In this lecture I propose to consider the question whether morality is based on religion or religion on morality. It is a question which may be approached from the point of view either of philosophy or of history. Quite recently it has been treated from the former point of view by Professor Höffding inThe Philosophy of Religion(translated into English, 1906); and from the point of view of the history of morality by Mr. Hobhouse in hisMorals in Evolution(1906). It may, of course, also be quite properly approached from the point of view of the history of religion; and from whatever standpoint it is treated, the question is one of importance for the missionary, both because of its intrinsic interest for the philosophy of religion, and because its discussion is apt to proceed on a mistaken view of facts in the history of religion. About those facts and their meaning, the missionary, who is to be properly equipped for his work, should be in no doubt: a right view and a proper estimate of the facts are essential both forhis practical work and for the theoretical justification of his position.
One answer to the question before us is that morality is the basal fact—the bottom fact: if we regard the question historically, we shall find that morality came first and religion afterwards; and, even if that were not so, we should find that as a matter of logic and philosophy religion presupposes morality—religion may, for a time, be the lever that moves the world, but it would be powerless if it had not a fulcrum, and that fulcrum is morality. So long and so far as religion operates beneficially on the world, it does so simply because it supports and reënforces morality. But the time is not far distant, and may even now be come, when morality no longer requires any support from religion—and then religion becomes useless, nay! an encumbrance which must either fall off or be lopped off. If, therefore, morality can stand by itself, and all along has not merely stood by itself, but has really upheld religion, in what is morality rooted? The answer is that morality has its roots, not in the command that thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul, but in human solidarity, in humanity regarded as a spiritual whole. Tothis conclusion, it is said, the history of recent philosophy has steadily been moving. If the movement had taken place in only one school of philosophic thought, it might have been a movement running into a side-track. But it is the direction taken by schools so different in their presuppositions and their methods as that of Hegel and that of Comte; and it is the undesigned coincidence of their tendency, which at first could never have been surmised, that carries with it a conviction of its correctness. Human solidarity, humanity regarded as a spiritual whole, may be called, as Hegel calls it, self-conscious spirit; or you may call it, as Comte calls it, the Mind of Humanity—it is but the collective wisdom "of a common humanity with a common aim"; and, that being so, morality is rooted, not in the will and the love of a beneficent and omnipotent Providence, but in the self-realising spirit in man setting up its "common aim" at morality. The very conception of a beneficent and omnipotent God—having now done its work as an aid to morality—must now be put aside, because it stands in the way of our recognising what is the real spiritual whole, besides which there is none other spirit, viz. the self-realising spirit in man. That spirit is only realising; it is not yetrealised. It is in process of realisation; and the conception of it, as in process of realisation, enables it to be brought into harmony, or rather reveals its inner harmony, with the notion of evolution. There is nothing outside evolution, no being to whom evolution is presented as a spectacle or by whom, as a process, it is directed. "Being itself," as Höffding says (Problems of Philosophy, p. 136), "is to be conceived as in process of becoming, of evolution." The spirit in man, as we have just said, is the real spiritual whole, and it is self-realising; it is evolving and progressing both morally and rationally. In Höffding's words "Being itself becomes more rational than before" (ib., p. 137). "Being itself is not ready-made but still incomplete, and rather to be conceived as a continual becoming, like the individual personality and like knowledge" (ib., p. 120). We may say, then, that being is becoming rationalised and moralised as and because the spirit in man realises itself. For a time the process of moralisation and self-realisation was worked by and through the conception of a beneficent and omnipotent god. That conception was, it would seem, a hypothesis, valuable as long it was a working hypothesis, but to be cast aside now that humanitarianism is foundmore adequate to the facts and more in harmony with the consistent application of the theory of evolution. We have, then, to consider whether it is adequate to the facts, whether, when we regard the facts of the history of religion, we do find that morality comes first and religion later.
"What," Mr. Hobhouse enquires in hisMorals in Evolution(II, 74), "What is the ethical character of early religion?" and his reply is that "in the first stage we find that spirits, as such, are not concerned with morality." That was also the answer which had previously been given by Professor Höffding, who says in hisPhilosophy of Religion: "in the lowest forms of it ... religion cannot be said to have any ethical significance" (p. 323). Originally, the gods were "purely natural forces which could be defied or evaded," though eventually they "became ethical powers whom men neither could nor wished to defy" (p. 324). This first stage of early religion seems on the terms of the hypothesis to be supposed to be found in the period of animism and fetichism; and "the primitive conception of spirit" is, Mr. Hobhouse says (II, 16), of something "feeling and thinking like a rather stupid man, and open like him to supplication, exhortation, or intimidation." Ifthat is so, then Professor Höffding may be justified in saying that in the lowest forms of religion "the gods appear as powers on which man is dependent, but not as patterns of conduct or administrators of an ethical world order" (p. 324). Now, in the period termed animistic because inanimate things are supposed to be animated and actuated by spirits, it may be that many or most of such spirits are supposed to feel and think like a rather stupid man, and therefore to be capable of being cajoled, deluded, intimidated, and castigated by the human being who desires to make use of them. But it is not all such spirits that are worshipped then. Indeed, it is impossible, Mr. Hobhouse says (II, 15), that any such spirit could be "an object of worship in our sense of the term." Worship implies the superiority of the object worshipped to the person worshipping. But, though not an object of worship in our sense of the term, the spirit that could be deluded, intimidated, and castigated was, according to Mr. Hobhouse, "the object of a religious cult" on the part of the man who believed that he could and did intimidate and castigate the spirit. Probably, however, most students of the science of religion would agree that a cult which included orallowed intimidation and castigation of the object of the cult was as little entitled to be termed religious as it is to be called worship. In the period of animism, then, either there was no religious cult, no worship in our sense of the term; or, if there was religion, then the spirit worshipped was worshipped as a being higher than man. Whether man has at any time been without religion is a question on which there is here no need to enter. The allegation we are now considering is that whenever religion does appear, then in its first and earliest stage it is not concerned with morality; and the ground for that allegation is that the spirits of the animistic period have nothing to do with morality or conduct. Now, it may be that these spirits which animate inanimate things are not concerned with morality; but then neither are they worshipped, nor is the relation between them and man religious. Religion implies a god; and a spirit to be a god must have worshippers, a community of worshippers—whether that community be a nation, a tribe, or a family. Further, it is as the protector of the interests of that community—however small—that the god is worshipped by the community. The indispensable condition of religion is the existence of a community;and from the beginning man must have lived in some sort of community,—whether a family or a horde,—for the period of helpless infancy is so long in the case of human beings that without some sort of permanent community the race could not be perpetuated. The indispensable condition of religion, therefore, has always existed from the time when man was man. Further, whatever the form of community in which man originally dwelt, it was only in the community and by means of the community that the individual could exist—that is to say, if the interest of any one individual conflicted or was supposed to conflict with the interests of the community, then the interests of the community must prevail, if the community was to exist. Here, then, from the beginning we have the second condition indispensable for the existence of religion, viz. the possibility that the conduct of some member of the community might not be the conduct required by the interests or supposed interests of the community, and prescribed by the custom of the community. In the case of such divergence of interests and conduct, the being worshipped by the community was necessarily, as being the god of the community, and receiving the worship of the community, on the sideof the community and against the member who violated the custom of the community. But, at this period in the history of humanity, the morality of the community was the custom of the community; and the god of the community from the first necessarily upheld the custom, that is, the morality of the community. Spirits "as such," that is to say, spirits which animated inanimate things but which were not the protectors of any human community, were, for the very reason that they were not the gods of any community, "not concerned with morality." Spirits, however, which were the protectors of a community necessarily upheld the customs and therefore the morality of the community; they were not "without ethical significance." It was an essential part of the very conception of such spirits—of spirits standing in this relation to the community—that they were "ethical powers." Höffding's dictum that "the gods appear as powers on which man is dependent, but not as patterns of conduct or administrators of an ethical world order" (p. 323), overlooks the fact that in the earliest times not only are gods powers on which man is dependent, but powers which enforce the conduct required by the custom of the community and sanction the ethical order asfar as it has then been revealed. The fact that "the worship of the family, of the clan, or of the nation is shared in by all," not merely "helps to nourish a feeling of solidarity which may acquire ethical significance," as Höffding says (p. 325), it creates a solidarity which otherwise would not exist. If there were no worship shared in by all, there would be no religious solidarity; and, judging from the very general, if not universal, occurrence of religion in the lowest races as well as the highest, we may conjecture that without religious solidarity a tribe found it hard or impossible to survive in the struggle for existence. That religious solidarity however is not, as Höffding suggests, something which may eventually "acquire ethical significance"; it is in its essence and from the beginning the worship of a god who punishes the community for the ethical transgression of its members, because they are not merely violations of the custom of the community, but offences against him. When Höffding says (p. 328) "religious faith ... assumes an independent human ethic, which has, as a matter of fact, developed historically under the practical influence of the ethical feeling of man," he seems to overlook the fact that as a matter of history humanethics have always been based—rightly or wrongly—on religious faith, that moral transgressions have always been regarded as not merely wrongs done to a man's neighbour, but also as offences against the god or gods of the community, that the person suffering from foul wrong for which he can get no human redress has always appealed from man to God, and that the remorse of the wrong-doer who has evaded human punishment has always taken shape in the fear of what God may yet do.
Those who desire to prove that at the present day morality can exist apart from religion, and that in the future it will do so, finding its basis in humanitarianism and not in religion, are moved to show that as a matter of historic fact religion and morality have been things apart. We have examined the assertion that religion in its lowest forms is not concerned with morality; and we have attempted to show that the god of a community, or the spirit worshipped by a community, is necessarily a being conceived as concerned with the interests of the community and as hostile to those who violate the customs—which is to transgress the morality—of the community. But even if this be admitted, it may still be said that it does not in the least disprove the assertion thatmorality existed before religion did. The theory we are examining freely admits that religion is supposed, in certain stages of the history of humanity, to reënforce morality and to be necessary in the interest of morals, though eventually it is found that morality needs no such support; and not only needs now no such support but never did need it; and the fact that it did not need it is shown by demonstrating the existence of morality before religion existed. If, then, it be admitted that religion from the moment it first appeared reënforced morality, and did not pass through a non-moral period first, still morality may have existed before religion was evolved, and must have so existed if morality and religion are things essentially apart. What evidence then is there on the point? We find Mr. Hobhouse saying (I, 80) that "at almost, if not quite, the lowest stages" of human development there are "certain actions which are resented as involving the community as a whole in misfortune and danger. These include, besides actual treason, conduct which brings upon the people the wrath of God, or of certain spirits, or which violates some mighty and mysterious taboo. The actions most frequently regarded in this light are certain breaches of the marriage law and witchcraft."These offences, we are told (ib., 82), endanger the community itself, and the punishment is "prompted by the sense of a danger to the whole community." Here, then, from the beginning we find that offences against the common good are punished, not simply as such, but as misconduct bringing on the community, and not merely on the offender, the wrath of gods or spirits. In other words—Mr. Hobhouse's words, p. 119—"in the evolution of public justice, we find that at the outset the community interferes mainly on what we may call supernatural grounds only with actions which are regarded as endangering its own existence." We may then fairly say that if the community inflicts punishments mainly on supernatural grounds from the time when the evolution of public justice first begins, then morality from its very beginning was reënforced—indeed prompted—by religion. The morality was indeed only the custom of the community; but violation of the custom was from the beginning regarded as a religious offence and was punished on supernatural grounds.
The view that morality and religion are essentially distinct, that morality not only can stand alone, without support from religion, but has in reality always stood without such support—however muchthe fact has been obscured by religious prepossessions—this view receives striking confirmation from the current and generally accepted theory of the origin and nature of justice. That theory traces the origin of justice back to the feeling of resentment experienced by the individual against the particular cause of his pain (Westermarck,Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, I, 22). Resentment leads to retaliation and takes the form of revenge. Vengeance, at first executed by the person injured (or by his kin, if he be killed), comes eventually, if slowly, to be taken out of the hands of the person injured or his avengers, and to be exercised by the State in the interests of the community and in furtherance, not of revenge, but of justice and the good of society. Thus not only the origin of justice, but the whole course of its growth and development, is entirely independent of religion and religious considerations. Throughout, the individual and society are the only parties involved; the gods do not appear—or, if they do appear, they are intrusive and superfluous. If this be the true view of the history and nature of justice, it may—and probably must—be the truth about the whole of morality and not only about justice. We have butto follow Dr. Westermarck (ib., p. 21) in grouping the moral emotions under the two heads of emotions of approval and emotions of disapproval, we have but to note with him that both groups belong to the class of retributive emotions, and we see that the origin and history of justice are typical of the origin and history of morals: morality in general, just as much as justice in particular, both originates independently of religion and developes—where moral progress is made—independently of religion.
Let us now proceed to examine this view of the relation of religion and morality and to consider whether their absolute independence of each other is historic fact. It traces back justice to the feeling of resentment experienced by the individual; but if the individual ever existed by himself and apart from society, there could neither then be justice nor anything analogous to justice, for justice implies, not merely a plurality of individuals, but a society; it is a social virtue. The individual existing by himself and apart from society is not a historic fact but an impossible abstraction—a conception essentially false because it expresses something which neither exists nor has existed nor could possiblyexist. The origin of justice—or of any virtue—cannot be found in the impossible and self-contradictory conception of the individual existing apart from society; it cannot be found in a mere plurality of such individuals: it can only be found in a society—whether that society have the organisation of a family, a tribe, or a nation. Justice in particular and morality in general, like religion, imply the existence of a society; neither is a merely individual affair. Justice is, as Mr. Hobhouse states, "public action taken for the sake of public safety" (I, 83): it is, from the outset of its history, public action; and back of that we cannot go, for the individual did not, as a matter of history, exist before society, and could not so have existed.
In the next place, justice is not the resentment of any individual, it is the sentiment of the community expressing itself in public action, taken not for the sake of any individual, but for the sake of public safety. Its object from the beginning is not the gratification of individual resentment, but the safety and welfare of the community which takes common action. Proof of this, if proof were needed, would be found in the fact that the existence of the individual, as such, is not recognised. Not only doesthe community which has suffered in the wrong done to any of its members take action as a community; it proceeds, not against the individual who has inflicted the wrong, but against the community to which he belongs. "The wrong done," is, as Mr. Hobhouse says (I, 91), "the act of the family or clan and may be avenged on any member of that family or clan." There is collective responsibility for the wrong done, just as there is collective responsibility for righting it.
If, now, we enquire, What are the earliest offences against which public action is taken? and why? we may remember that Mr. Hobhouse has stated them to be witchcraft and breaches of the marriage law; and that the punishment of those offences corresponds, as he has said, "roughly to our own administration of justice" (I, 81). Now, in the case of breaches of the marriage laws—mating with a cousin on the mother's side instead of with a cousin on the father's side, marrying into a forbidden class—it is obvious that there is no individual who has suffered injury and that there is no individual to experience resentment. It is the community that suffers or is expected to suffer; and it expects to suffer, because it, in the person of one of itsmembers, has offended. Collectively it is responsible for the misdeeds of its members. Whom, then, has it offended? To whom is it responsible? Who will visit it with punishment, unless it makes haste to set itself right? The answer given by a certain tribe of the Sea Dyaks makes the matter clear: they, Mr. St. John tells us in hisLife in the Forests of the Far East(I, 63, quoted by Westermarck, I, 49), "are of opinion that an unmarried girl proving with child must be offensive to the superior powers, who, instead of always chastising the individual, punish the tribe by misfortunes happening to its members. They therefore on the discovery of the pregnancy fine the lovers, and sacrifice a pig to propitiate offended heaven, and to avert that sickness or those misfortunes that might otherwise follow." That is, of course, only one instance. But we may safely say that the marriage law is generally ascribed to the ordinance of the gods, even in the lowest tribes, and that breaches of it are offences against heaven. It is unnecessary to prove, it need only be mentioned, that witchcraft is conspicuously offensive to the religious sentiment, and is punished as an offence against the god or gods. When, then, we consider the origin and nature of justice, not froman abstract andà prioripoint of view, but in the light of historic fact, so far from finding that it originates and operates in complete independence of religion, we discover that from the beginning the offences with which the justice of the primitive community deals are offences, not against the community, but against heaven. "In the evolution of public justice," as Mr. Hobhouse says, "at the outset the community interferes mainly on what we may call supernatural grounds." From the beginning misdeeds are punished, not merely as wrongs done to society, but as wrong done to the gods and as wrong-doing for which the community collectively is responsible to the gods. Justice from the beginning is not individual resentment, but "public action taken for the public safety." It is not, as Mr. Hobhouse calls it, "revenge guided and limited by custom." It is the customary action of the community taken to avert divine vengeance. The action taken assumes in extreme cases the form of the death penalty; but its usual form of action is that of taboo.
If the origin of justice is to be sought in something that is not justice, if justice in particular and morality in general are to be treated as having been evolved out of something which was in a way differentfrom them and yet in a way must have contained them, inasmuch as they came forth from it, we shall do well to look for that something, not in the unhistorical, unreal abstraction of an imaginary individual, apart from society, but in society itself when it is as yet not clearly conscious of the justice and morality at work within it. Such a stage in the development of society is, I think, to be discerned.
We have seen that, "at almost, if not quite, the lowest stages" of human development, there is something which, according to Mr. Hobhouse, corresponds "roughly to our own administration of justice" (I, 81). But this rough justice implies conscious, deliberate action on the part of the community. It implies that the community as such makes some sort of enquiry into what can be the cause of the misfortunes which are befalling it; and that, having found out the person responsible, it deliberately takes the steps it deems necessary for putting itself right with the supernatural power that has sent the sickness or famine. Now, such conscious, purposive, deliberate action may and probably does take place at almost the lowest stage of development of society; but not, we may surmise, at quite the lowest. What eventually is doneconsciously and deliberately is probably done in the first place much more summarily and automatically. And—in quite the lowest stage of social development—it is by means of the action of taboo that summary and automatic punishment for breaches of the custom of the community is inflicted. Its action is automatic and immediate: merely to come in contact with the forbidden thing is to become tabooed yourself; and so great is the horror and dread of such contact, even if made unwittingly, that it is capable of causing, when discovered, death. Like the justice, however, of which it is the forerunner, it does not result always in death, nor does it produce that effect in most cases. But what it does do is to make the offender himself taboo and as infectious as the thing that rendered him taboo. Here, too, the action of taboo, in excommunicating the offender, anticipates, or rather foreshadows, the action of justice when it excludes the guilty person from the community and makes of him an outlaw. Again, in the rough justice found at almost, though not quite, the lowest stages, the earliest offences of which official notice, so to speak, is taken, are offences for which the punishment—disease or famine, etc.—falls on the community as a whole, because thecommunity, in the person of one of its members, has offended as a whole against heaven. In the earlier stage of feeling, also, which survives where taboo prevails, it is the community as a whole which may be infected, and which must suffer if the offender is allowed to spread the infection; it is the community, as a whole, which is concerned to thrust out the guilty person—every one shuns him because he is taboo. Thus, in this the earliest stage, the offender against the custom of the community is outlawed just as effectively as in later stages of social development. But no formal sentence is pronounced; no meeting of the men or the elders of the community is held to try the offender; no reason is given or sought why the offence should thus be punished. The operation of taboo is like that of the laws of nature: the man who eats poisonous food dies with no reason given. A reason may eventually be found by science, and is eventually discovered, though the process of discovery is slow, and many mistakes are made, and many false reasons are given before the true reason is found. So, too, the true reason for the prohibition of many of the things, which the community feels to be forbidden and pronounced to be taboo, is found, with the progress of society—when it doesprogress, which is not always—to be that they are immoral and irreligious, though here, too, many mistakes are made before true morality and true religion are found. But at the outset no reason is given: the things are simply offensive to the community and are tabooed as such. We, looking back at that stage in the evolution of society, can see that amongst the things thus offensive and tabooed are some which, in later stages, are equally offensive, but are now forbidden for a reason that can be formulated and given, viz. that they are offences against the law of morality and the law of God. That reason, at the outset of society, may scarcely have been consciously present to the mind of man: progress, in part at least, has consisted in the discovery of the reasons of things. But that man did from the beginning avoid some of the things which are forbidden by morality and religion, and that those things were taboo to him, is beyond the possibility of doubt. Nor can it be doubted that in the prohibition and punishment of them there was inchoate justice and inchoate religion. Such prohibition was due to the collective action and expressed the collective feeling of the community as a whole. And it is from such social action and feeling thatjustice, I suggest, has been evolved—not from the feeling of resentment experienced by the individual as an individual. Personal resentment and personal revenge may have stimulated justice to action. But, by the hypothesis we have been examining, they were not justice. Neither have they been transformed into justice: they still exist as something distinct from justice and capable of perverting it.
The form which justice takes in the period which is almost, but not quite, the lowest stage of human evolution is the sense of the collective responsibility of the community for all its actions, that is to say, for the acts of all its members. And that responsibility in its earliest shape is felt to be a responsibility to heaven, to the supernatural powers that send disease and famine upon the community. In those days no man sins to himself alone, just as, in still earlier days, no man could break a taboo without becoming a source of danger to the whole community. The wrong-doer has offended against the supernatural powers and has brought down calamity upon the community. He is therefore punished, directly as an offender against the god of the community, and indirectly for having involved thecommunity in suffering. In Dr. Westermarck's words (I, 194), there is "genuine indignation against the offender, both because he rebels against God, and because he thereby exposes the whole community to supernatural dangers." But though society for many long centuries continues to punish rebellion against God, still in the long run it ceases, or tends to cease, doing so. Its reason for so ceasing is interpreted differently by different schools of thought. On the one hand, it is said in derision, let the gods punish offences against the gods—the implication being that there are no such offences to punish, because there is no god. On the other hand, it is said, "I will repay, saith the Lord"—the implication being that man may not assume to be the minister of divine vengeance. If, then, we bear in mind that the fact may be interpreted in either of these different ways, we shall not fall into the fallacy of imagining that the mere existence of the fact suffices to prove either interpretation to be true. Yet this fallacy plays its part in lending fictitious support to the doctrine that morality is in no wise dependent upon religion. The offences now punished by law, it is argued, are no longer punished as offences against religion, but solely as offencesagainst the good of the community. To this argument the reply is that men believe the good of the community to be the will of God, and do not believe murder, theft, adultery, etc., to be merely offences against man's laws. Overlooking this fact, which is fatal to the doctrine that morality is in no wise dependent on religion, the argument we are discussing proceeds to maintain that the basis for the enforcement of morality by the law is recognised by every one who knows anything of the philosophy of law to be what is good for the community and its members: fraud and violence are punished as such, and not because they are offences against this or that religion. The fact that the law no longer punishes them as offences against God suffices to show that it is only as offences against humanity that there is any sense, or ever was any sense, in punishing them. Religion may have reënforced morality very usefully at one time, by making out that moral misdeeds were offences against God, but such arguments are not now required. The good and the well-being of humanity is in itself sufficient argument. Humanitarianism is taking the place of religion, and by so doing is demonstrating that morality is, as it always has been,independent of religion; and that in truth religion has built upon it, not it upon religion. As Höffding puts it (p. 328): "Religious faith ... assumes an independent human ethic developed historically under the practical influence of the ethical feeling of man." That is to say, morality is in Höffding's view independent of religion, and prior to religion, both as a matter of logic and of history. As a matter of history—of the history of religion—this seems to me, for the reasons already given, to be contrary to the facts as they are known. The real reason for maintaining that morality is and must be—and must have been—independent of religion, seems to me to be a philosophical reason. I may give it in Höffding's own words: "What other aims and qualities," he asks (p. 324), "could man attribute to his gods or conceive as divine, but those which he has learnt from his own experience to recognise as the highest?" The answer expected to the question plainly is not merely that it is from experience that man learns, but that man has no experience of God from which he could learn. The answer given by Mr. Hobhouse, in the concluding words of hisMorals in Evolutionis that "the collective wisdom" of man "is all that we directly know of the Divine."Here, too, no direct access to God is allowed to be possible to man. It is from his experience of other men—perhaps even of himself and his own doings—that man learns all he knows of God: but he has himself no experience of God. Obviously, then, from this humanitarian point of view, what a man goes through in his religious moments is not experience, and we are mistaken if we imagine that it was experience; it is only a misinterpretation of experience. It is on the supposition that we are mistaken, on the assumption that we make a misinterpretation, that the argument is built to prove that morality is and must be independent of religion. Argument to show, or proof to demonstrate, that we had not the experience, or, that we mistook something else for it, is, of course, not forthcoming. But if we hold fast to our conviction, we are told that we are fleeing "to the bosom of faith."
Until some better argument is produced, we may be well content not merely to flee but to rest there.
The subject dealt with in this lecture will be the place of Christianity in the evolution of religion; and I shall approach it by considering the place of religion in the evolution of humanity. It will be therefore advisable, indeed necessary, for me to consider what is meant by evolution; and I wish to begin by explaining the point of view from which I propose to approach the three ideas of evolution, of the evolution of humanity and the evolution of religion.
The individual exists, and can only exist, in society. Society cannot exist without individuals as members thereof; and the individual cannot exist save in society. From this it follows that from one point of view the individual may be regarded as a means—a means by which society attains its end or purpose: every one of us has his place or function in society; and society thrives according as each member performs his function and discharges his duty. From another point of viewthe individual may be regarded as an end. If man is a social animal, if men live in society, it is because so alone can a man do what is best for himself: it is by means of society that he realises his end. It is then from this proposition, viz. that the individual is both a means and an end, that I wish to approach the idea of evolution.
I will begin by calling attention to the fact that that proposition is true both statically, that is to say, is true of the individual's position in a community, and is also true dynamically, that is to say, is true of his place in the process of evolution. On the former point, that the proposition is true statically, of the position of the individual in the community, I need say but little. In moral philosophy it is the utilitarian school which has particularly insisted upon this truth. That school has steadily argued that, in the distribution of happiness or of the good, every man is to count as one, and nobody to count as more than one—that is to say, in the community the individual is to be regarded as the end. The object to be aimed at is not happiness in general and no one's happiness in particular, but the happiness of each and every individual. It is the individual and his happiness which is theend, for the sake of which society exists and to which it is the means; otherwise the individual might derive no benefit from society. But if the truth that the individual is an end as well as a means is recognised by moral philosophy, that truth has also played at least an equally important part in political philosophy. It is the very breath of the cry for liberty, equality, and fraternity,—a cry wrung out from the heart of man by the system of oppression which denied that the ordinary citizen had a right to be anything but a means for procuring enjoyment to the members of the ruling class. The truth that any one man—whatever his place in society, whatever the colour of his skin—has as much right as any other to be treated as an end and that no man was merely a means to the enjoyment or happiness or well-being of another, was the charter for the emancipation of slaves. It is still the magna charta for the freedom of every member of the human race. No man is or can be a chattel—a thing existing for no other purpose than to subserve the interests of its owner and to be a means to his ends. But though from the truth that the individual is in himself an end as well as a means, it follows that all men have the right tofreedom, it does not follow as a logical inference that all men are equal as means—as means to the material happiness or to the moral improvement of society.
I need not further dwell upon the fact that statically as regards the relations of men to one another in society at any moment, the truth is fully recognised that the individual is not merely a means to the happiness or well-being of others, but is also in himself an end. But when we consider the proposition dynamically, when we wish to find out the part it has played as one of the forces at work in evolution, we find that its truth has been far from fully recognised—partly perhaps because utilitarianism dates from a time when evolution, or the bearing of it, was not understood. But the truth is at least of as great importance dynamically as it is statically. And on one side, its truth and the importance of its truth has been fully developed: that the individual is a means to an end beyond him; and that, dynamically, he has been and is a factor in evolution, and as a factor merely a means and nothing else—all this has been worked out fully, if not to excess. The other side of the truth, the fact that the individual is always an end, has, however,been as much neglected by the scientific evolutionist as it was by the slave-driver: he has been liable to regard men as chattels, as instruments by which the work of evolution is carried on. The work has got to be done (by men amongst other animals and things), things have to be evolved, evolution must go on. But, why? and for whom? with what purpose and for whose benefit? with what end? are questions which science leaves to be answered by those people who are foolish enough to ask them. Science is concerned simply with the individual as a means, as one of the means, whereby evolution is carried on; and doubtless science is justified—if only on the principle of the division of labour—in confining itself to the department of enquiry which it takes in hand and in refusing to travel beyond it. Any theory of man, therefore, or of the evolution of humanity, which professes to base itself strictly on scientific fact and to exclude other considerations as unscientific and therefore as unsafe material to build on, will naturally, and perhaps necessarily, be dominated by the notion that the individual exists as a factor in evolution, as one of the means by which, and not as in any sense the end for which, evolution is carried on.
Such seems to be the case with the theory of humanitarianism. It bases itself upon science, upon experience, and rules out communion with God as not being a scientific fact or a fact of experience at all. Based upon science, it is a theory which seeks amongst other things to assign to religion its place in the evolution of humanity. According to the theory, the day of religion is over, its part played out, its function in the evolution of humanity discharged. According to this theory, three stages may be discerned in the evolution of humanity when we regard man as a moral being, as an ethical consciousness. Those three stages may be characterised first as custom, next religion, and finally humanitarianism.
By the theory, in the first stage—that of custom—the spirits to whom cult is paid are vindictive. In the second stage—that of religion—man, having attained to a higher morality, credits his gods with that higher morality. In the third stage—that of humanitarianism—he finds that the gods are but lay figures on which the robes of righteousness have been displayed that man alone can wear—when he is perfect. He is not yet perfect. If he were, the evolution of humanitywould be attained—whereas at present it is as yet in process. The end of evolution is not yet attained: it is to establish, in some future generation, a perfect humanity. For that end we must work; to it we may know that, as a matter of scientific evolution, we are working. On it, we may be satisfied, man will not enter in our generation.
Now this theory of the evolution of humanity, and of the place religion takes in that evolution, is in essential harmony with the scientific treatment of the evolution theory, inasmuch as it treats of the individual solely as an instrument to something other than himself, as a means of producing a state of humanity to which he will not belong. But if the assumption that the individual is always a means and never an end in himself be false, then a theory of the evolution of man (as an ethical consciousness) which is based on that wrong assumption will itself be wrong. If each individual is an end, as valuable and as important as any other individual; if each counts for one and not less than any one other,—then his end and his good cannot lie in the perfection of some future generation. In that case, his end would be one thatex hypothesihe could never enjoy, a rest into which he could never enter;and consequently it would be an irrational end, and could not serve as a basis for a rationalist theory of ethics. Man's object (to be a rational object) must have reference to a society of which he may be a member. The realisation of his object, therefore, cannot be referred to a stage of society yet to come, on earth, after he is dead,—a society of which he, whether dead or annihilated, could not be a member. If, then, the individual's object is to be a rational object, as the humanitarian or rationalist assumes, then that end must be one in which he can share; and therefore cannot be in this world. Nor can that end be attained by doing man's will—for man's will may be evil, and regress as well as progress is a fact in the evolution of humanity; its attainment, therefore, must be effected by doing God's will.
The truth that the individual is an end as well as a means is, I suggest, valuable in considering the dynamics as well as the statics of society. At least, it saves one from the self-complacency of imagining that one's ancestors existed with no other end and for no higher purpose than to produce—me; and if the golden days anticipated by the theory of humanitarianism ever arrive, it is to be supposed that themen of that time will find it just as intolerable and revolting as we do now, to believe that past generations toiled and suffered for no other reason, for no other end, and to no other purpose than that their successors should enter into the fruits of their labour. In a word, the theory that in the evolution of man as an ethical consciousness, as a moral being, religion is to be superseded by humanitarianism, is only possible so long as we deny or ignore the fact that the individual is an end and not merely a means. We will therefore now go on to consider the evolution of religion from the point of view that the individual is in himself an end as well as a means. If, of the world religions, we take that which is the greatest, as measured by the number of its adherents, viz. Buddhism, we shall see that, tried by this test, it is at once found wanting. The object at which Buddhism proclaims that man should aim is not the development, the perfection, and the realisation of the individual to the fullest extent: it is, on the contrary, the utter and complete effacement of the individual, so that he is not merely absorbed, but absolutely wiped out, innirvana. In theatman, with which it is the duty of man to seek to identify himself, the individuality of man does not survive:it simply ceases to be. Now this obliteration of his existence may seem to a man in a certain mood desirable; and that mood may be cultivated, as indeed Buddhism seeks to cultivate it, systematically. But here it is that the inner inconsistency, the self-contradictoriness of Buddhism, becomes patent. The individual, to do anything, must exist. If he is to desire nothing save to cease to exist, he must exist to do that. But the teaching of Buddhism is that this world and this life is illusion—and further, that the existence of the individual self is precisely the most mischievous illusion, that illusion above all others from which it is incumbent on us to free ourselves. We are here for no other end than to free ourselves from that illusion. Thus, then, by the teaching of Buddhism there is an end, it may be said, for the individual to aim at. Yes! but by the same teaching there is no individual to aim at it—individual existence is the most pernicious of all illusions. And further, by the teaching, the final end and object of religion is to get rid of an individual existence, which does not exist to be got rid of, and which it is an illusion to believe in. In fine, Buddhism denies that the individual is either an end or a means, for it deniesthe existence of the individual, and contradicts itself in that denial. The individual is not an end—the happiness or immortality, the continued existence, of the individual is not to be aimed at. Neither is he a means, for his very existence is an illusion, and as such is an obstacle or impediment which has to be removed, in order that he who is not may cease to do what he has never begun to do, viz. to exist.
In Buddhism we have a developed religion—a religion which has been developed by a system of philosophy, but scarcely, as religion, improved by it. If, now, we turn to other religions less highly developed, even if we turn to religions the development of which has been early arrested, which have never got beyond the stage of infantile development, we shall find that all proceed on the assumption that communion between man and God is possible and does occur. In all, the existence of the individual as well as of the god is assumed, even though time and development may be required to realise, even inadequately, what is contained in the assumption. In all, and from the beginning, religion has been a social fact: the god has been the god of the community; and, as such, hasrepresented the interests of the community. Those interests have been regarded not merely as other, but as higher, than the interests of the individual, when the two have been at variance, for the simple reason (when the time came for a reason to be sought and given) that the interests of the community were the will of the community's god. Hence at all times the man who has postponed his own interests to those under the sanction of the god and the community—the man who has respected and upheld the custom of the community—has been regarded as the higher type of man, as the better man from the religious as well as from the moral point of view; while the man who has sacrificed the higher interests to the lower, has been punished—whether by the automatic action of taboo, or the deliberate sentence of outlawry—as one who, by breaking custom, has offended against the god and so brought suffering on the community.
Now, if the interests, whether of the individual or the community, are regarded as purely earthly, the divergence between them must be utter and irreconcileable; and to expect the individual to forego his own interests must be eventually discovered to be, as it fundamentally is, unreasonable.If, on the other hand, for the individual to forego them is (as, in a cool moment, we all recognise it to be) reasonable, then the interests under the sanction of the god and the community—the higher interests—cannot be other than, they must be identical with, the real interests of the individual. It is only in and through society that the individual can attain his highest interests, and only by doing the will of the god that he can so attain them. Doubtless—despite of logic and feeling—in all communities all individuals in a greater or less degree have deliberately preferred the lower to the higher, and in so doing have been actuated neither by love of God nor by love of their fellow-man. But, in so doing, they have at all times, in the latest as well as the earliest stages of society, been felt to be breaching the very basis of social solidarity, the maintenance of which is the will of the God worshipped by society.
From that point of view the individual is regarded as a means. But he is also in himself an end, intrinsically as valuable as any other member of the community, and therefore an end which society exists to further and promote. It is impossible, therefore, that the end, viewed as that which societyas well as the individual aims at, and which society must realise, as far as it can realise it, through the individual, should be one which can only be attained by some future state of society in which he does not exist. "The kingdom of Heaven is within you" and not something to which you cannot attain. God is not far from us at any time. That truth was implicit at all stages in the evolution of religion—consciously recognised, perhaps more, perhaps less, but whether more or less consciously recognised, it was there. That is the conviction implied in the fact that man everywhere seeks God. If he seeks Him in plants, in animals, in stocks or stones, that only shows that man has tried in many wrong directions—not that there is not a right direction. It is the general law of evolution: of a thousand seeds thrown out, perhaps one alone falls into good soil. But the failure of the 999 avails nothing against the fact that the one bears fruit abundantly. What sanctifies the failures is that they were attempts. We indeed may, if we are so selfish and blind, regard the attempts as made in order that we might succeed. Certainly we profit by the work of our ancestors,—or rather we may profit, if we will. But our savage ancestors were themselves ends, andnot merely means to our benefit. It is monstrous to imagine that our salvation is bought at the cost of their condemnation. No man can do more than turn to such light as there may be to guide him. "To him that hath, shall be given," it is true—but every man at every time had something; never was there one to whom nothing was given. To us at this day, in this dispensation, much has been given. But ten talents as well as one may be wrapped up: one as well as ten may be put to profit. It is monstrous to say that one could not be, cannot have been, used properly. It was for not using the one talent he had that the unfaithful servant was condemned—not for not having ten to use.
Throughout the history of religion, then, two facts have been implied, which, if implicit at the beginning, have been rendered explicit in the course of its history or evolution. They are, first, the existence of the individual as a member of society, in communion or seeking communion with God; and, next, that while the individual is a means to social ends, society is also a means of which the individual is the end. Neither end—neither that of society nor that of the individual—can be forwarded atthe cost of the other; the realisation of each is to be attained only by the realisation of the other. Two consequences then follow with regard to evolution: first, it depends on us; evolution may have helped to make us, but we are helping to make it. Next, the end of evolution is not wholly outside any one of us, but in part is realised in us, or may be, if we so will. That is to say, the true end may be realised by every one of us; for each of us, as being himself an end, is an object of care to God—and not merely those who are to live on earth at the final stage of evolution. If the end is outside us, it is in love of neighbour; if beyond us, it is in God's love. It is just because the end is (or may be) both within us and without us that we are bound up with our fellow-man and God. It is precisely because we are individuals that we are not the be-all and the end-all—that the end is without us. And it is because we are members of a community, that the end is not wholly outside us.
In hisProblems of Philosophy(p. 163) Höffding says: "The test of the perfection of a human society is: to what degree is every person so placed and treated that he is not only a mere means, but also always at the same time an end?" and he pointsout that "this is Kant's famous dictum, with another motive than that given to it by him." But if it is reasonable to apply this test to society, regarded from the point of view of statics, it is also reasonable to apply it to society regarded dynamically. If it is the proper test for ascertaining what degree of perfection society at any given moment has attained, it is also the proper test for ascertaining what advance, if any, towards perfection has been made by society between any two periods of its growth, any two stages in its evolution. But the moment we admit the possibility of applying a test to the process of evolution and of discovering to what end the process is moving, we are abandoning science and the scientific theory of evolution. Science formally refuses to consider whether there be any end to which the process of evolution is working: "end" is a category which science declines to apply to its subject-matter. In the interests of knowledge it declines to be influenced by any consideration of what the end aimed at by evolution may be, or whether there be any end aimed at at all. It simply notes what does take place, what is, what has been, and to some extent what may be, the sequence of events—not their object or purpose. And thescience of religion, being a science, restricts itself in the same way. As therefore science declines to use the category, "end," progress is an idea impossible for science—for progress is movement towards an end, the realisation of a purpose and object. And science declines to consider whether progress is so much as possible. But, so far as the subject-matter of the science of religion is concerned, it is positive (that is to say, it is mere fact of observation) that in religion an end is aimed at, for man everywhere seeks God and communion with Him. What the science of religion declines to do is to pronounce or even to consider whether that end is possible or not, whether it is in any degree achieved or not, whether progress is made or not.
But if we do not, as science does, merely constate the fact that in religion an end is aimed at, viz. that communion with God which issues in doing His will from love of Him and therefore of our fellow-man; if we recognise that end as the end that ought to be aimed at,—then our attitude towards the whole process of evolution is changed: it is now a process with an end—and that end the same for the individual and for society. But at the same time it is no longer a process determined by mechanicalcauses worked by the iron hand of necessity—and therefore it is no longer evolution in the scientific sense; it is no longer evolution as understood by science. It is now a process in which there may or may not be progress made; and in which, therefore, it is necessary to have a test of progress—a test which is to be found in the fact that the individual is not merely a means, but an end. Whether progress is made depends in part on whether there is the will in man to move towards the end proposed; and that will is not uniformly exercised, as is shown by the fact that deterioration as well as advance takes place—regress occurs as well as progress; whole nations, and those not small ones, may be arrested in their religious development. If we look with the eye of the missionary over the globe, everywhere we see arrested development, imperfect communion with God. It may be that in such cases of imperfect communion there is an unconscious or hardly conscious recognition that the form of religion there and then prevalent does not suffice to afford the communion desired. Or, worse still, and much more general, there is the belief that such communion as does exist is all that can exist—that advance and improvement are impossible. Fromthis state it has been the work of the religious spirit to wake us, to reveal to us God's will, to make us understand that it is within us, and that it may, if we will, work within us. It is as such a revelation of the will of God and the love of God, and as the manifestation of the personality of God, that our Lord appeared on earth.
That appearance as a historic fact must take its place in the order of historic events, and must stand in relation to what preceded and to what followed and is yet to follow. In relation to what preceded, Christianity claims "to be the fulfilment of all that is true in previous religion" (Illingworth,Personality: Human and Divine, p. 75). The making of that claim assumes that there was some truth in previous religion, that so far as previous forms were religious, they were true—a fact that must constantly be borne in mind by the missionary. The truth and the good inherent in all forms of religion is that, in all, man seeks after God. The finality of Christianity lies in the fact that it reveals the God for whom man seeks. What was true in other religions was the belief in the possibility of communion with God, and the belief that only as a member of a society could the individual man attainto that communion. What is offered by Christianity is a means of grace whereby that communion may be attained and a society in which the individual may attain it. Christianity offers a means whereby the end aimed at by all religions may be realised. Its finality, therefore, does not consist in its chronological relation to other religions. It is not final because, or in the sense that, it supervened in the order of time upon previous religions, or that it fulfilled only their truth. Other religions have, as a matter of chronology, followed it, and yet others may follow it hereafter. But their chronological order is irrelevant to the question: Which of them best realises the end at which religion, in all its forms, aims? And it is the answer to that question which must determine the finality of any form of religion. No one would consider the fact that Mahommedanism dates some centuries after Christ any proof of its superiority to Christianity. And the lapse of time, however much greater, would constitute no greater proof.
That different forms of religion do realise the end of religion in different degrees is a point on which there is general agreement. Monotheism is pronounced higher than polytheism, ethical religionshigher than non-ethical. What differentiates Christianity from other ethical religions and from other forms of monotheism, is that in them religion appears as ancillary to morality, and imposes penalties and rewards with a view to enforce or encourage morality. In them, at their highest, the love of man is for his fellow-man, and usually for himself. Christianity alone makes love of God to be the true basis and the only end of society, both that whereby personality exists and the end in which it seeks its realisation. Therein the Christian theory of society differs from all others. Not merely does it hold that man cannot make himself better without making society better, that development of personality cannot be effected without a corresponding development of society. But it holds that such moral development and improvement of the individual and of society can find no rational basis and has no rational end, save in the love of God.
In another way the Christian theory of society differs from all others. Like all others it holds that the unifying bond of every society is found in worship. Unlike others it recognises that the individual is restricted by existing society, even where that society is based upon a common worship. Theadequate realisation of the potentialities of the individual postulates the realisation of a perfect society, just as a perfect society is possible only provided that the potentialities of the individual are realised to the full. Such perfection, to which both society and the individual are means, is neither attained nor possible on earth, even where communion with God is recognised to be both the true end of society and the individual, and the only means by which that end can be attained. Still less is such perfection a possible end, if morality is set above religion, and the love of man be substituted for the love of God. In that case the life of the individual upon earth is pronounced to be the only life of which he is, or can be, conscious; and the end to which he is a means is the good of humanity as a whole. Now human society, from the beginning of its evolution to its end, may be regarded as a whole, just as the society existing at any given moment of its evolution may be regarded as a whole. But if we are to consider human society from the former point of view and to see in it, so regarded, the end to which the individual is a means, then it is clear that, until perfection is attained in some remote and very improbable future, the individual members of thehuman race will have laboured and not earned their reward, will have worked for an end which they have not attained, and for an end which when, if ever, it is attained, society as a whole will not enjoy. Such an end is an irrational and impossible object of pursuit. Perfection, if it is to be attained by the individual or by society, is not to be attained on earth, nor in man's communion with man. Religion from its outset has been the quest of man for God. It has been the quest of man, whether regarded as an individual or as a member of society. But if that quest is to be realised, it is not to be realised either by society or the individual, regarded as having a mere earthly existence. A new conception of the real nature of both is requisite. Not only must the individual be regarded as continuing to exist after death, but the society of which he is truly a member must be regarded as one which, if it manifests or begins to manifest itself on this earth, requires for its realisation—that is, for perfect communion with God—the postulate that though it manifests itself in this world, it is realised in the next. This new conception of the real nature of society and the individual, involving belief in the communion of the saints, and in the kingdom of Heaven as thatwhich may be in each individual, and therefore must extend beyond each and include all whether in this world or the next—this conception is one which Christianity alone, of all religions, offers to the world.
Religion is the quest of man for God. Man everywhere has been in search of God, peradventure he might find Him; and the history of religion is the history of his search. But the moment we regard the history—the evolution—of religion as a search, we abandon the mechanical idea of evolution: the cause at work is not material or mechanical, but final. The cause is no longer a necessary cause which can only have one result and which, when it operates, must produce that result. Progress is no longer something which must take place, which is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. It is something which may or may not take place and which cannot take place unless effort is made. In a word, it is dependent in part upon man's will—without the action of which neither search can be made nor progress in the search. But though in part dependent upon man's will, progress can only be made so far as man's will is to do God's will. And that is not always, and has not been always,man's will. Hence evolution has not always been progress. Nor is it so now. There have been lapses in civilisation, dark ages, periods when man's love for man has wanedpari passuwith the waning of his love for God. Such lapses there may be yet again. The fall of man may be greater, in the spiritual sense, than it ever yet has been, for man's will is free. But God's love is great, and our faith is in it. If Christianity should cease to grow where it now grows, and cease to spread where it as yet is not, there would be the greater fall. And on us would rest some, at least, of the responsibility. Christianity cannot be stationary: if it stands, let it beware; it is in danger of falling. Between religions, as well as other organisations, there is a struggle for existence. In that struggle we have to fight—for a religion to decline to fight is for that religion to die. The missionary is not engaged in a work of supererogation, something with which we at home have no concern. We speak of him as in the forefront of the battle. We do not usually or constantly realise that it is our battle he is fighting—that his defeat, if he were defeated, would be the beginning of the end for us; that on his success our fate depends. The metaphor of the missionary as anoutpost sounds rather picturesque when heard in a sermon,—or did so sound the first time it was used, I suppose,—but it is not a mere picture; it is the barest truth. The extent to which we push our outposts forward is the measure of our vitality, of how much we have in us to do for the world. Six out of seven of Christendom's missionaries come from the United States of America. Until I heard that from the pulpit of Durham Cathedral, I had rather a horror of big things and a certain apprehension about going to a land where bigness, rather than the golden mean, seemed to be taken as the standard of merit. But from that sermon I learnt something, viz. not only that there are big things to be done in the world, but that America does them, and that America does more of them than she talks about.