The Religious Sentiment Part 15

* * * In all this [_i. e._, in virtue and good morals], a superst.i.tious man finds nothing, which he has properly performed for the sake of his deity, or which can peculiarly recommend him to divine favor and protection. * * * * But if he fast or give himself a sound whipping, this has a direct reference, in his opinion, to the service of G.o.d. No other motive could engage him to such austerities."

The philosopher here sets forth in his inimitable style a marked characteristic of religious acts. But he touches upon it with his usual superficiality. It is true that no religion has ever been content with promoting the happiness of man, and that the vast majority of votaries are always seeking to do something specifically religious, and are not satisfied with the moral only. The simple explanation of it is that the religious sentiment has a purpose entirely distinct from ethics, a purpose constantly felt as something peculiar to itself, though obscurely seen and often wholly misconceived. It is only when an action is utterly dissevered from other ends, and is purely and solely religious, that it can satisfy this sentiment. "_La religion_," most truly observes Madame Necker de Saussure, "_ne doit point avoir d'autre but qu'elle meme_."

The uniform prevalence of these ideas in rites may be ill.u.s.trated from the simplest or the most elaborate. Father Brebeuf, missionary to the Hurons in 1636, has a chapter on their superst.i.tions. He there tells us that this nation had two sorts of ceremonies, the one to induce the G.o.ds to grant good fortune, the other to appease them when some ill-luck had occurred. Before running a dangerous rapid in their frail canoes they would lay tobacco on a certain rock where the deity of the rapid was supposed to reside, and ask for safety in their voyage. They took tobacco and cast it in the fire, saying: "O Heaven (_Aronhiate_), see, I give you something; aid me; cure this sickness of mine." When one was drowned or died of cold, a feast was called, and the soft parts of the corpse were cut from the bones and burned to conciliate the personal G.o.d, while the women danced and chanted a melancholy strain. Here one sacrifice was to curry favor with the G.o.ds, another to soothe their anger, and the third was a rite, not a sacrifice, but done for a religious end, whose merit was specific performance.

As the gift was valued at what it cost the giver, and was supposed to be efficacious in this same ratio, self-denial soon pa.s.sed into self-torture, prolonged fasts, scourging and lacerations, thus becoming legitimate exhibitions of religious fervor. As mental pain is as keen as bodily pain, the suffering of Jephthah was quite as severe as that of the Flagellants, and was expected to find favor in the eyes of the G.o.ds.

A significant corrollary[TN-12] from such a theory follows: that which is the efficacious part of the sacrifice is the suffering; given a certain degree of this, the desired effect will follow. As to what or who suffers, or in what manner he or it suffers, these are secondary considerations, even unimportant ones, so far as the end to be obtained is concerned. This is the germ of _vicarious_ sacrifice, a plan frequently observed in even immature religions. What seems the diabolical cruelty of some superst.i.tious rites, those of the Carthaginians and Celts, for example, is thoroughly consistent with the abstract theory of sacrifice, and did not spring from capricious malice.

The Death of Christ, regarded as a general vicarious atonement, has had its efficiency explained directly by the theory that the pain he suffered partook of the infinity of his divine nature; as thus it was excruciating beyond measure, so it was infinitely effectual toward appeasing divinity.

It is well known that this doctrine was no innovation on the religious sentiment of the age when it was preached by the Greek fathers. For centuries the Egyptian priests had taught the incarnation and sufferings of Osiris, and his death for the salvation of his people. Similar myths were common throughout the Orient, all drawn from the reasoning I have mentioned.[222-1]

They have been variously criticized. Apart from the equivocal traits this theory of atonement attributes to the supernatural powers--a feature counterbalanced, in modern religion, by subduing its harshest features--it is rooted essentially in the material view of religion. The religious value of an act is to be appraised by the extent to which it follows recognition of duty. To acknowledge an error is unpleasant; to renounce it still more so, for it breaks a habit; to see our own errors in their magnitude, sullying our whole nature and reaching far ahead to generations yet unborn, is consummately bitter, and in proportion as it is bitter, will keep us from erring.[223-1] This is the "sacrifice of a contrite heart," which alone is not despicable; and this no one can do for us. We may be sure that neither the physical pain of victims burning in a slow fire, nor the mental pain of yielding up whatever we hold dearest upon earth, will make our views of duty a particle clearer or our notion of divinity a jot n.o.bler; and whatever does neither of these is not of true religion.

The theory of sacrifice is intimately related with the idea of sin. In the quotation I have made from Father Brebeuf we see that the Hurons recognized a distinct form of rite as appropriate to appease a G.o.d when angered. It is a matter of national temperament which of these forms takes the lead. Joutel tells of a tribe in Texas who paid attention only to the G.o.ds who worked them harm, saying that the good G.o.ds were good anyhow. By parity of reasoning, one sect of Mohammedans wors.h.i.+p the devil only. It is well to make friends with your enemy, and then he will not hurt you; and if a man is s.h.i.+elded from his enemies, he is safe enough.

But where, as in most Semitic, Celtic and various other religions, the chief G.o.ds frowned or smiled as they were propitiated or neglected, and when a certain amount of pain was the propitiation they demanded, the necessity of rendering this threw a dark shadow on life. What is the condition of man, that only through sorrow he can reach joy? He must be under a curse.

Physical and mental processes aided by a.n.a.logy this gloomy deduction. It is only through pain that we are stimulated to the pursuit of pleasure, and the latter is a phantom we never catch. The laws of correct reasoning are those which alone should guide us; but the natural laws of the a.s.sociation of ideas do not at all correspond with the one a.s.sociation which reason accepts. Truth is what we are born for, error is what is given us.

Instead of viewing this state of things as one inseparable to the relative as another than the universal, and, instead of seeing the means of correcting it in the mental element of attention, continuance or volition, guided by experience and the growing clearness of the purposes of the laws of thought, the problem was given up as hopeless, and man was placed under a ban from which a G.o.d alone could set him free; he was sunk in original sin, chained to death.

To reach this result it is evident that a considerable effort at reasoning, a peculiar view of the nature of the G.o.ds, and a temperament not the most common, must be combined. Hence it was adopted as a religious dogma by but a few nations. The Chinese know nothing of the "sense of sin," nor did the Greeks and Romans. The Pa.r.s.ees do not acknowledge it, nor do the American tribes. "To sin," in their languages, does not mean to offend the deity, but to make a mistake, to miss the mark, to loose one's way as in a wood, and the missionaries have exceeding difficulty in making them understand the theological signification of the word.

The second cla.s.s of rites are memorial in character. As the former were addressed to the G.o.ds, so these are chiefly for the benefit of the people. They are didactic, to preserve the myth, or inst.i.tutionary, to keep alive the discipline and forms of the church.

Of this cla.s.s of rites it may broadly be said they are the myth dramatized. Indeed, the drama owes its origin to the mimicry by wors.h.i.+ppers of the supposed doings of the G.o.ds. The most ancient festivals have reference to the recurrence of the seasons, and the ceremonies which mark them represent the mythical transactions which are supposed to govern the yearly changes. The G.o.d himself was often represented by the

high priest, and masked figures took the parts of attendant deities.

Inst.i.tutionary rites are those avowedly designed to commemorate a myth or event, and to strengthen thereby the religious organization.

Christian baptism is by some denominations looked upon as a commemorative or inst.i.tutionary rite only; and the same is the case with the Lord's Supper. These seem to have been the only rites recommended, though the former was not practiced by Christ. In any ordinary meaning of his words, he regarded them both as inst.i.tutionary.

The tendency of memorial to become propitiatory rites is visible in all materialistic religions. The procedure, from a simple commemorative act, acquires a mystic efficacy, a supernatural or spiritual power, often supposed to extend to the deity as well as the votary. Thus the Indian "rain-maker" will rattle his gourd, beat his drum, and blow through his pipe, to represent the thunder, lightning, and wind of the storm; and he believes that by this mimicry of the rain-G.o.d's proceedings he can force him to send the wished-for showers. The charms, spells and incantations of sorcery have the same foundation. Equally visible is it in the reception of the Christian rites above mentioned, baptism and the Eucharist, as "sacraments," as observances of divine efficacy in themselves. All such views arise from the material character of the religious wants.

The conclusion is that, while emblems and memorial rites have nothing in them which can mar, they also have nothing which can aid the growth and purity of the religious sentiment, beyond advancing its social relations; while symbols, in the proper sense of the term, and propitiatory rites, as necessarily false and without foundation, always degrade and obscure religious thought. Their prominence in a cult declines, as it rises in quality; and in a perfected scheme of wors.h.i.+p they would have no place whatever.

FOOTNOTES:

[200-1] In his chapter _Ideen zu einer Physik des Symbols und des Mythus_, of his _Symbolik und Mythologie_.

[201-1] Dr. H. C. Barlow's _Essays on Symbolism_ (London, 1866), deserves mention as one of the best of these.

[204-1] W. S. Jevons, _The Subst.i.tution of Similars_, p. 15 (London, 1869.)

[205-1] Creuzer, _Symbolik_, Bd. I, s. 59.

[207-1] _Ursprung der Mythologie_ (Berlin, 1862).

[208-1] Harrison Allen, M. D., _The Life Form in Art_, Phila. 1874.

[210-1] Cussans, _Grammar of Heraldry_, p. 16.

[212-1] Numerous examples from cla.s.sical antiquity are given by Creuzer, _Symbolik_, Bd. i. s. 114. sqq.

[214-1] W. von Humboldt, _Gesammelte Werke_, Bd. iv., s. 332.

[214-2] Creuzer, _Symbolik und Mythologie_, Bd. i., s. 282.

[214-3] Carl Frederick Koppen, _Die Lamaische Hierarchie and[TN-13]

Kirche_, ss. 59, 60, 61.

[219-1] Adolph Holtzmann, _Deutsche Mythologie_, p. 232 (Leipzig, 1874).

[222-1] "Es ist so gewisserma.s.sen in allen ernsten orientalischen Lehren das Christenthum in seinem Keime vorgebildet." Creuzer, _Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Volker_, Bd. i., s. 297.

[223-1] In a conversation reported by Mr. John Morley, John Stuart Mill expressed his belief that "the coming modification of religion" will be controlled largely through men becoming "more and more impressed with the awful fact that a piece of conduct to-day may prove a curse to men and women scores and even hundreds of years after the author of it is dead."

THE MOMENTA OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

SUMMARY.

National impulses and aims as historic ideas. Their recurrence and its explanation. Their permanence in relation to their truth and consciousness. The historic ideas in religious progress are chiefly three.

I. The Idea of the Perfected Individual.

First placed in physical strength. This gave way in Southern Europe to the idea of physical symmetry, a religion of beauty and art.

Later days have produced the idea of mental symmetry, the religion of culture. All have failed, and why? The momenta of true religion in each.

II. The Idea of the Perfected Commonwealth.

Certain national temperaments predispose to individualism, others to communism. The social relations governed at first by divine law.

Later, morality represents this law. The religion of conduct. The religion of sentiment and of humanity. Advantages and disadvantages in this idea.

Comparisons of these two ideas as completed respectively by Wilhelm von Humboldt and Auguste Comte.

III. The Idea of Personal Survival.

The doctrine of immortality the main moment in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Unfamiliar to old and simple faiths. Its energy and speculative relations. It is decreasing as a religious moment owing to, (1) a better understanding of ethics, (2) more accurate cosmical conceptions, (3) the clearer defining of life, (4) the increasing immateriality of religions.

The future and final moments of religious thought.