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BALANCE : The Fundamental Verity. Crown
8vo. ETERNALISM: A Theory of Infinite Justice.
Crown 8vo, gilt top, f 1.25 net. Postage, 13
cents.
BALANCE
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
BALANCE
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
BY
ORLANDO J. SMITH
AUTHOR OF "kTERNALISM"
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
0bt iSitoetjJibe p^re??, Cambribgc 1904
COPYRIGHT 1904 BY ORLANDO J. SMITH ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published September IQ04
C ) CO
3U SSSb
CONTENTS
The Power of the Sea curbs the Sea — Physi- ^ cal Excess turns upon Itself, defeats Itself CO — Excess is defeated also in Chance, into
M
•-1 which Physical Force does not enter — Deficiency balances Excess — Nature's Law of Balance
CO
CD
II
Equilibrium, in the Sense of Actual Rest, is Unknown — Nature is a State of Ceaseless Motion, regulated by Balance
III
The Scientific Interpretations of Nature point
5 to the Single Interpretation, that Balance
ii rules the World — "To Every Action there
lu IS an Equal Reaction," is the Supreme tc
Statement c
^ IV
No Force works aimlessly or wanders away
into Extinction — Balance is Supreme in
[ V ]
15
CONTENTS
the Small, as well as in the Great, Processes of Nature — Every Physical Transformation includes Exact Equivalence and Compensa- tion 24
V
Man's Part in Nature — Progress by Antag- onism — Nature's Process is by Test and Trial, by unfolding, changing, ripping up, undoing and redoing — Error dies in the Struggle 31
VI
Action and Reaction in Human Affairs — From Paganism to Christianity, to Asceti- cism, to the Crusades, to Exploration and Commerce — Minor Interactions — Reaction from Words and Tones, Speeches and Thoughts 43
VII
The Law of Consequences — The Good or Evil in Things is discovered by Obser- vation of Consequences — Morals are de- termined by the Consequences of Human Actions 54
[ vi ]
CONTENTS
VIII Equivalence is the Test of Truth — Our Stand- ards are Instruments of Equivalence — The Balancing of Alternatives — Reasoning is an Exploration of the Undetermined, a Search for Antecedents and Consequences 6i
IX
Compensation in Human Affairs — Problems of Business are Problems of Compensation — Right is accomplished by rendering Equiva- lents — Duty is a Debt, literally a Due — The Golden Rule is a Law^ of Equivalent Exchange 7^
X
Order is Regulation ; Balance is Regulator. Right is Correctness ; Balance is Corrector. Justice is Compensation ; Balance is Com- pensator— Balance is Single and Supreme, without a Mate or Equal 80
XI
Natural Justice — Compensation in Human Affairs involves a Cycle of Beginning, De- [ vii ]
CONTENTS
velopment and Conclusion, as Seed Time, Growth and Harvest — Tyranny is an Anti- dote for Mean Spiritcdness, and Courage is the Antidote for Tyranny — Through such Rude Alternations do \vc move forward 84
XII Justice is Incomplete in the Present Existence — Our Life here is as a Broken Part of a Broader Life — If Death ends All, then the Mass of Mankind must live, toil, suffer and die under a Condition of Hopeless Injustice 92
XIII The Essential Meaning of Religion is found in the Agreements, and not in the Disagree- ments, among Believers — There are Three Fundamental Religious Beliefs : ( i ) That the Soul is Accountable for its Actions ; (2) That the Soul survives the Death of the Body; (3) In a Supreme Power that rights Things 99
XIV The Fundamental Meaning of Religion is revealed by its History — Religion recog-
[ ^"' ]
CONTENTS
nizes that Right rules the World — Science recognizes that Balance rules the World — Religion and Science are in Harmony, not in Conflict 1 19
XV
Religion has been misinterpreted and per- verted — Science also has been misinter- preted and perverted — Religion answers for its Perversions as Science, Truth and Right answ^er for their Perversions — The Value of a Truth is measured by the Magni- tude of its Perversions 124
XVI
Measuring the Value of Religion by its Denial — Only One School of Thought denies Religion — Materialism is the Doctrine that Wrong rules the World — Science and Re- ligion meet on Grounds of Life, not Death ; of Persistence, not Annihilation ; of Right, not Wrong ; on the Ground that the Lavv^s of Nature are Uniform, not Contradictory 138
C 5^ ]
BALANCE :
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
I
The Power of the Sea curbs the Sea — Physical Ex- cess turns upon Itself, defeats Itself — Excess is defeated also in Chance, into which Physical Force does not enter — Deficiency balances Excess — Nature's Law of Balance.
LONG ISLAND extends into the Atlantic Ocean for more than one hundred miles to the east of the mainland. The ocean, impelled by the pre- vailing southwest winds, beats with great force upon the island, and would over- whelm it but for a series of sand-banks which lie next to the sea and resist the force of its waves. Inside of these dunes [ • ]
BALANCE
is fin almost continuous line of villages, the itih^bi'tanis of which live in no fear of the sea, though they know that one of its storms would inundate their low-l3'ing lands if they were unprotected by the dunes.
Against the dunes the ocean wages un- ceasing war, retiring a little for rest at low tide, renewing the conflict with the turn of the tide, and rising often, with the as- sistance of the wind, to a furious assault. Each day the ocean wastes more force in its attacks than was ever exerted upon a human battle-field, and each day it suffers defeat.
These barriers against the sea were not built by human hands nor planned by hu- man thought, though no modern engineer could have designed a better protection for the land or built with less waste of ma- terial or with a closer calculation of the strain on the different parts of the line of defense. On the western shore of the island, where the force of tlic waves is [ 2 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
weaker, owing to the proximity of the mainland, the barriers of sand lie low; to the eastward they rise higher to meet the increasing power of the sea. They cut straight across large bodies of the sea from one point of land to another, that they may present no weak angle to the enemy. The dunes are so constructed as to present upon their whole front that exact angle to the line of the prevailing winds that will make each assault of the sea a glancing blow.
It is the power of the sea which forms these barriers against its own depreda- tions. The force of the waves lifts the sand from the bottom of the sea, depositing it upon the shore. Each wave carries a little sand; the stronger the wave the more sand does it carry; the severer the storm, the higher does it lift the sand upon the dunes, the more impregnably does the ocean fortify its shores against itself. Why the power of the ocean gives that exact trend [ 3 ]
BALANCE
to the dunes which makes them strongfest, is explained by Darwin's theory of natural selection : only that form of dune fitted to resist the sea could survive.
The explanation of the dunes is simple, the processes of their formation still con- tinuing and being open to examination. But the meaning of the dunes is less sim- ple. They testify to the fact that Nature curbs the excesses of the sea by a process quite reasonable, indeed unavoidable. The force of the sea is turned against the sea. This fact, and numerous other facts, sug- gest the theory that in some way all excess is curbed, or will finally defeat itself; that Nature has no pendulum which swings in one direction only.
In the case of the dunes we have an illustration of physical force restraining and defeating itself. Another example of Nature's antagonism to excess, into which physical force does not enter, is found in the laws of chance — what we call chance
[ 4 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
or luck being quite as much under the control of law as other things. In a draw- ing of odd and even numbers, the chance that the odd number — using the odd for illustration, the chances of the even num- ber being the same — will emerge in the first drawing is one in two; the chance that the odd will be drawn a second time is one in four; that it will be drawn a third time is one in eight; a fourth time one in sixteen, and so on. There is one chance in 1,024 that the odd will be drawn consecu- tivel}^ ten times; one chance in 1,048,576 that it will be drawn twenty times; one chance in a thousand millions that it will be drawn thirty times; one chance in a million millions that it will be drawn forty times. It is as if Nature should say:
" Against the consecutive return of the odd number, I double the barriers with each drawing. It is not alone physical excess which produces opposition; it is excess in whatever form it appears which [ 5 ]
BALANCE
turns upon itself, defeats itself. And my law is no more asrainst excess than against deficiency. The barriers against the con- secutive return of the odd number force the return of the delinquent even number. In the long run, the odd and e\en num- bers drawn shall be equalized repeatedly. " So far as you overdraw the odd, just so far you underdraw the even. If, in ten drawings, you have drawn the odd seven times, and the even three times, then the odd is in excess bv two drawing^s, and the even is in deficiency by two drawings also. Strictly speaking, nothing is ever out of balance in my processes. That which is overdone in one direction is underdone equally in an opposite direction. Excess can exist only through a corresponding deficiency, and deficiency can exist only through a corresponding excess. A defi- cienc}^ in crops is balanced by an excess in prices; an excess in crops is balanced by a deficiency in prices. Equivalence
[ 6 ]
I
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
is universal, all-present and all-powerful. This is my law of Balance."
We live in a world in which, if science and philosophy do not err, there is cease- less motion everywhere, and perfect rest nowhere. There is motion in the heart of the granite mountain, in the minutest por- tions of the human body; motion great and insignificant, perceptible and imper- ceptible, disastrous and beneficent. Is this motion — which is as universal in human thought and action as in matter — under no restraint, no order, no law ? or is it un- der the control of some power or principle which curbs excess, restrains deficiency, restores balance, grants compensation? Whether the return of equivalence and compensation is not fundamental in Na- ture, alike in physics and in the human soul — whether the rational foundation for man's hope for a future life, and for his belief in the rightness of the world-order, should not be sought for in the supremacy [ 7 ]
BALANCE
of equivalence and compensation — this is the subject of my inquiry, in which I shall deal briefly with the relations of balance to physical science, and pass promptly to the larger question, the relation of com- pensation to human affairs.
[ 8 ]
I
II
Equilibrium, in the Sense of Actual Rest, is Un- known — Nature is a State of Ceaseless Motion, regulated by Balance.
WHY do I use the word balance instead of equilibrium? Is not equilibrium more accurate than balance? We observe much of stability, poise and equivalence in and about us, which we call equilibrium. But we have not observed -perfect equilibrium. The word perfect is often misused. Nor have the physicists, with their finest balances and instruments of precision, found per- fect equilibrium. They have invented scales which, placed in a vacuum, isolated as far as possible from external disturb- ance, weigh with remarkable fineness. But they have invented no scales and dis- covered no conditions which enable them to weigh with infinite fineness. The in- [ 9 ]
BALANCE
linite eludes us. If they should improve their balances so that they may weigh one of the motes which we see in a sunbeam, still they would not reach perfect equi- librium. Thev must weigh a millionth of the mote and a millionth of that millionth, and so on to infinity, the unreachable.
The problem of perfect equilibrium faces infinite perturbations on all sides. There is no' perfect vacuum for the scales. Our government at Washington preserves our standard measures in an even temperature. The evenness of temperature can be main- tained to one degree, perhaps to the hun- dredth of a degree or to the thousandth, but not to the millionth or to infinite fine- ness.
Moreover, the maintenance of a perfect equilibrium would be in conflict with the scientific assumption that motion is cease- less. Perfect equilibrium maintained would be perfect rest, that which exists nowhere, according to the theory of the continuity [ "o ]
1
1
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
of motion and the persistence of force. Well it is with us and with the world that perfect rest does not exist! If the blood in my body should stand at perfect equi- librium for a moment, I would die. For motion is life; its cessation would be ex- tinction.
Equilibrium may be compared with the present in time, which, strictly speaking, is that point in which the past and future meet — a point which is really impercep- tible, as the reader will realize if he will pause and try to hold or catch it. It is gone before we can grasp it; it is swifter than the thought which would compre- hend it.
As the present is a fact in time, though elusive, so we may assume that two weights, nearly equal, swinging in a bal- ance, will pass and repass the point of equilibrium, even of perfect equilibrium, with each alternate movement of the arms of the balance. As the present is a point [ '' ]
BALANCE
which we gain only to lose it, so equi- hbrium is a point or line which mo- tion crosses and recrosses without resting upon it.
When scientific men have occasion to speak of equilibrium with exactitude, they use the qualifying term "approximate," meaning thereby relative or practical equi- librium, nearness to perfect equilibrium, a good state of balance. And this is what we find — a good state of balance — in Na- ture, notwithstanding her ceaseless motion and transformations, some transformations being slow, requiring millions of years, some as swift as the transformation of the future into the past, some open to our sight, some imperceptible, the greatest being sometimes the least perceptible to our senses, as is the motion of the earth in its ceaseless journey around the sun at the rate of eighteen miles a second, one thousand and eighty miles a minute — as if one should fly from New York to Yonkers in [ '^ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
one second, to Albany in ten seconds, to Buffalo in thirty seconds, to Chicago in one minute, to San Francisco in three minutes — one thousand times faster than an ex- press train, fifty times the speed of a rifle- bullet. We are disturbed often by our own little projects, inventions and affairs, but we are not fearful that the bulky earth will come to harm in its mad course, nor would we know that it moves at such speed, or that it moves at all, if the astronomers had not demonstrated the fact. Nor does Her- schel's discovery that the solar system is moving at the rate of about twenty thou- sand miles an hour toward the constella- tion Lyra disturb us, nor do we worry over the apparently inevitable collision to follow this movement, for the astronomers assure us that that danger is remote, and that it will come, if it comes at all, long after this earth has ceased to be habitable. We are persuaded that the astronomers have dis- covered regularity and precision in the [ '3 ]
BALANCE
movements of the heavenly bodies, that their forecasts of these movements are trustworthy, and that Nature, in the large, in her greater and grander manifestations, is ruled by order.
[ H ]
I
Ill
The Scientific Interpretations of Nature point to the Single Interpretation, that Balance rules the World — " To Every Action there is an Equal Reaction," is the Supreme Statement.
MODERN science accepts with practical unanimity eight inter- pretations of the system of Na- ture, which are recognized usually as fun- damental : —
I. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
" If fire doth heate water, the water re- actethagaine . . . upon the lire, and cooleth it," says Sir K. Digby (a. d. 1644). The wagon pulls against the horse with the same strain that the horse pulls against the wagon. The knapsack exacts from the sol- dier who carries it an expenditure of force equal to its weight. Let me strike a stone wall with a gloved fist, and it will give [ >5 ]
BALANCE
back a gloved blow in response. The wall will be gloved, even as my fist is gloved, at the point of contact. Let me strike hard with bare knuckles, and I shall be con- vinced that Nature gives even to senseless things some powers of resistance, of de- fense, even of resentment. If I should be thrown upon the stone wall by accident, still the wall will return the blow with equal force. Nature's ways arc exact — strain for strain, blow for blow — with no allowance for intention.
"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," is Newton's Third Law of Motion, which is accepted as the fun- damental axiom of physics. In this law Newton has expressed also, I believe, the fundamental law of Nature — that action and reaction are ceaseless, equivalent and compensatory.
2. That effects folloiv causes in un- broke?i succession.
Strictly speaking, the axiom of causa- [ '6 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
tion is only another expression of the axiom " that reaction equals action." Effects are the consequences of causes, the reactions from causes, the equivalents of causes.
3. Gravitation — that every two bodies or 'portions of matter in the universe attract each other with a force propor- tional directly to the quantity of matter they contain and inversely to the squares of their distances.
Gravitation, if considered as a force of attraction only, is a force which balances its opposite, repulsion. The attraction of the sun balances the momentum which would otherwise project the earth on a straight line into space. This balance holds the earth steadily in its course around the sun. Opposite forces of attraction and re- pulsion, centripetence and centrifugence, exist in the world in its greatest and small- est parts, alike in constellations and in atoms. Science is compelled to recognize repulsion as being as universal as attrac- [ '7 ]
BALANCE
tion. To account for these contrary forces has so far baffled investigation, Newton's great discovery accounting only in part. Science knows only this — that these forces exist; that they meet, offset, neu- tralize and regulate each other, sometimes mildly or imperceptibl}-, sometimes vio- lently and with fearful convulsions, and that in their influences, contacts, struggles and wars they hold all things in balance.
4. Evolution — including its opposite, devolution or dissolution — that the fit advance and the unfit decline^ advajice- ment depe7iding upon adaptability, and decline upon inadaptability, to environ- ment.
There are seeds that will grow in a sand- bank, others must have loam; some will grow only on mountain heights, others on low levels; some in low temperatures, others in high; some organisms can live only in the water, others die in the water; some are self protected against the ele- [ 18 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
ments, others must be housed and clothed — and so on through numberless varia- tions in requirements. Evolution is the balancing of organisms with their sur- rounding conditions, influences and forces. Those that are fit — that is, in harmony with their environment — will survive; those that are unfit will fail. As Herbert Spencer says : —
" Evolution under all its aspects, general and spe- cial, is an advance towards equilibrium. We have seen that the theoretical limit towards which the integration and differentiation of every aggregate advances, is a state of balance between all the forces to which its parts are subject, and the forces which its parts oppose to them.'' — Biology, ii. 537.
5. That matte?' is indestructible.
6. That force is persistent and inde- structible.
Mr. Spencer has said (First Principles,
p. 182) that " the verification of the truth
that matter is indestructible " rests only
upon " a tacit assumption of it." " A tacit
[ 19 ]
BALANCE
assumption," with no rational basis for the assumption, would be no verification; it would be a guess. The truth that matter and force are indestructible rests upon a better ground than an assumption; it is the inevitable corollary of the truth, " To every action there is an equal and contrary reaction.-' If there could be a single case in which matter and force are annihilated, then Newton's axiom would be untrue, for, in that case, reaction would fail to fol- low action. The turning of something into nothing, by the destruction of matter or force, would break the succession of cause and efTect, of action and reaction ; and con- sequently the theories of the indestructi- bility of matter and of force have their roots in Newton's axiom, in the great law of consequences, of equivalence, of com- pensation, of balance.
7. That motion is ceaseless^ and con- sequently that tra?isformation is contin- uous.
[ 20 ]
I
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
Here we have confirmation of the con- clusion that the theories of the indestruc- tibility of matter and of force rest upon Newton's axiom. If motion should cease, then there could be no reaction for " every action." The modern theories of the per- sistence of matter and force, and of the ceaselessness of motion, are extensions, in- terpretations and necessary consequences of the fundamental truth that *•' every ac- tion " is followed by a reaction.
8. The laws and ways oj" Nature are uniform and harmonious.
Uniform means of one form, agreement, consistency. Harmony means concord, the just adaptation of parts to each other, agreement also, unison. We observe this uniformit}', harmony and agreement to a marked degree in the fundamental expla- nations of Nature which we are now con- sidering. They teach us that there is nei- ther halt nor break in Nature's processes; that motion is ceaseless, transformation con-
[ 2, ]
BALANCE
tinuous, force persistent, matter indestruc- tible; that in these ceaseless transforma- tions repulsion balances attraction, effects balance causes — in short, that reaction equals action, that balance attends and controls transformation.
We cannot assume uniformity and har- mony without also assuming- a ground of uniformity and harmony. What is Nature's one form, or rule, or way, or law, or prin- ciple, upon which her uniformities and harmonies rest? Of the fundamental ex- planations of science, one — Newton's law of ceaseless equivalence and compensa- tion, " To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" — is the imperious and supreme statement, the others being subsidiary or complementary to it, or ex- planatory of it.
The fundamental conceptions of science
point distinctly and with emphasis to a
higher and single generalization — t/iat
Balance rules the world. Balance is the
[ ^^ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
key that unlocks them, the word that ex- plains them, the principle that harmonizes them.
A man out of balance falls; a globe out of balance would be destroyed. If the uni- verse were out of balance, it would pre- sent a spectacle of anarchy and chaos. As the Brooklyn bridge could not support itself without cables and piers, so no or- ganism could exist without balance. Bal- ance is of necessity the regulating and saving force in Nature, since a force supe- rior and antagonistic to balance — if such could exist — would be a destroyer. The supremacy of balance is that which is, must be, and could not be otherwise; that without which no order could exist.
[ ^3 ]
IV
No Force works aimlessly or wanders away into Extinction — Balance is Supreme in the Small, as well as in the Great, Processes of Nature — Every Physical Transformation includes Exact Equiva- lence and Compensation.
WITHOUT the axiom that ac- tion and reaction are equal and opposite, astronomy could not make its exact predictions," says Spencer (First Principles, p. 193). As astronomy discerns the operation of the laws of bal- ance in the remotest regions accessible to human vision, and in the most tremendous phenomena, so chemistry discovers the same accurate adjustments among the smallest particles of matter of which we have any knowledge.
Lavoisier is called the founder of mod- ern chemistry. That which distinguishes his work from the work of his predeces- [ M ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
sors is the more accurate measurement of the materials and forces which are involved in chemical changes, and a more orderly view of these phenomena as perfectly bal- anced interactions. His work destroyed the theory of " phlogiston," which was in- consistent with natural balance because it introduced a mystic agent — " phlogiston, the spirit of fire " — having unnatural prop- erties contradictory of the law of action and reaction.
The problem of oxidation puzzled chem- ists in Lavoisier's day. The rapid action of fire and the slow rusting of a metal were seen to be closely akin, but the cause was elusive. It was necessary to learn that the essential of both processes is oxygen, coming from the air or some other source; and that there is no actual loss or gain in the process of oxidation. This truth led to the broader knowledge that, in every chemical transformation, whatever disap- pears in one form, reappears in another; [ ^5 ]
BALANCE
that every manifestation of force is due to a disturbance of balance among the minute, invisible particles which we call atoms; that no force works aimlessly or wanders away into extinction.
The most recent discoveries in thermo- chemistry, in electro-chemistry, in the phenomena of solution, and in the realm of molecular structure, depend upon the same principle: that any apparent super- abundance or deficiency indicates error, and that the truth will always reveal a per- fect correspondence, equivalence, and rec- titude of law.
The history of chemical experimentation is full of the most perfect illustrations of the principle of equivalence, which tinds its simplest expression in the universal practice of chemists in writing down every chemical reaction as an equation: So much of this plus so much of that equals the result.
We shall search in vain for an}- demon- [ 26 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
strated truth concerning the system of Na- ture, for any law, rule or axiom of physics, which does not rest fundamentally upon the equivalence of action and reaction, of cause and effect. " The straight line joining the sun and planet must pass over equal areas in equal times," is Kepler's law. "At any point in a fluid at rest the pressure is equal in all directions," is Pascal's prin- ciple. "A body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced," is the principle of Archimedes. " The angles of incidence and reflection are in the same plane, and are equal," is the law of reflection. " The reciprocal of the principal focal length is equal to the sum of the reciprocals of any two conjugate focal lengths," is the law of converging lenses. " The current is equal to the electro-motive force divided by the resistance," is Ohm's law. " The disap- pearance of a definite amount of mechanical energy is accompanied by the production [ ^7 ]
BALANCE
of an equivalent amount of heat," is Joule's principle. Observe how perfectly these and the other principles and laws of ph3's- ics agree with Newton's law of motion : " To every action there is an equal Sind op- posite reaction."
The universality of equivalence is broadly expressed in the law of the con- servation of energy: "When one form of energy disappears, its exact equivalent in another J^orm ahvays takes its placeP This law, accepted by modern science, leaves no ground for the assumption that there can be a failure of equivalence in motion or transformation.
Can we say that the equivalents which return persistently in motion and transfor- mation are compensatory ? Yes; the re- turn of an exact equivalent is exact com- pensation. Heat is the compensation for the fuel that produces it; electricity is the compensation for the energy that is trans- formed into it; one molecule of water is
[ ^8 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
the compensation for two atoms of hydro- gen and one atom of oxygen. A definite amount of matter or force pays for exactly the same amount in another form. That which disappears and that which succeeds are mutually compensatory. Fuel pays for heat, and heat pays for fuel. The account balances perfectly. Nature has no profit and loss account, no bad debts, no failures in compensation.
The assumption that anything can exist in the physical world without exact com- pensation appeals to the scorn alike of science and of common sense. Our patent office in Washington refuses to consider devices to produce perpetual motion, not because that office would place an arbi- trary limit on the possibilities of mechan- ical invention, but because effect without cause, power without compensation, is im- possible.
We shall be justified in the conclusion that the principle of balance presides over [ ^9 ]
BALANCE
the processes of Nature in the small as well as in the large — alike in atoms, sat- ellites and suns — and that ever}- trans- formation of matter and force, great or insignificant, includes the return of exact equivalents and compensation.
[ 30 ]
V
Man's Part in Nature — Progress by Antagonism — Nature's Process is by Test and Trial, by unfold- ing, changing, ripping up, undoing and redoing — Error dies in the Struggle.
A
PART from the world of physics, and yet inextricably entangled with the physical, is a realm in which exist thought, hope, imagination, reason, comedy, pathos, tragedy, friend- ship and love, revenge and hate, honor and humiliation, right and wrong, pleasure and laughter, pain, agony and despair; a world which is included in Nature, the same as mineral and vegetable, matter and motion, atom and sun. The thought, hopes, ideals and fate of man belong as much to Nature as wood, muck, coal or stone.
The conscious part of man — that which sees, feels and comprehends — is of higher interest and importance than [ 31 ]
BALANCE
an3thing purely ph3sical. Newton com- prehended gravitation, but gravitation could not comprehend Newton. Priestley discovered oxygen, but oxygen never dis- covered Priestley. The astronomers have seen far-off stars, but no star will ever see an astronomer. Our great laws and principles, our immensities, our planets and suns — they are senseless, they know nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. But man, frail, weak and defective though he be, can see, feel and comprehend.
So far as man is physical, we know that he is subject to the same laws that control other manifestations of matter and force. But what of the conscious part of man? Is it subject to the same laws of action and reaction, cause and effect, equivalence and compensation, that rule in the physical world? Is there one law for physical interaction, and a different law, or no law, for intellectual and moral interactions? Does compensation exist for [ 32 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
matter and force only, or does it exist also for the human soul ?
The polarities of Nature, and the inter- actions between them, are quite as pro- nounced in human life as in physics; in- deed, the polarities extend beyond the physical and human into the abstract, as in odd and even numbers. The polarities are sometimes antagonistic, sometimes re- ciprocal, and always, I believe, mutually corrective.
" An inevitable dualism bisects Nature," says Emerson, " so that each thing is a half and suggests another thing to make it whole — as, spirit, matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay. . . . The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man."
Plato perceived the same law of polar- ity in " the generation of contraries, of death out of life, and life out of death, of recomposition and decomposition." [ 33 ]
BALANCE
Man faces on all sides the polarities of Nature, some of which — such as wet and dry, hot and cold, work and rest, pleasure and pain — were as apparent in savagery as they are in civilization. With increas- ing knowledge man perceives more and more of these dualities and invents new words to express them. Roget gives, in his " Thesaurus," more than twelve thou- sand words of opposite meaning. '' There exist comparatively few words of a gen- eral character to which no correlative term, either of negation or of opposition, can be assigned," sa3's Roget.
Hegel held the theory of " progress by antagonism " — " that forms which are op- posed are really complementary or neces- sary to each other, and their conflict is limited by the unity which they express and which ultimately must subordinate them all to itself."
Sometimes we recognize that a stranger is a teacher or a minister by the tone of [ 34 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
his voice. The peculiarity in the voice is partly, but not wholly, oratorical. It is the voice of the orator who expects no answer, who anticipates that no one will " talk back" on equal terms — the voice undis- ciplined by antagonism. We may observe also the absence of the discipline of an- tagonism in the voices and manners of children, and of those who have too much or too little self assertion — in the mean and the haughty, the servile and the arro- gant. The countryman adjusts himself with some trouble to the ways of the city, and the city man to the ways of the farm or forest, because these changes bring new antagonisms. We meet new antagonisms with every change from infancy to the grave — in learning to walk and to care for ourselves; in going first to school; with each new study; in the cares, duties and responsibilities which come with maturity; in heat and cold, dust and rain; in conta- gions; in the numberless enemies which [ 35 ]
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lurk in the water we drink and in the air we breathe; in old age, '"that malady which no physician has ever cured."
Life is tilled with issues — moral, intel- lectual, political, social, philosophical, commercial, physical — some being grave and others trivial. The mind of a man is a field of battle in which contending ideas, forces and interests meet and clash, each one seeking for the weak spots in the other. A thought or proposal arouses an- tagonistic thoughts and considerations, and a school of thought begets antagonis- tic schools. Monotheism rises up against polytheism, heterodoxy against orthodoxy, rationalism against superstition, epicu- reanism against stoicism, realism against idealism, monism against dualism, will against fatalism, tolerance against intoler- ance, equality against privilege, radicalism against conservatism, trades unions against employers, farmers against middlemen, middlemen against combinations, combina- [ 36 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
tions against competition. Our people are in perpetual antagonism concerning na- tional, state or local policies. In these con- flicts, as in all other conflicts, the stronger is victorious. Balance forbids a victory of weakness over strength. By strength I mean power, whether it be mental or phys- ical, honest or base. A man is stronger than a horse through intelligence; one man rules a thousand or a million men through superior will, courage, wisdom or devotion, or by taking advantage of their ignorance, fanaticism or superstition. In our political contests the victory goes with the majority, which may be in accordance with right, or may be moved by misunder- standing or passion. The victory of wrong will in time produce its reaction, which will be favorable to right. "When bad becomes bad enough, then right returns." "Nothing is settled until it is settled right."
The history of civilization is the history [ 37 ]
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of the settlement of issues in accordance with their merits, of numberless victories of tolerance over intolerance, of reason over ignorance, of right over wrong. Nor is it true, as is sometimes assumed, that there has been no philosophical progress. The old contest between stoic and epicu- rean — in which some of the greatest minds of antiquity participated for five or six centuries — has been definitely settled. The verdict is expressed in the meaning which the two words have acquired in our language. The word stoic is applied to the strong, emotionless, self denying, uncon- querable; epicurean to the fastidious, lux- urious, self indulgent, weak. And modern thought recognizes that, while the two words represent opposite tendencies in hu- man nature — one of which is in the main noble and the other in the main ignoble — neither has the substance upon which to build a philosophy of life. Nor is it likely that a philosophy of life can be built [ 38 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
upon one of two antagonistic ideas or prin- ciples.
The meaning taken on by our words "cynic" and "sophist" also records the final verdict concerning the merits of two an- cient schools of philosophy. Antisthenes, Diogenes and Menippus, Protagoras, Gor- gias and Hippias — all important figures in their time — ■ were cynics or sophists, but common sense has disposed of their errors. Experience indicates that the theories which belittle human nature, and becloud the issues between right and wrong, will ultimately become obnoxious — that the very terms in which they are expressed will grow into words of ill meaning.
The failure to settle intellectual conflicts is not due so much to the misunderstand- ing of principles as to the misunderstanding of facts. No one doubts that rationalism is right and superstition wrong, but men dis- agree concerning what is rational and what [ 39 ]
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is superstitious. Wrong is not defended as 7i'?'0?2g; but on the ground that it is right. The struggle of thought is to dis- tinguish right from wrong.
In many issues there is truth on both sides, and a settlement is delayed by the difficulty in determining the true bal- ance. Sometimes the truth on one side is perfectly balanced by the truth on the other side, and it turns out that there is no issue, as in the old conflict between inductive and deductive reasoning. We now know that each process is sound when correctly used, and that both pro- cesses are essential in reasoning. There are no particulars that -do not harmonize with a generalization, and there is no gen- eralization that does not agree with its underlying facts.
Life is a struggle. Wars end, but the
war of the race — the antagonism of
thought, the strife between men, between
man and the forces external to him, within
[ 40 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
the soul of the individual — ends not save it be with extinction.
Error gains many a temporary triumph, but the final victory is with truth. There is substance in truth that in the last bal- ance outweighs error.
Nature's process is by test and trial, by unfolding, changing, ripping up, undoing, redoing. By contrast and conflict she tries sincerity and treachery, honor and dis- honor, fitness and unfitness, courage and cowardice, truth and error. The conflict of ideas — between social and political systems, and between creeds and philoso- phies — is as rude as the conflict between the sea and land. Error dies in the struggle.
The fact, however, that the state of Nature is dualistic in so far as it is a state of conflict or alternation, should not be accepted as carrying the conclusion that Nature is dualistic in a fundamental sense.
The polarities of Nature would, if con- sidered alone, represent Nature as a state [ 4' ]
BALANCE
of confusion and anarchy. Since, how- ever, order reigns in the midst of the con- fusion, we must accept the alternations and conflicts of Nature as being compen- satory, and not as anarchic; as being un- der the control of law which, in its last analysis, is single — monistic, not dualistic — and master of all other forces, even of gravitation. Water, impelled by gravita- tion, falls to the earth, runs through the rivulets, brooks and rivers to the sea. But it will ascend again to the clouds, again refresh the land, again return to the clouds, continuing alternately to 3'ield to and then to elude the gravitation of the earth. " What we call gravitation and fancy ultimate is one fork of a mightier stream for which we have yet no name," says Emerson. I venture to suggest that the " mightier stream " is named Balance.
[ 42 ]
VI
Action and Reaction in Human Affairs — From Paganism to Christianity, to Asceticism, to the Crusades, to Exploration and Commerce — Minor Interactions — Reaction from Words and Tones, Speeches and Thoughts.
ERROR and evil are located in defi- ciency or excess. Even excess in virtue is evil, an excess of humility being abjectness; of courage, rashness; of prudence, cowardice; of patience, indif- ference; of economy, parsimony; of gen- erosity, waste; of deference, obsequious- ness. And so also an excess of learning is pedantry; of ease, indolence; of comfort, self indulgence; of zeal, fanaticism. Right and justice are found in moderation, in the golden mean — in the true balance — be- tween overdoing and underdoing, going too fast and too slow.
Philosophical history deals mainly with
[ 43 ]
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the record of excess, and the reactions from excess, in human affairs. Observe how Lecky traces the cuhnination of the brutaHty and cruelty of Rome to the glad- iatorial games, in which the spectacle of men tiijhtinor to the death in the arena — where it is said that more than one hun- dred thousand perished — delighted vast audiences, including the women of the first city in the civilized world. It was a monk, Telemachus, who finally rushed between the combatants, and " his blood was the last that stained the arena." The immediate reaction from cruelty is repug- nance, aversion, detestation. Disgust for pagan savagery opened the way for Chris- tianity, the religion of kindness, humility, peace and fraternity — the exact opposite of the pride, arrogance and ferocity of pagan Rome. The Christians praised peace, con- demned war, abolished slavery, founded the first hospitals, and sought to alleviate human sorrow and suffering with zeal [ 44 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
which is without parallel. One extreme follows another in human affairs, like the swing of a pendulum. The reaction from excess is excess in an opposite direction. Excess in moral reformations takes the form often of fanaticism. Christian fanati- cism developed in time a monstrous form of asceticism, glorified the hermit life, beg- gary, humiliation, flagellation, self torture, the neglect of cleanliness and the laws of self preservation, the breaking of family ties, and other forms of senseless sacri- fice. Pagan excess led to the sacrifice of others for sport; Christian excess to the sacrifice of self to gain the favor of superhu- man powers. The hero of the pagans was Caesar, who had risen to fame on the corpses of 1,100,000 men. The hero of the age of asceticism was St. Simeon Stylites, who bound himself with ropes to putrefy his flesh; who, it is said, stood on one leg for a year and sat on a pillar for thirty years bending in ceaseless prayer. And what [ 45 ]
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should we expect as the reaction from as- ceticism? Again the opposite — the age of chivalry and the wars of the Crusades. The ascetics had condemned war, good clothes and the love of women. The knights of chivalry rode with love tokens on their breasts, in brilliant apparel, to rescue the tomb of Christ from the Moslem. In the wars of the Crusades 2,000,000 Christians perished.
Through the Crusades the peoples of Europe became better acquainted with one another, and the use of ships was greatly increased. Consequently the reac- tion from the age of the Crusades was the age of commerce, and out of commerce grew exploration, the discovery of Amer- ica, the mapping of the globe. Aversion to the intolerance of the Middle Ages pro- duced the tolerance of later times. A sim- ple mechanical contrivance, the printing press, facilitated the liberation of thought. The heroes of the later centuries are the [ 46 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
discoverers, such as Columbus, Newton and Darwin.
Beneath these great interactions the his- torian observes minor interactions, cover- ing shorter periods in the affairs of nations and communities, as in France when the indifference of the old regime to the rights of man led to the period of liberty, equal- ity and fraternity, and the excesses of the Revolution to the horrors of the guillotine. Dickens, in "A Tale of Two Cities," says:
"All the devouring and insatiate monsters im- agined since imagination could record itself are fused in the one realization, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar ham- mers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.
" Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these [ M ]
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back again to what they were, thou powerful en- chanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the car- riages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my Father's house but dens of thieves, the Ijuts of millions of starving peasants ! "
The atrocities of the French Revolu- tion led to the rise of the empire, and the excesses of Napoleon to his destruction. Victor Hugo, in '•• Les Miserables," says of Bonaparte at Waterloo:
** Another series of facts was preparing, in which Napoleon had no longer a place : the ill will of events had been displayed long previously. It was time for this vast man to fall; his excessive weight in human destiny disturbed the balance. This individual alone was of more account than the universal group : such plethoras of human vitality concentrated in a single head — the world, mounting to one man's brain — would be mortal to civilization if they endured. The moment had arrived for the incorruptible supreme equity to reflect, and it is probable that the principles and elements on which the regular gravitations of the moral order as of the material world depend, complained. Streaming blood, overcrowded grave- [ 48 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
yards, mothers in tears, are formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering from an excessive burden, there are mysterious groans from the shadow, which the abyss hears. Napoleon had been denounced in infinitude, and his fall was decided. Waterloo is not a battle, but a transformation of the universe."
Flint, in his " Philosophy of History," says :
" History always participates in some measure of philosophy ; for events are always connected accord- ing to some real or ideal principle, either of efficient or final causation. . . . The more the mind of the historian is awake and active, the more, of course, it is impelled to go in search of the connection be- tween causes and effects, between occurrences and tendencies."
The best chart of industrial conditions in past years in the United States is the chart of immigration — the coming of foreigners being in proportion to the opportunities for labor. The first great wave of immi- gration was consequent upon the period of prosperity which began in 1845, and which was stimulated later by the gold discov- [ 49 ]
BALANCE
eries of California and the beginning of railroad construction. The tide of immi- gration declined with the panic of 1857 and through the civil war; it rose after the war, declined with the panic of 1873, rose by leaps and bounds with the prosperity which began in 1879, declined with the business depression of 1883—86, rose again, declined with the panic of 1893, and rose to the highest point on record in 1903 as the result of the preceding prosperity.
We recognize the consequences of busi- ness prosperity in other and numerous forms — in contentment, comfort, satisfac- tion with the party in power, improved wages, increasing luxury and happiness; while the results of declining trade are business failures, reduced wages, precari- ous employment, discontent with social and political conditions, want, despair, suicide.
The influence of the law of action and reaction can be traced more clearly in [ so ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
those everyday human affairs which come under our individual observation than in the greater movements of mankind which are often imperfectly recorded. We act, and are acted upon. The people we meet make an impression on us; the impres- sion may be for the moment or it may last through life. Bloom, fragrance, grace, harmony, beauty, majesty, affect us agree- ably; deformity, imbecility, distress, cru- elty, affect us unpleasantly. The plea of the unfortunate, the thought of our visitor, the opinion in the newspaper, the issues of the time, impress us in accordance with our moods or natures. Certain words, tones, sights, awaken echoes within us of old happiness or pain.
There are words and tones which pro- duce beautiful reactions — the lullabies of the mother, the endearments of the lover, the voice of sympathy, the enchantment of music, the messages of the poets, the trumpet calls to honor and duty. And [ 51 ]
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there are words which produce misun- derstanding, confusion, aversion, anger — the words of whining, complaining, fault- finding ; of envy, jealousy, slander ; of malice, intolerance, brutality.
The response to the public speaker is reciprocal to his power. If he be dull, the hearers are wearied; if he be convincing courageous, forceful, the audience will kindle, and he may rouse them to laugh- ter or tears, to indignation or fury, to generosity or sacrifice. He may change the opinions and convictions of some and the course of the lives of others; he may even save a city from slaughter or make a state. If his thought be really great, it ma}' live through many ages, stirring gen- eration after generation. The reaction of moral effort may be prolonged; it may even gain force with time, indicating its connection with some stupendous primal energy. The echo of a great physical con- vulsion dies quickly, but the echo of the [ 52 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
words of Confucius and Buddha, of Plato, Seneca and Christ, still lives. The voice of Socrates before his judges kindles men whose ancestors were untamed savages when Socrates spoke. Buildings decay, monuments fall, rivers run dry, races de- cline, but a great thought suffers from no impairment or decrepitude ; it has the gift of immortal youth and strength.
[ 53 ]
VII
The Law of Consequences — The Good or Evil in Things is discovered by Observation of Conse- quences — Morals are determined by the Con- sequences of Human Actions.
A REACTION is the consequence of an action, an effect is the con- sequence of a cause, a result is the consequence of an antecedent. It is evident that the words reaction^ effect, result and consequence express different manifestations of one law, usualh' called the Law of Causation, though it would be, I believe, more correctly named the Law of Consequences.
We shall understand more clearly the interactions in human affairs when we recognize that the meaning of the words reaction, effect and result is included in the word consequence. We may doubt the importance of reaction in our affairs, but [ 54 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
we shall not doubt the importance of con- sequences.
We are compelled to give considera- tion to consequences in the most trivial affairs. One has consequences in view- when he strikes a match, sets a pot to boil, plants a seed, pulls a weed, sharpens a pencil, mends a fence. Shall I take an umbrella? I balance the danger of rain against the annoyance of the umbrella, and decide accordingly. Shall I change my coat.'' take another cup of coffee? walk or ride? Each question will be decided in accordance with my estimate of the balance of results. In considering pos- sible advantages or disadvantages, gains or losses, we are balancing consequences, endeavoring to anticipate and weigh the results of our actions.
Regret is usually a reminder of a neglect or misjudgment of consequences, while repentance and reformation indicate a wak- ing up concerning consequences. Our in- [ 55 ]
BALANCE
terest, curiosity, anxieties, fears, hopes and ambitions are concentrated upon con- sequences. We seek advice when we are doubtful about consequences. Precepts and examples elucidate consequences. We work and rest, eat and drink, scheme and plan, spend and save, for consequences. We indulge or sacrifice ourselves for con- sequences. Caisar expended a million lives for earthly glory; St. Simeon St}-lites scourged himself for eternal gain. Our actions, so far as the}' are controlled by reason, are determined by our judgment of consequences.
"What? Does the tramp, the drunk- ard, the thief, consider consequences?"
The tramp roves because he prefers the freedom and pleasures of his life to the re- sults of other ways. The drunkard drinks because the near pleasure outbalances in his mind the more remote pain. The thief steals because he values the quick and easy gain more than he fears detection. [ 56 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
Each man judges consequences by his own lights, which are distorted often by greed, animalism, ignorance.
The lesson of consequences which the individual often learns slowly and imper- fectly, the sound business organizations acquire quickly and enforce by discipline. The salesmen in a successful store are characterized by tidiness, promptness and a desire to please; the employees of the important railroads are not even permitted to answer insult with insult. The indus- try that is intelligently managed will avoid misrepresentation and deception, knowing that a reputation for truth and fairness is vital to continuous success. The shrewd- est maxims of trade are built upon the observation of consequences.
That mind is the strongest which has the clearest judgment of consequences. The fools are those who know little about consequences. The child must be guarded because it is ignorant of consequences. [ 57 ]
BALANCE
What we know of narcotics, stimulants, antidotes, hygiene, surgery, chemistry, ag- riculture, mechanics, commerce, culture, we know through the observation of con- sequences. The best razor, plough, sani- tary system, plan of social betterment, is that which produces the best results. Knowledge, learning and experience deal wholl}' with cause and consequence. The science of astronomy seeks to compre- hend the heavenly bodies and their influ- ences upon each other. The science of chemistry explains the consequences of chemical action. The science of political economy aims to distinguish and mark the good and evil results of different systems of land tenure, taxation, trade and finance. The science of government would deter- mine what political system is best for a people. The science of war seeks to know what arms, equipments, forces and ma- noeuvres will inflict the greatest injur}- upon the enemy with a minimum of ex- [ 58 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
penditure. The science of language deals with the utility of words, pronunciation and forms of expression. And so on through the whole of human experience, knowl- edge seeks to distinguish that which has the best results from that which has infe- rior or evil results.
Our ideas of right and wrong are due to the nature of the responses to human actions. How do we know that truth is better than falsehood? Because we are better pleased with ourselves when we speak truthfully than when we lie; be- cause truth is essential to understanding; because we despise lying in others; be- cause lying leads to confusion, uncertainty, chaos, enmity, and to other evil conse- quences. And so also we have formed a judgment of loyalty and treachery, cruelty and kindness, virtue and vice, by their consequences.
Our laws, customs and commandments would not prove to us that truth is better [ 59 ]
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than Kins: if our own experience did not contirm it. Tlie Decalogue is effective only so far as Nature corroborates it.
Our common conceptions of morality are the results of the observation of human actions and their consequences — of cause and effect, of action and reaction. We know that certain actions are right and others wrong, as we know that bread is good and straw bad for food; that light clothing is more useful in summer than in winter; that cleanliness is better than filthiness; that the way to walk is forward, not backward; that mirth is pleasanter than grief.
As the value of a machine or imple- ment is shown in its working, and the value of a tree by its fruit, so the merit or demerit of food, drink, medicine, acts and thoughts is determined by their results, reactions or effects — by their conse- quences.
[ 60 ]
VIII
Equivalence is the Test of Truth — Our Standards are Instruments of Equivalence — The Balancing of Alternatives — Reasoning is an Exploration of the Undetermined, a Search for Antecedents and Consequences.
IN mathematics, our one exact science, equivalence is the test of truth. Con- sider the unalterable nature of the truth expressed in the simplest equation: one plus one equals two. Nothing can change this result. That which is so im- pregnable is the principle of equivalence. One added to one equals two, and can equal nothing else.
Equivalence is the test of truth also in the physical sciences, so far as our knowl- edge is exact, as in chemical combinations. Our standards — the cent and dollar; pint and gallon; ounce, pound and ton; inch, foot and mile — are instruments [ 6i ]
BALANCE
of equivalence. We measure accurately only by equivalents. In the absence of a standard, we fall back on resemblance, analog}', comparison, or some other sub- stitute for an equivalent.
The chief substitute, used alike b}' the humblest and highest minds, is the balanc- ing of alternatives — the measuring of one thing by its opposite. The rules of logic are unknown to the mass of mankind, but no one possessed of intelligence is unfamiliar with the process of balancing alternatives. Even the animals use it when they choose between two paths, or two actions, as be- tween fight and flight. IMen use it in every dilemma, great or small, from the choice between the simplest actions, to the issue of life or death. Is the thing under con- sideration good or bad? Shall I vote for A or B? Shall I act now or postpone? Shall I take a risk ? Shall I stop or go on ? Shall I change my course? Shall I do this or that? In these and other dilemmas, we [ 62 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
balance the consequences of one alterna- tive against the other, and choose what ap- pears to be the better. Facing death in two forms, we choose the better way. Balanc- ing alternatives, one will jump from a high window to the pavement to escape fire.
The moral dilemmas presented to us are not always limited to a clear choice be- tween right and wrong. It is wrong to steal, but should one starve, or permit those dependent on him to starve, rather than steal ? It is right to tell the truth, but should one tell the truth when it involves the be- trayal of his comrades, his country, his fam- ily ? It is wrong to deceive, but would not one be justified in deceiving the enemy who would destroy him? It is wrong to kill, but may not one kill in self defense?
The problem of morals presses con- stantly upon the human race, presenting to each individual in turn new trials, difficulties and repugnant choices. Each must, to a large degree, choose his own [ 63 ]
BALANCE
way, fight his own battle. These are the facts which confuse our ethical counselors. It is not possible to act always in exact harmony with our moral code. If one is so placed that he can save his mother from starvation only by stealing, he will violate the fifth commandment if he permits her to starve, and lie will violate the eighth commandment if he chooses to steal. The choice between two evils often comes to the individual suddenly and imperatively. He must act at once, rendering a deci- sion for which there is often no precedent known to him. The Decalogue which he can recite, the philosophical analysis of the evolution of ethics, do not aid him.
He who is thus tried, and who desires to do right, will choose the course which is least evil. He will balance the alterna- tives, exactly as does the one who jumps to the pavement rather than remain in the burning building.
Other alternatives crowd upon us. Na- [ 6+ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
ture presents to us almost continuously the choice between near pleasure and re- mote good. Shall I rest now and enjoy myself, or shall I work, postponing my en- joyment? Shall I give the years of my youth to study or to play? Shall I accept present privation that I may in time enjoy security? Shall I consider my own inter- ests wholl}^, or shall I make a sacrifice for others? Shall I stay at home in comfort, or shall I risk my life for my country? Shall I disown my faith, or shall I accept death by torture? Numberless are the choices between the near and the remote good which men must make. The lower men show little appreciation of the remote good, save as they are inspired by the instinct of self preservation. The higher men are distinguished by their high valua- tion of the remote good — by provision for the future, by attention to health, by interest in culture, by sound investments, by building business, houses and charac- [ 65 ]
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ter substantially, by a high estimate of honor and duty.
Reasoning is an exploration of the unde- termined— an elucidation of the unknown throutrh the known or the discoverable. There is no difficulty in measuring with exact standards to measure by, and with something tangible to measure — for ex- ample, in determining the number of cubic feet in a room, or the power of an engine. Reasoning, which is eas}' so far as it deals with exact equivalents, becomes difficult when applied to things the equivalents of which are unknown. The mind instinc- tivel}' seeks for the unknown equivalents, and finds them in antecedents or conse- quences. Chemical experimentation is a search for consequences; bacteriological investiofation is a search for antecedents. The search in both cases is for equivalents by which we may determine the nature and meaning of the thing: tried, or its relations
to other things.
[ 66 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
The syllogism in logic is a form by which one may advance from antecedents to a consequent. The essence of a syllo- gism is this : that a premise includes all of its consequences. If a premise be true, its consequences will be true; if it be false, its consequences will be false. Conclu- sions, corollaries, deductions, judgments, inferences, discoveries and estimates are consequences — each following from an antecedent or antecedents.
The failure to consider, or to estimate correctly, the consequences of a position is fatal in reasoning. This is illustrated in the case of a number of schools of thought holding conclusions concerning the most important questions of life which are in contradiction to human experience or to reason — for example, idealism and fatalism.
That form of idealism which denies the existence of matter, has been supported by many famous minds, in neglect of its [ 67 ]
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consequences, for we know that no idealist could act as if matter had no existence — could live and move about in contempt of mud, stone walls, mountains, rivers, seas, snow, ice, fire, food, poison, gunpowder, clothing, beds.
Fatalism — known under different names, as foreordination, predestination, neces- sity, determinism — the theory that man is an automaton, an instrument moved and played upon by external influences or powers, has been defended b}' many eminent theologians, philosophers and other thinkers, including some distin- guished modern scientists. Observe, in the face of the intellectual prominence of the fatalists, how completely the con- sequences of fatalism refute that theory. One convinces himself that fatalism is true, that he and all other men are au- tomatons. He must convince himself through reason. But an automaton can- not reason. He convinces himself through [ 68 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
reason that he is an automaton without
reason
The method of reasoning justified by ex- perience, used by men in contact with the problems and difficulties of life, whether the problems and difficulties be the most simple or the most complex, is the method of common sense — the testing of ante- cedents by consequents, and of conse- quents by antecedents.
We judge the value of a machine, a field, a cow, a pig, by what it will pro- duce; a picture, a scene, a play, a spec- tacle, a poem, a song, a book, a thought, by what it gives back to us; a creed, an opinion, a plan, a policy, a system, a phi- losophy, a deduction, a conclusion, by what we believe its consequences are or will be.
We estimate the value of a nation, a
race, by its history, its antecedent record.
The calculations of future events by the
astronomers are based on antecedent ex-
[ 69 ]
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perience. We must judge what will be by what has been. We search alike for good seeds and evil germs that we may propa- gate the one, and destro}' the other.
To comprehend the unknown seed, we plant it and observe its consequences. To comprehend an unexplained crime, we search for its antecedents. The process of reasoning, e\en of the most abstract reasoning, is the same. Our knowledge of a thing is limited by our knowledge of its antecedents and consequences. An ad- vance in knowledge, from the humblest step to the highest scientific achievement, comes from the investigation of antece- dents or consequences.
As a physical interaction includes cause and effect, and perfect equivalence be- tween them, so does the mental interaction which we call reasoning include antecedent and consequence, and perfect equivalence between them. We are unable to think of antecedents and consequences as being [ 7° ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
other than exact — of peaches as growing on apple trees, or of acorns that produce potatoes. The measure of truth and false- hood will be found in their equivalents — in their antecedents and consequences.
C 71 ]
IX
Compensation in Human Affairs — Problems of Busi- ness are Problems of Compensation — Right is accomplished by rendering Equivalents — Duty is a Debt, literally a Due — The Golden Rule is a Law of Equivalent Exchange.
IN primitive times trade was by bar- ter — a fish for a rabbit, a shell for a cocoanut, or service for service — a direct exchange of articles or labor. Mod- ern coinmerce is still correctly designated as "trade" or '" exchange," though methods are improved. Money, drafts, credit and transportation are instrumentalities of ex- change, of balance. I exchange my labor for money, which is good in exchange for whatever may be in the market. A debt is a deferred balance. A promissory note is an agreement to settle a balance. A bank check is a draft upon a balance in bank to close or reduce a balance else-
r 72 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
where. Systems of accounting are agencies of balance. The correctness of bookkeep- ing is tested by a balance.
Interest is the pcnalt}' for a postponed payment, for a delayed balance. The busi- ness done on a cash basis is balanced continuously; the business done on credit is out of balance, involving risk. The de- lay of compensation is dangerous. Fail- ures, bankruptcies and business panics are due to debt, the neglect of compensa- tion.
Life consists almost wholly of buying, selling, paying. There are no gifts, noth- ing that does not call for an equivalent. If we cannot pay for gifts in kind, we must pay in gratitude or service, or we shall rank as moral bankrupts.
If I would have a good situation, I must pay for it not only in labor, but in prompt- ness, intelligence, faithfulness and good manners. If I would have good service, I must pa}' not onl}- in money, but in con- [ 73 ]
BALANCE
sideration, recognition, appreciation, fair- ness. I can liold no one to me if I mis- use him.
All things are to be had for the bining. Would you have friends? Then pay the price. The price of friendship is to be worthy of friendship. The price of glory is to do something glorious. The price of shame is to do something shameful.
Friendship, glorv, honor, admiration, courage, infam}', contempt, hatred, are all in the market-place for sale at a price. We are buying and selling these things constantl}' as we will. Even beauty is for sale. Plain women can gain beauty by cul- tivating grace, animation, pleasant speech, intelligence, helpfulness, courage or good will. Beauty is not in the features alone; it is in the soul also.
Good will buys good will, friendliness buys friendship, confidence begets confi- dence, service rewards service ; and hate pays for hate, suspicion for suspicion,
[ 74 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
treachery for treachery, contempt for ingratitude, slovenliness, laziness and lying.
We plant a shrub, a rosebush, an orchard, with the expectation that they will pay us back. We build roads, mend harness and patch the roof with the same expectation. We will trust even these unconscious things to pay their debts.
Some of our investments are good, and some are bad. The good qualities we acquire — moderation, industry, courtesy, order, patience, candor — are sound in- vestments. Our evil institutions and habits are bad investments, involving us in losses. We become debtors to them, and they are exacting creditors, forcing payment in full in money and labor, and sometimes in blood, agony, tears, humiliation or shame.
We recently had in this country the in- stitution of chattel slaverv, which we had cultivated for two hundred years. Prepar- atory to going out of business, this insti- [ 75 ]
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tiition called on us for final settlement. Our indebtedness, which proved to be large — amounting to more than half a million lives and over six thousand mil- lion dollars — was paid in full. It seems strange that our institution of slavery, with no standing among the great powers of the earth, should have been able to col- lect such an indemnity in blood, treasure and pain from an enlightened people, tak- ing a drop of blood from the dominant race '' for every drop drawn by the lash."
We are administering compensation continualh' in our praise and blame of our fellow men — in applause to a poet or dis- coverer, in condemnation of the greedy and rapacious, in aversion to injustice, in love to our benefactors.
" Each day," as Emerson says, " is a day of judgment." We are judged continually, and usually correctly, by our associates and friends. And we are constant!}' paying penalties to or receiving rewards from [ :6 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
our judges — penalties in the indifference, dislike, contempt and detestation of our fellows; rewards in their appreciation, confidence, good will and love.
The vulgar receive no respect, the heart- less no sympathy, the rapacious no affec- tion. It is better to be a dog that has earned a little love than Caesar in triumph, his enemies on his chariot wheels.
Compensation is in the frost on the win- dow pane, and in the sunset of gold and crimson and purple, which reward the ar- tistic sense in the minds even of the for- lorn and poor; in the hope in the hearts of men which makes life endurable; in the first cry of the infant which rewards the mother's agony.
Right is accomplished by rendering equivalents. Duty is a debt, literally a due, which we owe to ourselves or to others. The Golden Rule is a perfect law of equiv- alent exchange, and Kant's " categorical imperative " — " Act according to that [ 11 ]
BALANCE
maxim only wliich you can wish at the same time to become the universal hiw " — is also an exact law of reciprocity.
'^ The real tirst truth of morality," says Victor Cousin, ''is justice. It is justice, therefore, and not duty, that strictly de- serves the name of a principle." " Univer- sal justice," says Aristotle, " includes all virtue." "Justice is the greatest good," says Plato.
Justice is the foundation of retribution, vindication, reparation, obligation, reci- procity, accountability, duty. Justice is compensation.
Everything in Nature, conscious and un- conscious, animate and inanimate, is busily engaged in paying its debts. By what sys- tem is this perfect accounting made? We see no books, observe no management, and yet the numberless settlements are made with as much exactness as if each one were superintended by a group of experts, com- bining more of knowledge and justice than [ 78 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
are possessed by all of the mathemati- cians, scientists, thinkers, philosophers and judges in the world. We cannot explain this accounting on the theory of chance or accident; we must conclude that it is the consequence of a supreme power or principle of order, right and justice which regulates the affairs of the world.
[ 79 ]
X
Order is Regulation ; Balance is Regulator. Right is Correctness ; Balance is Corrector. Justice is Compensation ; Balance is Compensator — Balance is Single and Supreme, without a Mate or Equal.
BALANCE is a word in which are concentrated, I hold, the higher meanings of the words order, right and justice.
The high and more general meanings of the word order — such as sequence, regu- larity of succession and method, right ar- rangement— fit well into the word balance. In other words, balance may include the higher meanings of order, but order does not include all of balance. We shall not find the fundamental explanations of the system of Nature in order. Effect, it is true, follows cause, and reaction follows action, in an orderly manner. This is a process, a general way of Nature. Such a [ 80 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
statement, however, gives out little light. But when we say that effect balances cause, that reaction balances action, then we make a distinct advance toward unity and light.
Right is a word of broad and noble meaning, but it also does not fit com- pletely into the fundamental explanations of the system of Nature, or apply as per- fectly as does the word balance to every interaction.
The figure illustrating justice is a god- dess blindfolded, holding the scales of bal- ance in her hands. Justice is balance in human affairs. Balance is wider than jus- tice, since it includes justice and more than justice. There is no justice in the moon, where there is no life, but balance is there.
Balance includes order, right and jus- tice, but none of the latter can include completely the former. Balance is an active, governing principle, supreme, cen- tral, automatic. Order is regulation; bal- [ 8i ]
BALANCE
ance is regulator. Right is correctness; balance is corrector. Justice is compen- sation; balance is compensator.
As we advance in knowledge we per- ceive more and more of duality in the processes of Nature. Doubtless we shall know in time that all processes, save the supreme process, are double. We know now that the law of causation is misnamed; it is reallv the law of cause and effect. And so also the law of evolution is actually the law of evolution and devolution. That the tit survive is only a half truth, the other half being this — that the unfit die. That matter and force are indestructible is also a half of the complete truth that matter and force are indestructible and uncreatable. The law of consequences is really the law of antecedents and conse- quences, though I shall continue, for the sake of brevity, to designate it as single.
As Roget has shown, nearly all of the important words in our language are bal- [ 82 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
anced by words of opposite meaning. Even honor is balanced by dishonor, vir- tue by vice, right by wrong. But where shall we find the obverse of balance, its other half, mate or contrar}^, the force which matches balance on equal terms ? I know of no such energy or principle. It has no name; no word in our language expresses such meaning. We say that re- action balances action, attraction balances repulsion, order balances disorder, and so on, but what balances Balance? These words in which I attempt to consider the balancing of balance become ridiculous, indicating the absurdity of the thought that balance is itself subject to balance. Balance is single and supreme, without a mate or equal.
[ 83 ]
XI
Natural Justice — Compensation in Human Affairs involves a Cycle of Beginning, Development and Conclusion, as Seed Time, Growth and Harvest — Tyranny is an Antidote for Mean Spiritedness, and Courage is the Antidote for Tyranny — Through such Rude Alternations do we move forward.
" 1 \ VT what of the failures of balance,
II uf the awful accidents and terrible
convulsions of Nature in which
balance seems to be absent, or at least
tardy or inefficient?"
The convulsions of Nature arc not violations of balance ; they are the phe- nomena connected with Nature's great interactions. LisfhtninCT is the shock ac- companying the establishing of equipoise between two clouds, or between a cloud and the earth. An earthquake is the equalization of an internal pressure upon the crust of the earth. And so cyclones, [ 84 1
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, epi- demics and other disturbances are the consequences of the antecedents which produced them.
" You admit, then, that things are not always in balance, and that man can defy balance ? "
Man cannot defy balance. His acts must produce equivalent consequences. The use of rotten harness, imperfect boilers, defect- ive flues, bad plumbing, weak buildings and faulty machinery will invite disaster. Whenever the internal pressure overbal- ances the strength of the boiler, we have what we call an accident, though it is not really an accident, being the result of ignorance or of a miscalculation of forces.
We invite evil consequences in overeat- ing and overdrinking, in overworking and underworking, in neglecting sanitary pre- cautions, in worrying and straining beyond our strength, thereby receiving many a [ 85 ]
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hard rap and sometimes a deathblow. We live in the kingdom of equivalence and compensation. Its laws are very strict, and wc cannot evade them. If we violate them, we must pay the penalty.
To sav that compensation is defeated because it requires time for completion is as unreasonable as if one should say that a journey is endless because its conclusion is not reached in an instant, or that the seed planted this morning is a failure be- cause it does not produce an ear of corn this afternoon. We do not comprehend the Rocky INIountains through the first glimpse of one of its peaks, nor is the whole process of evolution to be found in one of Darwin's lines. And compensation also is revealed only by the whole of it — in its completeness — and not in one glimpse or line.
The processes of compensation in human affairs involve usually a cycle of begin- ning, development and conclusion — as
[ 86 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
seed time, growth and harvest — for com- pletion. A headache, separated from the indulgence that preceded it, is apparently wrong; connected with its cause, it is right. To judge a thing, we must know its antecedents and consequences. We cannot determine the exact status of a wrong, or of what appears to be a wrong, unless we know that antecedents do not justify it, or that consequences will not rectify it.
At the end of all our reasoning con- cerning the fundamental questions of life, we must choose between two alternatives — either (i) all things are in the process of being righted, or (2) the world-order is hopelessly wrong.
The correction of excess and deficiency is the province of balance. It would be impossible to make a list of the influences and forces which antagonize excess or de- ficiency, for we do not know, and doubt- less never will know, all of them, as they [ 87 ]
BALANCE
are included in the most subtle and minute phenomena of action and reaction, of cause and effect. Human law, for illustration, is designed to prevent excess or deficiency
— not only statute law and common law, but haws of decorum, ceremony, courtesy, etiquette, custom, usage, manners, trade. These laws are more or less defective, themselves subject to excess or deficiency
— as laws of despotism, privilege, mono- poly, fashion — and sadly require the regu- lation of balance. To one who suffers from defective laws, the force that corrects them seems to be far off or even non-existent. We should remember, however, that bal- ance works sometimes secretly, as in the imperceptible rhythm said to exist in all motion, and sometimes silently through centuries, as in the transformation of sun- shine into coal.
The world has doubtless suffered more from t3Tann3' in its many forms than from any other perversion of order in human
[ 88 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
affairs. Yet we may perceive much of balance in the origin, development and conclusion even of tyranny. The tyrant rules because he is the stronger. Strength will rule over weakness. No protest or complaint, no weeping or wailing, will change that fact. Tyranny exists by the consent of the oppressed. Those are en- slaved who are willing to be owned, who are too ignorant or cowardly to resist, or who consent to temporize. We enslaved the negro because he lacked spirit, but we failed to enslave the Indian. The Indian accepted death, and declined slavery. There were negroes, too, who declined slavery, and found freedom in the north or in death.
There is something in tyranny that rouses the spirit of men, even of dull and cowardly men. It may be that we owe more to our tyrants than to our benevo- lent autocracies, which have soothed and lulled us into indifference and inglorious [ 89 ]
BALANCE
content. Tyranny is an antidote for mean spiritedness, and courage is the antidote for t3Tanny. Through these rude alterna- tions do we move forward. We would value freedom little if we knew nothing of oppression.
As for the tyrant, he thinks of poison when he eats and drinks; he sees danger in the sullen faces of his slaves. He lives in dread of assassination, and often dies by it. He sees danger even where there is no danger. He cuts a sony figure in his- tory. His life is uneasy and his memory is detested. There are no happy tyrants. The ofreat tyrants earn ininiortal infamy; the small ones secure the hatred of those who know them. The account, as we see it, balances rudel}' ; doubtless it would bal- ance to a hair if we could trace all of the remote antecedents and consequences of tyranny. Doubtless also, if we could trace the antecedents and consequences of all other evils, we should know tliat there is [ 90 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
no trouble which time will not heal, no wrong which is not in the process of being righted.
The universe is under the reign of law, which is everywhere — in things mean and minute as well as in things noble and great. So far as we have come into an under- standing of these laws, we have found none defective.
No sound philosophy can concede that a law of Nature can be out of balance or in any way less than true and perfect. When we advance a theory to the point where it would prove that a law of Nature is out of balance and defective, we should know that the conclusion is wrong; that it is our reasoning, and not the law, that is out of balance and defective.
[ 91 ]
XII
Justice is Incomplete in the Present Existence — Our Life here is as a Broken Part of a Broader Life — If Death ends All, then the Mass of Mankind must live, toil, suffer and die under a Condition of Hope- less Injustice.
WE must admit, however, that jus- tice, which is balance in human affairs, is incomplete in this life. All men are endowed at birth with unequal strength, intelligence and moral qualities. One, born of superior antecedents, is reared under benign influences, develops into noble manhood, lives under favorable environments to a good old age, and dies tranquill}-. Another, a woman, born of low antecedents, is sold by a degraded mother into prostitution, lives a short and wretched life, and dies miserably. One, inheriting a mean intellect, lives on a level a little above the brute ; another, [ 9^ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
the idiot, is more helpless than the brute. To one pair are born tine children, who grow up to helpful maturity; to another pair comes a drunkard, a degenerate, an imbecile or a criminal. One, who con- forms to the opinions or institutions of his time, perhaps ignorantly or dishonestly, lives peacefully to old age; another, more intelligent or sincere, suffers martyrdom for his devotion to right and duty.
A few live long and pleasant lives, into which enters no unusual trouble,opain or misfortune. The lives of the many are short and broken, or rendered burdensome by slavish toil ; " by griefs that gnaw deep, by woes that are hard to bear." Story pictures these, in his " lo Victis," as —
..." the low and the humble, the weary and broken
in heart, Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent
and desperate part ; Whose youth bore no flower on its branches, whose
hopes burned in ashes away, [ 93 ]
BALANCE
From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at, who stood at the dying of day,
With the work of their life all around them, unpitied, unheeded, alone.
With death swooping down o'er their failure, and all but their faith overthrown."
Nor are the good always happy nor the vicious wretched in proportion to their de- serts in this life. To the contrary, the good are often wretched and the vicious happy.
The life here is as one act in a play or one chapter in a novel, in which the plot has neither opening nor conclusion, and in which the action, separated from the preceding and succeeding parts, is appar- ently without purpose, sense or justice — in which wrong and villain}' may be tri- umphant and integrity and virtue trampled in the dust.
Perhaps our passion for fiction and the
drama is due to the fact that in them we
find that completeness and justice which
we rarely see in real life. In them the
[ 94 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
good, after many difficulties and troubles, are triumphant, and the evil are finally un- done.
Our fondness for biography and history — which abound also in rewards, retribu- tions and other equities — can be explained on similar grounds. We discover that com- pleteness and justice come to the individ- ual slowly, but surely, in a historic sense; that those made great by accident are in time forgotten; that the tyrannical and the cruel are detested; that Columbus left a better legacy than Caesar; that Newton is more honored than any English king; that Burns, the rustic poet, is better loved than Bonaparte, the conqueror. And we ob- serve that Lincoln — whose youth was for- lorn, whose life was full of care, who was murdered in the hour of his triumph — still lives in the hearts of his countrymen.
And we learn to believe that the books of Nature must balance; that Time glori- fies the just, humiliates the arrogant, levels [ 95 ]
BALANCE
all inequalities, revenges all outrages, rights all wrong.
Thus we tind in both fact and fiction, and in the hunger for justice in our own hearts, some warrant for our old faith that the present life is only a broken part of a much broader life which will be complete, and in which all things will be made right and even.
If this life were broken into still shorter fragments, it would appear to be still more unjust. If, for illustration, each life con- sisted of one day only, then the lives of some would fall upon fair, mild or bril- liant days, and others upon wet, cold or hot davs; some upon the long da3's of June, and others upon the short days of December; and some upon days into which no sunlight would enter, and these would doubt even the existence of the sun.
But our life here consists of man}- days, and we know that the good days outnum- ber the bad ones; that the seasons return [ 96 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
with precision, and that there are but slight variations in the annual rainfall and tem- perature of any given district.
A week or even a month of bad days does not discourage us, for we know that in the round of a year we shall have about so much of rain and drought, sunshine and fog, heat and cold. So far as the weather is concerned. Nature's average restores approximate equilibrium in the cvcle of a year, and complete balance in a term of years.
The broader the basis of reckoning, the more perfect is the equivalence established by statistics and experience. While we have in our present life manifestations of balance in the alternations of the weather, in the recurrence of the seasons and in many other phenomena, and while a tend- ency toward justice is evident in all hu- man affairs, it is clear that the life here is neither lon^ enous^h nor broad enough to establish complete compensation. [ 97 ]
BALANCE
A full consideration of the subject leads to the conclusion that, if death ends all, then the mass of mankind must live, toil, suffer and die under a condition of hope- less injustice — and hence that the only basis for the belief that justice will be completel}' established in human affairs is in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
This conclusion sheds much light upon the universality, persistence and rational meaning of religion.
XIII
The Essential Meaning of Religion is found in the Agreements, and not in the Disagreements, among Believers — There are Three Fundamental Reli- gious Beliefs : (i) That the Soul is Accountable for its Actions ; (2) That the Soul survives the Death of the Body ; (3) In a Supreme Power that rights Things.
RELIGION is the oldest, the most universal and the most permanent of the institutions of men. We have no historic record of a people who were destitute of every form and manifes- tation of religion. It is nurtured by civili- zation; it existed among the earlier and lower men.
Tylor ranks perhaps as the foremost in- vestigator of primitive beliefs. In consid- ering the theory that there must be tribes so low as to be destitute of religious faith, he says:
[ 99 ]
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" Though the theoretical niche is ready and con- venient, the actual statue to fill it is not forthcoming. The case is in some degree similar to that of the tribes asserted to exist without language or without the use of fire ; nothing in the nature of things seems to forbid the possibility of such existence, but as a matter of fact the tribes are not found. Thus the assertion that rude non-religious tribes have been known in actual existence, though in theory possible, and perhaps in fact true, does not at present rest on that sufficient proof which, for an exceptional state of things, we are entitled to demand." — Primitive Culture, i. 418.
Concerning the harmonies in religious beliefs, Tylor also says:
" No religion of mankind lies in utter isolation from the rest, and the thoughts and principles of modern Christianity are attached to intellectual clues which run back through far pre-Christian ages to the very origin of human civilization, perhaps even of human existence." — Primitive Culture, i, 421,
Spencer says;
" Of religion, then, we must always remember that amid its many errors and corruptions it has asserted and diffused a supreme I'erify. From the first, the
[ »°° ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
recognition of this supreme verity, in however imper- fect a manner, has been its vital element; and its various defects, once extreme but gradually dimin- ishing, have been so many failures to recognize in full that which it recognized in part. The truly reli- gious element of religion has always been good ; that which has proved untenable in doctrine and vicious in practice has been its irreligious element ; and from this it has ever been undergoing purification," — First Principles, p. 104.
Religion is a word which has not been clearly defined. It has one meaning to Jews, another to Christians, another to Mohammedans, another to Buddhists. Even the Christians — being divided into many sects — hold views more or less in conflict concerning the meaning of reli- gion. The lexicographers have defined the word timidly and haltingly, drawing no clear distinction between religion and theology.
What is the actual meaning of the great fact which we call religion ? Where shall we find the " supreme verity " to which [ •°' ]
BALANCE
Mr. Spencer refers, and the harmony of which Mr. Tylor speaks?
It would be useless to attempt to dis- cover a ground of agreement in all of the thought of the world concerning reli- gion, for the tliinking on the subject has been voluminous and endless, good and bad, sane and insane. Nor slunild we ex- pect to tind an essential harmony in all religious organizations, great and small, temporary and permanent, powerful and insignificant. It is conceivable that a sect claiming to be religious is really irre- ligious.
We should seek for the essential meaning of religion in the broad principle or prin- ciples which have been accepted by great masses of men in places and times wide apart; in the permanent manifestations of religious sentiment, and in the instinctive, spontaneous and untaught beliefs common to primitive men which survive in more highly developed form among the enlight- [ '°^ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
ened. And we must seek for it finally in the harmony of belief in the great religious organizations now in existence; for they must contain, in the natural order of growth, that which is worthy of survival in the religious faith that has preceded them. We must seek for the meaning of religion in the agreements, and not in the disagreements, among believers.
It is now conceded by enlightened the- ologians, as well as by philosophers, that religious institutions and beliefs have de- veloped through the universal principle of evolution. And it follows that, as the oak is something more complete than the acorn, astronomy than astrology, man than the ape, so we shall find religious beliefs to be more perfectly developed in enlight- enment than in savagery.
" For a principle of development," says
Edward Caird (Evolution of Religion,
pp. 43-45), "necessarily manifests itself
most clearly in the most mature form of
[ '°3 ]
BALANCE
that whicli develops. ... It is tlie devel- oped organism that explains the germ from which it grew. . . . We must find the key to the meaning of the first stage in the last."
I. The Belief that the Soul is Account- able for its Actions.
" I entertain a good hope," says Socrates, *' that something awaits those who die, and that, as was said long since, it will be far better for the good than the evil."
A very old belief — which grows with man's growth and strengthens with his enlightenment — is the faith that he is ac- countable for his actions.
Tylor, who doubts that the doctrine of compensation was universal among primi- tive races, admits that it existed among man}', and that it extended and developed with the growth of mankind. He sa3's:
" A comparison of doctrines held at various stages of culture may justify a tentative speculation as to [ •°4 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
their actual sequence in history, favoring the opinion that through an intermediate stage the doctrine of simple future existence was actually developed into the doctrine of future reward and punishment, a transition which, for deep import to human life, has scarcely its rival in the history of religion." — Primi- tive Culture, ii. 84.
D'Alviella says:
" The idea of a judgment of the dead, to which the theory of rewards and punishments naturally leads as its culmination, appears to have found its way into the minds even of very backward peoples." — Hib- bert Lectures, p. 193.
Tangible evidence of the belief in ac- countability by primitive tribes now extinct being lacking, many scientific investigators deny that it existed.
Yet these investigators agree that pro- pitiation was an universal rite among the lowest men, that it developed with man's culture, and survives even to the present time. Why did primitive men propitiate the spirits of their dead.^ And why did [ ^°5 ]
BALANCE
the later cults propitiate fetiches, idols and gods ?
Propitiation is offered through fear to powers to which one acknowledges ac- countability. The culprit propitiates his judge, the slave his master, the subject his ruler. It is evident that the motive strong enough and general enough to im- pel the primitive tribes to propitiate the spirits of the dead must have been based on the belief that man was accountable to the spirits, whom he credited with ex- traordinary powers.
It appears to me that the sense of ac- countability was in the nature of things the first religious sentiment in the mind of man; that it is older than the belief in a future life and in superhuman powers; that it was based and still rests upon cause and effect, which are apparent to the dull, as well as to the enlightened; that the lower men perceived that the fruits of certain acts and things were good and of others [ '°6 ]
I
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
bad, and that this perception led inevita- bly, in the infancy of thought, to the recog- nition of the law of consequences^ which is the law of accountability, of rewards and penalties.
The knowledge of primitive man begins with cause and efTect. He discovers that water quenches thirst, game is found under certain conditions, a cave gives shelter, friction brings fire, the sun yields heat and light, some plants are poisonous, frost withers, lightning kills.
The first lesson learned by the infant is connected with cause and effect. The mother is the source of food, the cause of protection. Later the child learns that through effort it can walk; that some things are hurtful and others helpful; some bitter, some sweet; some heavy, some light. It discovers that some actions are beneficial and may be safely repeated; that others are injurious and should be avoided. The beneficial it recognizes as [ '°7 ]
BALANCE
good, the harmful as evil. That which hurts, even if inanimate, the child would punish; that which is pleasant it rewards at least with a smile. The baby becomes a judge, and gives forth verdicts. Before it can speak its first word, it knows much instinctively of cause and effect, of good and evil, recognizes the utilit}' of rewards and penalties, and realizes dimly its own accountability.
The brute also, in proportion to its in- telligence, understands cause and effect; it recognizes its enemies, comprehends its own weakness and strength, declines con- flict save on terms favorable to itself, and knows the distinction in numerous cases between things harmful and things bene- ficial. The wisest man is distinguished in- tellectually from the lower men, and from the brutes, by his superior knowledge of cause and effect and of the distinctions be- tween good and evil.
Man's belief in his accountability — that [ 'OS ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
is, in cause and effect — is fundamental. It begins with his first rational consideration of his relations to the external world and to the order of Nature, which he will later deify. Nature has two imperative com- mands which primitive man hears con- stantly—" Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not." As his mind grows, the horizon of his accountability extends until it passes beyond the confines of this life. Believing in his own survival of death, he anticipates that in the after-life it will be "far better for the good than the evil."
It would be a reasonable assumption that the theories of a superhuman power or powers, of potent spirits, fetiches, idols, of many gods, and finally of one God, grew out of man's feeling of accountability. His sense of accountability forced him to be- lieve that he was responsible to some power which sets things right. Man has been so impressed usually by his accounta- bility for his sins — by " the dread of some- [ '°9 ]
BALANCE
thing after death" — that he has sought means of escape from it as he would from wild beasts, from flood or from tire.
D'Alviella (Hibbert Lectures, p. 179) says that religion from the first " de- veloped a spirit of subordination" and "favored the sacrifice of a direct and im- mediate satisfaction to a greater but more distant and indirect good."
The theory of " a standard of duty pre- scribed by something loftier than imme- diate advantage," as Brinton expresses it, which was recognized dimly and roughly by the lower tribes, has been accepted by all later forms of faith.
We find the doctrine that the soul is accountable for its actions bedded in the foundations of religion, entering com- pletely into the life here and into the life hereafter. It lies at the base of all religious theories of reward and retribution, of a day of judgment, of salvation and dam- nation, of heaven and hell. [ ''o ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
2. The Belief that the Soul survives the Death of the Body.
Tylor claims (Primitive Culture, i. 424) " as a minimum definition of religion, the belief in spiritual beings^'' which ap- pears (p. 425) "among all low races with whom we have attained to thoroughly in- timate relations." He defines " the belief in spiritual beings " (p. 427) as including in its full development " the belief in souls and in a future stated
This belief, he says (p. 426), is '■'■ the groundwork of the -philosophy of reli- gion, from that of savages up to that of civilized man;" and constitutes (p. 427) *' an ancient and world-wide philosophy."
Grant Allen says :
" Religion, however, has one element within it still older, more fundamental, and more persistent than any mere belief in a God or gods — nay, even than the custom of supplicating and appeasing ghosts or gods by gifts and observances. That element is the conception of the life of the dead. On the primitive [ "^ ]
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belief in such a life all religion ultimately bases itself. The belief is in fact the earliest thing to appear in religion, for there are savage tribes who have nothing worth calling gods, but have still a religion or cult of their dead relatives." — The Evolution of the Idea of God, p. 42.
Brinton says:
" I shall tell you of religions so crude as to have no temples or altars, no rites or prayers ; but I can tell you of none that does not teach the belief of the intercommunion of the spiritual powers and man."
— Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 50.
D'Alviella says:
" The discoveries of the last five-and-twenty j'ears, especially in the caves of France and Belgium, have established conclusively that as early as the mam- moth age man practiced funeral rites, believed ifi a future life, and possessed fetiches and perhaps even idols." — Hibbert Lectures, p. 15.
Huxley says:
"There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word, but there are none without ghosts."
— Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 163.
Spencer says that the conception of the soul's survival of physical death, [ ^'^ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
" along with the multiplying and complicating ideas arising from it, we find everywhere — alike in the arctic regions and the tropics ; in the forests of North America and in the deserts of Arabia ; in the val- leys of the Himalayas and in African jungles ; on the flanks of the Andes and in the Polynesian islands. It is exhibited with equal clearness by races so re- mote in type from one another that competent judges think they must have diverged before the existing distribution of land and sea was established — among straight haired, curly haired, woolly haired races ; among white, tawny, copper colored, black. And we find it among peoples who have made no advances in civilization as well as among the semi-civilized and the civilized." — Sociology, ii. 689.
Some recognition of the doctrine of a future life is found in the religious cults, ancient and modern, of which we have ac- curate knowledge. Even the ancient He- brews, whose faith was more materialistic doubtless than any other that is known to us, believed in spirits within and without men, that Elijah " went up by a whirlwind into heaven," that the dead Samuel ap- peared to Saul, that " the Lord killeth and [ ^'3 ]
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maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth iip,"" and that all souls went at death to a vague and shadowy hereafter which could not be called life, and yet was not complete annihilation. The modern Hebrews repudiate the material- ism of early Judaism. For more than six hundred years the Jewish church has ac- cepted the doctrine of " the resurrection of the dead " in the creed of Maimonides.
In the same way the Chinese have re- pudiated Confucius. While the thought of Confucius is materialistic, the Chinese re- ligions are profoundly spiritualistic. Not even Confucius, the adored and venerated philosopher of the Chinese, nor the writers of the Old Testament, could wean their followers permanently from the instinctive belief in a future life.
Instinctive religion — that which is
permanent and untaught as distinguished
from that which is temporary, isolated, or
based on speculation or authority — toler-
[ ••+ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
ates no limitation upon the after-life of man. Here and there some teacher or prophet has proclaimed that only women, or the married, or the great or the good, or even that no one, will survive death, but such theories have left no permanent impression upon the religious convic- tions of mankind. The modern religious organizations of substance and permanence hold that all mankind will survive death. We may conclude, in the light of all the facts obtainable, that the belief in a future life — that the soul survives the death of the body — is a fundamental precept of religion.
3. The Belief in a Supreme Power that rights Things.
The belief in superhuman influences and powers has been and continues to be uni- versal, accepted alike by the lowest savage and the highest philosopher; by the deist, pantheist and atheist, as well as by the the- [ 1^5 ]
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ist. Primitive man had a low or dull con- ception of the overruling power. Some- times he located it in a pebble or great rock; in a hill or mountain; in the dawn, sun, moon or stars ; in a mummy or idol; in his own ancestor; even in animals, fishes or reptiles. In whatever form he recog- nized it, however, it was to him a power that rights things, a beneficence to which he offered sacrifices and implorations.
The primitive interpretations of the su- preme energy improved with man's growth in culture. The lower conceptions gave way to something better, and these to some- thing still better — fetichism to idolatry, idolatry to polytheism, polytheism to mon- otheism.
It is sometimes said that Buddhism is a godless religion, and this assertion has been used as a foundation for the assump- tion that a belief in God is not fundamen- tal in religion. It may be that Buddhism recognizes no supreme being, but it is [ "6 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
not true that Buddhism recognizes no power or powers that right things. No religion recognizes more completely than Buddhism the eternal forces of reward and retribution, as is illustrated in Karma, the law of just consequences.
Religion deals fundamentally with the order and regulation of humankind, with their present, past and future. It has as- sumed naturally, indeed necessarily, that man is subject to some order or ruler possessed of unlimited power. While the lower cults have recognized in the fetich or idol a force which is helpful of or con- siderate to mankind, the more elevated races and sects have attributed more sub- lime qualities to the supreme force. A divine power is recognized in Varuna, the chief deity of the early Aryans; in Brahma, the absolute of the Hindoos; in Jehovah, the almighty of the Hebrews and Christians; in Odin, the all-father of the Norsemen; in Zeus, the highest deity [ ''7 ]
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of the Greeks; in Jupiter, the chief God of the Romans; in Allah, the one God of the IMohammedans. The strongest words expressive of beneficence and omnipo- tence are applied habitually to God — the providence, the divine, the infinite, the eternal, the all-powerful, the all-present, the all-hoi}', the immutable, the most high, the ruler of heaven and earth, the king of kings, the light of the world, the sun of righteousness. We may safely claim that the belief in a sup7'eme power thai rights thing's is fundamental in religion.
[ 1.8 ]
XIV
The Fundamental Meaning of Religion is revealed by its History — Religion recognizes that Right rules the World — Science recognizes that Balance rules the World — Religion and Science are in Harmony, not in Conflict.
WE have, then, three fundamental reHgious beliefs:
I. That the soul is account^ able for its actions.
2. That the soul survives the death of the body,
2,. In a supreme power that rights things.
The belief that the soul is accountable for its actions^ is the recognition that the law of consequences applies to the indi- vidual soul, that the good shall fare better than the evil, that men shall reap as they sow.
The belief that the soul survives the [ ''9 ]
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death of the body, is the recognition that accountability does not end with the death of the body; that the wrongs which are not righted here must be righted elsewhere; that the good which is not rewarded here must be rewarded hereafter; that there can be no break in the processes of account- abilit}-. As science assumes that cause and effect, action and reaction, motion and transform.ation, are ceaseless in the ph3's- ical world, so religion assumes that cause and effect, actions and consequences, are ceaseless in the soul of the individual. The religious doctrine of ceaseless moral accountability is identical with the scien- tific doctrine of ceaseless cause and effect. The belief /;/ a supreme power that rights things^ is the necessary corollary of the two preceding beliefs. The doctrines that the actions of the individual will be balanced by their consequences, and that this process does not cease with death, include the recognition of a supreme [ >^° ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
power of Tightness — a -power that rights things.
Combined, read from one into the other, what is the message conveyed by these three fundamental religious beliefs ? Are they in harmony or in conflict? is the message discordant, or feeble, or subtle, or unworthy of the great fact which we call religion? or is it harmonious, simple and clear, a noble interpretation of divine truth? This is the message of the three religious beliefs: That man is account- able for his actions; that he is subject ceaselessly to the law of jicst conse- quences^ to a supreme power of rightness. The message is so clear and simple that it may even be more briefly expressed as the declaration that right rules the world.
This interpretation of the meaning of
religion is not the interpretation of one
sect or church, of one time or place; it is
the interpretation of all sects and churches
[ '^' ]
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that can be classed as religious, and of all times and places in which religion has been manifest. It is not the product of speculation or inspiration; it is the product of all human experience bearing upon the subject of religion. The meaning of re- ligion, the message of religion, is found in its own history. Reliiiion contains within itself its own story, as the rocks contain within themselves their own story. The message of religion is not vague, difficult or unworthy; it is plain, eas}' to compre- hend; it is lofty and good. Mankind's recognition of religion as something holy, sacred and divine is fully justified by the interpretation of religion revealed by the history of religion — ihat I'ighf rules the world.
We have observed the harmony in the scientific interpretations of the sj'stem of Nature — that each interpretation points unerringly to a higher and single interpre- tation. And we now observe the same [ >2^ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
harmony in the fundamental conceptions of religion, which point with equal certi- tude to a conclusion in unity with the su- preme interpretation reached by science.
Religion, dealing with the essential obli- gations and relations of man, rests with the recognition of eternal justice — that right rules the ivorld. Science, dealing with all truth, with the explanation and reconciliation of all phenomena, advances to a still broader position — that balance rules the world — a position so broad that it includes the fundamental grounds of re- ligion.
Religion and science are in harmony, not in conflict. They have never been in real conflict. The appearance of conflict has been due to the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of both religion and sci- ence through the ages in which men have been groping and toiling upward from darkness to light.
[ 123 ]
XV
Religion has been misinterpreted and perverted — Science also has been misinterpreted and per- verted — Religion answers for its Perversions as Science, Truth and Right answer for their Per- versions— The Value of a Truth is measured by the Magnitude of its Perversions.
SCIENCE is the search for truth; it measures all things by truth, has no other standard than truth. As truth never conflicts with truth, the demonstra- tions of science arc necessarily harmoni- ous, the same original demonstration often being reached by strangers wide apart. Science consists of a stupendous unity linking the smallest and most obscure truths with higher truths, and these with still higher truths, on to their connection with fundamental truth. The achieve- ments of science are due to tlie methods of science — to experimentation, investi- [ 124 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
gation, critical examination — to the pa- tient weighing of facts by the standard of truth.
Religious thought has evolved necessa- rily on other lines. The problems of re- ligion — the war between good and evil, the mystery of life and death, the nature of superhuman powers, of the government of the world, of the future state, of man's accountability — have appealed with con- tinuous force to the interest and imagina- tion of men. The yearning to know was gratified in the beginning by savage dream- ers and mystics, who assumed to be, or believed themselves to be, inspired to utter divine truth. Religion has been inter- preted by sorcerers and by sages, by im- postors and by truth-seekers, by dull and by exalted minds. Some of the interpreta- tions are childish or base ; others supply to us our highest conceptions of honor, duty and responsibility. Great systems of faith grew up, each claiming to be built upon [ 1^5 ]
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sacred and infallible authority. The re- ligious spirit is reverential and steadfast; men have yielded slowl}' the faith of their fathers. The Hebrews accept one author- ity, the Buddhists another, the Christians another, the Mohammedans another, and other authorities are accepted by other believers. Men have measured religious truth by authority, not authority by truth. Each of the great S3'stems of faith assumes the perfect truth of its own authority, and denies the truth of all authority except its own, thereby admitting the existence of false authorities, false prophets and the worship of false gods.
Admitting many contradictions and im- perfections in the interpretation of religion, shall we conclude that there is no truth in religion? Grant numberless errors and impostures, must we say that all religion is error and imposture? Let us be as fair to religion as to science. Have no errors or impostures been advanced in the name [ '^6 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
of science ? Consider only that branch of science which deals with healing. Have there been no false doctors in the world ? no errors in determining the cause and cure of disease ? no medical zealots, in- flamed with a fanatical regard for their own methods, and with enmity for other methods? no conflicting schools of medi- cal thought? Because of the errors, im- postures and strife known to exist among those engaged in the art of healing, do people of intelligence conclude that the science of medicine consists wholly of er- ror, delusion and imposture ? that it has discovered no antidotes, no laws of health, no causes of disease? that sanitation and surgery have no merit?
The record of the science of healing contains superstitions as dull and rites as base as the lowest religious cults; indeed, the false medicine man and the false pro- phet have often been one and the same. Men have sought the healer of the body [ 1^7 ]
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because of their fear of the consequences of physical disease; they have sought the healer of the soul because of their dread of the consequences of moral disease. The healers, physical and spiritual, have dealt sometimes in nostrums, exorcisms, con- jurations and sorceries; and again in bet- ter remedies which, on the one hand, have alleviated pain, cured disease and saved life, and, on the other hand, have strength- ened men in right-doing, purified them, given them noble ideals of life and duty, and comforted them in trouble, sorrow, bereavement, agony, and in the face of death.
Let us not underweigh the fact that men have believed in their souls, in life after death, in responsibility that does not end, in an unbroken chain of cause and effect, in eternal justice — that they have spanned the abyss of death with a bridge of faith leading to a land where the ine- qualities, misunderstandings and wrongs of [ '^8 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
this life may be righted. Intuition, instinct, or some other form of insight, sometimes anticipates science. The supreme law of compensation, which the early mystics recognized through that happy insight by which men grasp truth which they cannot yet demonstrate, science recognizes also after thousands of years of investigation and experimentation.
Let us not be impatient. Civilization was not made in a day. Our sciences have been built slowly; they are not yet com- pleted, and we must assume that they never will be completed, unless it be possible that a time will come when truth will be exhausted. The search for truth has been slow and difficult, and many are the errors into which men have fallen. " The laws of Plato," says Lecky, " of the twelve tables, of the consuls, of the emperors, and of all nations and legislators — Persian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, Spanish, English — decreed capital penal- [ J29 ]
BALANCE
ties against sorcerers." When IMontaigne denounced the belief in witchcraft as a de- lusion, its existence was accepted by the foremost magistrates, physicians and scien- tific men of France. Bacon regarded the Copernican theor\- as a strange fancy. Kepler, who discovered the laws of plane- tar}- motion, believed tliat a spirit guided the movements of each planet. The chem- ists of the eighteenth century up to the time of Lavoisier believed in the theor}- of " phlogiston," a curious error. Priest- ley, the discoverer of oxygen, died a firm believer in phlogiston. Guyton de INIor- veau, Macquer and others taught that phlogiston was something that weighed less than nothing! Political science has not yet discovered a way of governing an American city honestly and efficiently, nor has economic science reformed the in- equitable distribution of wealth. The phi- losophers of the world, from the beginning of philosophy to the present day, have [ uo ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
reached no agreement concerning the motives of human actions or the meaning of morals.
Science has achieved much, but it is not at the end, or nearthe,end, of achievement. It has struggled up from small beginnings; scientific men, wise men in their day, have accepted error. Science is not responsible for their errors; science has nothing to do with error but to reject it. And so reli- gious men have accepted error, and reli- gion is not responsible for their mistakes. It seems sometimes as if men must try all wrong ways, in every line of advancement, before they can find the right way.
The interpretations of religion have dealt with the questions: How does right rule the world? How will justice be done to the individual soul? It is not strange that there have been numerous and conflicting^ answers to these questions; and that many of these answers are crude and ignorant, and some even monstrous and forbidding. [ M' ]
BALANCE
The primitive mystics, recognizing dimly the law of consequences, clothed it in sj-m- bols adapted to their own comprehension and to the comprehension of their kind — in fetiches and idols, in straifge gods, in numberless forms of penance and propitia- tion, in curious judgments, rewards and penalties, in heavens and hells which were circumscribed only by the limits of their imaginations. This may be said to their credit: they recognized rewards and pen- alties, recompense and retribution, heaven and hell. Their lowest conceptions of a future state included some recog-nition of moral responsibility and of the supremacy of justice. I do not despise their efforts. They expressed man's greatest hope — that right rules the world — in terms which they could understand. They could do no more. If that hope — I would prefer to say that truth — had waited for its complete and perfect exposition, it would doubtless be unexpressed to this da}'. [ '3^ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
The earlier symbols gave way to better symbols, and these to still better; in time, doubtless, all religious symbols will give way to the truth which they symbol ize. En- lightenment grows; superstition dwindles. Thought grows clearer. Many creeds have been revised. The doctrines of a hell of literal fire, and of eternal torment, have been abandoned by enlightened people. This advance must continue until the churches of civilization shall abandon the lastform, rite, ceremony and doctrine which stand in conflict with the fundamental reli- gious principle that right rules the world." They must in time accept the book of Na- ture as the book of God, and recognize that the truth-finders are God's prophets — that truth, wherever and whenever discovered, is the infallible revelation of God — that religious truth can be demonstrated only by reason, and that God's justice must be proved by the processes of Nature if it is to be proved at all — that God's jus- [ 133 ]
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tice, omnipotence and omnipresence can be proved more perfectly by the fact that cause and effect are equivalent, com- pensator}-, ceaseless, all-powerful and all- present, than by any sacred book — that science, in its fundamental interpretation of the s}stem of Nature, in its sublime conception of the permanence, uniformity and rectitude of the world-order, must be accepted as the defender, and not as the antagonist, of religion. There is no con- flict in the revelations of Nature. In all times and places. Nature's laws have been the same, and truth the same. Never has Nature altered or truth changed.
Religion has been misinterpreted ; it has also been perverted. While there are no cults known to us which do not recog- nize the law of consequences, there are many which teach that it can be evaded — that the favor of God can be gained by means other than by right-doing. And, in the name of religion, learning [ '.H ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
has been persecuted, freedom suppressed, great and cruel wars have been waged, and monstrous crimes committed — in- cluding torture and many forms of mur- der, from the slaughter of children on the sacrificial altar to the butchery of sects and communities. How shall religion answer for these evasions, iniquities and atrocities ?
Wrong seeks to disguise itself under the cloak of right; tyrants claim to be good, not bad; privilege, slavery, the sup- pression of thought, are represented by their beneficiaries to be right, not wrong — to be good even for the unprivileged, the enslaved and the shackled. Error dis- guises itself as truth. The liar does not say, " I am telling you a lie; " he says, " I am telling you the truth." The misinter- preters of history, biography, philosophy and science do not label their misinter- pretations as errors; they proclaim them as truths.
[ '35 ]
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Religion must answer for its perver- sions as right answers for the perversions of right, as truth answers for the perver- sions of truth, as science answers for the perversions of science. Right answers that its perversions are wrong, not right; truth answers that its perversions are er- rors, not truth; science answers that its perversions are unscientific, not scientific; religion answers that its perversions are irreligious, not religious.
Onl}' good and truth can be perverted. The value and quality of a good or truth — the usefulness of the art of healing, the nobility of toleration and justice, the value of science — are measured with accuracy by the wide extent of its perversions. And so also the usefulness, nobility and value of religion are indicated by the magnitude of its perversions. I believe that the per- versions of religion — unequaled as they are in magnitude b}- any other record of perversion — point unerringly to the con- [ '36 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
elusion that religion rests fundamentally upon a great and noble truth.
Religion is single, not plural. There is only one religion. The creeds written, the acts done, in the name of religion are re- ligious in so far as they conform to the fundamental religious principle that right rules the world; they are irreligious in so far as they are in conflict with that prin- ciple.
[ '37 ]
XVI
Measuring the Value of Religion by its Denial — Only One School of Thought denies Religion — Materialism is the Doctrine that Wrong rules the World — Science and Religion meet on Grounds of Life, not Death ; of Persistence, not Annihila- tion ; of Right, not Wrong ; on the Ground that the Laws of Nature are Uniform, not Contradictory.
WE can measure the strength or weakness of religion by the strength or weakness of its op- posite, its denial. If religion be strong, its denial will be weak; if religion be weak, its denial will be strong.
The denial that right rules the world is the affirmation that wrong rules the world. The assumption that wrong rules the world has no foundation in the demonstrations of science — which point unerringly to the return of equivalence and compensation in the processes of Nature — and has had [ '38 ] '
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
slight recognition in human thought. It is true that men have held beliefs which lead logically to the conclusion that wrong rules the world, but there have been few who could accept that conclusion. No school of thought proclaims it, and it rarely secures lodgment in the human mind save as the consequence of pessimism or mis- fortune. We must conclude that the denial of relisrion which takes form in the asser- tion that wrong rules the world is weak, not strong.
The existence of a supreme power — whether it be accepted as personal or as impersonal, as knowable or as unknowable — is universally recognized. It is usually assumed to be a power of rightness. It could not be called a power of wrongness without accepting the weak conclusion that wrong rules the world.
The assumption that man is, or should be, accountable for his actions, is recog- nized in our civil and criminal laws, which [ ^39 ]
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enforce penalties upon wrong-doing, and compel men to keep their contracts and pay their debts; in our moral code, and in our judgments concerning right and wrong. The alternative, that men should not reap as the}' sow, should not enjoy what they earn, should not suffer for their evil acts, is recosfnized nowhere. A few believe that wrong: does rule the world, but no one can believe that wrong should rule the world.
Only one fundamental religious belief — the belief in a future life — is denied with force or persistence. Many men, in- cludino: some of the crreat intellects of the world, from Confucius to Herbert Spencer, have doubted or denied that the soul sur- vives the death of the bod}'.
It is a curious fact that the doctrine of the annihilation of the soul has not yet ac- quired a definite name, though its adher- ents include a number of learned men, capable in the expression of thought and [ '40 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
in the coining of words. "Materialism" is the word used, in the absence of a better, to name this doctrine, but the dictionaries do not justify that use. Haeckel, recog- nizing its namelessness, has recently in- vented the word " thanatism " — in English, "deathism" — a fit name for the belief in the extinction of the soul. I shall, how- ever, use the word " materialism," which is better known.
What rational foundation exists for the belief in annihilation? Has science dis- covered annihilation? No; science has not discovered annihilation; it has not discovered annihilation even in the physi- cal body of man. At the change which, through old custom, we call death, the physical body of the individual is trans- formed under ordinary conditions into numberless other living bodies, the one life into swarms of life. Even if the physi- cal body be consumed by fire, not one atom is annihilated, and life springs from
r '41 ]
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the ashes. Science is acquainted with mo- tion only, not rest ; with life, not death. Science recognizes the indestructiblHty of matter and force, that nothing in the phj'sical world is annihilated. It comes to this — that the materialist, accepting the immortality of matter and force, must affirm that nothing dies but the soul.
There are other and more serious incon- sistencies in the theory of annihilation. The ceaselessness of action and reaction, of cause and effect, is a fundamental postu- late of science. " To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," says Newton. If death ends all, then the indi- vidual reaches in extinction a point where moral effect fails to follow moral cause, and the materialist must den}- the cease- lessness of cause and effect.
One dies in the commission of a crime, when his heart is full of greed or lust or hate; if death ends all, he suffers no con- sequences of his sin; he goes to the same [ H^ ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
silence which awaits the martyr who dies for man. If suicide be a sin, then the sui- cide commits an act, if death ends all, for which there is no penalty. The doctrine of extinction includes the assumption that there will be no reckoning hereafter for the tyrants, oppressors and scourgers of the weak, for the brutes who trample on women and children, for ingrates and murderers, for those who have tortured their kind — that man sows what he will not reap, and reaps what he has not sown. Religion affirms, on the other hand, that death does not break the chain of cause and effect; that men shall reap as they sow; that there shall come a day of reck- oning for the tyrant and the torturer; that the suicide shall not escape the conse- quences of self destruction; that no man shall escape the penalty of his sin, or be denied the reward of his virtue; that, for those who live justly, there is no trouble which will not end, no night of sorrow or [ H^ ]
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anguish which will not be succeeded by the dawn of peace and joy.
Relijrion declares that moral accounta- bility is ceaseless; materialism declares that moral accountability ends in death. Religion is the recognition that right rules the world; materialism is the recognition that wrong rules the world. Religion de- clares that the wrongs which are not righted here will be righted hereafter; materialism declares that the wrongs which are not righted here ivill be righted no- where.
Materialism is a sweeping denial of good and right. In denying the ceaseless- ness of action and reaction, it denies the uniformity of Nature; in denying the per- sistence of the soul, it proclaims the doc- trine of annihilation, which is unknown to science; in denying the continuance of human accountability, it denies the foundation of morals. Materialism is the doctrine of eternal wrong, of hopeless in- [ '44 ]
THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY
justice. Comprehending the nature and meaning of the theory of annihilation, we shall understand why it is nameless; why our language has failed to produce a word to fit its exact meaning; why its most famous living defender, Haeckel, has been unable to coin for it a better name than the somber and forbidding word " deathism."
We shall search in vain for any good or substantial fruits of materialism — for hospitals, charities or institutions of learn- ing founded in its name or honor; for monuments which recognize it; for any part that it has played in the advancement of civilization; for uplifting songs, hymns, poems or speeches inspired by it; for a noble thought or sentiment that is depend- ent upon it; for sublime or heroic deeds in its defense. The doctrine of material- ism, built upon an imperfect understand- ing of its relations and consequences, is a cold, dry, unstimulating faith which has [ H? ]
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never reached the human heart save with the icy touch of hopelessness and despair.
The scientific interpretations of Nature have advanced constantly in breadth — into the uniform, the boundless, the uni- versal, the eternal, tlic ceaseless, the death- less. Upon these broad grounds, religion and science meet — on grounds of life, not death; of persistence, not annihilation; of right, not wrong — on the ground of the uniformity of Nature: that the conse- quences of human action are as definite as the consequences of chemical action; that the laws of equivalence and compensation which operate in the realm of physics act with the same unfailing certainty, and with the same eternal ceaselessness, upon the soul of man.
[ '4^ ]
dbe fiibcrsibe prc^iS
EUctrotyped and printed by //. O. Houghton &' Co. Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
ETERNALISM
A THEORY OF INFINITE JUSTICE
By ORLANDO J. SMITH
?N this volume the author discusses the fundamental principles of Religion, and seeks an answer to such questions as these : " If God or Nature has created a criminal, can we acquit the Creator of all accountability for the criminal ? Has not the soul which is created vicious been deeply wronged? How can men be held to equal moral accountability if they have not been endowed in the beginning with equal goodness, equal strength, equal intelligence ? Are those who are born vicious really the victims of the malice of Nature or of the wrath of God ? "
He reaches the conclusion that creation and anni- hilation are unknown to science, and that the only theory of Infinite Justice will be found in the assump- tion that the individual soul is eternal, — pre-existent and deathless — that each man builds his own charac- ter, " If his soul be mean, it is the hovel which he has made for himself ; if it be noble, it is a palace of his own building."
A tiutiiber of theologians and other thinkers, 7i.'ho liis- sent from the conclusions of the author in particulars or in general, have made these comments upon " Eter- nalism ." —
Dr. William Henry Scott, Ohio State University : " A strong and earnest book. . . . Candid, thoughtful and suggestive. . . . The earnest desire for truth and the noble and fervent passion for justice which per- vade it will prove to be a mental tonic of uncommon wholesomeness and virtue."
Dr. Alvah Hovey, Newton Theological Institution: " In spirit and style this work is bold, positive, con- troversial, and attractive."
Alfred Russel Wallace : " A bold effort to solve the great problem of the universe. . . . The author of this book treats the subject from a somewhat dif- ferent standpoint from most of his predecessors, and may thus claim a certain amount of originality. He possesses also a terse and forcible style."
Professor N. S. Shaler : " This view [of the eternal nature of the individual soul] is maintained in this remarkable book with a rare skill in presentation. Within the limits of the writing the task could hardly have been more effectively or more logically accom- plished. . . .
" The value of ' Eternalism ' is not to be measured by the soundness of its contentions. It is rather to be taken as the sign of a return to the primitive method of explaining the universe by the individual consciousness. Men have gone far with natural science and philosophy with the hope that they might find an answer to the grave question as to their place
in the realm. Here is a man who has read much and widely, who, for all his learning, trusts to his instincts for guidance ; for while the book has evidently been a matter of most elaborate preparation, having been sub- mitted to several hundred critics before publication, and the answers of some four hundred considered in the revision, it remains singularly original and indi- vidual."
Monaire D. Comvay : " When he [the author] looks into his consciousness and writes, when he transmutes his experience into thought, he is clear, powerful, and convincing. . . . The author by vigorous reasoning brings religion into the sphere of nature and life where it may be studied in freedom and harmonized with consciousness and thought."
Dr. Henry Goodwin Smith, Lane TJieological Semi- nary: " * Eternalism' is written by an independent and a sincere thinker. . . . The author shows no lack of ingenuity in dealing with special difficulties."
Dr. Francis Brown, Union Theological Seminary: " The sentences are crisp, the chapters are short. . . . It is not hard to read, and its main purpose is clear. . . . His [the author's] standard is unswerving, his ideal lofty."
Dr. Paul Cams : " An unusual and noteworthy attempt at solving the most difficult and basic prob- lem of life."
Crown 8vo. $1.25, nef. (Postage 13 cents.)
Published by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
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