The Religious Sentiment Part 8

[94-1] "The notion of a G.o.d is not contained in the mere notion of Cause, that is the notion of Fate or Power. To this must be added Intelligence," etc. Sir Wm. Hamilton, _Lectures on Metaphysics_, Lecture ii.

[96-1] _The Unseen Universe_, p. 60.

[97-1] James Frederick Ferrier, _Lectures on Greek Philosophy_, p. 13 (Edinburgh, 1866). On a question growing directly out of this, to wit, the relative character of good and evil, Mr. J. S. Mill expresses himself thus: "My opinion of this doctrine is, that it is beyond all others which now engage speculative minds, the decisive one between moral good and evil for the Christian world." _Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy_, p. 90.

[98-1] _First Principles_, pp. 108, 127.

[99-1] _Lectures on Metaphysics_, Vol. I., p. 690.

[101-1] Professor Steinthal in the _Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsychologie_.

[102-1] Dr. W. Windelband, _Die Erkenntnissiehre unter dem voelkerpsychologischem Gesichts.p.u.n.kte_, in the _Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsychologie_, 1874, _Bd. VIII._ S. 165 _sqq._

[103-1] I would ask the reader willing to pursue this reasoning further, to peruse the charming essay of Oersted, ent.i.tled _Das ganze Dasein Ein Vernunftreich_.

[104-1] Geo. Boole, _An Investigation of the Laws of Thought_, p. 407.

[104-2] Herbert Spencer, _First Principles_, p. 112. Spinoza's famous proposition, previously quoted, _Unaquaeque res quantum in se est, in suo esse perseverare conatur_, (_Ethices, Pars III., Prop. VI._,) expresses also the ultimate of modern investigation. A recent critic considers it is a fallacy because the conatus "surrept.i.tiously implies a sense of effort or struggle for existence," whereas the logical concept of a res does not involve effort (S. N. Hodgson, _The Theory of Practice_, vol.

I. pp. 134-6, London, 1870.) The answer is that ident.i.ty implies continuance. In organic life we have the fact of nutrition, a function whose duty is to supply waste, and hence offer direct opposition to perturbing forces.

[105-1] Geo. Boole, _The Laws of Thought_, p. 419.

[105-2] Kant, _The Metaphysic of Ethics_, p. 23 (Eng. Trans. London, 1869.)

[106-1] Creuzer, _Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Voelker_, Bd. I. s.

291.

[108-1] See this distinction between physical and thought laws fully set forth by Prof. Boole in the appendix to _The Laws of Thought_, and by Dr. Windelband, _Zeitschrift fur Voelkerpsychologie_, Bd. VIII., s. 165 sqq.

[108-2] Geo. Boole, u. s. p. 399.

[109-1] "Der Glaube aller geschichtlichen Religionen geht aus von dieser Annahme einer sittlichen, in Gott bewusst lebenden, Weltordnung, wonach das Gute das allein Wahre ist, and das Wahre das allein Gute." _Gott in der Geschichte_, Bd. I. s. xl. Leipzig, 1857.

[111-1] Geo. Boole, _Laws of Thought_, p. 410.

[111-2] The latest researches in natural science confirm the expressions of W. von Humboldt: "Das Streben der Natur ist auf etwas Unbeschranktes gerichtet." "Die Natur mit endlichen Mitteln unendliche Zwecke verfolgt." _Ueber den Geschlechtsunterschied, etc._

[112-1] Wilhelm von Humboldt, _Sonnette_, "Hochste Gerechtigkeit."

[113-1] Isaiah, xlv. 7; xlvi. 10.

[113-2] _Khordah--avesta_, _Ormazd--Yasht_, 38, and _Yacna_, 42.

[113-3] _The Koran_, Suras lx.x.xvii., xlvi.

THE PRAYER AND ITS ANSWER.

SUMMARY.

Religion starts with a Prayer. This is an appeal to the unknown, and is indispensable in religious thought. The apparent exceptions of Buddhism and Confucianism.

All prayers relate to the fulfilment of a wish. At first its direct object is alone thought of. This so frequently fails that the indirect object rises into view. This stated to be the increase of the pleasurable emotions. The inadequacy of this statement.

The answers to prayer. As a form of Expectant Attention, it exerts much subjective power. Can it influence external phenomena? It is possible. Deeply religious minds reject both these answers, however. They claim the objective answer to be Inspiration. All religions unite in this claim.

Inspirations have been contradictory. That is genuine which teaches truths which cannot be doubted concerning duty and deity. A certain mental condition favors the attainment of such truths. This simulated in religious entheasm. Examples. It is allied to the most intense intellectual action, but its steps remain unknown.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PRAYER AND ITS ANSWER.

The foregoing a.n.a.lysis of the religious sentiment results in finding it, even in its simplest forms, a product of complicated reasoning forced into action by some of the strongest emotions, and maintaining its position indefeasibly through the limitations of the intellect. This it does, however, with a certain n.o.bleness, for while it wraps the unknown in sacred mystery, it proclaims man one in nature with the Highest, by birthright a son of the G.o.ds, of an intelligence akin to theirs, and less than they only in degree. Through thus presenting at once his strength and his feebleness, his grandeur and his degradation, religion goes beyond philosophy or utility in suggesting motives for exertion, stimuli to labor. This phase of it will now occupy us.

The Religious Sentiment manifests itself in thought, in word and in act through the respective media of the Prayer, the Myth and the Cult. The first embraces the personal relations of the individual to the object of his wors.h.i.+p, the second expresses the opinions current in a community about the nature and actions of that object, the last includes the symbols and ceremonies under and by which it is represented and propitiated.

The first has the logical priority. Man cares nothing for G.o.d--_can_ care nothing for him practically--except as an aid to the fulfilment of his desires, the satisfaction of his wants, as the "ground of his hopes." The root of the religious sentiment, I have said, is "a wish whose fruition depends upon unknown power." An appeal for aid to this unknown power, is the first form of prayer in its religious sense. It is not merely "the soul's sincere desire." This may well be and well directed, and yet not religious, as the devotion of the mathematician to the solution of an important problem. With the desire must be the earnest appeal to the unknown. A theological dictionary I have at hand almost correctly defines it as "a pet.i.tion for spiritual or physical benefits which [we believe] we cannot obtain without divine co-operation." The words in brackets must be inserted to complete the definition.

It need not be expressed in language. Rousseau, in his _Confessions_, tells of a bishop who, in visiting his diocese, came across an old woman who was troubled because she could frame no prayer in words, but only cry, "Oh!" "Good mother," said the wise bishop, "Pray always so. Your prayers are better than ours."[119-1]

A pet.i.tion for a.s.sistance is, as I have said, one of its first forms; but not its only one. The a.s.sistance asked in simple prayers is often nothing more than the neutrality of the G.o.ds, their non-interference; "no preventing Providence," as the expression is in our popular religion. Prayers of fear are of this kind:

"And they say, G.o.d be merciful, Who ne'er said, G.o.d be praised."

Some of the Egyptian formulae even threaten the G.o.ds if they prevent success.[119-2] The wish accomplished, the prayer may be one of grat.i.tude, often enough of that kind described by La Rochefoucauld, of which a prominent element is "a lively sense of possible favors to come."[119-3]

Or again, self-abas.e.m.e.nt being so natural a form of flattery that to call ourselves "obedient and humble servants" of others, has pa.s.sed into one of the commonest forms of address, many prayers are made up of similar expressions of humility and contrition, the votary calling himself a "miserable sinner" and a "vile worm," and on the other hand magnifying his Lord as greater than all other G.o.ds, mighty and helpful to those who a.s.siduously wors.h.i.+p him.

In some form or other, as of pet.i.tion, grat.i.tude or contrition, uttered in words or confined to the aspirations of the soul, prayer is a necessary factor in the religious life. It always has been, and it must be present.

The exceptions which may be taken to this in religious systems are chiefly two, those supposed to have been founded by Buddha Sakyamuni and Confucius.

It is undoubtedly correct that Buddha discouraged prayer. He permitted it at best in the inferior grades of disciples.h.i.+p. For himself, and all who reached his stage of culture, he p.r.o.nounced it futile.

But Buddha did not set out to teach a religion, but rather the inutility of all creeds. He struck shrewdly at the root of them by placing the highest condition of man in the total extinguishment of desire. He bound the G.o.ds in fetters by establis.h.i.+ng a theory of causal connection (the twelve Nidana) which does away with the necessity of ruling powers. He then swept both matter and spirit into unreality by establis.h.i.+ng the canon of ignorance, that the highest knowledge is to know that nothing is; that there is neither being nor not-being, nor yet the becoming.

After this wholesale iconoclasm the only possible object in life for the sage is the negative one of avoiding pain, which though as unreal as anything else, interferes with his meditations on its unreality. To this negative end the only aid he can expect is from other sages who have gone farther in self-cultivation. Self, therefore, is the first, the collective body of sages is the second, and the written instruction of Buddha is the third; and these three are the only sources to which the consistent Buddhist looks for aid.

This was Buddha's teaching. But it is not Buddhism as professed by the hundreds of millions in Ceylon, in Thibet, China, j.a.pan, and Siberia, who claim Sakyamuni under his names Buddha, the awakened, Tathagata, thus gone, or gone before, Siddartha, the accomplisher of the wish, and threescore and ten others of like purport, as their inspired teacher.

Millions of saints, holy men, Buddhas, they believe, are ready to aid in every way the true believer, and incessant, constant prayer is, they maintain, the one efficient means to insure this aid. Repet.i.tion, dinning the divinities and wearying them into answering, is their theory. Therefore they will repeat a short formula of four words (_om mani padme hum_--Om! the jewel in the lotus, amen) thousands of times a day; or, as they correctly think it not a whit more mechanical, they write it a million times on strips of paper, fasten it around a cylinder, attach this to a water or a wind-wheel, and thus sleeping or waking, at home or abroad, keep up a steady fire of prayer at the G.o.ds, which finally, they sanguinely hope, will bring them to submission.

No sect has such entire confidence in the power of prayer as the Buddhists. The most pious Mahometan or Christian does not approach their faith. After all is said and done, the latter has room to doubt the efficacy of his prayer. It may be refused. Not so the Buddhists. They have a syllogism which covers the case completely, as follows:--