses seem more severe in recent
years.
Thus in 1900 the communicants actually
decreased by 117, which, when added to the 461
adult baptisms, gives a total decrease of 578.
In the face of these figures there is small wonder
that the reports have a somewhat pessimistic tone.
The ’99 Report sorrowfully admits that, “as a rule,
the upper and moneyed classes stand vigorously
aloof from Christianity ” (p. 374). Bishop Evington
writes that the work “ continues to bring us surprises
and disappointments, some of them cutting to the
quick, and, but for God’s promises, enough to plunge
us into despair ” (’96 Report, p. 368). Four years
later the same gentleman laments that many of the
catechists leave to get more money in Government
employ,, and “this finally leads to their deserting
their religion ”—a confession which throws a strong
light on . their reasons for embracing it. It is, too,
<£ a growing, conviction that our Japanese Christians
are lacking in a true sense of what is understood by
responsibility” (1900 Report, p. 431). Lapses are
far from uncommon. The Report for ’99 made much
of the case of “ a boy (who) fell in with Christians,” and
was “ longing for the day of his baptism” (p. 401) ;
but the 1900 Report informs us that the boy “ never
�FOREIGN MISSIONS :
came forward for baptism, and there was little
encouragement with the efforts to reach the women ”
(p. 447).
At Oyamada “ twelve families quietly apostatised,”
and there have been no adult baptisms for four years.
Mr. Brandram reports of Nobeoka : “ Some thirty
Christians were baptised. I really hoped that we
should have a strong church there,” but at present
“ only three show any signs of real faith. I do not
think we baptised hastily, but, whether we did or not,
things are very sad indeed there now....... Nobeoka is
a small town, and everyone knows everyone else, and
the Christians’ lives have not shown the excellence of
Christianity.”
The Rev. A. B. Hutchinson also reports : “There is
a constant lapsing or drifting away from our ranks.
This fading of the Christianity of individuals and
families is one of the saddest features in the story of
Missions in Japan.” A great deal of this state of
things is attributed to the spread of ‘ ‘ infidel litera
ture, which has been sent out in large quantities and
from Christian lands.” It is difficult to see the bear
ing of the cases cited of one “ educated and refined
gentleman, who said that he was searching after the
truth, but could not believe in the existence of God ” ;
of another who “ considered prayer to be a vain super
stition ”; or of a third who, when asked “ whether he
ever thought about his soul, replied : ‘We hardly ever
think about such things,’ ” unless it is to show the
effects of “ infidel literature.” It is, however, cheer
fully recorded that the children were quite willing to
hear “a very nice story,” and be shown a picture |
and the Rev. Mr. Pole records that he gave a series of
lectures “ on points of doctrine as maintained against
(1) the unorthodox sects, (2) the orthodox Noncon
formists, and (3) the Church of Rome.” What effect
this example of Christian amity was expected to have
on the Japanese is not clear ; but, as the same gentle
man notes, with evident pride at his own profundity,
�CHINA AND JAPAN.
49
that “ not more than three or four were able to follow
satisfactorily the details of the arguments,” it pro
bably makes little difference.
The prospect of Christianity in Japan is thus, on
all accounts, a tolerably hopeless one. Not only do
both Government and people treat Christianity with
that good-natured indifference, which is perhaps the
greatest obstacle to its diffusion, but they seem fairly
indifferent to religion in general. The Japs, while
taking their civilisation from Europe, have been cute
enough to distinguish between essentials and nonessentials, and have left its religious beliefs severely
alone. The schools of the country are completely
secular, no minister or preacher of any religion being
admitted therein.
Their regulations, according to
Archdeacon Shaw, one of the S.P.G. agents in Japan,
are framed “ with the deliberate design of removing
the children from all opportunity or chance of
religious instruction at the most impressionable period
of their life” (Report for ’99, p. 97). And the con
clusion of Mrs. Bishop is that “Interest (in Chris
tianity) had given place to indifference.......Agnosticism,
the result of Western education, was spreading enor
mously, and an educated Agnostic youth was a
‘ yellow peril,’ not to Japan alone, but to the whole
Far East ” (Newcastle Church Congress, 1900).
When to this we add the testimony of Professor
Chamberlain that the Japanese “bow down before the
shrine of Herbert Spencer” (Things Japanese,p. 821),
and of Professor Dixon, that “ Religious indifference
is one of the prominent features of new Japan” (Land
of the Morning, p. 517), it does not seem as though
the unveracious shibboleth of the evangelist, “the
Bible the source of England’s greatness,” is likely
to gain much of a foothold in the “ Great Britain of
the East.”
�50
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
V.
AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
The African Mission Field.—For many reasons
missionary work in Africa has superficially a much
more successful appearance than it has in many
other places. Of a lower culture than any of the
other nations we have passed in review, the
African is more easily impressed by the superior
knowledge of the whites, while his inherent supersti
tion renders the transition to Christianity less difficult
than it is with other people. Not that the number
of converts in Africa is ever in any sense great; a
glance at the results summarised below will show the
reverse ; but there is a certain air of success about
African missions delusive to all but those who know
the facts of the case. When these are ascertained,
one discovers that in the vast majority of cases all
that the missionary really accomplishes is the
breaking down of the old tribal restraints and virtues
without the creation of any adequate substitutes.
The African is brought into close contact with a civili
sation that has taken its possessors many centuries to
acquire, with the inevitable result that he embraces
nearly all its vices and passes unheeded all its
virtues.
Testimony on this head seems pretty general and
fairly conclusive. M. C. Comte de Cardi, in the appendix
to Miss Kingsley’s West African Studies, remarks that,
“ whilst fully recognising the efforts that the mission
aries have put forth in this part of the world, I regret
that I cannot bear witness to any great good they have
done” (p. 478). He further asserts that, while among
the females some were admirable for their decency
and good behavior, yet among the males he did not
meet a single one of whom he could speak favorably.
�\
AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
51
Mr. Scott Elliot declares roundly that the “ ordinary
mission boy is an unmitigated scoundrel.”1 In Cape
Colony, Natal, and the Transvaal one of the com
monest announcements following an advertisement
for a Kaffir “ Boy” is “No mission boy need apply.”
Even firms well known for their strong professions of
Christianity decline to employ converted Africans in
their stores. Sir H. H. Johnston, our present Special
Commissioner for Uganda, and a man of many years’
experience in Africa, says :—
“It too often happens that, while the negro rapidly masters the
rules and regulations of the Christian religion, he still continues to be
gross, immoral, and deceitful.... They (missionaries) may have
succeeded in turning their disciples into professing Catholics, Anglicans,
or Baptists, but the impartial observer is surprised to find that
adultery, drunkenness, and lying are more apparent among the con
verts than among their Heathen brethren.”2
And again :—
“I regret to say that, with a few—very rare—exceptions, those native
African pastors, teachers, and catechists whom I have met have been
all, more or less, bad men. They attempted to veil an unbridled
immorality with an unblushing hypocrisy and a profane display of
mouth-religion which, to an honest mind, seemed even more dis
gusting than the immorality itself. While it was apparent that not
one particle of true religion had made its way into their gross minds,
it was also evident that the spirit of sturdy manliness which was
present in their savage forefathers found no $lace in their false,
cowardly natures....
“It is not on the spread of Christianity that African missions can at
present base their claim to our gratitude, respect, or support.... In
many important districts where they have been at work for twenty
years they can scarcely number in honest statistics twenty sincere
Christians—that is to say, twenty natives understanding in any
degree the doctrines or dogmas they have been taught, and striving
to shape their conduct by their new principles. In other parts of
Africa, principally British possessions, where large numbers of
nominal Christians exist, their religion is discredited by numbering
among its adherents all the drunkards, liars, rogues, and unclean
livers of the colony.
In the oldest of our West African posses
sions all the unrepentant Magdalenes of the chief city are pro
fessing Christians, and the most notorious one in the place would
1 A Naturalist in Mid-Africa, p. 353.
2 Fortnightly Review, April, 1889.
�52
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
boast that she never missed going to church on a Communion
Sunday.”1
. Besides other drawbacks in Africa, Christian mis
sions' have also to compete with a rival missionary
faith in the shape of Mohammedanism. This is not only
a rival, but a successful rival. This greater measure of
success may be due partly to the presence of certain
elements in Islamism which are not present in
Christianity, and partly because it is free from contact
with drink, which is taken to Africa in such enormous
quantities by Christian nations. But the success of
the Mohammedan preachers as compared with
Christian evangelists seems unmistakable.
Mr.
Bosworth Smith, in his work, Mohammed and Moham
medanism, says:—
“ Nor as to the effects of Islam, when first embraced by a negro tribe,
can there be any reasonable doubt. Polytheism disappears almost
instantaneously; sorcery, with its attendant evils, gradually dies away;
human sacrifice becomes a thing of the past. The general moral
elevation is most marked ; the natives begin, for the first time in their
history, to dress—and that neatly. Squalid filth is replaced by a
scrupulous cleanliness; hospitality becomes a religious duty; drunken
ness, instead of being the rule, becomes a comparatively rare exception.
Though polygamy is allowed by the Koran, it is not common in prac
tice, and, beyond the limits laid down by the prophet, incontinence is
rare; chastity is looked upon as the highest, and becomes, in fact,
one of the commonest, virtues. It is idleness henceforth that degrades
and industry that elevates, instead of the reverse.... Christian
travellers, with every wish to think otherwise, have remarked that the
negro who accepts Mohammedanism acquires at once a sense of the
dignity of human nature not commonly found even among those who
have been brought to accept Christianity ” (pp. 32-5, 6).
Some of the most intelligent and powerful of the
African tribes, among whom may be named the Foulahs
and Haussas, are almost entirely Mohammedan. The
scarcity of Christian negroes in the Government
service is remarkable. And as to Mr. Smith’s further
statement, that “ one half of the whole of Africa is
already dominated by Islam, while, of the remaining
half, one quarter is leavened and another threatened
1 Nineteenth Century, November, 1887.
British Central Africa.
See also the same author’s
�AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
53
by it” is borne out by the statement of one of the
C. M. S. agents, that on the Niger “the Moham
medans are rapidly making converts, and the whole
country seems likely soon to give in its adhesion
to the false prophet” (Report 1900, p. 93). And
if Canon Isaac Taylor’s statement, that no Pagan
tribe in Africa which has accepted Islam has ever
yet fallen back on Paganism, or has ever yet
advanced to Christianity, be true, it would seem that the
faith of the “ false prophet ” does not experience the
constant drain in the shape of “ backsliders ” to
which Christianity is subject.
Conversions.—In Africa, for the reasons named
above, the “ conversions ” are, on the whole, more
numerous than in other places; but even here, if we
leave out one or two places, the results are strikingly
poor. Thus in the Sierra Leone district 186 agents
belonging to the C. M. S. received from England
£5,684 16s. 2d. and baptised 57 adults. In the Niger
district 65 agents received £11,908 15s. Id. and
baptised 97 adults. There is a standing announce
ment that over 4,000 have been baptised ; but, as the
communicants number at present only 313, one has to
count the balance, along with others, amongst the
lapsed.
In Eastern Equatorial Africa—excluding
Uganda — there are 154 agents who received
£12,177 9s. 3d. One of the agents writes that he
has been much struck by “the earnestness of the
people, the heart-hunger shown on the faces” (p. 100).
The best comment on this is that the 154 agents
succeeded in baptising 46 adults. Yoruba and Uganda
are the only two places in which large numbers of
** baptisms ” are reported. In Yoruba 181 agents
received £11,908 15s. Id. and baptised 501 adults.
Ia Uganda 1,551 agents report the baptism of 3,524
adults and received from England £14,477 19s. lid.
Altogether the C. M. S. has in Africa 2,137 agents.
During
1899
these
received
from
England
£57,512 12s. 6d. and reported the baptism of 4,225
�54
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
adults and 2,265 infants. Looking back for four
years, however, instead of the increase in communi
cants being over 20,000, as they should be if these
conversions were genuine, we find the increase to be
but 6,192, an average of 1,548, which means that
three out. of every four, after figuring in annual
reports, disappear.
The Wesleyan Methodists devote a large part of
their attentions to South Africa, where, unless rumor
belies them, they are not remotely interested in the
prospects of the Companies and the extension of
the British dominion. Owing to the disturbed state
of South Africa, and the consequent absence of reports,
I am bound to limit my survey to other parts of
Africa where this society is at work. No record of
baptisms for the year is given, and so one is compelled
to test the work by the growth of church members.
In Sierra Leone during 1899 there were 571 agents
and an increase of 156 church members, with an
expenditure of £3,351 Os. 7d., exclusive of money
locally raised. In the “ Gambia Section ” there has
been an increase of 57 with 70 agents. The Gold
Coast district reports an increase of 89 with 1,262
agents; while Lagos has an increase of 74 as the work
of 456 agents. The missionaries’ own admissions as
to the quality of these converts we shall see later.
The London Missionary Society has in Africa 61
agents, who received from England during 1899
£T2,903 Is. 4d. The growth in membership averages
about 76 per year. The attendance at church has
fallen since it ceased to be compulsory (p. 225,
Report for 1900), buta certain amount of business
seems to be done in making wardrobes, portable dark
rooms for photography, etc., for the European in
habitants (p. 223).
The Baptists employ in Africa 214 agents. The
cost of these to the London offices was ^15,041 10s. 7d.
Much money, however, seems to be raised locally,
of which no details are given. Thus, the mission
�AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
55
steamer earned in one year £350 carrying freight, and
there is mention of a large number of passengers
being carried also. In the matter of conversions,
during 1898 there were baptised 94 persons and lost
40. During 1899 the 214 agents baptised 120 and lost
58, leaving a net gain of 62. The Rev. S. C. Gordon
opined, in 1899, that “the mighty power of God was
working upon the people, and they are dissatisfied
with their heathen customs” ; but the only result of
the “mighty power” at this station, backed up by
ten agents, has been the baptism of three persons and
the loss of one. There is the usual lament concern
ing the “ very low tone of spiritual life evinced by
some of our church members,” and the Rev. A. E.
Scrivener writes expressing his belief that the
committee “will not be surprised to learn that,
although we [he and 46 assistants] had the joy
of baptising five young women about the middle of
the year, our numbers do not show any increase,
but a small decrease” (1900 Report, p. 99).
Quality of Converts.—The opinions given above
from outsiders concerning the quality of mission
converts is amply borne out on reading between the
lines of the various reports. The admissions made by
one society in a single year (C. M. S. Report, 1900)
will be enough to show this. Concerning the Niger
missions there is a standing lament, year after
year, that “ a higher standard of Christian life is
much needed”—an admission that anyone who has
visited that part of Africa will readily endorse. At
Lokoya, where there are thirty communicants after
ten years’ work, “ two yielded to temptation.......and
fell into sin ” (p. 91). On the profit side one of the
female inquirers has given birth to twin girls, “ which
has been a source of great joy to all Christians ”
(p. 90). At Frere Town, with twenty-eight agents,
there was one baptism, and the motives of “inquirers”
are amusingly sketched by Mr. Binns, who writes that
their principal object seems to be to gaze at themselves
�i
56
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
in looking-glasses, and wear the most creaky shoes
they could obtain (pp. 98-9). A number of ‘1 inquirers ”
who figured in the previous year’s report as giving
great hopes “ were removed from the register for
irregular attendance or misbehavior, and some of
the catechumens were struck off the rolls for grave
offences” (p. 113).
Other inquirers were “under
the yoke of strong drink” (p. Ill), and they were,
presumably, dismissed also. Perhaps one may regard
the villagers, who, for a whole year, prayed morning
and evening, and then, “ when nothing came of it,
they gave it up” (p. 74), or the statement that
“when the new Prayer Book arrived in the country
the part which seemed to have the greatest attraction
for the native mind was the calendar” (p. 123), as
evidences of the growth of a scientific spirit. The
permanence of the conversions is shown by the fol
lowing statement from Archdeacon Wilkes, writing of
Uganda, where the largest number of conversions are
made : “It is piteous at times to see how the work
falls off if the European who has been in charge is
removed, and to see that every advance has to be
made by the European missionaries urging the natives
on” (p. 121). As a matter of fact, a self-support
ing native church in any part of the world is a rarity.
All have to be kept going by European labor and
European money.
The eagerness of the African to get Bibles, etc.,
of which much is made in missionary reports, has
a curious light thrown on it by an experience of
Mr. Scott Elliot. Almost the first native he met
begged hard for a Bible. As he had not a Bible to
give, he presented the man with a book of another
description. He found subsequently that the native
was unable to read (Naturalist in Mid-Africa, p. 56).
The appeal for Bibles seems to be either a strategic
appeal for charity, or a desire to use them as fetishes
to ward off evil spirits. A similar instance is related
by Sir H. H. Johnson (Hirer Congo, p. 53). In this
�AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
57
case a native chief attended the chapel service, fol
lowed it with much apparent devotion, and at its
conclusion “promptly demanded the loan of a hand
saw to effect some alteration in his canoe.”
The North African Mission.—Before dismissing
Africa, it may be interesting to take a brief glimpse
at a small society, the North African Mission,
described in the Report of the Centenary Conference
as being enterprising and having “ most encouraging
prospects.” It will well illustrate the mental calibre
of the average missionary, as well as what mis
sionaries understand by “ most encouraging ”
prospects. This mission commenced work in 1885 ;
I have followed it since 1891, in which year the
income reached £5,695 10s. 3d., and the expenditure
£5,298 14s. 3d. Of this sum £6 4s. 6d. went to the
natives in gifts of food, etc., £313 12s. lOd. for the
maintenance of hospital and payment to servants, the
balance to missionaries at home and abroad. In 1895
the income had increased to £7,845 ; in 1899 to
£10,920 11s. 8d., the same proportion being main
tained between the various items.
There are no
exact statements of results in the shape of conversions
or members in any of the reports, although a
number of speeches are put into the mouths of
“ inquirers,” which are obvious fabrications to all who
know anything of Mohammedan life and character.
The following passages from the Reports for ’95 and
’99 will give an idea of the success of the mission—
the italics in each case are mine.
The Report for ’95 opens with the sorrowful
admission that there is “little to encourage in the
way of result,” and one has to compliment the writer
of the report on the accuracy of his summary. In
Morocco, where there are thirteen missionaries, the
work is summarised by Dr. Terry thus :—
Number of individuals who have heard the Gospel once..
Number who have heard it more" than a dozen times
..
Addresses given
..
..
..
..
..
..
2,500
250
420
�58
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
Gospels and testaments sent to all parts ..
Many hundreds
Baptisms
..
..
..
..
..
..
.. None
Conversions
..
..
None for certain, as far as we know
Yet the report calmly informs us in another portion:
“ Conversions there are by no means few or far
between.” From Tripoli, where there are five agents,
Mr. Reid thanks God for “giving me more than I had
asked or thought.” As the same gentleman writes,
“ I am not able to report any conversions, or even
any regular inquirers,” his requests of the Lord must
have been a minus quantity. One is not surprised to
learn that “ Although the gratitude for efforts put
forth for men’s bodies is so great as to be almost
embarrassing at times, the result of the preaching, on
the other hand, is very small.” The only conversions
mentioned occurred at Tunis. There are thirteen
agents there, and there have been “ signs of a great
spiritual advance.” This “ great spiritual advance ”
consists of three regular attendants, two of whom
“ have professed to be born again, and, though very
ignorant, they have lived consistently.” The third
one “shows much intelligent interest in the reading,
but we fear his mincl is not quite sound.” This seems
the net result of the year’s work—three attendants,
two ignorant and one mad.
The results recorded in the Report for 1899 are of
the same description: “In Tetuan there has been
encouragement.”
Some Spaniards have been con
verted—presumably from Roman Catholicism—but
the only gain from the non-Christian population is a
“ Moslem girl,” who said “ she was trusting Christ
for salvation.” There is the customary qualification
that she is “ young and ignorant,” which to anyone
but a missionary would seem to discount the quality
of the gain. This is the only case of conversion I
can discover. Mr. Reid writes cheerfully from Tripoli
that he and his five fellow missionaries “ are still not
able to speak of converts [after twelve years’ preaching}.
But we know a good work is being done.”
Mr.
�AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.’
59
Lilley writes from Tunis (twenty-five agents) that the
results are ££ To the outward eye very little,” but
“ one Arab has decidedly shown his faith in Christ by
his . consistent walk.”
Mr. Cuendet writes from
Algiers : ££ Apparently no Kabyle has been converted
in Algiers this year
but he has experienced several
wonderful indications, as per the following: “One day
I spoke very plainly to a young man of whom I had
great hope. He was very much impressed, and I
could see tears in his eyes. But since that day he has
not come to the meetings, and 1 have not seen him again.
I firmly believe the Lord will follow such souls.” Mr.
Lochhead writes that he “ spent six months in Scotland,
and had many opportunities of telling of God’s work
in Africa ”—in Scotland. He laments that “ it is not
ours as yet to report definite conversions among the
people (after fourteen years’ preaching), but in due
season we shall reap if we faint not.” Finally, Dr.
Churcher writes : ££ Specially do we need help for
those too sick to work and too poor to feed themselves,
who come to us and simply say £ UY are going to stay
with you till zve get better ’—and that seems about the
limit of their interest in the mission.” Perhaps, how
ever, the palm for satire has to be given to the text
printed on the front page of the annual statement—
“ Who hath believed our Report ?” It is evident that
Mohammedans can rest in safety beneath the assault
of the North African Mission. As a matter of fact,
the number of converts to Islam in England during
the last ten years far exceeds those brought from
Islamism by the N. A. M. Yet this is a mission which
is glibly referred to as having “ most encouraging
prospects.”
Is it incurable stupidity or deliberate
knavery that is responsible for such statements ?
Palestine—Mier what has been said of the chief
centres of missionary enterprise, we need give but
a brief glance at the work in purely Mohammedan
centres. . There is, too, such a wearisome monotony
about missionary reports and statistics that one is far
�60
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
from doing an injustice to missionaries in assuming
that the known is a fair sample of the unknown.
In Palestine the C. M. S. has 177 agents. One of
the agents, writing in the Report for 1900, says :
‘ ‘ When I look back upon the twenty-three years that
I have been in the country, I am simply wonderstruck at the very great results........ There is no doubt
that the door to the Moslems is opening more and
more, especially here in Jerusalem" (pp. 154-5). Let
us see what these “very great results” are. I have
four years’ reports lying before me ; they work out as
follows:—
Year.
1895
1896
1899
1900
Agents. Adult Baptism.
149
151
174
177
.....
...
...
.. ..
0
2
6
1
...
...
Expenditure.
£
s. d.
16,011 9 2
15,006 3 3
18,790 16 8
16,710 14 11
Here, then, are the “ very great results ” that
reduce the missionaries to a “wonder-stricken” state.
Over 150 missionaries in four years have succeeded
in baptising nine adults, for performing which feat
they have received from England over sixty-six thousand
pounds—an average cost of over seven thousand
pounds per convert.
The Baptists have in Palestine thirteen agents. In
1899 these baptised five and lost three—net gain, two.
Yet Mr. El Karey, the missionary, writes “ that, not
withstanding the opposition—much bitter opposition
by the Turkish Government, police, and soldiers—
the native Christian church grows ” (1899 Report,
p. 81). I suppose “ grows ” is accurate concerning a
church that gains two in a year, with thirteen people
working; but it strikes one as being unduly optimistic;
as also does the assurance from the same gentleman a
year later, that “ in many hearts the good seed of the
kingdom has not been sown in vain ” (p. 83).
Persia.—In Persia there are 59 agents belonging to
the C. M. S., to whom was sent L5,373 3s. 9d. During
1899 twelve adults were baptised, and the Rev. Mr.
�AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
61
Stileman writes: “We are now for the first _ time
(after 25 years) rejoicing over a whole family of
Persian Christians.” Bishop Stuart writes gloomily
that “ we are as yet only gathering out the stones,”
and that “ there is little to report save that we are
holding on.” Evidently the “ heathens ” are holding
off. Miss Bird more optimistically writes that “ in Jaffa
and Ispahan the work is growing steadily.” There is a
certain feminine diplomacy about Miss Bird’s report.
Undoubtedly the work is growing, but as to the con
verts, that is another question. There has been an
increase of fourteen communicants in four years.
In Egypt there were in 1899 45 agents; in 1900
54. In two years they have succeeded in baptising
one adult, for which performance they have received
from England about £12,000.
There are several
“ promising ” cases, however, of which the following
may be taken as a sample. It concerns “ A great
change witnessed in a Mohammedan boy about
eleven years old. He was brought into the hospital,
and did not know the difference between God and
Mohammed. He became interested, and begged for
a New Testament to take home with him. He could
not read, but,” says the missionary, “he went off to
his far-off village carrying his book, and said to me,
‘ I will never forget Jesus—never.’ We have not seen
him since” When such a remarkable result brought
about in a youngster eleven years old is thought worthy
of chronicling, one can form a fair estimate of the
character of the unrecorded work. For Arabia, where
there are thirteen agents, there is no report of any
thing in the shape of converts since 1897. But as
during that year the thirteen failed to convert anyone,
doubtless there is nothing to report.
Converting the Jews.—A survey of foreign mis
sionary work would be incomplete without some
reference, however slight, to the most curious of all
missions—those for Christianising the Jewish race. In
England there are eight of these societies, employing
�62
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
294 agents. Scotland possesses five, with 71 mis
sionaries ; even Ireland counts one—the Irish Pres
byterian Mission to the Jews, with 27 missionaries.
Each of these societies sends agents to different parts
of the world, wherever there are any number of Jews
worth noting. I intend taking but one society—the
London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst
the Jews—as a type of the whole, and in so doing I
am putting the work in its most favorable aspect, since
it. is the largest and wealthiest and most successful
of all. And to make it easier for those who are
interested enough in the subject to test the truth of
what follows, I intend dealing at length with the
movement in England only, where it is conducted
under the most favorable conditions.1
The London Society for Promoting Christianity
amongst the Jews—or, as it has been not inaptly
called, “ The Society for Turning Bad Jews into
Worse Christians ”—employed during 1898-9 63 paid
missionaries, 12 missionaries’ wives, and 18 honorary
workers.
The expenditure for that year was
£38,439 14s. lid. ; for 1899-1900, £36,601 5s. lid.,
about half of which sums is spent in Great Britain.
There are eight clergymen acting as district secre
taries, who are credited with receiving between them
£2,435 19s., and two general secretaries, the filev. W.
Fleming and the Bev. W. T. Gidney, who take £833
annually. One striking feature about this type of mission
1 I append, however, the following brief summary of work and
results in various other parts of the world from the Report for 18991900
Place.
Agents.
Baptisms.
Expenditure,
x s. d.
Austria..............
2
....
0
....
285 18 4
France ..............
3
....
3
....
569 6 11
Holland ..........
2
....
1
....
617 8 2
Rome..................
2
....
0
....
400 15 8
Constantinople..
8
....
0
....
947 14 2
Smyrna..............
3
....
0
....
428 9 8
Jaffa..................
2
....
0
....
377 7 9
Persia ..............
13
....
4
....
1,033 7 6
Damascus..........
7
....
0
....
689 12 7
�AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
63
is the number of military men who are associated with
it. Thus, out of four vice-presidents three are military
officers, and out of a committee of 19 no less than
eight are drawn from the same class. It would be an
interesting inquiry to determine how far several years’
service under an Indian sun is causally connected
with this frenzied eagerness for the conversion of the
Jews.
There are no tables stating how many baptisms
pave taken place during the year ; but, as far as one
can make out, by checking the different cases reported,
there were 28 in 1898, of whom 20 were children,
and 25 in 1899, of whom 9 certainly were, children.
The total is certainly not more than 25, although, owing
to the manner in which the Report is drawn up, there
may be less. Thus, the 28 mentioned in the ’99 Report
appear and disappear like lightning-change artists in
a music hall. Page 7 gives the 28 at one sweep ;
page 8 gives an instalment of a score; page 10 gives
two instalments of 11 and 9 respectively; page 12
impresses the reader with one batch of 5 and
another of 2; and, finally, page 21 lands another
instalment of 4. By this method 28 baptisms—
20 of which are children—appear as sixty-nine. The
Report does not actually state that number, but it
conveys that impression, and probably not by
chance.
In round figures—excluding children—the converts
work out at about £1,100 per head, each one repre
senting a year’s labor of six individuals. Not a very
startling result, even if all the cases baptised were
genuine, and remained Christian after their conversion.
But neither assumption will bear examination. It is
significant that the converts are drawn almost
entirely from among the indigent foreign Jews.
The better-class Jews—better intellectually or socially
—will have nothing to do with the missionary, as is
confessed by the agents over and over again. In the
Report for 1899 Miss Dora Barry confesses she has
�64
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
“tried to reach a Jewish family of the better class,
but, though I have been again and again, I cannot
gain admittance.” Miss Barry has evidently found
the task of converting the Jews a hopeless one, as I
see by the current Report that she has retired. Mr.
G. Priestly writes plaintively that the attitude of the
Jews “towards me is one of supreme contempt”
(p. 23). Mr. Bachert also says: “I have met on
several occasions Jews of high intellectual calibre who
have forsaken Judaism, not, however, to enter the
Christian Church.”
And a year later the same
gentleman laments that his labors have been marked
“ with no perceptible progress so far as admittance
into Jewish houses of the better class of Jews is
concerned.” Yet, inface of the paucity of conversions
and these admissions, the Rev. E. H. Lewis calmly
writes: “ All Jews residing in the United Kingdom
do feel after Christianity” (p. 45), and Mr. Priestly
writes in all seriousness that Jews have told him that
the one thing that keeps them from baptism is that
“ Christianity is so perfect that it is fit for angels in
heaven only, not for men on earth ” (p. 29).
The class of Jews who become converted, and the
reason for their conversion, are pointed out quite
clearly, albeit unconsciously, by the missionaries
themselves. In the Report for 1899 the Rev. E. T.
Sherman states that during the year he was visited
by about twenty Jews, “ some for help, others as
pedlars.'” In the Report for 1900 Mr. Bachert writes :
“ I have received a good number of visits from Jews,
but they were of the poorer class; some came from
sincere motives, others for what they could get ”
(p. 17). “ The Wanderer’s Home,” at Bristol, seems
to be taken by Jewish tramps quite literally, and Mr.
Eppstien writes that the applicants for admission
come, “ some with pure, others with interested
motives” (p. 28). The Rev. J. Lotka writes from
Birmingham that after the Christmas services cloth
ing was given away to adults and toys to children,
�AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
65
and then proceeds to say everything in the following
passage :—
“ Most of the Jews who attended the Bible classes... .were such as
have no abiding place anywhere. They go about from town to town
in search of work, or under the pretence of doing so, and call on the
missionary in the hope of receiving assistance, just as they would call
on the Jewish Board of Guardians. To such Jews—and their number
is legion—the Mission House is a sort of house of refuge. They come
there seeking shelter from the cold of winter and the heat of snrrnnsr.”
After this further citations would be superfluous.
Of course, to those who know anything of the work
ings of the various missions to the Jews, it is no new
information that its converts are practically bought.
In many cases the missionaries lie in wait for the poor
downtrodden specimens of humanity that land here
from “Holy Russia”; in other cases they do not
hesitate to entice young people away from home, more
than one case of this kind having come under my
own observation. But in the majority of cases the
converts are simply professional “ Schnorrers ”—
cadgers who have drained Jewish charitable organisa
tions of all that they feel inclined to give. When
further help from this source is refused the commonest
of all threats is that they will apply to the mission for
help. Sometimes the threat serves its purpose, at
other times it fails. In the latter case a visit is paid
to a mission, and a fresh addition is made to the list
of “ inquirers.” Having in many cases gone through
the same mill himself, the missionary usually knows
well enough the motives animating the applicant, but
it suits his purpose to assume that he has a genuine
case. All the missionaries tabulate the number of
“ inquirers ” they receive, and this term is elastic
enough to cover anything and everything—from the
man who asks a question out of idle curiosity to the
one who is on the eve of baptism. A more or less
regular allowance is given to these inquirers from the
various funds for assisting poor Jews, and the
potential convert is usually willing to keep on'
“ inquiring ” as long as the allowance holds out.
D
�66
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
Sooner or later, however, the allowance ceases.
After the individual has served the agent’s purpose
of. figuring in one or two annual reports as an
“inquirer,” he must either be baptised or leave;
even after baptism he is got rid of as speedily as pos
sible, save under exceptional circumstances.
A favorite plan among many missionaries is to visit
a possible convert in the guise of a brother Jew,
sympathise with him on his poverty, his ignorance of
English, and offer to find him a place where he will
be found work and taught English. In such cases
the capture is drafted off to the “ Operative Jewish
Converts’ Institution,” or some similar place, and
for a time set to work for a small sum weekly.
But here he cannot remain for more than about six
months, unless he accepts Jesus. Many leave ; a few
remain and agree to conversion. During the time
of probation all goes well. After being baptised and
paraded in the Annual Report as a convert, trouble
begins. The object is to get rid of him so as to make
room for new comers. Ultimately, in spite of the
original promise that he would be employed for at
least three years, the poor devil is got rid of on some
pretext or other, and what becomes of him afterwards
the Society neither knows nor cares. In a few cases
a situation is found for him, and in a still smaller
percentage of cases he is trained as a missionary,
although it is a significant commentary upon his
character that the field of labor allotted to him is
one in which he is not known.
I have said that the Society neither knows nor cares
what becomes of its “converts.” I ought to qualify
the statement by saying that it often knows, but does not
care, for in a vast majority of the cases the baptised
Jew usually rejoins a Jewish community in this or
some other country where his career is unknown.
Indeed, one can safely challenge any of the societies
for converting the Jews to put their hands upon
ten per cent, of their converts who are leading
�AFRICA, AND ELSEWHERE.
67
Christian lives five years after they have been erased
from their pension list.
I have in my possession
documentary evidence of the destinies of a great
many of these converts on whose behalf the British
public have been bled, but for obvious reasons do not
care to disclose them.
Let the Society, however,
accept my challenge, and the accuracy of my descrip
tion of their methods of working can soon be
demonstrated.
To return to the reports. Although the number
and quality of the converts reported leave much to be
desired, yet there are some wonderful results other
wise. Dr. Ellis, the head of the London staff, reports
that during the year his agents have given away
“ 146 Bibles, 262 portions, 344 New Testaments,
1,231 portions, and 5,403 tracts.” This is evidently
a branch of the work that admits of indefinite exten
sion, although the ordinary door-to-door bill distributor
might show a larger record, at about two shillings per
day. Dr. Ellis also held “ discussions and conversa
tions ” with 291 Jews during the year. The conclu
sion to be drawn from this fact is not indicated ; pro
bably it is quoted as some sort of confirmation of
Judges xv. 15-16. The Bev. A. Bernstein also reports
“interesting religious conversations,” and the com
pilers of the report select “ the following instances of
encouragement from the Bev. Mr. Denman’s experi
ence 5—
** * I have quite altered my views about Isaiahliii.,’ said an educated
Jew....1 (But) I am quite content to leave all to the mercy of God, and
not question how He made atonement.’
“Another Jew asked me to write out for him, to read quietly, the
proofs that our Lord was descended from David, and was the son of
Mary. This was the result of many conversations, and has led to
further talk.
One Jewish medical man... .who cannot grasp the Deity of Christ
in the New Testament, is reading a book I lent him called Jesus is God.
He says he thinks a great deal more about the facts of Christianity
than I imagine.”
A. sense of humor seems needed with Mr. Denman.
The Bev. N. Herz notes that “ one blessed result
�68
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
of our united endeavors is, that in no previous year
have so many copies of the Scripture been given
away.” The Rev. Paul Bendix noted in 1897 the
“ significant sign that many Jews at present take
part in the celebration of Christmas, not religiously,
but socially.” Nothing seems to escape the lynx-like
vigilance of this gentleman, for in 1899 he notes : “It
is a fact that some of them have a Christmas-tree.”
Here is progress indeed ! First Christmas festivities,
then Christmas-trees; soon we may expect to see the
Jews of Highbury celebrating the birth of Jesus by
getting drunk “ allee samee Clistian,” as Bret Harte’s
Chinaman would say. Mrs. Guttmann, a lady worker
in the same district, gets on remarkably well. She
visited 2,000 houses during the year, there were 2,093
persons seen and spoken to, 200 portions of New and
■Old Testaments given away. “ Some of them are read
and returned without comment, others are brought
back with various expressions of regret or approval.”
Similar wonderful results might be quoted from pro
vincial missionaries, but these will serve. When
we have such absurdities as the above quoted as
“ instances of encouragement,” one almost despairs
of human sanity or honesty. Yet this is all the
society has to show as the result of a year’s work
in Great Britain! Is the game worth the candle ?
To those who manage to squeeze a living out of the
movement, probably yes ; but what of the general
public ? How long will it take to convert 8,000,000
Jews at the present rate of increase ? How much will
it cost to convert them at the present rate of payment ?
And how much are they worth when they are con
verted ?
Of all Christian missions, that for the conversion
of the Jews has the least justification for its existence.
Other missions may plead that they are at least taking
to lower races the elements of higher secular civilisa
tion, and that by the introduction of fresh habits
these people will be ultimately benefited. The Mission
�CONCLUSION.
69
to the Jews can plead no such extenuation. I do
not see it even claimed that the Jew becomes better,
either individually or socially, as a result of his
adopting Christianity. What he was before his bap
tism, that he remains afterwards. The whole object
of these missions is at best a theological one; what it
is at worst I leave those who have read the foregoing
pages to say.
VII.
Conclusion.—Every task must end somewhere, and
mine must, at any rate for the present, end here.
I
do not pretend that the foregoing brief review of the
missionary movement has by any means exhausted
the subject. A great deal might be written concerning
the deliberate misrepresentation of the life and customs
of the people among whom the missionary resides ;
an offence that is particularly grave when dealing
with people like the Chinese or the inhabitants of
India. I have referred to this matter but slightly
for two reasons : first, because I have not wished the
mind of the reader or the attention of any possible
critic to be distracted from the real point at issue—
namely, the quantity and quality of the converts
gained; and, secondly, because, if I had dealt with
that aspect of the matter, I should have needed a
large volume instead of a small pamphlet. But I do
not think anyone who studies the lives of the non
Christian peoples, as depicted by non-missionary
writers, can doubt the truthfulness of Miss Kingsley’s
statement, that the missionaries draw distorted pic
tures of the people they seek to convert, in order to
bring in subscriptions at home.
There are,, too, several aspects of missionary life—
particularly in South Africa—-upon which I have not
dwelt, for the reason that, although sure of the
facts myself, and with the full belief that there is
�70
FOREIGN MISSIONS:
proof enough to command the assent of any impartial
jury, yet I am at present lacking the necessary docu
mentary evidence to demonstrate the truth of charges
that might be made. I have preferred to make no
statement that was not supported by positive proof;
and, as readers will have observed, in most cases the
proofs are taken direct from the reports of the missionary
societies.
As it is, I do not think that anyone who carefully
considers the bearing of the foregoing pages will
assert that there is anything like an adequate return
for the huge expenditure of energy and money that is
going on year after year. I know all that may be
said about “the devoted men and women who sacri
fice the comforts of civilisation,” etc., etc. I know
that it is true in some cases, and I know that in others
it is the veriest drivel that ever found vent. There is
no more hardship in the life of the average missionary
abroad than in that of the average white man in the
same country, and often not so much.
The latter
usually faces all the dangers faced by the missionary,
and is without a great many of the compensating
pleasures enjoyed by the preacher. Nor is it any
reply to what I have said to argue that certain secular
benefits flow from the presence of the missionaries.
Every movement has to be tested by the success with
which it achieves its object, not by the incidental results
of its work. The object of the missions is to make
Christians, and it is by their success in this direction
that they have to be judged.
Not that I am willing to admit that there is any
great good done by the missionaries in any direction ;
at any rate, the good is not at all commensurate with
the efforts put forth. And it may well be questioned
whether the probable good done by spreading a slight
knowledge of English or of Western science in India
or China is not more than balanced by encouraging
sectarian feelings in the one case, and breeding inter
national animosities in the other. It is surely far
�CONCLUSION.
71
from an insignificant fact that the white people
resident in China or India or Africa are usually those
who speak most slightingly of the benefits of mis
sionary work. A great deal of praise is bestowed upon
it by the clergy at home, and by a number of old
ladies—of both sexes—at Exeter Hall meetings ; but
those on the spot think generally but little of it. That
I am not overstating the case will be seen from the
following sketch of the attitude of the average AngloIndian, drawn by no less a personage than the Rev.
Principal Fairbairn. The sketch was intended as a
satire, but it nevertheless expresses the truth:—
“ The orthodox Anglo-Indian, though possibly himself a Christian,
must believe that Christianity produces the most disastrous results in
India. He should remember that the natives already possess two
excellent religions of their own—i.e., Hinduism and Islam. He should
point out that almost invariably converts to Christianity spring from
the lowest orders of the people, and that the hope of financial gain is
the main inducement towards baptism rather than any real conversion
of the heart. He should himself, as an official, be very careful to
abstain from even a suspicion of in any way favoring Christians; and,
as they are, of course, worse than other natives, he will neither
employ them as household servants himself nor suffer others to do so
without warning them of their folly.”
Although intended as satire, I do not think it can
truthfully be questioned that the above is a fair picture
of the attitude of the average European resident in
India towards missions. And what is true of India is
equally true of China. If the presence of mission
aries in China were to be determined by the votes of
the white residents, they would be withdrawn at once.
Even in the case of uncivilised races, it may be
questioned whether the forcing on them of European
customs is a real benefit. Let us take a single illus
tration of the least injurious effect of Christianising
the lower races as depicted by Lord Stanmore, late
Governor of Fiji1:—
“In the centre of the village is the cricket field, a desolate expanse
of dry earth, on one side of which is the church, a wooden barn-like
1 Speech at St. James’s Hall, May 31, 1894, reported in the Daily
Chronicle. for June 1.
�72
FOREIGN MISSIONS :
building. If entered, it will be found filled with crazy benches;
beyond them rises a huge octagonal pulpit, in which, if the day be
Sunday, we shall find the native minister arrayed in a greenish black
swallow-tail coat, a neckcloth, once white, and a pair of spectacles
which he probably does not need, preaching to a congregation, the
male portion of which is dressed in much the same manner as him
self, while the women are dressed in old, battered hats and bonnets,
and shapeless gowns like bathing-dresses, or, it may be, crinolines of
an early type. Chiefs of influence and women of high birth, who in
their native dress would look, and do look, the ladies and gentlemen
they are, are, by their Sunday finery, given the appearance of atten
dants on Jack-in-the-Green. Hard by is the school where, owing to the
proscription of native clothing,1 the children appear in tattered rags, under
the tuition of a master whose garments resemble those of an Irish scare
crow, and is probably repeating a list of English counties, or some similar
information equally useful to a Polynesian Islander.... The whole life of
these village folk is one piece of unreal acting. They are continually ask
ing themselves whether they are incurring any of the penalties entailed
by infraction of the long table of prohibition, and whether they are
living up to the foreign garments they wear. Their faces have, for the
most part, an expressionof sullen discontent; they move about silently
and joylessly, rebels in heart to the restrictive coils on them....... They
have good ground for their dissatisfaction. At the time when I visited
the villages I have specially in my eye, it was punishable by fine and
imprisonment to wear native clothing; punishable by fine and im
prisonment to make native cloth; punishable by fine and imprison
ment to smoke tobacco; punishable by fine and imprisonment to make
the native beverage kava; punishable by fine and imprisonment to
wear long hair or a garland of flowers; punishable by fine and im
prisonment to wrestle or to play at ball; punishable by fine and
imprisonment to build a native-fashioned house; punishable not to
wear shirt and trousers, and, in certain localities, coat and shoes also;
and in addition to laws enforcing a strictly puritanical observation of
the Sabbath, it was punishable by fine and imprisonment to bathe on
Sundays. In some other places bathing on Sundays is punishable by
flogging, and to my knowledge women have been flogged for no other
offence, by order of a native teacher, whose action was by no means
so decidedly disapproved by his white superior as it should have been.
Men in such circumstances are ripe for revolt, and sometimes the
revolt comes.”
With this picture before us, which contrasts
curiously with the missionaries’ reports, one may well
query whether the life of the Polynesian Islanders
has, after all, experienced much of a change for the
better by the introduction of a new religion. The
truth is that the missionary is far too apt to measure
1 A regulation not probably unconnected with the desire to push the
sale of Manchester cottons.
�CONCLUSION.
73
the morality of a race by the readiness of a people to
repeat the shibboleths of his own particular faith,
rather than by any common-sense standard of human
well-being; and one finds over and over again that
customs, harmless enough in themselves, become in
the mouths of missionaries evidence of gross immo
rality, and their suppression proof of unqualified
improvement.
But it is the gratuitous character of these missions
that strikes the outsider most forcibly. The people do
not want the faith of the missionary, and, as the figures
show, a great many of them will not have it, and on
the strength of their own statements but few are the
better for accepting it. According to Mr. Little, the
bulk of the Chinese people believe that all Europeans
are wealthy. Their reason is that it seems to them
that when people are so anxious to put things right so
many thousands of miles away from their native land,
they can have little that is wrong at home.
The
Chinese seem to me to be fairly reasonable in their
contention. There is something in the Gospels about
removing the beam from one’s own eye before clearing
the mote out of another’s ; and surely, while there are
so many wrongs to right, so much misery that needs
alleviating, so much ignorance that needs dispelling
at home, it is sheer folly—to use no harsher term—
to spend millions of money and waste the energies of
thousands of men and women on a movement in which
folly, knavery, and stupidity are almost inextricably
mingled—a movement in which the presence of a
handful of earnest but misguided individuals serves as
a cloak for crowds of office-holders, and others of a
still more dangerous description.
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------
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Men After God’s Own Heart : Being Sketches of the
Lives of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David -02
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Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Foreign missions : their dangers and delusions
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 73, [6] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered pages at the end. List of author's other works on title page verso. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Freethought Publishing Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1901
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N144
Subject
The topic of the resource
Missionaries
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Foreign missions : their dangers and delusions), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Missionaries
Missions
NSS