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BY
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E. S. P. HAYNES
Author of “Religious Persecution,” ete.
London :
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�Ml e\
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
MODERN MORALITY AND
MODERN TOLERATION
BY
E. S. P. HAYNES
Author of "Religious Persecution,” etc.
[issued
for the rationalist press association, limited]
London :
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�HJeOicateò
WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARD
TO
Mrs. THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
�INTRODUCTION
The two essays here published are, so to speak, pendants to
my book on Religious Persecution, which was published when
I was only twenty-seven years of age. The subject might
well occupy a lifetime, and it is scarcely surprising that I
should continue to meditate upon it in such moments of
leisure as I enjoy. The first essay was read to ten male
undergraduates at Oxford, and to about fifty male and
female undergraduates at Cambridge.
Both audiences
belonged to the flourishing society of “ Heretics.”
It is,
perhaps, not odd that Oxford should still continue her tradi
tion of discouraging heretics until they are senile or dead,
but one very trenchant Oxford critic helped me to define and
distinguish points which I had not sufficiently elaborated.
At Cambridge I was told that the example of Jesus Christ’s
life was a potent force in contemporary morality ; and I
could only reply that the example of men and women whom
we have actually known and admired in youth, and even in
later life, ought to be equally potent. Personally, I should
consider it more potent ; but it is impossible to see quite
inside the minds of others.
As each year passes it seems to me more and more
impossible to take any abstract system of thought seriously
unless it intimately affects the practical problems of every
day life ; and I have known many excellent Freethinkers in
the older generation who made a point of attending church
because they thought that the decline of churchgoing would
entail a moral cataclysm. If such admirable people as these
can be induced to think otherwise, our Association will
prosper even more than it has done hitherto.
3
�INTROD UCTION
4
I have to thank my friend Mr. Belloc for kindiv allowing’
me to reprint my second essay from the columns of the
Eye- Witness. It is at least consoling' to reflect that we shall
never relapse into complete “quietism” while Mr. Belta©
lives ; and the cordial admission of a Rationalist to th®
columns of his brilliant review shows that militant Catholicism
is by no means incompatible with certain qualities of intel
lectual curiosity and comprehensive vision which Rationalists
would always desire to see associated with their own cause.
I have used the personal pronoun without regard to the
snobbish and vulgar prejudice against it. The fear of this
prejudice often forces some writers into ponderous peri
phrases which no less often suggest that the writer’s personal
opinions are those of an influential majority. It is at once
humbler and more courageous to avoid pretending that
individual opinions have more than an individual value ;
and, in the matter of style, Cardinal Newman’s example is
good enough for me.
E. S. P. H.
SA John's Wood.
January, igis.
�I.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND
MODERN MORALITY
Among Agnostics of the nineteenth century, and to
some extent to-day, it was, and is, largely held that the
disappearance of Christian, or even theistic, belief
involves not only no relaxation, but also no change, of
ethical sanctions or conduct. The latter view is, to my
mind, a perilous fallacy. Clearly, the Agnostic sanc
tions must be different; and if this be true, it follows
that conduct will also be different. Unless our society
is prepared to face this fact, and also to impart to the
rising generation some solid principles of ethical
training, it must, as Goldwin Smith long ago pre
dicted, be prepared to face a “ very bad quarter of an
hour.”
In a book which I wrote some years ago on Religious
Persecution I distinguished what I call “ civic morality ”
from what I call “ individual morality.” I defined “ civic
morality as that part of conduct which relates to other
citizens, and is regulated by the appointment of State
penalties for the enforcement of it. I defined “ individual
morality ” as conduct which is only regulated by social,
not legal, agencies, and is therefore more spontaneous.
Broadly speaking, civic morality depends less on senti
ment than on utilitarian common sense, though, of
course, legislation is adapted to changing views of
individual morality. Civic morality is, therefore, so
much the less likely to be moulded by religious
emotions or sanctions, except where the State is theo
cratic, as in the case of medieval Europe or modern.
Islam.
5
�6
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
Let us now analyse the Christian or theistic concep*
tion of morality. Christian morality is essentially a
matter' of duty towards God and a Creator. God is.
assumed by the Catholic Church and many other
Christian bodies to forbid, among other things, suicide,
divorce, limitation of the family, or the sacrifice of the
infant’s life to the mother’s life in childbirth without any
saving clause whatsoever. The use of anaesthetics and
cremation is still viewed with suspicion even where
allowed. God is understood to have made certain
definite arrangements for the life of each human being
and the propagation of the species, which must on no
account be interfered with. Imbued with some such
belief, the early Christians declined to shave their
beards, as they would not blasphemously attempt to
improve upon the handiwork of their Creator.
Moreover, the Church declares that Socialism is
sinful. To quote an excellent pamphlet of Ernest R.
Hull, S.J.: “The right of private property is a divine
ordinance....... the state of probation does not suppose
equality in the present lot of men....... There is to come
a final reckoning day in which all inequalities will be
levelled up and compensated for.”1 Men, therefore,
must not try to improve upon the social structure set
up by their Creator as exemplified in the Christian
world.
A different set of considerations emerges in regard to
the nature of the ethical sanction. Morality, according
to the theologian, is primarily concerned with God, who
rewards and punishes men exclusively in relation to
their obedience or disobedience to his commands. An
old man, alone in the world, without ties or obligations,
may prefer euthanasia to a slow and painful death by
cancer. This man is (theologically) quite as inexcusable
in the eyes of God as the man who by his suicide leaves
a wife and family to starve. God has ordered all men to
1 Why Should I be Moral? y. 95.
(Sands & Co.)
�AND MODERN MORALITY
I
live until the unavoidable moment of death. God has
also commanded all men and women to increase and
multiply, subject to the conditions laid down by the
Church. The Catholic Church has always told the wife
to comply with the husband’s demands for conjugal
rights in case he should be tempted to offend God by
committing adultery. Consequently, many a man has
forced his wife to have children every year till she died.
He has then married another wife and continued the
same course of conduct till the second wife died, and so
forth. This is a perfectly true picture, not only of
medieval Christendom, but also of Victorian England.
“ Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die ”
sums up the situation. “ Reasoning why ” may fre
quently lead to eternal damnation.
Starting with these ideas of duty to God, religious
thinkers quite logically proceed to indicate certain
changes in modern morality as the direct result of
religious unbelief, such as, for example, a greater
tolerance of suicide, divorce, and limitation of the
family, as well as a tendency to try and improve human
society from a purely terrestrial point of view. I
cordially agree with them, and am sorry to see so many
Agnostics attempting to deny the fact. I cannot see
the use of attacking the Christian religion except with
a view to substituting a rational morality for Christian
or theistic morality.
Theologians can no longer
interfere with modern science, but they can and do still
block the progress of modern morality.
The theologians defend their position by suggesting
that even on utilitarian grounds modern morality is
dangerous. “ Once admit euthanasia,” they argue,
“and suicide will become epidemic.
Once admit
divorce, and society will become promiscuous.” Again
I cordially agree with them. All moral changes are, in
the last degree, perilous, unless men know clearly what
they want and define clearly the sanctions on which they
rely. It is, therefore, all the more important not to
�THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
continue pretending1 that Christian morality is inde
pendent of the Christian religion.
It would be idle to deny that Christian morality
connotes a great deal of morality that is common to all
human societies, and it is of course largely based on
the Stoic and humanitarian ideas which filled the
atmosphere in which Christianity was born. That is
why it is so necessary to determine exactly how much
of our morality to-day is traceable to distinctly Christian
influences. I have tried up to now to define the
Christian basis of morality ; but it is equally incumbent
on me to try and indicate what I consider to be the
basis of modern, as distinct from Christian, morality.
A friend of mine once remarked that society was only
respectable because we did not all want to commit the
seven deadly sins at one and the same moment. The
reason why we do not want to commit them is because
we are for the most part the slaves of moral habits
inculcated in early youth. Our moral habits and
faculties have been hammered into us by a long process
of evolution. I cannot do better than quote again a
passage from Father Hull’s dialogue, in which he is
putting certain arguments for the Agnostic view into
the mouth of one of the many speakers whom he
subsequently refutes :—
We have no evidence to show how ethical ideas first came
into the human mind—whether they formed part of it from
the very first origin of the race, or were gradually evolved as
time went on. It is notorious that the “ moral sense ’’ flourishes
best in a moral environment—that is to say, in a circle where
both public and private opinion stand on the side of morality,
and the supremacy of the moral code is accepted by all without
question, and taught to and enforced on the young from their
very birth. Among the savage races and the criminal classes
it hardly appears at all ;T and experiments seem to show that
children separated from all moral influence irom birth grow up
apparently quite destitute of the ethical sense, and show little
or no capacity for imbibing it later on. May it not therefoie
x This is clearly untrue of savage races.
works passim.
See Dr. Westermarck’»
�AND MODERN MORALITY
9
be that evolution is right in explaining that the whole cluster
of moral ideas is the outcome of a gradual process of develop
ment, which, starting from practical experience and the clash
of interests, gradually gave rise to social conventions and tribal
laws, thus creating a habit of thinking in a groove which in
course of time became a sort of a second nature, indistinguish
able from nature itself? My contention in this case would be
that the ideas of right and wrong and the categorical form of
the dictate of conscience are indeed facts of consciousness ;
not, however, pertaining to our nature as such, but artificially
induced by the habit of generations—by perpetually drumming
into the minds of the young, as absolute truths, the ideals
which are already stereotyped in the minds of the old. A
similar example occurs in the department of manners. The
European and the Hindu are both so imbued with their
ancestral customs of eating and the rest, that so long as they
remain apart each takes for granted that his is the only feasible
way of going on. And even when they come together this
conviction remains so immovably fixed in the mind that they
detest each other’s ways heartily, and simply cannot tolerate
them. May it not be the same with the ethical ideas of the
■ intuitional theory—that they are so ingrained by tradition in
the mind as to become inseparable from it, and are thus taken
as part of the intrinsic constitution of human nature ; whereas
in fact they are merely an adventitious accretion, the inherit
ance of countless ages !
To this Father Hull adds, on his own side :—
So long as this view seems possible, so long does an air of
uncertainty pervade the whole sphere of ethics ; and so long
does it remain possible to doubt the absolute validity of its
principles and its dictates.1
Father Hull, of course, lays down the Christian
principle that all morality, being a divine command, is
comprehensive in every detail, and does not vary from
age to age. He deduces a great deal from the operation
of “Conscience,” and seems to forget Montaigne’s
apophthegm “Conscience is custom.” This view is
clearly repugnant to the modern Agnostic. Perhaps
the best statement of what ought to be an Agnostic’s
point of view is set forth in Sir Leslie Stephen’s Science
of Ethics. Stephen reconciles the utilitarian and evolu1 Op. cit.,
p. 77.
�IO
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
tionary theories, and points out that the aim and object
of every society is to achieve a certain kind of social
hygiene which will probably produce a social, though
not necessarily an individual, happiness. He points
out, for example, how a man who is too morally
sensitive for his generation, is liable to suffer just
because of this very fact.1 Shortly, however, the
ordinary modern test of our morality is its social value.
This view has been violently contested by writers like
the late Mr. Lecky. Mr. Lecky satirically commented
on the social position of the prostitute, in spite of her
seemingly obvious claim to honour on the utilitarian
ground of her existence being essential to the chastity of
other women.1 I do not see how Lecky’s contention can
2
be denied so long as we are content to admit that the
supposed chastity of all other women justifies the social
evil of prostitution ; nor must we forget that both in
ancient Greece and modern Japan (as opposed to Chris
tian countries) the prostitute enjoyed, and still enjoys,
the social esteem and recognition accorded to the ordinary
self-supporting citizen. The whole tendency, however,
of modern England is to rely less on prostitution as an
instrument of social welfare, and to attach a less super
stitious value to female chastity. Advanced thinkers—
like Mr. Wells and Mr. Bernard Shaw—attach more
importance to the economic independence than to the
chastity of women ; and in many cases, of course, female
chastity needs the security of economic independence.
I have chosen this particular example because Mr.
Lecky made his most effective point by means of it.
But in every region of morality we are to-day measuring
acts exclusively by their social consequences. Had a
strike, for example, occurred in the Middle Ages, the
population would at once have asked each other whether
1 A perfect example of this would be Sir Samuel Romilly, the sensitive
humanitarian, whose contemporaries thwarted almost every effort h©
made to remedy the barbarous cruelty of his age.
2 In his Introduction to the History of European Morals.
�AND MODERN MORALITY
11
the strike pleased or displeased God, and would have
supported or opposed the strike according to what they
imagined to be God’s will. Had the strike coincided
with a pestilence breaking out among the strikers, this
would have meant that God did not intend the strike
to continue, and the State would have taken measures
accordingly. The modern man discusses such a pheno
menon simply from the social point of view. He asks
himself whether the strike is or is not likely to promote
the ultimate welfare of society. For that reason a great
deal of modern morality is made up of compromises
between conflicting claims. In short, social harmony is
preferred to the development of particular virtues as ends
in themselves. Many thinkers vastly prefer the doctrine
of civic order and efficiency to the workings of Christian
charity. Again we subordinate so-called moral principles
to social convenience. It is to-day frankly acknowledged
that society would be instantly dissolved by any serious
adoption in practice of the Sermon on the Mount. It,
therefore, seems odd that medieval morality was in some
respects more inconsistent with Christian morality than
our own. Crimes of lust and hatred were far more
common in the Middle Ages than they are to-day. The
uncertainty of marriage was a perfect scandal, in spite
of the unquestioned dogma that the marriage was indis
soluble except by death. Private warfare was rampant
throughout medieval Europe, though it was quite unsafe
to challenge the inspired word of the Prince of Peace.
It must, however, be remembered that moral trans
gressions could be easily remedied by indulgences and
death-bed repentance. The more mundane process of
terrestrial cause and effect was obscured from view by
the supernatural machinery.
The improved and more stable morality of our civilisa
tion is of itself an argument in favour of what I call
modern morality. If theological conceptions produce
no better results than they did in the Middle Ages,
when they were far more literally accepted than they are
�12
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
now, they clearly cannot command as much confidence
as the appeal to reason. Moreover, the historian would
probably admit that the humanitarian movement of
to-day is rooted in the new doctrines of society that
came to birth at the end of the eighteenth century, and
in these doctrines religion is undoubtedly postponed to
human welfare.
It may be specially remarked that
Christian morality, as such, exercises very little influence
on the modern world. Such influence as it has can only
be observed in certain departments of human life where
old traditions have survived and escaped analysis.
I may perhaps take as an example the law of marriage
■and divorce in England. Whatever the merits of dis
cussion may be on social grounds, it is perfectly
ludicrous that the matter should be discussed with refer
ence to the textual condition of an old manuscript, or
that any intellectual body of persons in our generation
should concern themselves with a controversy conducted
on those lines; yet in 1910 we had the astonishing
spectacle of bishops appearing before the Royal Com
mission on Divorce, and solemnly arguing this grave
and weighty matter as if the solution of the problem
depended upon the doctrine of verbal inspiration.
It may be argued that modern Churchmen are more in
line with other humanitarian movements of to-day, and
the social , reforms of the nineteenth century are often
attributed to religious influences such as the influence of
the Wesleyan and Evangelical movements. Men like
Lord Shaftesbury are frequently cited in this connection.
It is difficult to prove anything strictly in discussing so
large a question ; but the study of history disposes many
people to believe that religion follows morality rather
than morality religion, and that both are deeply influ
enced by economic changes. It seems odd that Chris
tianity should have continued for 1,800 years without
producing the enormous humanitarian and ethical
changes which occurred in the first fifty years of th©
nineteenth century, and that these changes should then
�AND MODERN MORALITY
E3
be ascribed to a “revival ” of Christianity.1 Undoubtedly,
• writers like Voltaire and Rousseau and Fielding had
produced an enormous effect, and the new wealth of the
industrial revolution became widely diffused. The rail
way, the novel, the newspaper, and scientific discoveries
enormously enlarged the sympathies of the average man.
Nor did the “ revival ” of Christianity continue. The
whole forward movement here referred to became asso
ciated with the most formidable spread of sceptical ideas
known to European history. A curious sidelight on the
connection of religion with moral progress is thrown by
Mr. Joseph Clayton’s book on the Bishops as Legislators.
Why should the bishops have so sturdily and consis
tently declined to abolish a barbarously varied system of
capital punishment for small thefts if the Church was
really achieving the moral improvement of England
during this period, or if the bishops themselves had an
atom of real confidence in the moral influences of the
religion which they professed ?
The fact remains that men are not moral without some
sort of reason for being so, or without growing up in
moral habits ; but the time is long past when the young
could safely associate moral truths with the truths of
orthodox Christianity. Yet the advocates of secular
education for the most part tend to forget the need for
f As a specimen of Christian morality in eighteenth-century England
the following extract from Lecky’s History of England in the Eighteenth
Century deserves quotation (Vol. III., p. 537, Library Edition). It relates
to a case mentioned in Parliament in 1777 of a sailor taken by the press
gang from a wife not yet nineteen years of age, with two infant children.
“The breadwinner being gone, his goods were seized for an old debt,
and his wife was driven into the streets to beg. At last, in despair, she
stole a piece of coarse linen from a linen-draper’s shop. Her defence,
which was fully corroborated, was : ‘ She had lived in credit and wanted
for nothing till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her ; but
since then she had no bed to lie on and nothing to give her children to
eat, and they were almost naked. She might have done something
wrong, for she hardly knew what she did.’ The lawyers declared that,
shoplifting being a common offence, she must be executed ; and she was
driven to Tyburn with a child still suckling at her breast.” What were the
Christians doing at this date? Little, it is to be feared, but enjoying
rather gross pleasures and discussing how to make the best of both
worlds.
�14
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
some kind of moral training, and that if we are to give
the young moral training we must clearly give them
cogent reasons for moral conduct. It is worse than
useless to attach importance to religious sanctions of
morality unless we are prepared to justify the truth of
those sanctions up to the hilt. Are we to tell our
children that they must not lie or steal because God will
send them to Hell if they do, or because lying and
stealing are injurious to society and incidentally to
themselves? That is the question which modern society
shirks answering.
Modern society tries to meet the difficulty by a com
promise, which consists in hiring teachers who frequently
do not believe in the Christian religion to pretend that
they do. Indirectly, of course, these teachers employ
other inducements to morality besides the sanctions of
the Christian religion ; but the whole system is so
chaotic that it frequently ends in producing moral
chaos.
For these reasons it seems to me that the modern
Agnostic must not be content with the mere avowal of
disbelief in the Christian religion. If he does not
believe in the Christian religion, he cannot possibly
believe in the Christian sanctions of morality. If he
does not believe in the Christian sanctions, he must
find other sanctions, as I have indicated. If these
sanctions hold good for him, he must admit that they
will hold good for other people who have lost faith in
the Christian religion, and he must be prepared to make
an open profession of these principles, in spite of the
fact that the moral reformer encounters worse prejudice
than the religious reformer.
Rightly or wrongly, Agnostics believe that the
Christian religion is declining, and will progressively
continue to decline. If this be true, it means that an
increasingly larger number of persons will reject the
sanctions of Christian morality, and must either find
other sanctions for themselves or else be taught on an
�AND MODERN MORALITY
i5
entirely new system in early youth. This seems to me
far the most important concern of the modern Agnostic,
more especially because it has been neglected by the
old-fashioned type of Agnostic who wished to vindicate
himself and his friends from the suggestions of immorality
that were at one time made by the less scrupulous kind
of Christian. We cannot, and must not, therefore, shirk
the obvious conclusion that the old morality based on
Christian sanctions must be largely modified in accord
ance with social sanctions. Society must not, for
example, enforce celibacy on a particular class of men
because they are devoted to the service of God, though
society may well be justified in enforcing celibacy or
sterilised marriage on those who are unfit to become
parents. The real danger to-day is our inclination to
put the wine of this new social morality into the old
bottles of the Christian religion.
It may be asked how anything so fluctuating as the
social sanction can serve as a standard. When, for
instance, Antigone buried her brother in defiance of the
State, was she obeying or disobeying a social sanction ?
Assuming that she disobeyed, are we to deny her the
right of appeal to the social sanction of a future genera
tion ? Are not all heretics constantly trying to modify
or even destroy the social sanctions of their own age?
Indeed, is any social sanction of any ethical value
unless it is the spontaneous agreement of individuals,
and not a compulsory code enforced by a bureaucratic
or social tyranny? No one can be more alive to these
difficulties than a strong Individualist like myself; but
I maintain that in any society most people are fairly
well agreed on a number of questions concerning the
moral hygiene of that society, such as the reprobation
of murder or theft. Society can at least agree that the
starting-point of all discussion must be the welfare of
society, and not the textual criticism of antiquated folk
lore.
I should compare the social sanction with a debenture
�16
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
—that is to say, a floating charge on the present and
future assets of a company.
The property affected
by it varies from year to year ; in ten years it may be
entirely different from what it was. The terms of the
debenture bond or stock may be changed from time to
time ; but no variation of the terms of the loan or of the
assets makes the debenture less real or legally enforce
able. The debenture perishes only on redemption ; and
the social sanction will perish only with the abolition of
the criminal law. When every individual ungrudgingly
and spontaneously fulfils his social obligations, the
social sanction will become superfluous ; at present it
represents the claim of society to enforce such actions
on the individual as are determined for the moment to
be his duties to society.
In this connection it may be useful to illustrate my
meaning by applying the principles I have formulated
to modern Socialism. I should say at once that I am
no Socialist. Most of the Socialist writers I have read
seem to me to ignore either economic truths or the
truths of human psychology. They seem to me to
assume a state of society in which no one has an axe to
grind, and to draw too large cheques on public spirit
and altruism ; but their power and influence are largely
due to the omission of those who are not Socialists to
preach and to practise a social code of morals. Even
bishops hesitate nowadays to console a starving man by
telling him that he will be better off in the next world
than the rich man. They do not usually exhort him to
take no thought for the morrow, and to live like the
lilies of the field.1 Society must be prepared to justify
itself on a rational basis ; to convince the labourer that
he is receiving his proper hire, and to give him a
reasonable opportunity of earning what is due to him.
Society must also tackle the whole sex problem on rational
1 Except, perhaps, in regard to the irresponsible propagation of large
families.
�AND MODERN MORALITY
i7
lines. Marriage must be rational ; men must share
equitably with women the responsibilities for children
born out of wedlock; female labour must not be sweated;
and the whole question of venereal disease must be
scientifically handled.
The word “sin” must be
eliminated from the discussion of social or medical
remedies, for it has invariably been used as an excuse
for shirking social or medical remedies—as, for example,
when we are told that a certain venereal disease is the
“ finger of God.”1
The Socialists are bound to win all along the line
unless their opponents are prepared to face the question
of sanctions fairly and squarely, because in the meantime
Socialists are allowed by others to arrogate to them
selves the profession of public service and of working
exclusively for the public good. Christianity, however
one may twist its doctrines, is concerned with the end of
an old world. The business of the Agnostic is to share
in the beginnings of a new world.
1 An edifying remark frequently made by a deceased English officer
who was once Governor of Gibraltar.
c
�II.
THE EXPERIMENT OF MODERN
TOLERATION
The word “ toleration ” has been used so constantly in
a theological sense, while theology has become so much
less prominent in our thoughts than it used to be, that
the word sounds almost obsolete, except perhaps in con
nection with the position of religious orders in countries
like France and Portugal. About ten years ago I wrote
a book to demonstrate that nearly all that we understand
by the name of Toleration was necessarily associated in
its religious sense with an undercurrent of scepticism,
either implicit or explicit, in regard to ultimate pro
blems, and that no really free discussion is allowed by
any human society concerning matters which they think
all-important. On the other hand, I was forced to
admit that our generation had more cosmopolitan
interests, more intellectual curiosity, and far more
novels and newspapers to read, all of which promoted
and necessitated a larger freedom of discussion.
During the last ten years I have constantly been
wondering how much toleration exists in regard to free
discussion of subjects outside religion, and especially of
what John Stuart Mill called “experiments in life.” On
the whole, I think that any contemporary observer is
bound to admit that the issues raised by the contro
versies of to-day are amazingly wide and deep as com
pared with those of the nineteenth century.
The two main obstacles to free discussion have at all
times been the conviction (i) that the principle “salus
populi, sziprema lex''1 must express the permanent
attitude of the State to public criticism ; and (2) that
18
�THE EXPERIMENT OF MODERN TOLERA TION 19
those fundamental principles of morality on which
human society is deemed to repose must never be
subjected to the test of reason or argument. Thus, for
instance, there could be no free discussion of religious
problems so long as (¿z) it was feared that such dis
cussion might bring down the wrath of the gods on the
State or community which permitted the discussion ; or
(¿) the identification, or close association, of morality
with religion compelled men to believe that reli
gious creeds and moral principles must stand or fall
together.
On either assumption the free discussion of religious
problems necessarily provokes a breach of the peace
and becomes a matter of police supervision, as we see
in modern Spain, where Rationalism becomes confused
with anarchy. The State may sometimes bridge over
difficulties by tolerating a sort of passive heresy in
religion or morality, as, for example, the Romans did
in the case of local or particular cults, or as our Indian
Penal Code of to-day tolerates obscene works of art
connected with purely religious representations ; but
such partial toleration as this is not extended to any
kind of missionary effort or proselytism.
Yet to-day we behold the astonishing spectacle of
entirely free discussion in regard to the most crucial
problems of State and society. I need only refer to
disarmament, socialism, anarchism, the endowment of
motherhood, and the treatment of crime as disease.
Nor is all this discussion without practical results.
Arbitration is now a real force in European politics, the
Socialists have found their ideas embodied in a so-called
Liberal Budget, discontented artisans and suffragettes
increasingly disregard the King’s Peace, unmarried
mothers are less harshly treated by society, and prisons
are seemingly more attractive than workhouses. All
these changes evoke deep disgust in a large number of
citizens ; but they take place in a piecemeal and tranquil
fashion which never gives an opportunity for real
�2o
THE EXPERIMENT OF MODERN TOLERATION
fighting-. Even modern revolutions come to pass with
out appreciable bloodshed.
So far from this result being anticipated, it may be
remembered that Mill dreaded the uniformity and
mediocrity of democracies as an engine of obscurantism.
But the democratic uniformity of to-day is principally
manifested in the cosmopolitan habits of modern Europe,
which make less for repression of the individual than
for international peace. We seem to be achieving a
sort of Chinese “harmony,” a spirit of pacific com
promise, in all departments of life. The only coercive
force appears in that bureaucratic tyranny which so
often distinguishes the more pacific types of society.
All these characteristics point either to an almost
universal confidence in the common sense of mankind,
and in the capacity of human nature to revolt effectively,
in the last resort, against intolerable abuses, or to a
prevalent conviction that nothing is much worth fighting
about. Some will be heard saying : “Magna est Veritas
et prcevalebit”; others that no principle on earth is
worth going to the stake for. The first attitude of mind
seems curiously associated with the second. Belief in
the ultimate victory of truth seems easily to breed indif
ference as regards the immediate prospects of truth.
All persecution, however, necessarily implies an attitude
of distrust towards those who would allow the collective
intelligence of mankind free play. The persecutor will
not accept the consolations that Newman found in
repeating the words “Securus judicat orbis terrarum.”
False theology must be suppressed as speedily as false
economics ; for men will either not distinguish the true
from the false, or else will resent the toil and incon
venience of always making the effort to do so. I choose
the analogy of economics because false economics are
likely to alarm the modern world more than false
theology, and we live in an atmosphere of Socialist and
anti-Socialist leagues, and of Free Trade and Tariff
Reform leagues. Indeed, all disputation about burning
�THE EXPERIMENT OF MODERN TOLERATION
21
questions, such as property, seems bound to entail a dis
turbance of civil order, even if men really care little about
distinctions between true and false theories, and rely on
the financial common sense of the community. Thus,
however strongly I may be convinced that socialistic
experimentswill never destroy the proprietary instincts of
humanity, yet I may violently resent the inconvenience
of temporarily losing my property while such experi
ments are going on. Nevertheless, in modern society
such questions rarely tend to reach a violent, or even
decisive, issue. Some sort of compromise is nearly
always practicable. Ina given year I may have to pay
to the State one-eighth of my income, instead of onetenth ; but, in the first place, there is always the hope
that the electorate may stand this no longer, and, in the
second place, it is clearly more enjoyable to spend seven
eighths of my income in freedom than to be imprisoned
for resisting even a tyrannical and unjust surveyor of
taxes. The instinct of the highly civilised man leads
him to avoid the employment of force even where he would
not be opposing the State. If an armed burglar comes
to my house, and I am insured against burglary, it may
save a great deal of trouble, not to mention my life, if I
request him merely not to abstract articles of sentimental
value, but otherwise to make a free choice. An increas
ing disrespect for the ideal of chastity may lead to men’s
marital or paternal rights over their wives and daughters
being less strictly regarded; but it is quite old-fashioned
for an injured father or husband to aggravatethe scandal
by assaulting the offender.
The spirit of compromise seems, in fact, to increase
with all civilisation, and it is especially characteristic of
the oldest civilisation we know—namely, the Chinese.
In the Independent Review for April, 1904, an acute
observer recorded the tendency in Chinese civilisation
to encourage only an “ irreducible minimum " of the
virtues.1 “ Man,” he wrote, in describing the Chinese
1 Mr. A. M. Latter.
�22
THE EXPERIMENT OF MODERN TOLERA TION
philosophy of life, “ is a difficult animal ; and human
intelligence must devise the best means of inducing hi®
to live in peace with his neighbours, to make the earth
yield to him its utmost, and to develop the most useful
part of him—-his intelligence. To this end certain moral
ideas are doubtless useful ; but the foundation of all such
ideals is harmony in society, and, in so far as any other
ideal appears to conflict with this, it must be checked.
Inasmuch as harmony is the end of all civilised beings,
with regard to other ideals the best thing to do in practice
is to use the irreducible minimum of them ; and it is in
the discovery of the irreducible minimum that the Mon
golian intellect has developed most completely its civilisa
tion.” As a concrete instance, the writer, who is and
was a practising barrister, cites “ the attainment of justice,
without either the discovery of truth or the employment
of dishonesty. The harmony of the people forbids the
decree of a gross injustice ; the harmony of the magis
trate and the yamen forbids the abstention from bribes ;
the actual circumstances of the case are impossible to
discover; while the fact that the litigants have, by mere
litigation, disturbed the general harmony” leads to a
decision whereby “ both sides are punished slightly, and
the side that recommends itself to the tribunal is also
rewarded.” This attitude is forcibly contrasted with the
old European ideal of seeking the highest development
of particular virtues as ends in themselves without
making social and political harmony the paramount
aim. Side by side with all this one remarks the pacific
character of Chinese civilisation, based not so much on
humanitarian feeling as on motives of general con
venience.
I have quoted all these observations on China because
they seem curiously applicable to the tendencies I have
before noted in modern Europe.
Such progressive
toleration as we see to-day seems to indicate a growing
subjection of the emotions to reason. Mr. Shaw has
been preaching this doctrine for years in regard to the
�THE EXPERIMENT OF MODERN TOLERA TION
23
military virtue of courage. Mr. Wells and other
Socialists prefer the doctrine of civil order and efficiency
to the spirit of Christian charity. Modern men and
women set a higher value in society, politics, and
business on tact than on veracity. Advanced thinkers
attach more importance to the economic independence
than to the chastity of women. We all demand an irre
ducible minimum of armaments. The criminal is no
longer to be a pariah ; he is to be adapted to the uses of
a society which he must be taught to love. We deplore
nothing so much as physical pain or violence. Fight
ing, whether on the hustings or the battlefield, is begin
ning to appear nothing but a futile waste of time.
In such a climate of opinion toleration is bound to
thrive; but this very climate of opinion impliesan almost
revolutionary transformation of European ideals and a
radical overthrow of our older traditions. Its existence
can scarcely be denied. It is what the journalist really
means when he writes about “ materialism ” or “lack of
public spirit.” This spirit of “peace at any price” or
“anything for a quiet life ” may or may not have set in
permanently. But the late Mr. Charles Pearson, who
called it “the decay of character,” thought that it had
set in permanently, and resigned himself to the prospect
with stoical calm. Indeed, a future generation may con
ceivably take the view that we have initiated a social
harmony which is the only real and substantial fruit of
human reason and progress.
Whatever the ultimate result may be, the fact remains
that our modern toleration is conditioned by, and points
to, either an absence of really strong convictions in the
mass of men, or a collective conviction that the peace of
invariable compromise must in all circumstances and at
all costs be maintained. This has visibly come to pass
in the sphere of theological controversy, and it is also
coming to pass in the sphere of all other controversy.
The duellist can only resort to the law courts, the fanatic
to the pulpit, the moralist to the newspapers, and the
�24
THE EXPERIMENT OF MODERN TOLERATION
politician to the hustings. We have abolished the pistol,
the rack, the pillory, and almost the gallows. We are
trying with some success to abolish war. It will be
interesting to see if we have set up a stable or unstable
equilibrium. The achievement of free debate concerning
all subjects, reposing on a foundation of internal and
external peace, has been the »goal of human effort for
centuries, and especially of liberal thinkers in the nine
teenth century. But the success of the achievement
would possibly be damping to men like John Bright or
John Stuart Mill, whose enthusiasms were not precisely
those of the quietist.
For the most salient object of human endeavour is a
“quiet life.” We seek for the community the same sort
of existence, free from accidents and disturbance, that
Metchnikoff prescribes for the individual man with aspira
tions to longevity. Our ideals have lost a certain belli
gerency, except in so far as they imply class-warfare; they
have become more terrestrial than celestial. The late
Mr. Charles Pearson so admirably sketched out the future
on these lines nearly twenty years ago that I need not
elaborate the theme. The accuracy of the prophecy
depends very much on the course of international politics.
The most civilised societies are constantly broken up by
more primitive foes, and the future historian may find
some analogy to the phagocytes of the human body in the
bureaucrats of the community. The bureaucrats begin
to wear out the community just as the phagocytes begin
to wear out the body, as each becomes old. Complete
freedom of discussion may be only a symptom of national
decline and individual degeneracy, due to an exaggerated
development of intelligence at the expense of more
primitive qualities. The next fifty years will at least be
of keen interest to all those who feel that our society is
passing through a phase of experiment.
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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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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Modern morality and modern toleration
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Haynes, E.S.P. (Edmund Sidney Pollock) [1877-1949]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. The Christian religion and modern morality (p.5-17)--The experiment of modern toleration (p.18-24). Publisher's list (Works by Joseph MacCabe and J.M. Robertson) inside front and back covers respectively. R.P.A. Sixpenny reprints listed on back cover. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Watts & Co.
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1912
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N301
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Ethics
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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 (Modern morality and modern toleration), 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
Morality
NSS
Toleration