Men, Women, and Gods Part 11

If our superior civilization were the result of our religion, then the most civilized countries would be the most intensely Christian countries. We all know that this is not the case. Compare the intense Christianity of Spain or Russia, and their backward civilization, with the easy-going religious or irreligious condition of France or America, and their recognition of Liberty and Humanity, equalled nowhere else on earth.

I admit unreservedly that a religion; by its inelasticity, may do much to r.e.t.a.r.d progress, or by its greater elasticity may permit a more rapid development than a more nearly petrified or incoherent system would allow; but what I hold is this, that the primary and controlling causes of the various stages of civilization are climate and soil.

There are, of course, many other things which modify the social development or civilization in any country, as its religion, its laws, and what we may call "accidents of international or civil contest," such as the religious or other wars--our own war in which the blacks were freed, arbitration, and immigration. All of these, and many others, are modifying influences; but no one of them can claim the primary place.

Soil, climate, and location determine the occupation of a nation, as whether it shall be militant, commercial, or agricultural. In turn occupation determines what the character of a people and their laws shall be, whether they shall be warlike or peaceful, inventive or receptive, stationary or roving; and these, in turn, are the matters which determine the civil scale to which a people shall rise.

True, the religion of a people will make itself felt strongly; but whenever a nation has found it expedient or desirable to accomplish a feat which was in opposition to its religion, it has invariably modified the religion to fit the case, or waived it in favor of that particular movement.*

* "The popular religion in this, as in other cases, was made to bend to the new vice."--Lecky's History of European Morals, vol. il, page 311.

In keeping with this fact it is found that in those countries where the greatest changes and modifications of government and occupation have occurred, there have the religions undergone the greatest modification _to fit the new order of things_. If it were the religion that determined the matter, civilization and morals would be immovable, and legislation would revolve around, the guidance of the Church.

According to the very theory of Divine revelation a religion would be most perfect at its beginning. It would be without flaw when born.

It would be incapable of improvement or growth. In a word it would be immovable. It would possess the fixation of which Emerson speaks. It would not have to readjust itself to the changed and improved conditions of man, and its word would be always a higher light on every movement of progress. It would be to the Church and not to the State that the great principles of progress, of liberty, and of justice would look for the highest guidance and the last light. How far this is from the real state of things in any country or in any religion all readers of history know.*

* See Appendix B.

It is the State or Science which has proposed and made the steps of progress, and the Church has (often after the most bitter fight and denunciation) readjusted her creed to the new code, and then claimed that she had that light and knew that principle before, although neither she nor any one else had ever suspected it.

This has been the case with almost every important discovery that Science has ever made. The Church has r.e.t.a.r.ded the acceptance of the new light, and has set her seal of "divine disapproval and d.a.m.nation" on the brow of the thinkers who strove to bless mankind. It has been the rule in State reforms as well. It was so in the struggle to separate Church and State. It is so in the effort to sustain the belief in the "divine right of kings." The Church fought individual liberty and representative government, and she still contests the questions of individual conscience and universal equality and independence.*

* See reports of the last General Conference of the Methodist Church held in Philadelphia, where, during a heated debate, one member said that he was in favor of using common-sense and the principle of justice in deciding questions of right and wrong and of liberty of conscience; whereupon a large majority voted him a dangerous man, and decided that common-sense and justice had nothing to do with religion. One member naively remarked that the whole career and life of a good preacher fully disproved that any such heretical doctrines obtained in the Church as that the use of common-sense was admissible; and since the majority voted with him it does not seem to be my place to question that fact.

In these matters the Church has invariably been on the side that ultimately had to go to the wall, and she has become a party to the progress only after the principle has become an established fact.

Now it is the efforts of Science and Law towards the elevation of man and the bettering of his condition in this world--the procuring for him of greater personal advantages, dignity, and liberty--that have marked the progress of civilization.

The climate and soil decided man's occupation; his occupation determined what his higher needs should be; and his higher needs and the gained results of his occupations enabled him to strive for the bettering of his condition and surroundings. The man who lived in a climate favorable to mental and physical activity, and in a country with a rich and varied soil, was enabled to accomplish his ends as his less fortunate brother-lacking such support and stimulus and motive--has been unable to do.

If such a thing had been possible, thirty years ago, as that all knowledge of our religion had been utterly wiped out of America, and a thorough knowledge of Buddhism or Mohammedanism instilled into every Yankee brain in its stead, the Yankee brain would have simply adjusted its religion to its surroundings and not its surroundings to its religion; and America would have gone right on in the front rank of liberty and toleration and progress. There would have been social and political and religious contests over "caste" or "harems" or "Tripitaka," instead of over slavery as a divine inst.i.tution, the right of a mother to her own offspring, or the inspiration of the Bible. The wheels of progress would have been blocked some days by devotees who preached d.a.m.nation for those who believed in the "Trinity" instead of for those who did not. h.e.l.l would have been as freely promised to the man who suggested that Newton knew more than Mohammed, as it is to-day to any one who makes the same odious comparison between Darwin and Moses. The timid would have been terrified by sermons to prove the lost condition of a man who touched one of lower rank, in place of the edification our clergy offer in the shape of eternal d.a.m.nation for unbaptized infants. And there would have been so little difference between the arguments for the divinity of the Tripitaka and the Bible, and for the miracles of each, that if any devout Presbyterian had by accident left his barrel of sermons on the latter subject behind him, his Buddhist brother could have utilized them without the change of an argument. But the wheel would turn and the devotee would either go down or change his creed, and it would depend chiefly upon his age and consequent flexibility which course he would adopt.

No known religion could transfer the conditions of civilization in China to America or England or France, and no amount of christianizing (if such a thing were possible) could transform China into a like condition with us, so long as her climate, her soil, and her population remain what they are to-day. You may make the Arab or the j.a.p digest the whole Westminster catechism, but he will, he _must_, be an Arab or a j.a.p still--if he lives through it all. If his const.i.tution is good, and he gets over it, his condition and grade of civilization will continue to conform to his environment; and the trifling difference involved between turning-off prayers on a wheel and counting them off on beads will be simply the difference between tweedledee and tweedledum.

Notwithstanding this as a primary fact, the religion of a country has a modifying influence on the rapidity of its progress, and the more fixed a religion--the more certainly it claims perfection, the greater claim it lays to holding the final word; _and the more fully this claim is accepted by the people_, the greater influence will it have, the greater check will it be to the development of any new thought, discovery, invention, or principle that arises in the process of evolution toward a freer atmosphere and a broader understanding of individual liberty and dignity and life. William Kingdon Clifford, F. R. S., in his delightful book on the "Scientific Basis of Morals," says:

"It is sometimes said that moral questions have been authoritatively settled by other methods; that we ought to accept this decision, and not to question it by any method of scientific inquiry; and that reason should give way to revelation on such matters.

"I hope before I have done to show just cause why we should p.r.o.nounce on such teaching as this no light _sentence of moral condemnation_: first, because it is our duty to form those beliefs which are to guide our actions by the two scientific modes of inference, and by these alone; and, secondly, because the proposed mode of settling ethical questions by authority is contrary to the very nature of right and wrong.

"The wors.h.i.+p of a deity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to any portion of the community is a wrong thing, however great may be the threats and promises by which it is commended. And still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, _the diversion of the allegiance of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most insidious and fatal of social diseases_.

"_The first principle of natural ethics is the sole and supreme allegiance of conscience to the community_.

"Secondly, veracity to the community depends upon faith in man. Surely I ought to be talking plat.i.tudes when I say that it is not English to tell a man a lie, or to suggest a lie by your silence or your actions, because you are afraid that he is not prepared for the truth, because you don't quite know what he will do when he knows it, because perhaps after all this lie is a better thing _for him_ than the truth would be, this same man being all the time an honest fellow-citizen whom you have every reason to trust. Surely I have heard that this craven crookedness is the object of our national detestation. _And yet it is constantly whispered that it would be dangerous to divulge certain truths to the ma.s.ses_. 'I know the whole thing is untrue: but then it is so useful for the people; you don't know what harm you might do by shaking their faith in it.' Crooked ways are none the less crooked because they are meant to deceive great ma.s.ses of people instead of individuals. If a thing is true, let us all believe it, rich and poor, men, women, and children. If a thing is untrue, let us all disbelieve it, rich and poor, men, women, and children. Truth is a thing to be shouted from the housetops, not to be whispered over rose-water after dinner when the ladies are gone away.

"Even in those whom I would most reverence, who would shrink with horror from such actual deception as I have just mentioned, I find traces of a want of faith in man. Even that n.o.ble thinker, to whom we of this generation owe more than I can tell, seemed to say in one of his posthumous essays that in regard to questions of great public importance we might encourage a hope in excess of the evidence (which would infallibly grow into a belief and defy evidence) if we found that life was made easier by it. _As if we should not lose infinitely more by nouris.h.i.+ng a tendency to falsehood than we could gain by the delusion of a pleasing fancy_. Life must first of all be made straight and true; it may get easier through the help this brings to the commonwealth. And Lange, the great historian of materialism, says that the amount of false belief necessary to morality in a given society is a matter of taste. _I cannot believe that any falsehood whatever is necessary to morality_. It cannot be true of my race and yours that to keep ourselves from becoming scoundrels we must needs believe a lie. _The sense of right grew up among healthy men and was fixed by the practice of comrades.h.i.+p. It has never had help from phantoms and falsehoods, and it never can want any_.

By faith in man and piety toward men we have taught each other the right hitherto; with faith in man and piety toward men we shall never more depart from it."

If religion decided and produced the civilization of a people, what sort of civilization would exist to-day among the Jews? All Jews would be bigamists, and murder would be their pastime. No people would be free from their rapine, no woman safe from their l.u.s.t. But fortunately they have followed their scientific and political leaders instead of their Prophets, and the consequence is that they are so far above and superior to their religion and their Bible, that only in its trivial and immaterial dictates is it their guide and law to-day.

And we, building upon the same foundation, with an added story to our edifice, modify, to suit legislation and a higher public sentiment and a broader conception of justice, both the foundation and the roof whenever a new principle is born or some great soul floods the world with light.

And so the world moves on, those nations in advance that possess the climate to stimulate and the soil to support to the best advantage their citizens--philosophers and scientists who grope towards perfection and stumble on the way over real and imaginary obstacles, but still bring each generation nearer the goal, and freer to brush aside the cobwebs of superst.i.tion and ignorance, and to look fairly out on the light that breaks in the East.

There is another feature of the subject that will bear looking at.

Christians are the last to give credit to other religions for the development and advance of civilization in the countries possessing them. What Christian will admit that it is the religion of the Chinese that makes them the most orderly, law-abiding, mob-avoiding people on the globe? Will any Christian admit that it is the inferior moral tone of Christ and his teachings which enables the followers of Confucius and Buddha to offer this superior showing? Is he prepared to say that Mohammedanism is superior to Christianity because its followers outdo the Christians in honesty?* Is it owing to the superior blessings of the Mormon faith that its followers are more thrifty, and that paupers are few or unknown among them?

* Travelers tell us that a native can leave an order together with a bag of uncounted gold at the shop of a dealer, and upon the return of the buyer his order will be exactly filled, his gold properly and honestly divided, and all where he had left them, even though the shop be open to the street and unattended and unguarded.

Is it because their religion is superior to ours that the Lapp women are better treated; that their comparative status is higher, and their family life purer than with ourselves?*

* "Though Norway with Ladies." By W. Mattieu Williams.

F.R.A.S., F.C.S.

The claim that superiority of civilization is due to Christianity, and that to it we owe the good things of the nations where it is the prevailing religion, proves too much. _It will work just as well for any other religion as for our own_. Its reach is too extended, its conclusion too comprehensive for its purpose. Christianity could not be made its sole terminus. It reminds one of the story of the brakeman who was persuaded to go to church. When he came out his friend asked him how he liked the preacher. He said, "Very well, on the main line. He had good wheels, his track was straight and level, and he carried a good head of steam, but he seemed to _lack terminal facilities_."

Horace Seaver recently wrote the following:

"ALL OWING TO THE BIBLE.

"It is a very common argument with Christians, that only those nations which have had the Bible were refined, civilized, and learned. A Christian paper, now before us, exultingly says:

"'Take the map of the world, draw a line around those countries that have enjoyed the highest degree of refinement, and you will encircle just those nations that have received the Bible as their authority in religion.'

"From this language the plain inference is, that those nations have been indebted to the influence of the Bible for the positions to which they have attained. Let us follow out a little this line of argument and see where it will lead.

"The ancient Egyptians stood as far in advance of their contemporaries as do the nations of Christendom at the present day, as the remains of Egyptian cities and temples fully attest. And if the argument is good, they were indebted for that superiority to their wors.h.i.+p of cats, crocodiles, and onions!

"The ancient Greek might have exclaimed, as he beheld the proud position to which Greece had attained--'See what we owe to a belief in our glorious mythology; we have reached the highest point of enlightenment the world has ever witnessed; we stand unequalled in power, wealth, the cultivation of the arts, and all that makes a nation refined, polished, and great!'"

COMPARATIVE STATUS.

It is a fact that in some Christian countries the actual status of woman is higher than it is to-day in any other country; but it is also true that her _comparative_ status is often lower.*

* See Appendix C, 1-6.

If we compare the actual status of woman in Russia or Spain (the two most intensely Christian countries to-day) with that of the Chinese or Hindoo woman, the showing may be somewhat in favor of the former; but on the other hand, her _comparative_ position (when taken with that of the men of her country) does not gain but loses by the contrast.

"How immeasurably would his faith in the elevating tendency of his religion have been increased, could he have looked with prophetic eye into the distant ages of the future, and beheld the enlightened and Christianized nations of the nineteenth century adopting the remains of Grecian architecture, sculpture, painting, oratory, music, and literature as their models!

"Pagan Rome, too, once mistress of the world and arbitress of nations--the home of philosophers and sages--the land in which the t.i.tle, 'I am a Roman citizen,' was the proudest that a mortal could wear--Rome, by the above Christian argument, should have ascribed all her honor, praise, and glory to her mythology.

"The Turk and the Saracen, likewise, have had their day of power and renown. Bagdad was the seat of science and learning at a time when the nations of Europe were sunk in darkness and superst.i.tion. The Turk and Saracen should have pointed to the Koran as the source of their refinement.

"Thus we see that the Christian argument we are noticing, if it proves anything, proves too much. If the nations of Christendom are indebted to the Bible for their enlightenment, likewise were the Egyptians indebted to their cat and crocodile and onion wors.h.i.+p, the Greeks and Romans to their mythology, and the Turks and Saracens to their Koran."