Chapter XVI: The Humanist's Religion

In the preceding pages we have no doubt often hurt--but we have hurt to heal. The good surgeon probes deeply in order that he may not have the operation to perform again. Even a minute amount of diseased tissues left behind can prevent the return of vigorous and creative health. Thus what may seem to the anxious patient unnecessary cruelty may be the greatest kindness. A sentimental compromise is never welcomed by the mature judgment of the brave man. And in this day when so many have willingly given their lives for the sake of a human ideal, is it just and right to flinch in the spiritual warfare which confronts our generation? We are seeking nothing less than a renaissance in which men's energies will be wisely and loyally directed to what is greatly human and humanly great. In such a service we must will to be hard on ourselves and on others.

In the past, religion has only too often been formal and negative and world-fleeing. It has said nay to life rather than yea. Past religion rested upon man's sense of his own helplessness in a world which he did not understand. By the very instinct of self-preservation, he created supernatural powers which were to be on his side in the grim and unequal struggle in which he was engaged. But this subterfuge by which he thought to conquer had its treacherous effects, for it turned man {212} from comprehending and mastering his world. He became but a pilgrim here, intent on heavenly joys and splendors, which threw this world into darkness. What these joys and splendors were he hardly knew: yet he hugged the thought of them to his heart and despised things merely human. And if, as often became the case, the world grew upon him, his conscience was torn and tormented. He was a man divided against himself, unable to throw himself whole-heartedly into any enterprise.

But the humanist's religion is the religion of one who says yea to life here and now, of one who is self-reliant and fearless, intelligent and creative. It is the religion of the will to power, of one who is hard on himself and yet joyous in himself. It is the religion of courage and purpose and transforming energy. Its motto is, "What hath not man wrought?" Its goal is the mastery of things that they may become servants and instrumentalities to man's spiritual comradeship. Whatever mixture of magic, fear, ritual and adoration religion may have been in man's early days, it is now, and henceforth must be, that which concerns man's nobilities, his discovery of, and loyalty to, the pervasive values of life. The religious man will now be he who seeks out causes to be loyal to, social mistakes to correct, wounds to heal, achievements to further. He will be constructive, fearless, loyal, sensitive to the good wherever found, a believer in mankind, a fighter for things worth while.

When old ideas become enfeebled, they clog the spiritual system. Conventionality, routine and sentimentalism take the place of the fresh vigor which always accompanies profound conviction. A gospel cannot be {213} a heritage enjoyed: it must be a portion earned. And to-day, especially, there is pressing need for a brave criticism of past standards, succeeded by an act of intelligent will which presses fearlessly on to a reformulation and reaffirmation of values. Because the old religions did not have this power to exalt significant human ideals, relevant to the changing crisis of the times, the nations drifted into the materialism of commercialism and militarism. And a religion insistent upon a rational and wise interpretation of the ways of life will, alone, be able to rescue them. Watchwords by themselves, if they remain vague generalities untranslatable into new directions of effort, will fail. What is necessary is a new goal, or else a pragmatic development of past dreams into programs which awaken loyalty and hope. But the center of gravity and endeavor of such a religion will lie within society. It will be, to all intents and purposes, a humanist's religion. It will save men's souls by making them worth saving. For it, salvation will be no magical hocus-pocus external to the reach and timbre of man's personality: it will be his loyal and intelligent union with those values and possibilities of life which have come within his ken. To convert will be to educate and redirect the energies of the soul. And society will need conversion as pressingly as scattered individuals in slums and tenements. Does it to-day stress the most important things? The State has been the servant of things as they are, not of things as they might be. A humanist's religion can admit no cunning division into the things which are God's and the things which are Caesar's. Human values are as jealous as the Yahweh of Moses. To sin against them is to die spiritually.

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The common opinion that critical work is ever merely negative is a great error. It is the willing error of a dogmatism which feels itself insecure. It is the error of a spiritual plane which has settled into ease and hates to be disturbed. Sooner or later, criticism leads to something positive, to a new vision and a new goal. All that is needed is the patience which is founded upon faith and is willing to try all things in the firm belief that the truth will prevail. Moreover, criticism has a positive psychological effect in that it calls attention to the actual situation and directs attention to the living problems. It is that spur to the soul which prevents it from going to sleep. Without it, problems are avoided rather than sought. Who can deny that this lethargy has been the disheartening temper of the Christian Church, now when every domain of life cries aloud for vigorous thought? Surely religion has to do with more than the common decencies of life, important as they are. Its place is in the van of the fighting; it has to do with last hopes and glimpsed visions, with what is to come as well as with what is. Religion at its tensest has to do with ultimate loyalties. Habit and tradition are helpless in such matters, which are of things hoped for--upon this earth.

But enough of the critical side. We have said that the coming religion will say yea to human life. Yet it will not affirm it in a blind and sentimental way. It will be realistic and striving. All great religions of the past have recognized the tragic aspects of human life, its brevity, its littlenesses, its fussy selfishness, its lack of vision, its suffering; but they have too often been led to despise humanity by seeing it on the illimitable background of celestial omnipotences and perfections. {215} Religion as loyalty to human values will lose no whit of this tragic sense, and yet the palsying background of supernaturalism will disappear. Some measure of tragedy will remain; but its morbidity will have been separated out and courageously rejected. Social groups will fall to with a will to live largely and widely. They will seek a tingling welfare woven of the threefold values of truth, beauty and goodness. The saint will not be the groveling sinner, but the man of mellow wisdom. He will be immersed in the currents of life and yet master of himself. He will be at once the servant of concrete and compassable ideals and their possessor and enjoyer.

The shadow of the Great War will lighten to the coming generation soon after peace is declared. Then will come the time for the taking of stock and the revaluation of human endeavor. Man must ask himself more seriously than ever before what things are worth while, and thereupon bend his political and economic instrumentalities to their furtherance. And here the religion of human values must be the leader. Does democracy yet accord with such a religion? Or is it still too timid, negative, thin and uninstructed? America, for example, has a soul; but it is a soul which needs discipline, instruction, contemplation. The religion of human possibilities needs prophets who will grip men's souls with their description of a society in which righteousness, wisdom and beauty will reign together. It is hard to say what thought such a society calls up before us. Yet does it not mean that, more than now and increasingly, selfish luxury will be scorned, property subordinated to welfare, economic fear lessened to the utmost, knowledge unenviously exalted, and art called {216} into service? Loyalty to such an ideal will surely constitute the heart of the humanist's religion.

The ideals of a religion can never be easy. The prophets were stern critics and hard taskmasters; Jesus knew that his true followers would find their way no primrose path; the Mediaeval saints were hard on themselves and their disciples. We can generalize this history for the future.

And yet a larger measure of joy and human satisfaction will play around religion in the future than has been the case in the past. Because of its supernaturalisms and distortions, religious demands have often been morbid and full of unnecessary friction. Religion has sought to thwart and repress human nature rather than to guide and express. But a religion of human loyalty can be kindly as well as exigent, mirth-loving as well as stern.

As never before, spiritual values sing to us from life. They sing to us of the patient love of the parent for the child, of the conquest of nature by trained intellect, of the quiet labor of the skilled workman, of the steady loyalties of every-day life, of the willing cooperation of citizens, of the sweetness of music, of plans for greater social justice, and of a world made free from war. Spiritual values are everywhere around us inviting our service. He who asks where they are is like a man who asks for water when a spring is bubbling beneath his feet. And yet we have been so blinded by the old ascetic supernaturalisms that we are slow to realize that these simple human things are nobly spiritual. So long as there are things worth while, there will be spiritual values. Is not this positive enough? Need he who has an inalienable treasure fear robbery?

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To put the situation bluntly, religion must be separated from the other-worldly pull of the traditional theologies and be sanely grounded in the outlook of modern knowledge. There is no need for a rabid anti-theism. The truth is, rather, that mankind is outgrowing theism in a gentle and steady way until it ceases to have any clear meaning. This is a hard saying and requires justification. In part, I have given the justification in the preceding pages; in part, I have given it elsewhere.[1] But the drift among thinking people is unmistakable. With the imminent solution of the mind-body problem, the last bulwark of the old supernaturalism will have fallen. Man will be forced to acknowledge that he is an earth-child whose drama has meaning only upon her bosom. It is my firm conviction that the clear realization of this fact will startle men into insights and demands of far-reaching import. May it not remove a dead-weight of inhibitions which has kept the human spirit under bonds to past attitudes and methods? There will no longer be a divided interest and an uncertain horizon. To many it will come like a plunge in cold water: but may not such a plunge do them good by waking them from their dogmatic slumbers?

The interpretation of the physical world of which man is a part must be left to the cooperative work of {218} science and philosophy. These will give to us tested and critical knowledge of the processes which go on around us, of the drift of the stars in the world-spaces, of the spiral movements of nebular matter, of the evolution of the elements, of the integration of organic forms, of the development of historic life. The universe is: it is meaningless to ask whence it came, for it always was, and time is but a term for the changes which go on within it.

But, having explored the universe by telescope and microscope, and having thus come to some understanding of his world, man must return again to his own pressing problems and possibilities, to his need to interpret his own good, to his desire to further and maintain those interests and activities in which he finds self-expression. His own life, as a realm of affection and action, must rightly be for him the significant center of the universe. These urgencies, interests, possibilities, satisfactions, loyalties are inalienably human and valid. He can no more ignore them than he can his hunger for food and his thirst for water. Nothing can rob him of the values which he has created, nor can any one take from him the burden of courageous endeavor. He is the master of his own destiny and the prompter in his own drama. In his tenser moments, the physical spaces around his planet will but contain

"The endless, silly merriment of stars."

As religion learns to relinquish theology and accept the modern view of the world, the spirituality which it has fostered will mate with reason. Reason by itself is not enough; feeling by itself is not enough. What the world awaits is the sane and kindly ministry of a {219} concrete reason to the goods of human life. Thinking and experimentation must be instrumental to the progressive betterment of life. This idea is not new. Many have grasped it before in whole or in part; but the setting has not always been simple enough. Comte meant just such a humanism in his religion of humanity, but he was unable to cut himself loose from his associations with organized Christianity. There is no adequate motive for the retention of the ritualism and worship of Comtism, nor is there any good reason for the deification of humanity. Humanity is not an entity, nor is it a sort of supreme personality which may be worshiped. Religion will mean the valuing of experiences and activities, the striving for their realization, the loyalty to their call. Taken in this way, religion will agree with and commend the purpose expressed by Huxley: "To promote the increase of natural knowledge and to forward the application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life to the best of my ability, in the conviction which has grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength, that there is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is, when the garment of make-believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off." This outlook has been called the marriage of naturalism with philanthropy; it is better to speak of it as the marriage of naturalism with humanism. It is the belief that a rational spirituality is possible, natural to man, and, above all things, desirable.

But if men find their salvation in love for, and loyalty to, values of various kinds, the practical question {220} becomes that of the furtherance and support of these values. What are some of the social conditions of a noble life? Surely education, opportunity and free association. It is no longer granted to trust the coming of a supernatural grace which will illuminate life. Such subjective illumination is only too apt to reflect the temperament of the individual and to lack that training and breadth of interest which only education and opportunity for a varied experience can give. Many of the values which we prize most highly to-day need the soil of culture and of a complex civilization before they will flourish. To distribute them widely is the dearest hope of a democracy which looks beyond the merely political aspects of social institutions. But such a distribution is a goal which has conditions which must be mastered by the bending of a keen social intelligence into the service of a genuine desire for the extension of well-used leisure. I mean that the task of modern democracy is the securing of economic well-being and a fair degree of leisure for the mass of the citizens in order that they may have the time, the energy, and the opportunity to develop themselves and to put themselves cooperatively into touch with the pleasant and creative side of life. But I have already touched upon these problems of social method and aim in another volume.[2]

It is time that I discussed a question which, I have no doubt, has been hovering in the background of many a reader's mind. Is it justifiable to retain the term religion when its ancient setting has been so completely discarded? I have myself asked this question many a {221} time. For many years, I felt that it would be better to give up the word entirely as indissolubly bound up with those ideas and beliefs which the modern trained mind is outgrowing. But I could not hide from myself the fact that the consciousness of the time was beginning to employ it in a freer and more constructive way. It had sensed the element of devotion and loyalty which religion had, in spite of its many shortcomings, nourished. How common the phrase is that a man has made a religion of some interest! The socialist is said to make a religion of socialism, the social reformer of his work of constructive philanthropy, the artist of his art. We mean that he has thrown himself whole-heartedly into some one of these fields. And, positively, this means that he has found that concrete and living salvation which ideal effort always brings to a man. He is filled with the spirit of consuming loyalty to what he values. He has left the mere conventionalities, the run of use-and-wont behind and has exalted himself with a living purpose which illuminates and concentrates his being. I think that this spirit and attitude is coming to be called religious, no matter to what objects it attaches itself. Have we not here a mark of identity which justifies the retention of the age-old word? Morality is too cold a word in the ears of most men. Besides, moral values are only a part of the immense throng of appreciations to which man responds. There is need of a comprehensive term, able to take in all those interests and activities which give life its variety and glory. Is there a better term than religion?

But there must be no mistake about the new setting of the term; no casuistic ambiguity must be encouraged. We must be firm in our negations of the old as {222} well as constructive in our affirmation of the new. I have tried to show that the belief in superhuman spirits arose in primitive times when man knew little about the world in which he found himself. Investigators in the history of religion trace the steps from polydemonism to polytheism and thence to henotheism and monotheism. Along with this evolution, which reflected changes in social organization, went a corresponding moral transformation of these divine beings. Yet the setting of the outlook was largely the same as in earlier days. Social relations were supposed to control the universe as a whole. Nature recognized her master in God much as the subjects of a king greeted him as their lord. His was the might, majesty, dominion and glory. There is a pathetic incident related of Carlyle which has meaning in this connection. Mr. Froude told Carlyle, not long before the latter's death, that he could believe only in a God who did something. With a cry of pain, Carlyle answered, "He does nothing." How can we harmonize this cry with his earlier faith in an Everlasting Will and a Providential Government of the world? It is impossible to do so. Romantic spiritualism must give way to a humanistic naturalism which sees clearly the place of man in the world. Morality, science and art are man's creation and distinctive possession. What he needs is a stable, law-abiding environment within which to work. He has this, and has gained some mastery of it. The further necessary step is mastery of himself and of those huge institutions which have grown up and now threaten to make him circle within their orbits. Man has battles still to fight.

The religion of the future will increasingly be concerned with two things, virtues and values. The Greek {223} virtues have been made tenderer by the Christian virtues and more steadfast by that training of the will and character which we associate with puritanism. The experience of the ages has deepened and broadened man, made him less hasty in judgment, more aware of his limitations, more realistic, more efficient. At the same time, it has added that touch of pathos which spiritualizes the beauty of life. We believe, also, that it has nourished that sentiment of tenderness for the homely fate of the average man that will some day find expression in a fuller democracy than has as yet dawned upon the earth.

But, above all, religion must be catholic in its count of values. Wherever there is loyal endeavor, it will acknowledge the presence of the spiritual. It will reverence the philosopher who has found salvation in the solution of complex intellectual problems, the scientist who has given himself to the whole-hearted study of nature, the missionary who has devoted himself to the spread of an elevating conception of life, the kindly physician who has sought to alleviate human suffering, the social reformer who has spent his life in agitating for a saner social polity, the artist who has had a vision of beauty and has labored to express it in such a way that all men could share it, the man and woman who have met the tasks of every day with courage and charity. And it will seek to bring these values to closer acquaintance with each other than has hitherto been the case. The guidance of a kindly and clear-eyed reason will not be regarded with suspicion, for this human faith will have nothing to fear, because having no tottering creed to sustain. What a relief it will be to have the narrow sectarianism, the cruel bigotry, the obscurantism of {224} supernaturalism purged from religion! These unlovely features of man's spiritual life had their rootage in the distrust of human nature and of human reason, in a certain slavishness of soul continuous with the distant days of man's ignorance and fear. They will lessen and pass away as knowledge increases, as liberty becomes concrete and significant, as a more spiritual courage grows among the mass of men. And, in my opinion, there is nothing more calculated to hasten the growth of this buoyancy and moral courage than a larger measure of social justice in the common affairs of life.

And, in this mission of adjustment and service between the various values of life, reason will have a co-equal as a helper. Surely, art will come more and more to its own in the life which is opening up before us! Man's soul will crave gracious surroundings, the harmony of well-constructed dwellings, the restfulness of dawn and flowers, the elevation of noble buildings. Ugliness and squalor will be repugnant to him, for he will know their spiritual cost. But man will not only seek healthy and beautiful surroundings, he will also be desirous to interpret all phases of his life to himself. And in this effort at interpretation he will succeed ever more fully in seeing the various sides of his life as parts of a whole. Art will set itself the task of giving significance and depth to nature, to industry, to the home, to public life, to science. And, as art begins to perform this mission of interpretation, it will cease to be thought of as a mere decoration, the plaything of the rich. It will be conceived as the means for the expression of those various loyalties which will ennoble and spiritualize life. As the human race grows healthier {225} and happier it will employ to the full that gift of all gifts it has in its possession, the capacity to clothe things with gracious forms and give its deepest feelings a human voice. Art will be the high-priest of the religion of loyalty to the values of life.

To those accustomed to the old mythological setting of religion with its glance away from human life as a whole, this prophecy will but confirm their conviction of the revolutionary character of the thesis which this book has sought to champion. But I feel certain that, if they will permit themselves a dispassionate study of the facts, they will, sooner or later, be forced to acknowledge the inevitableness of the conclusion. If religion is to survive, it must be human and social. It is they who insist upon a supernatural foundation and object who are its enemies. Man's life is spiritual in its own right. So long as he shall dream of beauty and goodness and truth his life will not lack religion.

[1] Those who are interested in a constructive philosophical position which meets the results of modern science may be referred to my two books, _Critical Realism_ and _The Essentials of Philosophy_. I have there shown that the mind-body dualism has been due to a false way of approach. Psychology gives knowledge about the functional capacities of the nervous system additional to that given by the physical science, and in no way conflicting with it, and consciousness is in the brain.

[2] See especially _The Next Step in Democracy_, ch. 5.

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INDEX

Agency, impersonal, 117 f.; limits of personal, 121 f.

Agnosticism, and theodicy, 154 f.

Albigenses, 162

Arminianism, 161

Asceticism, 156; protestant, 202

Attis, 23

Attis mysteries, 24

Balder, 21

Biblical criticism, 66

Bibliolatry, 204

Brain, discussion of, 136

Buddhism, 138

Calvinism, 164

Cathars, 162

Christianity, origins of, 58 f.; historical approach to, 60 f.; setting of, 68 f.; democratic movements in, 73; in transition, 95 f.; naivete of doctrines, 101 f.

Christian mythology, 28

Church, organization of, 92, 187

Copernican theory, 100 f.

Creation, stories of, 30 f.

Criticism, higher, 128, 131 f.

Demons, Jesus's belief in, 127

Devil, a personal, 155

Dionysus, 18

Dogmatism, tendency to, 65

Dreams, influence of, 143

Ethics, and early religion, 170 f.; in the Middle Ages, 173 f.; heteronomous, 175 f.; modern, 177 f.; 184 f.

Evil, for primitive man, 153; and Satan, 156; created by God, 158; as illusion, 164 f.; disappearance of problem of, 165

Evolution, and myth, 41 f.; biological, 104 f.

Faith cures, 132

Gnosticism, 87 f.

God, for Christianity, 115 f.; ideas of, 159 f.

Great War, 2, 11

Hades, 140

Hell, 177

Humanism, 192

Humanitarianism, 5

Immortality, arguments for, 146 f.; and early peoples, 139 f.; and Christianity, 142; philosophical aspect of, 148 f.

Incarnation, 90

Infallibility, 204

Insanity, 146 f.

James, Wm., 145

Jesus, 75, 79 f.; death of, 82; as Messiah, 85; become God, 91; and the Hebrew prophets, 158 f.

Job, 154.

Kant, Immanuel, 147 f.

Kempis, Thomas a, 180

Koran, 62

Lang, Andrew, 17

Laws, universal, 118

Lyell, scientific canon of, 132

Magic, 44 f.

Magicians, 50

Manicheism, 162

McGiffert, quoted, 7

Mill, John Stuart, 163

Miracles, 123 f.; of Jesus, 127 f; evidence for, 130 f.; and their logic, 133

Mithraism, 23, 69.

Monastic orders, 194

Monotheism, ethical, 91, 115; Christian, 111 f.; of Isaiah, 158 f.

Morality, 173

Mythology, 14 f.

Myths, and morality, 24 f.; surrendering of, 108

Name, influence of, 51 f.

Naturalism, 2

Newman, Cardinal, 187

Original sin, 157

Osiris, 23

Paul, 70, 73

Pauline Christianity, 86 f.

Philo, 90

Prometheus, 17

Prophets, Hebrew, 171 f.

Protestantism, beginnings of, 93; aspects of, 199 f.; sects of, 205

Providence, 144 f.

Reformation, 205

Reinach, 17

Religion, new perspective in, 6, 10; of the Hebrews, 27; and magic, 53 f.; in early times, 170; social side of, 190

Ritual, 19 f.; and Christianity, 23

Robinson, quoted, 200

Roman Empire, 189, 192

Sacraments, 192

Salvation, 8 f.; and immortality, 141 f., 201

Satan, 155

Savior, 157

Science, 62 f.

Secular life, growth of, 195 f.

Sheol, 18, 140 f.

Skepticism, 110

Social democracy, 5

Spiritual, the, 11, 196

Spiritual courage, 2

Spiritualism, 11

St. Augustine, 159, 162

St. Francis, 73.

Strauss, 64

Synoptic gospels, 77 f.

Theology, and ethics, 164

Totemism, 15 f.

Tradition, harm of, 10

Tyndall, 135

Unitarian movement, 206

Universe, new view of, 3 f.

Wells, H. G., 162, 184 f.

Yahweh, 26 f.

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End of Project Gutenberg's The Next Step in Religion, by Roy Wood Sellars