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DARWINISM  IN  MORALS, 

AND  OTHER  ESSAYS. 


(    Reprinted  from  the  THEOLOGICAL  and  FORTNIGHTLY  REVIEWS,  FJRASER' 
and  MACMILLAN'S  MAGAZINES,  and  the  MANCHESTER  FUIEND. 


PRANCES  POWER  COBBE. 


c  v\  • 


WILLIAMS  v AND  NORGATE, 

14,    HENRIETTA    STREET,    COVENT    GARDEN,    LONDON; 

AND    20,    SOUTH    FREDERICK    STREET,    EDINBURGH. 

1872. 


,'  </- 


HERTFORD  : 
PRINTED  BY  STEPHEN  AUSTIN  AND  SONS. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE  >^ 

\/l.     DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.     (Theological  Review,  April,  1871.)  1 

i//2.     HEREDITARY  PIETY.     (Theological  Review,  April,  1870.)     ...  35 
3.     THE  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.     (Theological  Review,  July, 

.1866.) 65 

•  •.      4.     AN  ENGLISH   BROAD    CHURCHMAN.      (Theological  Review, 

January,  1866.)         95 

-»'V\*- 

Vt;  5.  A  FRENCH  THEIST.     (Theological  Review,  May,  1865.)       ...  129 

6.  THE  DEVIL.    (Fortnightly  Review,  August,  1871.) 147 

7.  A  PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.    (Eraser's  Magazine,  April,  1869.)  175 

8.  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  WORLD.     (Eraser's  Magazine,  June, 

1868.) 203 

9.  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.    (Eraser's  Magazine,  February, 

1868.) 235 

10.    THE    RELIGION    AND    LITERATURE    OF    INDIA.       (Eraser's 

Magazine,  March,  1870.) 269 

<  11.     UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  (Macmillan's  Magazine,  Novem 
ber,  1870.)      305 

12.     DREAMS,  AS  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  INVOLUNTARY  CEREBRATION. 

(Macmillan's  Magazine,  April,  1871.)        335 

••/is.    AURICULAR    CONFESSION   IN   THE   CHURCH   OF    ENGLAND. 

(Theological  Review,  January,  1872.)        363 

7  14.    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION.     (Manchester 

Friend,  January  15,  1872.) 391 


DAEWINISM  IN  MOEALS, 

AND   OTHEK  ESSAYS. 


ESSAY  I. 
DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.1 

IT  is  a  singular  fact  that  whenever  we  find  out  how  any 
thing  is  done,  our  first  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  God  did 
not  do  it.  No  matter  how  wonderful,  how  beautiful,  how 
infinitely  complex  and  delicate,  has  been  the  machinery 
which  has  worked,  perhaps  for  centuries,  perhaps  for  millions 
of  ages,  to  bring  about  some  beneficent  result — if  we  can 
but  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  wheels,  its  divine  character  dis 
appears.  The  machinery  did  it  all.  It  would  be  altogether 
superfluous  to  look  further. 

The  olive  has  been  commonly  called  the  Phoenix  of  trees, 
because  when  it  is  cut  down  it  springs  to  life  again.  The 
notion  that  God  is  only  discernible  in  the  miraculous  and 
the  inexplicable,  may  likewise  be  called  the  Phosnix  of 
ideas  ;  for  again  and  again  it  has  been  exploded,  and  yet 
it  re-appears  with  the  utmost  regularity  whenever  a  new 
step  is  made  in  the  march  of  Science.  The  explanation 
of  each  phenomenon  is  still  first  angrily  disputed  and  then 
mournfully  accepted  by  the  majority  of  pious  people,  just 

1  The  Descent  of  Man.  By  Charles  Darwin,  M.A.,  F.R.S.  Two  vols.  8vo. 
London:  Murray.  1871. 

1 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 


as  if  finding  out  the  ways  of  God  were  not  necessarily 
bringing  ourselves  nearer  to  the  knowledge  of  Him,  and  the 
highest  bound  of  the  human  intellect  were  not  to  be  able 
to  say,  like  Kepler,  "0  God,  I  think  Thy  thoughts  after 
Thee." 

That  the  doctrine  of  the  descent  of  man  from  the  lower 
animals,  of  which  Mr.  Darwin  has  been  the  great  teacher, 
should  be  looked  on  as  well  nigh  impious  by  men  not  men 
tally  chained  to  the  Hebrew  cosmogony,  has  always  appeared 
to  me  surprising.  Of  course,  in  so  far  as  it  disturbs  the 
roots  of  the  old  theology  and  dispels  the  golden  haze 
which  hung  in  poetic  fancy  over  the  morning  garden  of 
the  world,  it  may  prove  a  rude  and  painful  innovation. 
A  Calvin,  a  Milton,  and  a  Fra  Angelico,  may  be  excused 
if  they  recalcitrate  against  it.  [Doubtless,  also,  the  special 
Semitic  contempt  for  the  brutes  which  has  unhappily 
passed  with  our  religion  into  so  many  of  our  graver  views, 
adds  its  quota  to  the  common  sentiment  of  repugnance ; 
and  we  stupidly  imagine  that  to  trace  Man  to  the  Ape 
is  to  degrade  the  progeny,  and  not  (as  a  Chinese  would 
justly  hold)  to  ennoble  the  ancestry.  But  that,  beyond 
all  these  prejudices,  there  should  lurk  in  any  free  mind 
a  dislike  to  Darwinism  on  religious  grounds,  is  wholly 
beyond  comprehension.  Surely,  were  any  one  to  come 
to  us  now  in  these  days  for  the  first  time  with  the  story 
that  the  eternal  God  produced  all  His  greatest  works  by 
fits  and  starts  ;  that  just  6000  years  ago  He  suddenly 
brought  out  of  nothing  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars ;  and  finally 
as  the  climax  of  six  days  of  such  labour,  "  made  man  of 
the  dust  of  the  ground,"  we  should  be  inclined  to  say  that 
this  was  the  derogatory  and  insufferable  doctrine  of  creation; 
and  that  when  we  compared  it  with  that  of  the  slow  evolu 
tion  of  order,  beauty,  life,  joy,  and  intelligence,  from  the 
immeasurable  past  of  the  primal  nebula's  "  fiery  cloud,"  we 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 


had  no  language  to  express  how  infinitely  more  religious  is 
the  story  of  modern  science  than  that  of  ancient  tradition  ? 

Nor  are  we  alarmed  or  disturbed  because  the  same  hand 
which  has  opened  for  us  these  grand  vistas  of  physical 
development  has  now  touched  the  phenomena  of  the  moral 
world,  and  sought  to  apply  the  same  method  of  investigation 
to  its  most  sacred  mysteries.  The  only  question  we  can  ask 
is,  whether  the  method  has  been  as  successful  in  the  one  case 
as  (we  learn  from  competent  judges)  it  may  be  accounted  in 
the  other,  and  whether  the  proffered  explanation  of  moral 
facts  really  suffices  to  explain  them.  [  Should  it  prove  so 
successful  and  sufficient,  we  can  but  accept  it,  even  as  we 
welcomed  the  discovery  of  the  physical  laws  of  evolution  as 
a  step  towards  a  more  just  conception  than  we  had  hitherto 
possessed  of  the  order  of  things ;  and  therefore — if  God  be 
their  Orderer — a  step  towards  a  better  knowledge  of  Him.^ 

The  book  before  us  is  doubtless  one  whose  issue  will 
make  an  era  in  the  history  of  modern  thought.  Of  its 
wealth  of  classified  anecdotes  of  animal  peculiarities  and 
instincts,  and  its  wide  sweep  of  cumulative  argument  in 
favour  of  the  author's  various  deductions,  it  would  be  almost 
useless  to  speak,  seeing  that  before  these  pages  are  printed 
the  reading  public  of  England  will  have  spent  many  happy 
hours  over  these  "  fairy  tales  of  science."  Of  the  inexpres 
sible  charm  of  the  author's  manner,  the  straightforwardness 
of  every  argument  he  employs,  and  the  simplicity  of  every 
sketch  and  recital,  it  is  still  less  needful  to  write,  when 
years  have  elapsed  since  Mr.  Darwin  took  his  place  in  the 
literature  of  England  and  the  philosophy  of  the  world. 
Yery  soon  that  delightful  pen  will  have  made  familiar  to 
thousands  the  pictures  of  which  the  book  is  a  gallery. 
Every  one  will  know  that  our  first  human  parents,  far  from 
resembling  Milton's  glorious  couple,  were  hideous  beings 
covered  with  hair,  with  pointed  and  movable  ears,  beards, 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 


tusks,  and  tails, — the  very  Devils  of  mediaeval  fancy.  And 
behind  these  we  shall  dimly  behold  yet  earlier  and  lower 
ancestors,  receding  through  the  ages  till  we  reach  a  period 
before  even  the  vertebrate  rank  was  attained,  and  when 
the  creature  whose  descendants  were  to  be  heroes  and 
sages  swam  about  in  the  waters  in  likeness  between  an  eel 
and  a  worm.  At  every  dinner-table  will  be  told  the  story 
of  the  brave  ape  which  came  down  amid  its  dreaded  human 
foes  to  redeem  a  young  one  of  its  species  ;  and  of  the  saga 
cious  baboon  which,  Bismarck-like,  finding  itself  scratched 
by  a  cat,  deliberately  bit  off  its  enemy's  claws.  Satirists 
will  note  the  description  of  the  seals  which,  in  wooing, 
how  to  the  females  and  coax  them  gently  till  they  get  them 
fairly  landed ;  then,  "  with  a  changed  manner  and  a  harsh 
growl,"  drive  the  poor  wedded  creatures  home  to  their 
holes.  The  suggestion  that  animals  love  beauty  of  colour 
and  of  song,  and  even  (in  the  case  of  the  bower-bird)  build 
halls  of  pleasure  distinct  from  their  nests  for  purposes  of 
amusement  only,  will  be  commented  on,  and  afford  suggestive 
talk  wherever  books  of  such  a  class  are  read  in  England. 
Few  students,  we  think,  will  pass  over  without  respectful 
pause  the  passage l  where  Mr.  Darwin  with  so  much  candour 
explains  that  he  "  now  admits  that  in  the  earlier  editions  of 
his  Origin  of  Species  he  probably  attributed  too  much  to 
the  action  of  natural  selection,"  nor  that 2  where  he  calls 
attention  to  Sir  J.  Lubbock's  "most  just  remark,"  that 
"  Mr.  Wallace,  with  characteristic  unselfishness,  ascribes 
the  idea  of  natural  selection  unreservedly  to  Mr.  Darwin, 
although,  as  is  well  known,  he  struck  out  the  idea  inde 
pendently,  and  published  it,  though  not  with  the  same 
elaboration,  at  the  same  time."  Whatever  doubt  any  reader 
may  entertain  of  the  philosophy  of  Evolution,  it  is  quite 

1  Vol.  i.,  page  152.  2  Page  137,  note. 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  5 

impossible  that,  after  perusing  such,  pages,  he  can  have  any 
hesitation  about  the  philosophic  spirit  of  its  author. 

But  we  must  turn  from  these  topics,  which  properly  con 
cern  the  journals  of  physical  science,  to  the  one  whose  treat 
ment  by  Mr.  Darwin  gives  to  a  Theological  Review  the  right 
to  criticize  the  present  volume.  Mr.  Darwin's  theories  have 
hitherto  chiefly  invaded  the  precincts  of  traditional  Theology. 
We  have  now  to  regard  him  as  crowning  the  edifice  of 
Utilitarian  ethics  by  certain  doctrines  respecting  the  nature 
and  origin  of  the  Moral  Sense,  which,  if  permanently  allowed 
to  rest  upon  it,  will,  we  fear,  go  far  to  crush  the  idea  of  Duty 
level  with  the  least  hallowed  of  natural  instincts.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  Mr.  Darwin  puts  forth  his  views  on  this, 
as  on  all  other  topics,  with  perfect  moderation  and  simplicity, 
and  that  the  reader  of  his  book  has  no  difficulty  whatever  in 
comprehending  the  full  bearing  of  the  facts  he  cites  and  the 
conclusions  he  draws  from  them. 

In  the  present  volume  he  has  followed  out  to  their  results 
certain  hints  given  in  his  "Origin  of  Species"  and  "Animals 
under  Domestication,"  and  has,  as  it  seems,  given  Mr., 
Herbert  Spencer's  abstract  view  of  the  origin  of  the  moral 
sense  its  concrete  application.  Mr.  Spencer  broached  the 
doctrine  that  our  moral  sense  is  nothing  but  the  "  expe 
riences  of  utility  organized  and  consolidated  through  all 
past  generations."  Mr.  Darwin  has  afforded  a  sketch  of 
how  such  experiences  of  utility,  beginning  in  the  ape,  might 
(as  he  thinks)  consolidate  into  the  virtue  of  a  saint ;  and 
adds  some  important  and  quite  harmonious  remarks,  tending 
to  show  that  the  Virtue  so  learned  is  somewhat  accidental, 
and  might  perhaps  have  been  what  we  now  call  Vice.  To 
mark  his  position  fairly,  it  will  be  necessary  to  glance  at  the 
recent  history  of  ethical  philosophy. 

Independent  or  Intuitive  Morality  has  of  course  always 
taught  that  there  is  a  supreme  and  necessary  moral  law 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 


common  to  all  free  agents  in  the  universe,  and  known  to 
man  by  means  of  a  transcendental  reason  or  divine  voice 
of  conscience.  Dependent  or  Utilitarian  Morality  has  equally 
steadily  rejected  the  idea  of  a  law  other  than  the  law  of 
utility ;  but  its  teachers  have  differed  exceedingly  amongst 
themselves  as  to  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  a  specific 
sense  in  man,  requiring  him  to  perform  actions  whose 
utility  constitutes  them  duties ;  and  among  those  who  have 
admitted  that  such  a  sense  exists,  there  still  appear  wide 
variations  in  the  explanations  they  offer  of  the  nature  and 
origin  of  such  a  sense.  The  older  English  Utilitarians,  such 
as  Mandeville,  Hobbes,  Paley  and  "Waterland,  denied  vigor 
ously  that  man  had  any  spring  of  action  but  self-interest. 
Hume,  Hartley,  and  Bentham  advanced  a  step  further ; 
Hartley  thinking  it  just  possible  to  love  virtue  "  as  a  form 
of  happiness,"  and  Bentham  being  kind  enough  elaborately 
to  explain  that  we  may  truly  sympathize  with  the  woes  of  our 
friends.  Finally,  wheri  the  coldest  of  philosophies  passed 
into  one  of  the  loftiest  of  minds  and  warmest  of  hearts, 
Utilitarianism  in  the  school  of  Mr.  Mill  underwent  a  sort 
of  divine  travesty.  Starting  from  the  principle  that  "actions 
are  only  virtuous  because  they  promote  another  end  than 
virtue/'  he  attained  the  conclusion,  that  sooner  than  natter 
a  cruel  Almighty  Being  he  would  go  to  hell.  As  Mr.  Mill 
thinks  such  a  decision  morally  right,  he  would  of  course 
desire  that  all  men  should  follow  his  example;  and  thus 
we  should  behold  the  apostle  of  Utility  conducting  the 
whole  human  race  to  eternal  perdition  for  the  sake  of — 
shall  we  say — "  the  Greatest  Happiness  of  the  Greatest 
Number  "  ? 

At  this  stage,  the  motive-power  on  which  Utilitarianism 
must  rely  for  the  support  of  virtue  is  obviously  complex,  if 
not  rather  unstable.  So  long  as  the  old  teachers  appealed 
simply  to  the  interest  of  the  individual,  here  or  hereafter, 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 


the  argument  was  clear  enough,  however  absurd  a  misuse 
of  language  it  seems  to  make  Virtue  and  Yice  the  names 
respectively  of  a  systematized  and  an  unsystematized  rule  of 
selfishness.  But  when  we  begin  to  speak  of  the  happiness 
of  others  as  our  aim,  we  necessarily  shift  our  ground,  and 
appeal  to  sympathy,  to  social  instincts,  or  to  the  disinterested 
pleasures  of  benevolence,  till  finally,  when  we  are  bid  to 
relinquish  self  altogether  in  behalf  of  the  Greatest  Happiness 
of  the  Greatest  Number,  we  have  left  the  Utilitarian  ground 
so  far  away,  that  we  find  ourselves  on  the  proper  territories 
of  the  Intuitionist,  and  he  turns  round  with  the  question, 
"  Why  should  I  sacrifice  myself  for  the  happiness  of  man 
kind,  if  I  have  no  intuitions  of  duty  compelling  me  to  do  so  ?  " 
The  result  has  practically  been,  that  the  Social  Instincts 
to  which  Utilitarians  in  such  straits  were  forced  to  appeal, 
as  the  springs  of  action  in  lieu  of  the  Intuitions  of  duty, 
have  been  gradually  raised  by  them  to  the  rank  of  a  distinct 
element  of  our  nature,  to  be  treated  now  (as  self-interest 
was  treated  by  their  predecessors)  as  the  admitted  motives 
of  virtue.  They  agree  with  Intuitionists  that  man  has  a 
Conscience ;  they  only  differ  from  them  on  the  two  points  of 
how  he  comes  by  it ;  and  whether  its  office  be  supreme  and 
legislative,  or  merely  subsidiary  and  supplemental. 

Clt  is  the  problem  of,  How  we  come  by  a  conscience, 
which  Mr.  Darwin  applies  himself  to  solve,  and  with  which 
we  shall  be  now  concerned.]  Needless  to  say  that  the  Kantian 
doctrine  of  a  Pure  Reason,  giving  us  transcendental  know 
ledge  of  necessary  truths,  is  not  entertained  by  the  school 
of  thinkers  to  which  he  belongs ;  and  that  as  for  the  notion 
of  all  the  old  teachers  of  the  world,  that  the  voice  of 
Conscience  is  the  voice  of  God, — the  doctrine  of  Job  and 
Zoroaster,  Menu  and  Pythagoras,  Plato  and  Antoninus, 
Chrysostom  and  Gregory,  Fenelon  and  Jeremy  Taylor, — it 
can  have  no  place  in  their  science.  As  Comte  would  say, 


8  DAR  WINISM  IN  MORALS. 

we  have  passed  the  theologic  stage,  and  must  not  think 
of  running  to  a  First  Cause  to  explain  phenomena.  After 
all  (they  seem  to  say),  cannot  we  easily  suggest  how  man 
might  acquire  a  conscience  from  causes  obviously  at  work 
around  him.  ?  £"  Education,  fear  of  penalties,  sympathy,  desire 
of  approval,  with  imaginary  religious  sanctions,  would  alto 
gether,  well  mixed  and  supporting  one  another,  afford  suffi 
cient  explanation  of  feelings,  acquired,  as  Mr.  Bain  thinks, 
by  each  individual  in  his  lifetime,/ and,  as  Mr.  Mill  justly 
says,  not  the  less  natural  for  being  acquired  and  not  innate. 
fAt  this  point  of  the  history,  the  gradual  extension  of 
the  Darwinian  theory  of  Evolution  brought  it  into  contact 
with  the  speculations  of  moralists,  and  the  result  was  a 
new  hypothesis,  which  has  greatly  altered  the  character 
of  the  whole  controversy.  The  doctrine  of  the  transmission 
by  hereditary  descent  of  all  mental  and  moral  qualities,  of 
which  Mr.  Gralton's  book  is  the  chief  exponent,1  received, 
in  1868,  from  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  the  following  definition, 
as  applied  to  the  moral  sentiments  :  2  "  I  believe  that  the 
experiences  of  utility,  organized  and  consolidated  through 
all  past  generations  of  the  human  race,  have  been  producing 
corresponding  modifications,  which  by  continued  transmis 
sion  and  accumulation  have  become  in  us  certain  faculties 


1  Keviewed  in  the  next  essay. 

2  Letter  to  Mr.  Mill,  in  Bain's  "  Mental  and  Moral  Science,"  p.  722  ;  quoted 
in  "Descent  of  Man,"  p.  101.     On  the  day  of  the  original  publication  of  this 
essay  there  appeared  in  the   Fortnightly  Review   an    article  by    Mr.    Spencer, 
designed  to  rectify  the  misapprehension  of  his  doctrine  into  which  Mr.  Hutton, 
Sir  John  Lubbock,    Mr.  Mivart,   Sir  Alexander  Grant,  and,  as  it  proved,  my 
humble  self,  had  all  fallen  regarding  the  point  in   question.     "If,"  says  Mr. 
Spencer  very  pertinently,    "  a    general   doctrine   concerning  a  highly   involved 
class  of  phenomena  could  be  adequately  presented  in  a  single  paragraph  of  a 
letter,  the  writing  of  books  would  be  superfluous."  I  may  add  that  as  it  would  be 
equally  impossible  for  me  adequately  to  present  Mr.  Spencer's  rectifications  and 
modifications  in  a  single  paragraph  of  an  essay,  I  must,  while  apologizing  to  him 
for  my  involuntary  errors,  refer  the  reader  to  his  own  article  (Fortnightly  Review, 
April  1,  1871)  for  better  comprehension  of  the  subject. 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 


of  moral  intuition,  certain  emotions  responding  to  right 
and  wrong  conduct,  which  have  no  apparent  basis  in  the 
individual  experiences  of  utility."  <  This  doctrine  (which 
received  a  very  remarkable  answer*  in  an  article  by  Mr. 
E.  H.  Hutton,  Macmillan's  Magazine,  July,  1869)  may  be 

°  considered  as  the  basis  on  which  Mr.  Darwin  proceeds, 
approaching  the  subject,  as  he  modestly  says,  "exclusively 
from  the  side  of  natural  history,"  and  "  attempting  to  see 
how  far  the  study  of  the  lower  animals  can  throw  light  on 
one  of  the  highest  psychical  faculties  of  man."  His  results, 
as  fairly  as  I  can  state  them,  are  as  follows  : 

If  we  assume  an  animal  to  possess  social  instincts  (such,  I 
suppose,  as  those  of  rooks,  for  example),  and  also  to  acquire 
some  degree  of  intelligence  corresponding  to  that  of  man,  it 
would  inevitably  acquire  contemporaneously  a  moral  sense 
of  a  certain  kind.  In  the  first  place,  its  social  instincts 
would  cause  it  to  take  pleasure  in  the  society  of  its  fellows, 
to  feel  a  certain  amount  of  sympathy  with  them,  and  to  per 
form  various  services  for  them.  After  this,  the  next  step 
in  mental  advance  would  cause  certain  phenomena  of  re 
gretful  sentiments  (hereafter  to  be  more  fully  analyzed)  to 
ensue  on  the  commission  of  anti- social  acts,  which  obey  a 
transient  impulse  at  the  cost  of  a  permanent  social  instinct. 

[^Thirdly,  the  approval  expressed  by  the  members  of  the  \ 
community  for  acts  tending  to  the  general  welfare,  and 
disapproval  for  those  of  a  contrary  nature,  would  greatly 
strengthen  and  guide  the  original  instincts  as  Language 
came  into  full  play.  Lastly,  habit  in  each  individual 
would  gradually  perform  an  important  part  in  the  regulation 
of  conduct.  If  these  positions  be  all  granted,  the  problem 
of  the  origin  of  the  moral  sense  seems  to  be  solved.J  It  is 
found  to  be  an  instinct  in  favour  of  the  social  virtues 
which  has  grown  up  in  mankind,  and  would  have  grown 
up  in  any  animal  similarly  endowed  and  situated ;  and  it 


10  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

does  not  involve  any  higher  agency  for  its  production  than 
that  of  the  play  of  common  human  life,  nor  indicate  any 
higher  nature  for  its  seat  than  the  further  developed  in 
telligence  of  any  gregarious  brute.  So  far,  Mr.  Darwin's 
view  seems  only  to  give  to  those  he  has  quoted  from  Mr. 
Spencer  their  full  expansion.  The  points  on  which  he 
appears  to  break  fresh  ground  from  this  starting-place  are 
these  two  :  1st,  his  theory  of  the  nature  of  conscientious 
Repentance,  which  represents  it  as  solely  the  triumph  of  a 
permanent  over  a  transient  impulse  ;  2nd,  his  frank  ad 
mission,  that  though  another  animal,  if  it  became  intelligent, 
would  acquire  a  moral  sense,  yet  that  he  sees  no  reason  why 
its  moral  sense  should  be  the  same  as  ours,  or  lead  it  to 
attach  the  idea  of  right  or  wrong  to  the  same  actions.  In 
extreme  cases  (such  as  that  of  bees),  the  moral  sense,  de 
veloped  under  the  conditions  of  the  hive,  would,  he  thinks, 
impress  it  as  a  duty  on  sisters  to  murder  their  brothers. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  these  two  doctrines  between  them 
effectively  revolutionize  Morals,  as  they  have  been  hitherto 
commonly  understood.  The  first  dethrones  the  moral  sense 
from  that  place  of  mysterious  supremacy  which  Butler 
considered  its  grand  characteristic.  Mr.  Darwin's  Moral 
Sense  is  simply  an  instinct  originated,  like  a  dozen  others, 
by  the  conditions  under  which  we  live,  but  which  happens, 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  among  all  our  instincts,  to 
resume  the  upper  hand  when  no  other  chances  to  be  in  the 
ascendant.  And  the  second  theory  aims  a  still  more  deadly 
blow  at  ethics,  by  affirming  that,  not  only  has  our  moral 
sense  come  to  us  from  a  source  commanding  no  special 
respect,  but  that  it  answers  to  no  external  or  durable,  not 
to  say  universal  or  eternal,  reality,  and  is  merely  tentative 
and  provisional,  the  provincial  prejudice,  as  we  may  de 
scribe  it,  of  this  little  world  and  its  temporary  inhabitants, 
which  would  be  looked  on  with  a  smile  of  derision  by 


DAR  WINISM  IN  MORA  LS.  1 1 

better-informed  people  now  residing  in  Mars,  or  hereafter 
to  be  developed  on  earth,  and  who  in  their  turn  may  be 
considered  as  walking  in  a  vain  shadow  by  other  races. 
Instead  of  Montesquieu's  grand  aphorism,  "La  justice  est 
un  rapport  de  convenance  qui  se  trouve  reellement  entre 
deux  ehoses ;  ce  rapport  est  toujours  le  meme  quelque  etre 
qui  le  considere,  soit  que  ce  soit  Dieu,  soit  que  ce  soit 
un  homme,"  Mr.  Darwin  will  leave  us  only  the  sad  assu 
rance  that  our  idea  of  Justice  is  all  our  own,  and  may 
mean  nothing  to  any  other  intelligent  being  in  the  uni 
verse.  It  is  not  even,  as  Dean  Mansel  has  told  us,  given 
us  by  our  Creator  as  a  representative  truth,  intended  at 
least  to  indicate  some  actual  transcendent  verity  behind 
it.  We  have  now  neither  Yeil  nor  Revelation,  but  only 
an  earth-born  instinct,  carrying  with  it  no  authority  what 
ever  beyond  the  limits  of  our  race  and  special  social  state, 
nor  within  them  further  than  we  choose  to  permit  it  to 
weigh  on  our  minds. 

Let  me  say  it  at  once.  These  doctrines  appear  to  me 
simply  the  most  dangerous  which  have  ever  been  set  forth 
since  the  days  of  Mandeville.  Of  course,  if  science  can 
really  show  good  cause  for  accepting  them,  their  conse 
quences  must  be  frankly  faced.  But  it  is  at  least  fitting  to 
come  to  the  examination  of  them,  conscious  that  it  is  no 
ordinary  problems  we  are  criticizing,  but  theories  whose 
validity  must  involve  the  ^validity  of  all  the  sanctions 
which  morality  has  hitherto  received  from  powers  beyond 
those  of  the  penal  laws.  As  a  matter  of  practice,  no  doubt 
men  act  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  with  very  small  regard  to 
their  theories  of  ethics,  even  when  they  are  thoughtful  enough 
to  have  grasped  any  theory  at  all ;  and  generations  might 
elapse  after  the  universal  acceptance  of  these  new  views  by 
philosophers,  before  they  would  sensibly  influence  the  con 
duct  of  the  masses  of  mankind.  But  however  slowly  they 


12  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 


might  work,  I  cannot  but  believe  that  in  the  hour  of  their 
triumph  would  be  sounded  the  knell  of  the  virtue  of  man 
kind.  It  has  been  hard  enough  for  tempted  men  and  women 
heretofore  to  be  honest,  true,  unselfish,  chaste,  or  sober, 
while  passion  was  clamouring  for  gratification,  or  want 
pining  for  relief.  The  strength  of  the  fulcrum  on  which 
has  rested  the  virtue  of  many  a  martyr  and  saint,  must 
have  been  vast  as  the  Law  of  the  Universe  could  make  it. 
But  where  will  that  fulcrum  be  found  hereafter,  if  men  con 
sciously  recognize  that  what  they  have  dreamed  to  be 

"  The  unwritten  law  divine, 
Immutable,  eternal,  not  like  those  of  yesterday, 
But  made  ere  Time  began," '  — 

the  law  by  which  "  the  most  ancient  heavens  are  fresh  and 
strong/' — is,  in  truth,  after  all,  neither  durable  nor  even 
general  among  intelligent  beings,  but  simply  consists  of 
those  rules  of  conduct  which,  among  many  that  might 
have  been  adopted,  have  proved  themselves  on  experiment 
to  be  most  convenient ;  and  which,  in  the  lapse  of  ages, 
through  hereditary  transmission,  legislation,  education,  and 
such  methods,  have  got  woven  into  the  texture  of  our 
brains  ?  What  will  be  the  power  of  such  a  law  as  this  to 
enable  it  to  contend  for  mastery  in  the  soul  with  any 
passion  capable  of  rousing  the  most  languid  impulse  ? 
Hitherto  good  men  have  looked  on  Repentance  as  the  most 
sacred  of  all  sentiments,  and  have  measured  the  nearness  of 
the  soul  to  God  by  the  depth  of  its  sense  of  the  shame  and 
heinousness  of  sin.  The  boldest  of  criminals  have  betrayed 
at  intervals  their  terror  of  the  Erinnyes  of  Eemorse,  against 
whose  scourges  all  religions  have  presented  themselves  as 
protectors,  with  their  devices  of  expiations,  sacrifices,  pen 
ances,  and  atonements.  From  Orestes  at  the  foot  of  the 

1  Sophoc.  Antig.  454. 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  13 

altar  of  Phoebus,  to  the  Anglican  in  his  new  confessional 
to-day;  from  the  Aztec  eating  the  heart  of  the  victim 
slain  in  propitiation  for  sin,  to  the  Hindoo  obeying  the 
law  of  Menu,  and  voluntarily  starving  himself  to  death  as 
an  expiation  of  his  offences,  history  bears  testimony  again 
and  again  to  the  power  of  this  tremendous  sentiment ;  and 
if  it  have  driven  mankind  into  numberless  superstitions, 
it  has,  beyond  a  doubt,  also  served  as  a  threat  more  effec 
tive  against  crime  than  all  the  penalties  ever  enacted  by 
legislators.  But  where  is  Repentance  to  find  place  here 
after,  if  Mr.  Darwin's  view  of  its  nature  be  received  ?  Will 
any  man  allow  himself  to  attend  to  the  reproaches  of 
Conscience,  and  bow  his  head  to  her  rebukes,  when  he 
clearly  understands  that  it  is  only  his  more  durable  Social 
Instinct  which  is  re-asserting  itself,  because  the  more  variable 
instinct  which  has  caused  him  to  disregard  it  is  temporarily 
asleep  ?  Such  a  Physiology  of  Repentance  reduces  its  claims 
on  our  attention  to  the  level  of  those  of  our  bodily  wants ; 
and  our  grief  for  a  past  crime  assumes  the  same  aspect  as 
our  regret  that  we  yesterday  unadvisedly  preferred  the 
temporary  enjoyment  of  conversation  to  the  permanent 
benefit  of  a  long  night's  rest,  or  the  flavour  of  an  indiges 
tible  dish  to  the  wholesomeness  of  our  habitual  food.  We 
may  regret  our  imprudence ;  but  it  is  quite  impossible  we 
should  ever  again  feel  penitence  for  a  sin. 

But  is  this  all  true  ?  Can  such  a  view  of  the  moral 
nature  of  man  be  sustained?  Mr.  Darwin  says  that  he 
has  arrived  at  it  by  approaching  the  subject  from  the  side 
of  natural  history ;  and  we  may  therefore,  without  dis 
respect,  accept  it  as  the  best  which  the  study  of  man  simply 
as  a  highly  developed  animal  can  afford.  That  glimmering 
of  something  resembling  our  moral  sense  often  observable 
in  brutes,  which  Mr.  Darwin  has  admirably  described,  may 
(we  will  assume)  be  so  accounted  for.  But  viewing  human 


14  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 


nature  from  other  sides  besides  that  of  its  animal  origin, 
studying  the  mind  from  within  rather  than  from  without, 
and  taking  into  consideration  the  whole  phenomenon  pre 
sented  by  such  a  department  of  creation  as  the  Human 
Hace,  must  we  not  hold  that  this  Simious  Theory  of  Morals 
is  wholly  inadequate  and  unsatisfactory?  Probably  Mr. 
Darwin  himself  would  say  that  he  does  not  pretend  to 
claim  for  it  the  power  to  explain  exhaustively  all  the  mys 
teries  of  our  moral  nature,  but  only  to  afford  such  a  clue 
to  them  as  ought  to  satisfy  us  that,  if  pursued  further,  they 
might  be  so  revealed ;  and  to  render,  by  its  obvious  sim 
plicity,  other  and  more  transcendent  theories  superfluous. 
The  matter  to  be  decided  (and  it  is  almost  impossible,  I 
think,  to  overrate  its  importance)  is :  Does  it  give  such  an 
explanation  of  the  facts  as  to  justify  us  in  accepting  it,  pro 
visionally,  as  an  hypothesis  of  the  origin  of  Morals  ? 

It  is  hard  to  know  how  to  approach  properly  the  later 
developments  of  a  doctrine  like  that  of  Utilitarian  Morality, 
which  we  conceive  to  be  founded  on  a  radically  false  basis. 
If  we  begin  at  the  beginning,  and  dispute  its  primary 
positions,  we  shift  the  controversy  in  hand  to  the  intermina 
ble  wastes  of  metaphysical  discussion,  where  few  readers 
will  follow,  and  where  the  wanderer  may  truly  say  that 

doubts, 

"  immeasurably  spread, 
Seem  lengthening  as  I  go." 

All  the  time  which  is  wanted  to  argue  the  last  link  of 
the  system,  is  lost  in  seeking  some  common  ground  to 
stand  upon  with  our  opponent,  who  probably  will  end  by 
disputing  the  firmness  of  whatever  islet  of  granite  we  have 
chosen  in  the  bog ;  and  will  tell  us  that  the  greatest  modern 
thinkers  are  doubtful  whether  twice  two  will  make  four 
in  all  worlds,  or  whether  Space  may  not  have  more  than 
three  dimensions.  Yet  to  grant  the  premisses  of  Utilitarian 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  15 

ethics,  and  then  attempt  to  dispute  one  by  one  the  chain 
of  doctrines  which  has  been  unrolling  from  them  during 
the  last  century,  and  which  has  now  reached,  as  it  would 
seem,  its  ultimate,  and  perhaps  logical,  development,  is 
to  place  our  arguments  at  an  unfair  disadvantage.  To 
treat  scientificalty  the  theories  of  Mr.  Darwin,  we  ought  to 
commence  by  an  inquiry  into  the  validity  of  the  human 
consciousness ;  into  the  respective  value  of  our  various 
faculties,  the  senses,  the  intellect,  the  moral,  religious  and 
aesthetic  sentiments,  as  witnesses  of  external  truths ;  and, 
finally,  into  the  justice  or  fallacy  of  attaching  belief  exclu 
sively  to  facts  of  which  we  have  cognizance  through  one 
faculty — let  us  say  the  intellect ;  and  denying  those  which 
we  observe  by  another — say  the  aesthetic  taste  or  the  reli 
gious  or  moral  sentiments.  He  who  will  concede  that  the 
intellect  is  not  the  organ  through  which  we  appreciate  a 
song  or  a  picture,  and  that  it  would  be  absurd  to  test  songs 
and  pictures  by  inductive  reasoning  and  not  by  the  specific 
sense  of  the  beautiful,  is  obviously  bound  to  show  cause 
why,  if — after  making  such  admission  in  the  case  of  our 
aesthetic  faculties — he  refuse  to  concede  to  the  religious 
and  moral  faculties  the  same  right  to  have  their  testimony 
admitted  in  their  own  domain. 

Proceeding  to  our  next  step,  if  we  are  to  do  justice  to 
our  cause,  we  must  dispute  the  Utilitarian's  first  assump 
tion  on  his  proper  ground.  We  must  question  whether  the 
Right  and  the  Useful  are  really  synonymous,  and  whether  ./ 
Self-interest  and  Yirtue  can  be  made  convertible  terms  -"K 
even  by  such  stringent  methods  as  those  of  extending  the 
meaning  of  "  Self-interest "  to  signify  a  devotion  to  the 
"  Greatest  Happiness  of  the  Greatest  Number "  (always 
inclusive  of  Number  One),  and  of  curtailing  that  of  Yirtue 
to  signify  the  fulfilment  of  Social,  irrespective  of  Personal 
and  Religious  obligations.  That  the  common  sentiment 


16  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

of  mankind  looks  to  something  different  from  Utility  in 
the  actions  to  which  it  pays  the  tribute  of  its  highest 
reverence,  and  to  something  different  from  noxiousness 
in  those  which  it  most  profoundly  abhors,  is  a  fact  so 
obvious,  that  modern  Utilitarians  have  recognized  the  im 
possibility  of  ignoring  it  after  the  manner  of  their  pre 
decessors  ;  and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  fully  admitted 
that  the  ideas  of  the  Right  and  the  Useful  are  now 
entirely  different,  although  they  had  once,  he  thinks,  the 
same  origin.  But  that  the  idea  of  the  Right  was  ever 
potentially  enwrapped  or  latent  in  the  idea  of  the  Useful, 
we  entirely  deny,  seeing  that  it  not  only  overlaps  it  alto 
gether,  and  goes  far  beyond  it  in  the  direction  of  the  Noble 
and  the  Holy,  but  that  it  is  continually  in  direct  antithesis 
to  it ;  and  acts  of  generosity  and  courage  (such  as  Mr.  Mill's 
resolution  to  go  to  hell  rather  than  say  an  untruth)  com 
mand  from  us  admiration,  not  only  apart  from  their  utility, 
but  because  they  set  at  defiance  every  principle  of  utility, 
and  make  us  feel  that  to  such  men  there  are  things  dearer 
than  eternal  joy.  As  Mr.  Mivart  says  well,  the  sentiment 
of  all  ages  which  has  found  expression  in  the  cry,  "  Fiat 
Justitia  ruat  crelum,"  could  never  have  sprung  from  the 
same  root  as  our  sense  of  Utility. 

Proceeding  a  step  farther  downwards  to  the  point  where 
with  alone  Mr.  Darwin  concerns  himself — the  origin  of  such 
moral  sense  as  recent  Utilitarians  grant  that  we  possess — 
we  come  again  on  a  huge  field  of  controversy.  Are  our 
intuitions  of  all  kinds,  those,  for  instance,  regarding  space, 
numbers  and  moral  distinctions,  ultimate  data  of  our  men 
tal  constitution,  ideas  obtained  by  the  a-priori  action  of 
the  normally  developed  mind ;  or  are  they  merely,  as  Mr. 
Hutton  has  paraphrased  Mr.  Spencer's  theory,  "a  special 
susceptibility  in  our  nerves  produced  by  a  vast  number 
of  homogeneous  ancestral  experiences  agglutinated  into  a 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  17 

single  intellectual  tendency  "  ?  Is  our  sense  of  the  necessity 
and  universality  of  a  truth  (e.g.,  that  the  three  sides  of  all 
triangles  in  the  universe  are  equal  to  two  right  angles),  and 
the  unhesitating  certainty  with  which  we  affirm  such  univer 
sality,  over  and  above  any  possible  experience  of  generality, 
— is  this  sense  we  say,  the  expression  of  pure  Reason, 
or  is  it  nothing  but  a  blind  incapacity  for  imagining  as 
altered  that  which  we  have  never  seen  or  heard  of  as 
changed  ?  Volumes  deep  and  long  as  Kant's  Kritik  or  Mr. 
Spencer's  "  Principles "  are  needed,  if  this  question  is  to 
receive  any  justice  at  our  hands.  All  that  it  is  possible  to 
do  in  passing  onward  to  our  remarks  on  Mr.  Darwin's  views, 
is  to  enter  our  protest  against  the  admission  of  any  such 
parentage  either  for  mathematical  or  moral  intuitions.  No 
event  in  a  man's  mental  development  is,  I  think,  more 
startling  than  his  first  clear  apprehension  of  the  nature  of 
a  geometrical  demonstration,  and  of  the  immutable  nature 
of  the  truth  he  has  acquired,  against  which  a  thousand 
miracles  would  not  avail  to  shake  his  faith.  The  hypothesis 
of  the  inheritance  of  space-intuitions  through  numberless 
ancestral  experiments,  leaves  this  marvellous  sense  of  cer 
tainty  absolutely  inexplicable.  And  when  we  apply  the 
same  hypothesis  of  inheritance  to  moral  intuitions,  it  appears 
to  me  to  break  down  still  more  completely;  supplying  us 
at  the  utmost  with  a  plausible  theory  for  the  explanation 
of  our  preference  for  some  acts  as  more  useful  than  others, 
but  utterly  failing  to  suggest  a  reason  for  that  which  is  the 
real  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for,  namely,  our  sense  of 
the  sacred  obligation  of  Rightfulness,  over  and  above  or 
apart  from  Utility.  Nay,  what  Mr.  Mill  calls  the  "  mystical 
extension  "  of  the  idea  of  Utility  into  the  idea  of  Right  is 
not  only  left  wholly  unexplained,  but  the  explanation  offered 
points,  not  to  any  such  mystical  extension,  but  quite  the 
other  way.  The  waters  of  our  moral  life  cannot  possibly 

2 


18  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

rise  above  their  source ;  and  if  Utility  be  that  source,  they 
ought  by  this  time  to  have  settled  into  a  dead  pond  of  plain 
and  acknowledged  self-interestedness.  As  Mr.  Hutton  ob 
serves  :  "  Mr.  Spencer's  theory  appears  to  find  the  feeling  of 
moral  obligation  at  its  maximum,  when  the  perception  of 
the  quality  which  ultimately  produces  that  feeling  is  at  its 
minimum." 

But  we  must  now  do  Mr.  Darwin  the  justice  to  let  him 
speak  for  himself,  and  for  the  only  part  of  the  Utilitarian 
theory  for  which  he  has  made  himself  directly  responsible  ; 
though  his  whole  argument  is  so  obviously  founded  solely 
on  an  Utilitarian  basis,  that  we  are  tempted  to  doubt 
whether  a  mind  so  large,  so  just  and  so  candid,  can  have 
ever  added  to  its  treasures  of  physical  science  the  thorough 
mastery  of  any  of  the  great  works  in  which  the  opposite 
system  of  ethics  have  been  set  forth. 

Animals  display  affection,  fidelity  and  sympathy.  Man 
when  he  first  rose  above  the  Ape  was  probably  of  a  social 
disposition,  and  lived  in  herds.  Mr.  Darwin  adds  that  he 
would  probably  inherit  a  tendency  to  be  faithful  to  his  com 
rades,  and  have  also  some  capacity  for  self-command,  and  a 
readiness  to  aid  and  defend  his  fellow- men.1  These  latter 
qualities,  we  must  observe,  do  not  agree  very  well  with 
what  Mr.  Gralton  recently  told  us2  of  the  result  of  his  in 
teresting  studies  of  the  cattle  of  South  Africa,  and  at  all 
events  need  that  we  should  suppose  the  forefathers  of  our 
race  to  have  united  all  the  best  moral  as  well  as  physical 
qualities  of  other  animals.  But  assuming  that  so  it  may 
have  been,  Mr.  Darwin  says,  Man's  next  motive,  acquired  by 
sympathy,  would  be  the  love  of  praise  and  horror  of  infamy. 
After  this,  as  such  feelings  became  clearer  and  reason  ad 
vanced,  he  would  "  feel  himself  impelled,  independently  of 
any  pleasure  or  pain  felt  at  the  moment,  to  certain  lines  of 

1  Page  85.  2  Jfacmillan's  Magazine,  February,  1871. 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  19 

conduct.  He  may  then  say  :  I  am  the  supreme  judge  of  my 
own  conduct ;  and  in  the  words  of  Kant,  I  will  not  in  my 
own  person  violate  the  dignity  of  humanity."1  That  any 
savage  or  half- civilized  man  ever  felt  anything  like  this,  or 
that  the  "  dignity  of  humanity "  could  come  in  sight  for 
endless  generations  of  progress,  conducted  only  in  such  ways 
as  Mr.  Darwin  has  suggested,  nay,  that  it  could  ever  occur 
at  all  to  a  creature  who  had  not  some  higher  conception  of 
the  nature  of  that  Virtue  in  which  man's  only  "  dignity  " 
consists,  than  Mr.  Darwin  has  hinted, — is  a  matter,  I  venture 
to  think,  of  gravest  doubt. 

But  again  passing  onward,  we  reach  the  first  of  our 
author's  special  theories  ;  his  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  Re 
pentance.  Earnestly  I  wish  to  do  it  justice;  for  upon  it 
hinges  our  theory  of  the  nature  of  the  moral  sense.  As  our 
bodily  sense  of  feeling  can  best  be  studied  when  we  touch 
hard  objects  or  shrink  from  a  burn  or  a  blow,  so  our  spiritual 
sense  of  feeling  becomes  most  evident  when  it  comes  in  con 
tact  with  wrong,  or  recoils  in  the  agony  of  remorse  from 
a  crime. 

"  Why  " — it  is  Mr.  Darwin  who  asks  the  question — "  why 
should  a  man  feel  that  he  ought  to  obey  one  instinctive 
feeling  rather  than  another  ?  Why  does  he  bitterly  regret 
if  he  has  yielded  to  the  strong  sense  of  self-preservation, 
and  has  not  risked  his  life  to  save  that  of  a  fellow-creature  ?" 
The  answer  is,  that  in  some  cases  the  social  or  maternal 
instincts  will  always  spur  generous  natures  to  unselfish 
deeds.  But  where  such  social  instincts  are  less  strong  than 
the  instincts  of  self-preservation,  hunger,  vengeance,  etc., 
then  these  last  are  naturally  paramount,  and  the  question 
is  pressed,  "  Why  does  man  regret,  even  though  he-  may 
endeavour  to  banish  any  such  regret,  that  he  has  followed 
the  one  natural  impulse  rather  than  the  other?  and  why 


20  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

does  he  further  feel  that  he  ought  to  regret  his  conduct?" 
Man  in  this  respect  differs,  Mr.  Darwin  admits,  profoundly 
from  the  lower  animals,  but  he  thinks  he  sees  the  reason  of 
the  difference.  It  is  this :  Man  has  reflection.  From  the 
activity  of  his  mental  qualities,  he  cannot  help  past  impres 
sions  incessantly  passing  through  his  mind.  The  animals 
have  no  need  to  reflect ;  for  those  who  have  social  instincts 
never  quit  the  herd,  and  never  fail  to  obey  their  kindly 
impulses.  But  man,  though  he  has  the  same  or  stronger 
social  impulses,  has  other,  though  more,  temporary  passions, 
such  as  hunger,  vengeance,  and  the  like,  which  obtain  tran 
sient  indulgence  often  at  the  expense  of  his  kind.  These, 
however,  are  all  temporary  in  their  nature.  When  hunger, 
vengeance,  covetousness,  or  the  desire  for  preservation,  has 
been  satisfied,  such  feelings  not  only  fade,  but  it  is  impos 
sible  to  recall  their  full  vividness  by  an  act  of  memory. 

"  Thus  as  man  cannot  prevent  old  impressions  from  passing  through 
his  mind,  he  will  be  compelled  to  compare  the  weaker  impression  of, 
for  instance,  past  hunger,  or  of  vengeance  satisfied,  with  the  instinct 
of  sympathy  and  goodwill  to  his  fellows  which  is  still  present,  and 
ever  in  some  degree  active  in  his  mind.  He  will  then  feel  in  his 
imagination  that  a  stronger  instinct  has  yielded  to  one  which  now 
seems  comparatively  weak,  and  then  that  sense  of  dissatisfaction  will 
inevitably  be  felt  with  which  man  is  endowed,  like  every  other  animal, 
in  order  that  his  instincts  may  be  obeyed."  ' 

Leaving  out  for  the  present  the  last  singular  clause  of 
this  paragraph,  which  appears  to  point  to  a  Cause  altogether 
outside  of  the  range  of  phenomena  we  are  considering, — a 
Cause  which,  if  it  (or  HE  ?)  exist  at  all,  may  well  "  endow  " 
human  hearts  more  directly  than  through  such  dim  animal 
instincts  as  are  in  question, — leaving  out  of  view  this  hint 
of  a 'Creator,  we  ask:  Is  this  physiology  of  Repentance  true 
to  fact  ?  It  would  be  hard,  I  venture  to  think,  to  describe 
.one  more  at  variance  with  it.  The  reader  might  be  excused 

1  Page  90. 


DARWINISM  Iff  MORALS.  21 

who  should  figure  to  himself  the  author  as  a  man  who  has 
never  in  his  lifetime"  had  cause  seriously  to  regret  a  single 
unkindly  or  ignoble  deed,  and  who  has  unconsciously  attri 
buted  his  own  abnormally  generous  and  placable  nature  to 
the  rest  of  his  species,  and  then  theorized  as  if  the  world 
were  made  of  Darwins.  Where  (we  ask  in  bewilderment), 
where  are  the  people  to  be  found  in  whom.  "  sympathy  and 
goodwill"  to  all  their  neighbours  exist  in  the  state  of  perma 
nent  instincts,  and  whose  resentful  feelings,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  die  out  after  every  little  temporary  exhibition,  and 
leave  them  in  charity  with  their  enemies,  not  as  the  result 
of  repentance,  but  as  its  preliminary  ?  Where,  0  where 
may  we  find  the  population  for  whom  the  precept,  "  Love 
your  enemies,"  is  altogether  superfluous,  and  who  always 
revert  to  affection  as  soon  as  they  have  gratified  any  tran 
sient  sentiment  of  an  opposite  tendency  ?  Hitherto  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  believe  that  (as  Buddhists  are 
wont  to  insist)  a  kind  action  done  to  a  foe  is  the  surest  way 
to  enable  ourselves  to  return  to  charitable  feelings,  and 
that,  in  like  manner,  doing  him  an  ill- turn  is  calculated  to 
exasperate  our  own  rancour.  We  have  held  it  as  axiomatic 
that  "revenge  and  wrong  bring  forth  their  kind  ;"  and  that 
we  hate  those  whom  we  have  injured  with  an  ever-growing 
spite  and  cruelty  as  we  continue  to  give  our  malice  head 
way.  But  instead  of  agreeing  with  Tacitus  that  "  Humani 
generis  proprium  est  odisse  quern  Iceseris,"  Mr.  Darwin  ac 
tually  supposes  that  as  soon  as  ever  we  have  delivered  our 
blow  it  is  customary  for  us  immediately  to  wish  to  wipe  it 
off  with  a  kiss  !  In  what  Island  of  the  Blessed  do  people 
love  all  the  way  round  their  social  circles,  the  mean  and 
the  vulgar,  the  disgusting,  and  the  tiresome,  not  excepted  ? 
If  such  beings  are  entirely  exceptional  now,  when  the  care 
ful  husbandry  of  Christianity  has  been  employed  for  eighteen 
centuries  in  cultivating  that  virtue  of  mansuetude,  of  which 


22  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

the  ancient  world  produced  so  limited  a  crop,  how  is  it  to 
be  supposed  that  our  hirsute  and  tusky  progenitors  of  the 
Paleolithic  or  yet  remoter  age,  were  thoroughly  imbued 
with  such  gentle  sentiments  ?  Let  it  be  borne  in  mind 
that,  unless  the  great  majority  of  men,  after  injuring  their 
neighbours,  spontaneously  turned  to  sympathize  with  them, 
there  could  not  possibly  be  a  chance  for  the  foundation  of  a 
general  sentiment  such  as  Mr.  Darwin  supposes  to  grow  up 
in  the  community. 

The  natural  history  (so  to  speak)  of  Eepentance  seems  to 
indicate  almost  a  converse  process  to  that  assumed  by  Mr. 
Darwin.  Having  done  a  wrong  in  word  or  deed  to  our 
neighbour,  the  first  sentiment  we  distinguish  afterwards  is 
usually,  I  conceive,  an  accession  of  dislike  towards  him. 
Then  after  a  time  we  become  conscious  of  uneasiness,  but 
rather  in  the  way  of  feeling  that  we  have  broken  the  law  in 
our  own  breasts  and  are  ashamed  of  it,  than  that  we  pity 
the  person  we  have  injured  or  are  sorry  for  him.  On  the 
contrary,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  we  are  very  apt  to  comfort 
ourselves  at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings  by  reflecting  that 
he  is  a  very  odious  person,  who  well  deserves  all  he  has  got 
and  worse ;  and  we  are  even  tempted  to  add  to  our  offence 
a  little  further  evil  speaking.  Then  comes  the  sense  that  we 
have  really  done  wrong  in  the  sight  of  God  ;  and  last  of  all 
(as  it  seems  to  me),  as  the  final  climax,  not  the  first  step 
of  repentance,  we  first  undo  or  apologize  for  our  wrong  act, 
and  then,  and  only  then,  return  to  the  feeling  of  love  and 
charity. 

This  whole  theory,  then,  of  the  origin  of  Eepentance, 
namely,  that  it  is  the  "  innings "  of  our  permanent  social 
instincts  when  the  transient  selfish  ones  have  played  out 
their  game,  seems  to  be  without  basis  on  any  known  con 
dition  of  human  nature.  Ostensibly  raised  on  induction, 
it  lacks  the  primary  facts  from  which  its  inductions  profess 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  23 

to  be  drawn ;  and  Mr.  Darwin,  in  offering  it  to  us  as  the 
result  of  his  studies  in  JSTatural  History,  seems  to  have 
betrayed  that  he  has  observed  other  species  of  animals  more 
accurately  than  his  own  ;  and  that  he  has  overlooked  the 
vast  class  of  intelligences  which  lie  between  baboons  and 
philosophers. 

The  theory  of  the  nature  of  Repentance  which  we  have 
been  considering,  is  a  characteristic  improvement  on  the 
current  Utilitarian  doctrine,  in  so  far  that  it  suggests  a 
cause  for  the  human  tenderness,  if  I  may  so  describe  it, 
which  forms  one  element  in  true  repentance.  If  it  were 
true  of  mankind  in  general  (as  it  may  be  true  of  the  most 
gentle  individuals)  that  a  return  to  sympathy  and  goodwill 
spontaneously  follows,  sooner  or  later,  every  unkind  act, 
then  Mr.  Darwin's  account  of  the  case  would  supply  us  with 
an  explanation  of  that  side  of  the  sentiment  of  repentance 
which  is  turned  towards  the  person  injured.  It  would  still, 
I  think,  fail  altogether  to  render  an  account  of  the  mys 
terious  awe  and  horror  which  the  greater  crimes  have  in  all 
ages  left  on  the  minds  of  their  perpetrators,  far  beyond  any 
feelings  of  pity  for  the  sufferers,  and  quite  irrespective  of 
fear  of  human  justice  or  retaliation.  This  tremendous  senti 
ment  of  Remorse,  though  it  allies  itself  with  religious  fears, 
seems  to  me  not  so  much  to  be  derived  from  religious  con 
siderations  as  to  be  in  itself  one  of  the  roots  of  religion. 
The  typical  Orestes  does  not  feel  horror  because  he  fears 
the  Erinnyes,  but  he  has  called  up  the  phantoms  of  the 
Erinnyes  in  the  nightmare  of  his  horror.  Nothing  which 
Mr.  Darwin,  or  any  other  writer  on  his  side,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware.,  has  ever  suggested  as  the  origin  of  the  moral  sense, 
has  supplied  us  with  a  plausible  explanation  of  either  such 
Remorse  or  of  ordinary  Repentance.  In  the  former  case, 
we  have  soul-shaking  terrors  to  be  accounted  for,  either 
(according  to  Mr.  Darwin)  by  mere  pity  and  sympathy,  or 


24  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

(according  to  the  old  Utilitarians)  by  fear  of  retaliation  or 
disgrace,  such  as  the  sufferer  often  notoriously  defies  or  even 
courts.  In  the  case  of  ordinary  Repentance,  we  have  a  feel 
ing  infinitely  sacred  and  tender,  capable  of  transforming  our 
whole  nature  as  by  an  enchanter's  wand,  softening  and  re 
freshing  our  hearts  as  the  dry  and  dusty  earth  is  quickened 
by  an  April  shower,  but  yet  (we  are  asked  to  believe)  caused 
by  no  higher  sorcery,  fallen  from  no  loftier  sky,  than  our 
own  every -day  instincts,  one  hour  selfish  and  the  next  social, 
asserting  themselves  in  wearisome  alternation  !  What  is  the 
right  of  one  of  these  instincts  as  against  the  other,  that  its 
resumption  of  its  temporary  supremacy  should  be  accom 
panied  by  such  portents  of  solemn  augury  ?  Why,  when  we 
return  to  love  our  neighbour,  do  we  at  the  same  time  hate 
ourselves,  and  wish  to  do  so  still  more  ? '  Why,  instead  of 
shrinking  from  punishment,  do  men,  under  such  impres 
sions,  always  desire  to  expiate  their  offences  so  fervently, 
that  with  the  smallest  sanction  from  their  religious  teachers 
they  rush  to  the  cloister  or  seize  the  scourge  ?  Why,  above 
all,  do  we  look  inevitably  beyond  the  fellow- creature  whom 
we  have  injured  up  to  God,  and  repeat  the  cry  which  has 
burst  from  every  penitent  heart  for  millenniums  back, 
"  Against  Thee,  Thee  only,  have  I  sinned !  " 

Putting  aside  the  obvious  fact  that  the  alleged  cause  of 
repentance  could,  at  the  utmost,  only  explain  repentance 
for  social  wrong- doing,  and  leave  inexplicable  the  equally 
bitter  grief  for  personal  offences,  we  find,  then,  that  it  fails 
even  on  its  own  ground.  To  make  it  meet  approximately 
the  facts  of  the  case,  we  want  something  altogether  different. 
We  want  to  be  told,  not  only  why  we  feel  sorry  for  our 
neighbour  when  we  have  wronged  him,  but  how  we  come 
by  the  profound  sense  of  a  Justice  which  our  wrong  has 
infringed,  and  which  we  yet  revere  so  humbly,  that  we  often 
prefer  to  suffer  that  it  may  be  vindicated.  Of  all  this,  the 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  25 

Utilitarian  scheme,  with  Mr.  Darwin's  additions,  affords  not 
the  vaguest  indication. 

I  cannot  but  think  that,  had  any  professed  psychologist 
dealt  thus  with  the  mental  phenomena  which  it  was  his 
business  to  explain,  had  he  first  assumed  that  we  returned 
spontaneously  to  benevolent  feelings  after  injuring  our 
neighbours,  and  then  presented  such  relenting  as  the  essence 
of  repentance,  few  readers  would  have  failed  to  notice  the 
disproportion  between  the  unquestionable  facts  and  their 
alleged  cause.  But  when  a  great  natural  philosopher  weaves 
mental  phenomena  into  his  general  theory  of  physical  de 
velopment,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  many  a  student  will 
hastily  accept  a  doctrine  which  seems  to  fit  neatly  enough 
into  the  system  which  he  adopts  as  a  whole ;  even  though  it 
could  find  on  its  own  merits  no  admission  into  a  scheme  of 
psychology.  The  theory  of  Morals  which  alone  ought  to  com 
mand  our  adhesion  must  surely  be  one,  not  like  this  harmo 
nizing  only  with  one  side  of  our  philosophy,  but  equally 
true  to  all  the  facts  of  the  case,  whether  we  regard  them 
from  without  or  from  within,  whether  we  study  Man,  ab 
extra,  as  one  animal  amongst  all  the  tribes  of  zoology,  or 
from  within  by  the  experience  of  our  own  hearts.  From 
the  outside,  it  is  obvious  that  the  two  human  sentiments 
of  Regret  and  Repentance  may  very  easily  be  confounded. 
A  theory  which  should  account  for  Regret  might  be  sup 
posed  to  cover  the  facts  of  Repentance,  did  no  inward 
experience  of  the  difference  forbid  us  to  accept  it.  But 
since  Coleridge  pointed  out  this  loose  link  in  the  chain  of 
Utilitarian  argument,  no  disciple  of  the  school  has  been 
able  to  mend  it ;  and  even  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  only  sup 
plies  an  hypothesis  for  the  origin  of  relenting  Pity,  not 
one  for  Penitence.  Let  us  suppose  two  simple  cases : 
first,  that  in  an  accident  at  sea,  while  striving  eagerly 
to  help  a  friend,  we  had  unfortunately  caused  his  death ; 


26  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

second,  that  in  the  same  contingency,  an  impulse  of  jealousy 
or  anger  had  induced  us  purposely  to  withhold  from  him 
the  means  of  safety.  What  would  be  our  feelings  in  the 
two  cases  ?  In  the  first,  we  should  feel  Regret  which,  how 
ever  deep  and  poignant,  would  never  be  anything  else  than 
simple  Regret,  and  which,  if  it  assumed  the  slightest  tinge 
of  self-reproach,  would  be  instantly  rebuked  by  every  sound- 
minded  spectator  as  morbid  and  unhealthy.  In  the  second 
case  (assuming  that  we  had  perfect  security  against  dis 
covery  of  our  crime),  we  should  feel,  perhaps,  very  little 
Regret,  but  we  should  endure  Remorse  to  the  end  of  our 
days;  we  should  carry  about  in  our  inner  hearts  a  shadow 
of  fear  and  misery  and  self-reproach  which  would  make  us 
evermore  alone  amid  our  fellows.  Now,  will  Mr.  Darwin, 
or  any  other  thinker  who  traces  the  origin  of  the  Moral 
Sense  to  the  "  agglutinated "  experience  of  utility  of  a 
hundred  generations,  point  out  to  us  how  that  experience 
can  possibly  have  bequeathed  to  us  the  latter  sentiment 
of  Remorse  for  a  crime,  as  contra-distinguished  from 
that  of  Regret  for  having  unintentionally  caused  a  mis 
fortune  ? 

But  if  the  origin  of  repentance,  in  the  case  of  obvious 
capital  injuries  to  our  neighbour,  cannot  be  accounted  for 
merely  as  the  result  of  ancestral  experience,  it  appears 
still  more  impossible  to  account  in  the  same  way  for  the 
moral  shame  which  attaches  to  many  lesser  offences,  whose 
noxiousness  is  by  no  means  self-evident,  which  no  legis 
lation  has  ever  made  penal,  and  which  few  religions  have 
condemned.  Mr.  Wallace,  in  his  Contributions  to  the 
Theory  of  Natural  Selection,  appears  to  me  to  sum  up 
this  argument  admirably. l  After  explaining  how  very 
inadequate  are  the  Utilitarian  sanctions  for  Truthfulness, 
and  observing  how  many  savages  yet  make  veracity  a  point 

1  Page  355. 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  27 

of  honour,  lie  says,  "  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  such 
an  intense  and  mystical  feeling  of  right  and  wrong  (so 
intense  as  to  overcome  all  ideas  of  personal  advantage  or 
utility)  could  have  been  developed  out  of  accumulated 
ancestral  experiences  of  utilit}^ ;  but  still  more  difficult  to 
understand  how  feelings  developed  by  one  set  of  utilities 
could  be  transferred  to  acts  of  which  the  utility  was  partial, 
imaginary  or  absent," — or  (as  he  might  justly  have  added)  so 
remote  as  to  be  quite  beyond  the  ken  of  uncivilized  or  semi- 
civilized  man.  It  is  no  doubt  a  fact  that,  in  the  long  run, 
Truthfulness  contributes  more  than  Lying  to  the  Greatest 
Happiness  of  the  Greatest  Number.  But  to  discover  that 
fact  needs  a  philosopher,  not  a  savage.  Other  virtues,  such 
as  that  of  care  for  the  weak  and  aged,  seem  still  less 
capable,  as  Mr.  Mivart  has  admirably  shown,1  of  being 
evolved  out  of  a  sense  of  utility,  seeing  that  savages  and 
animals  find  it  much  the  most  useful  practice  to  kill  and 
devour  such  sufferers,  and  by  the  law  of  the  Survival 
of  the  Fittest,  all  nature  below  civilized  man  is  arranged 
on  the  plan  of  so  doing.  Mr.  W.  R.  Greg's  very  clever 
paper  in  Fraser's  Magazine,  pointing  out  how  Natural 
Selection  fails  in  the  case  of  Man  in  consequence  of  our 
feelings  of  pity  for  the  weak,  affords  incidentally  the  best 
possible  proof  that  human  society  is  based  on  an  element 
which  has  no  counterpart  in  the  utility  which  rules  the 
animal  world. 

It  would  be  doing  Mr.  Darwin  injustice  if  we  were  to 
quit  the  consideration  of  his  observations  on  the  nature 
of  Repentance,  leaving  on  the  reader's  mind  the  impression 
that  he  has  put  them  forward  formally  as  delineating  an  ex 
haustive  theory  of  the  matter,  or  that  he  has  denied,  other 
wise  than  by  implication,  the  doctrine  that  higher  and  more 
spiritual  influences  enter  into  the  phenomena  of  the  moral 
1  Genesis  of  Species,  page  192. 


28  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

life.  The  absence  of  the  slightest  allusion  to  any  such  higher 
sources  of  moral  sentiment  leaves,  however,  on  the  reader's 
mind  a  very  strong  impression  that  here  we  are  supposed 
to  rest.  The  developed  Ape  has  acquired  a  moral  sense  by 
adaptive  changes  of  mental  structure  precisely  analogous 
to  those  adaptive  changes  of  bodily  structure  which  have 
altered  his  foot  and  rolled  up  his  ear.  To  seek  for  a  more 
recondite  source  for  the  one  class  of  changes  than  for  the 
other  would  be  arbitrary  and  unphilosophical. 

But  now  we  come  to  the  last,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the 
saddest  doctrine  of  all.  Our  moral  sense,  however  acquired, 
does  not,  it  is  asserted,  correspond  to  anything  real  outside 
of  itself,  to  any  law  which  must  be  the  same  for  all  Intelli 
gences,  mundane  or  supernal.  It  merely  affords  us  a  sort 
of  Ready  Reckoner  for  our  particular  wages,  a  Rule  of 
Thumb  for  our  special  work,  in  the  position  in  which  we 
find  ourselves  just  at  present.  That  I  may  do  Mr.  Darwin 
no  injustice,  I  shall  quote  his  observations  on  this  point  in 
his  own  words  : 

"  It  may  be  well  first  to  premise  that  I  do  not  wish  to  maintain  that 
any  strictly  social  animal,  if  its  intellectual  faculties  were  to  become  as 
active  and  as  highly  developed  as  in  man,  would  acquire  exactly  the 
same  moral  sense  as  ours.  ...  If,  for  instance,  to  take  an  extreme 
case,  men  were  reared  precisely  under  the  same  conditions  as  hive-bees, 
there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  our  unmarried  females  would,  like  the 
worker-bees,  think  it  a  sacred  duty  to  kill  their  brothers,  and  mothers 
would  strive  to  kill  their  fertile  daughters,  and  no  one  would  think 
of  interfering.  Nevertheless,  the  bee,  or  any  other  social  animal, 
would  in  our  supposed  case  gain,  as  it  appears  to  me,  some  feeling 
of  right  and  wrong,  or  a  conscience.  For  each  individual  would  have  an 
inward  sense  of  possessing  certain  stronger  or  more  enduring  instincts, 
and  others  less  strong  or  enduring ;  so  that  there  would  often  be  a 
struggle  which  impulse  should  be  followed,  and  satisfaction  or  dissatis 
faction  would  be  felt  as  past  impressions  were  compared  during  their 
incessant  passage  through  the  mind.  In  this  case,  an  inward  monitor 
would  tell  the  animal  that  it  would  have  been  better  to  have  followed 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  29 

the  one  impulse  rather  than  the  other.     The  one  course  ought  to  have 
been  followed.     The  one  would  have  been  right  and  the  other  wrong."1 

Now  it  is  a  little  difficult  to  clear  our  minds  on  this  subject 
of  the  mutable  or  immutable  in  morals.  No  believer  in 
the  immutability  of  morality  holds  that  it  is  any  physical 
act  itself  which  is  immutably  right,  but  only  the  principles 
of  Benevolence,  Truth,  and  so  on,  by  which  such  acts  must 
be  judged.  The  parallel  between  Ethics  and  Geometry  here 
holds  strictly  true.  The  axioms  of  both  sciences  are  neces 
sary  truths  known  to  us  as  facts  of  consciousness.  The 
subordinate  propositions  are  deduced  from  such  axioms  by 
reflection.  The  application  of  the  propositions  to  the  actual 
circumstances  of  life  is  effected  by  a  process  (sometimes 
called  "  traduction  ")  by  which  all  applied  sciences  become 
practically  available.  For  example,  Geometry  teaches  us  that 
a  triangle  is  equal  to  half  a  rectangle  upon  the  same  base  and 
with  the  same  altitude,  but  no  geometry  can  teach  us  whether 
a  certain  field  be  a  triangle  with  equal  base  and  altitude 
to  the  adjoining  rectangle.  To  know  this  we  must  measure 
both,  and  then  we  shall  know  that  if  such  be  their  propor 
tions,  the  one  will  contain  half  as  much  space  as  the  other. 
Similarly  in  morals,  Intuition  teaches  us  to  "  Love  our 
Neighbour,"  and  reflection  will  thence  deduce  that  we  ought 
to  relieve  the  wants  of  the  suffering.  But  no  ethics  can 
teach  A  what  are  the  special  wants  of  B,  or  how  they  can 
best  be  supplied.  According,  then,  to  the  doctrines  of  In 
tuitive  Morality,  considerations  of  Utility  have  a  most 
important,  though  altogether  subordinate,  place  in  ethics. 
It  is  the  office  of  experience  to  show  us  how  to  put  the 
mandates  of  intuition  into  execution,  though  not  to  originate 
our  moral  code, — hoiv  to  fulfil  the  duty  of  conferring  Happi 
ness,  though  not  to  set  up  Happiness  as  the  sole  end  and 
aim  of  Morality. 

1  Descent  of  Man,  pp.  33,  34. 


30  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

Now  if  Mr.  Darwin  had  simply  said  that  under  totally 
different  conditions  of  life  many  of  the  existing  human 
duties  would  have  been  altered,  we  could  have  no  possible 
fault  to  find  with  his  remarks.  In  a  world  where  nobody 
needed  food  there  could  be  no  duty  of  feeding  the  hungry  ; 
in  a  world  of  immortals  there  could  be  no  such  crime  as 
murder.  Every  alteration  in  circumstance  produces  a  cer 
tain  variation  in  moral  obligation,  for  the  plain  reason  (as 
above  stated)  that  Morals  only  supply  abstract  principles, 
and,  according  to  the  circumstances  of  each  case,  their 
application  must  necessarily  vary.  If  the  triangular  field 
have  a  rood  cut  off  it,  or  a  rood  added  on,  it  will  no  longer 
be  the  half  of  the  rectangle  beside  it.  It  would  not  be 
difficult  to  imagine  a  state  of  existence  in  which  the  im 
mutable  principles  of  Benevolence  would  require  quite  a 
different  set  of  actions  from  those  which  they  now  demand ; 
in  fact,  no  one  supposes  that  among  the  Blessed,  where 
they  will  rule  all  hearts,  they  will  inspire  the  same  manifes 
tations  which  they  call  for  on  earth. 

But  Mr.  Darwin's  doctrine  seems  to  imply  something 
very  different  indeed  from  this.  He  thinks  (if  I  do  not 
mistake  him)  that,  under  altered  circumstances,  human 
beings  would  have  acquired  consciences  in  which  not  only 
the  acts  of  social  duty  would  have  been  different,  but  its 
principles  would  have  been  transformed  or  reversed.  It  is 
obviously  impossible  to  stretch  our  conception  of  the  prin 
ciple  of  Benevolence  far  enough  to  enable  us  to  include 
under  its  possible  manifestations  the  conduct  of  the  worker 
bees  to  the  drones ;  and  I  suppose  few  of  us  have  hitherto 
reflected  on  this  and  similar  strange  phenomena  of  natural 
history,  without  falling  back  with  relief  on  the  reflection 
that  the  animal,  devoid  of  moral  sense,  does  its  destructive 
work  as  guiltlessly  as  the  storm  or  the  flood. 

On  Mr.  Darwin's  system,  the  developed  bee  would  have 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS.  31 

an  "  inward  monitor "  actually  prompting  the  murderous 
sting,  and  telling  her  that  such  a  course  "ought  to  have 
been  followed."  The  Dana'ides  of  the  hive,  instead  of  the 
eternal  nightmare  to  which  Greek  imagination  consigned 
them,  would  thus  receive  the  reward  of  their  assassinations 
in  the  delights  of  the  mens  conscia  recti ;  or,  as  Mr.  Darwin 
expresses  it,  by  the  satisfaction  of  "  the  stronger  and  more 
enduring  instinct."  Hitherto  we  have  believed  that  the 
human  moral  sense,  though  of  slow  and  gradual  development 
and  liable  to  sad  oscillations  under  the  influence  of  false  reli 
gion  and  education,  yet  points  normally  to  one  true  Pole. 
Now  we  are  called  on  to  think  there  is  no  pole  at  all,  and 
that  it  may  swing  all  round  the  circle  of  crimes  and  virtues, 
and  be  equally  trustworthy  whether  it  point  north,  south, 
east  or  west.  In  brief,  there  are  no  such  things  really  as 
Right  and  Wrong  ;  and  our  idea  that  they  have  existence 
outside  of  our  own  poor  little  minds  is  pure  delusion. 

The  bearings  of  this  doctrine  on  Morality  and  on  Heligion 
seem  to  be  equally  fatal.  The  all-embracing  Law  which 
alone  could  command  our  reverence  has.  disappeared  from 
the  universe  ;  and  God,  if  He  exist,  may,  for  aught  we  can 
surmise,  have  for  Himself  a  code  of  Eight  in  which  every 
cruelty  and  every  injustice  may  form  a  part,  quite  as  pro 
bably  as  the  opposite  principles. 

Does  such  an  hypothesis  .  actually  fit  any  of  the  known 
facts  of  human  consciousness  ?  Is  there  anywhere  to  be 
found  an  indication  of  the  supposed  possibility  of  acquir 
ing  a  conscience  in  which  the  principles  of  Right  and 
Wrong  should  be  transformed,  as  well  as  their  application 
altered  ?  It  would  seem  (as  already  mentioned)  that,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  utility  of  destroying  old  people  and 
female  infants  has  actually  appeared  so  great  to  many 
savage  and  semi- civilized  people,  as  to  have  caused  them  to 
practise  such  murders  in  a  systematic  way  for  thousands  of 


32  DARWINISM  IN  MORALS. 

years.  But  we  have  never  been  told  that  the  Fuegians 
made  it  more  than  a  matter  of  good  sense  to  eat  their  grand 
fathers,  or  that  the  Chinese,  when  they  deposited  their 
drowned  babies  in  the  public  receptacles  labelled  "For 
Toothless  Infants/'  did  so  with  the  proud  consciousness  of 
fulfilling  one  of  those  time-hallowed  Rites  of  which  they  are 
so  fond.  The  transition  from  a  sense  of  Utility  to  a  sense 
of  Moral  Obligation  seems  to  be  one  which  has  never 
yet  been  observed  in  human  history.  Mr.  Darwin  himself, 
with  his  unvarying  candour,  remarks  that  no  instance  is 
known  of  an  arbitrary  or  superstitious  practice,  though 
pursued  for  ages,  leaving  hereditary  tendencies  of  the  nature 
of  a  moral  sense.  Of  course  where  a  religious  sanction 
is  believed  to  elevate  any  special  act  (such  as  Sabbath- 
keeping)  into  an  express  tribute  of  homage  to  God,  it 
justly  assumes  in  the  conscience  precisely  the  place  such 
homage  should  occupy.  But  even  here  the  world-old  dis 
tinction  between  offences  against  such  arbitrary  laws,  mala 
prohibita,  and  those  against  the  eternal  laws  of  morals, 
mala  in  se,  has  never  been  wholly  overlooked. 

I  think,  then,  we  are  justified  in  concluding  that  the 
moral  history  of  mankind,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  gives  no 
countenance  to  the  hypothesis  that  Conscience  is  the  result 
of  certain  contingencies  in  our  development,  and  that  it 
might  at  an  earlier  stage  have  been  moulded  into  quite 
another  form,  causing  Good  to  appear  to  us  Evil,  and  Evil 
Good.  I  think  we  have  a  right  to  say  that  the  suggestions 
offered  by  the  highest  scientific  intellects  of  our  time,  to 
account  for  its  existence  on  principles  which  shall  leave  it 
on  the  level  of  other  instincts,  have  failed  to  approve  them 
selves  as  true  to  the  facts  of  the  case.  And  I  think,  there 
fore,  that  we  are  called  on  to  believe  still  in  the  validity 
of  our  own  moral  consciousness,  even  as  we  believe  in  the 
validity  of  our  other  faculties,  and  to  rest  in  the  faith 


DARWINISM  IN  MORALS,  33 

(well-nigh  universal)  of  the  human  race,  in  a  fixed  and 
supreme  Law  of  which  the  will  of  God  is  the  embodiment, 
and  Conscience  the  Divine  transcript.  I  think  that  we  may 
still  repeat  the  hymn  of  Clean thes  : 

"  That  our  wills  blended  into  Thine, 
Concurrent  in  the  Law  divine, 
Eternal,  universal,  just  and  good, 
Honouring  and  honoured  in  our  servitude, 
Creation's  Psean  march  may  swell, 
The  march  of  Law  immutable, 
Wherein,  as  to  its  noblest  end, 
All  being  doth  for  ever  tend." 


ESSAY  II. 

HEREDITARY    PIETY.1 

THE  history  of  Public  Opinion  during  the  last  half  century 
may  be  not  inaptly  compared  to  that  of  a  well-fed,  steady  - 
going  old  roadster,  long  cherished  by  a  respectable  elderly 
squire,  but  unluckily  transferred  at  his  demise  to  his  wild 
young  heir.  Accustomed  to  all  the  neighbouring  highways, 
and  trained  to  jog  along  them  at  five  miles  an  hour,  the  poor 
beast  suddenly  found  itself  lashed  by  "the  discipline  of 
facts"  and  sundry  new  and  cruel  spurs,  to  get  over  the 
ground  at  double  its  wonted  pace,  and  at  last  to  leave  the 
beaten  tracks  altogether  and  cut  across  country,  over  walls 
and  hedges  which  it  never  so  much  as  peeped  over  before. 
Under  this  altered  regime  it  would  appear  that  Public 
Opinion  at  first  behaved  with  the  restiveness  which  was  to 
be  expected.  On  some  occasions  he  stood  stock-still  like  a 
donkey,  with  his  feet  stretched  out,  refusing  to  budge  an 
inch  ;  and  anon  he  bolted  and  shied  and  took  buck  leaps  into 
the  air,  rather  than  go  the  way  which  stern  destiny  ordained. 
But  as  time  went  on,  such  resistance  naturally  grew  less 
violent.  The  plungings  and  rearings  subsided  by  degrees, 
and  anybody  who  now  pays  attention  to  the  animal  will 
probably  be  only  led  to  observe  that  he  is  a  little  hard  in  the 
mouth  and  apt  to  refuse  his  fences  till  he  has  been  brought 

1  Hereditary  Genius.  An  Inquiry  into  its  Laws  and  Consequences.  By 
Francis  Gallon,  F.R.S.  1  vol.  Svo.  pp.  390.  Macmillan.  1869. 

Psychologic  Naturelle.  Etude  sur  les  Facultes  Intellectuelles  et  Morales.  Par 
Prosper  Despine.  3  vols.  Svo.  Paris:  F.  Savy.  1868. 


36  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

up  to  them  two  or  three  times.  In  his  equine  way  he  finds 
each  new  discovery  first  "false"  and  then  "against  reli 
gion;"  but  at  last  he  always  makes  a  spring  over  it  and 
knocks  off  the  top  stone  with  his  hind  feet :  "  Everybody 
knew  it  before  ! " 

Had  not  this  process  of  accustoming  Public  Opinion  to  a 
sharp  pace  and  difficult  leaps  been  going  on  for  some  time,  it 
is  to  be  believed  that  Mr.  Gralton's  book  would  have  produced 
considerably  more  dismay  and  called  forth  more  virtuous 
indignation  than  under  present  training  has  actually  greeted 
it.  We  have  had  to  modify  our  ideas  of  all  things  in  heaven 
and  earth  so  fast,  that  another  shock  even  to  our  conceptions 
of  the  nature  of  our  own  individual  minds  and  faculties,  is 
not  so  terrible  as  it  would  once  have  been.  We  used  first  to 
think  (or  our  fathers  and  grandfathers  thought  for  us)  that 
each  of  us,  so  far  as  our  mental  and  moral  parts  were  con 
cerned,  were  wholly  fresh,  isolated  specimens  of  creative 
Power,  "trailing  clouds  of  glory,"  straight  out  of  heaven. 
Then  came  the  generation  which  believed  in  the  omnipotence 
of  education.  Its  creed  was,  that  you  had  only  to  "  catch 
your  hare  "  or  your  child,  and  were  he  or  she  born  bright  or 
dull-witted,  the  offspring  of  two  drunken  tramps,  or  of  a 
philosopher  married  to  a  poetess,  it  was  all  the  same.  It 
depended  only  on  the  care  with  which  you  trained  it  and 
crammed  it  with  "  useful  knowledge"  to  make  it  a  Cato  and 
a  Plato  rolled  into  one.  Grapes  were  to  be  had  off  thorns 
and  figs  off  thistles  with  the  utmost  facility  in  the  forcing- 
houses  of  Edgeworthian  schools.  It  had,  of  course,  been  a 
hard  matter  to  bring  Public  Opinion  up  to  this  point.  The 
worthy  old  beast  recalcitrated  long,  and  when  London 
University  reared  its  head,  the  trophy  of  the  First  Educa 
tional  Crusade,  all  the  waggery  left  in  England  was  thought 
to  be  displayed  by  dubbing  it  "  Stinkomalee."  But  univer 
sity  in  town,  and  schools  all  over  the  country  were  over- 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  37 

leaped  at  last,  and  nobody  for  years  afterwards  so  much  as 
whispered  a  doubt  that  the  Three  Learned  R's  were  sign 
posts  on  the  high  road  to  Utopia,  "f  •/ 

Then  arose  the  brothers  Combe  to  put  in  some  wise  words 
about  physical,  over  and  above  mental,  education.  And 
somehow  talking  of  physical  education  led  to  discussing 
hereditary  physical  qualities,  and  the  "  Constitution  of  Man" 
was  admitted  to  be  influenced  in  a  certain  measure  by  the 
heritage  of  his  bodily  organization.  Children  born  of 
diseased  and  vicious  parents,  the  philosopher  insisted,  ran  a 
double  chance  of  being  themselves  diseased  and  vicious,  or 
even  idiotic ;  and  sound  conditions  in  father,  mother,  and 
nurse,  had  much  to  do,  he  thought,  with  similar  good  condi 
tions  in  their  offspring  and  nursling.  Strange  to  remember  ! 
Ideas  obvious  and  undeniable,  as  these  appear  to  us,  seemed 
nothing  short  of  revolutionary  when  they  first  were  pub 
lished  ;  and  Public  Opinion  put  back  its  ears  and  plunged 
and  snorted  at  a  terrible  rate,  ere,  as  usual,  it  went  over  them 
and  "  knew  it  all  before."  Nevertheless  the  inalienable 
right  of  diseased,  deformed,  and  semi-idiotic  married  people 
to  bring  as  many  miserable  children  into  the  world  as  they 
please,  is  yet  an  article  of  national  faith,  which  to  question 
is  the  most  direful  of  all  heresies. 

But  these  three  doctrines  of  mental  and  moral  develop 
ment, — the  doctrines,  namely,  1st,  that  we  came  straight 
down  from  heaven ;  2nd,  that  we  could  be  educated  into 
anything  ;  3rd,  that  some  of  our  physical  peculiarities  might 
be  traced  to  inheritance, — were  all  three  kept  pretty  clear  of 
meddlings  with  the  Religious  part  of  man.  Experience,  no 
doubt,  showed  sufficiently  decisively  that  Piety  was  not  a 
thing  to  be  made  to  order,  and  that  (at  all  events  under  the 
existing  dispensation)  there  was  no  bespeaking  little  Samuels. 
The  mysterious  proclivity  of  children  intended  for  such  a 
vocation  to  turn  out  pickles,  luckily  coincided  with — or 


38  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

possibly  had  a  share  in  originating — the  Calvinistic  views  of 
Arbitrary  Election  ;  while  even  the  Arminians  of  those  days 
would  have  vehemently  repudiated  either  the  notion  that 
a  man  might  inherit  a  pious  disposition  just  as  well  as  a 
tendency  to  the  gout,  or  that  he  would  be  likely  to  find  the 
true  route  to  Paradise  among  other  items  of  Useful  Know 
ledge  in  the  Penny  Magazine. 

Now  it  seems  we  are  trotting  up  to  another  fence,  vide 
licet,  the  doctrine  that  all  man's  faculties  and  qualities, 
physical,  mental,  moral  and  religious,  have  a  certain  given 
relation  to  the  conditions  of  his  birth.  The  hereditarj^ 
element  in  him, — that  element  of  which  we  have  hitherto 
entertained  the  vaguest  ideas,  admitting  it  in  his  features 
and  diseases,  and  ignoring  it  in  his  genius  and  his  passions  ; 
recognizing  it  in  noble  races  as  a  source  of  pride,  and  for 
getting  it  as  the  extenuation  of  the  faults  of  degraded  ones, 
— this  mysterious  element  must,  we  are  told,  henceforth 
challenge  a  place  in  all  our  calculations.  We  must  learn  to 
trace  it  equally  in  every  department  of  our  nature  ;  and  no 
analysis  of  character  can  be  held  valid  which  has  not 
weighed  it  with  such  accuracy  as  may  be  attainable.  Our 
gauge  of  moral  responsibility  must  make  large  allowance  for 
the  good  or  evil  tendencies  inherited  by  saint  or  sinner,  and 
our  whole  theory  of  the  meaning  and  scope  of  Education 
must  rise  from  the  crude  delusion  that  it  is  in  our  power 
wholly  to  transform  any  individual  child,  to  embrace  the 
vaster  but  remoter  possibilities  of  gradually  training  suc 
cessive  generations  into  higher  intelligence  and  more  com 
plete  self-control,  till  the  tendencies  towards  brute  vice  grow 
weaker  and  expire,  and  "  the  heir  of  all  the  ages  "  shall 
be  born  with  only  healthful  instincts  and  lofty  aspirations. 

As  always  happens  when  a  new  truth  is  to  be  discovered, 
there  have  been  f or  esh  ado  wings  of  this  doctrine  for  some 
years  back.  The  hereditary  qualities  of  Races  of  men  have 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  39 

occupied  large  room  in  our  discussions.  The  awful  phe 
nomena  of  inherited  criminal  propensities  have  interested 
not  only  physicians  (like  the  writer  of  the  second  book  at 
the  head  of  our  paper),  but  philosophic  novelists  like  the 
author  of  "  Elsie  Venner."  Under  the  enormous  impetus 
given  to  all  speculations  concerning  descent  by  Mr.  Darwin, 
some  applications  of  the  doctrine  of  development  to  the 
mind  as  well  as  body  of  man  became  inevitable,  and  a  most 
remarkable  article  in  Fra&er's  Magazine,  Oct.  1868,  brought 
to  light  a  variety  of  unobserved  facts  regarding  the  "  Failure 
of  Natural  Selection  in  the  case  of  Man,"  due  to  the  special 
tendencies  of  our  civilization.  Mr.  Galton  himself,  five  or 
six  years  ago,  published  in  Macmillan's  Magazine  the  results 
of  his  preliminary  inquiries  as  to  inherited  ability  in  the 
legal  profession  ;  and  Professor  Tyndall  perhaps  gave  the 
most  remarkable  hint  of  all,  by  ascribing  the  "  baby-love  " 
of  women  to  the  "  set  of  the  molecules  of  the  brain  "  through 
a  thousand  generations  of  mothers  exercised  in  the  same 
functions. 

But  the  work  which  has  finally  afforded  fixed  ground  to 
these  floating  speculations,  and,  in  the  humble  judgment  of 
the  present  writer,  inaugurated  a  new  science  with  a  great 
future  before  it,  is  Mr.  Gralton's  "Essay  on  Hereditary 
Genius."  The  few  errors  of  detail  into  which  the  author 
has  fallen  in  the  wide  and  untrodden  field  he  has  attempted 
to  map  out,  and  his  easily  explicable  tendency  to  give  undue 
weight  to  disputable  indications,  and  to  treat  a  man's  attain 
ment  of  high  office  as  equivalent  to  proof  of  his  fitness  for 
it, — these  weak  points,  on  which  the  reviewers  have  fastened 
with  their  usual  bull-dog  tenacity,  cannot  eventually  influence 
the  acceptance  of  the  immense  mass  of  evidence  adduced 
to  prove  the  main  theses  of  the  work,  or  bar  our  admira 
tion  of  its  great  originality.  I  do  not  propose  in  the  ensuing 
pages  to  give  a  general  notice  of  the  work,  or  to  mark 


40  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

either  all  the  principles  which  I  conceive  Mr.  Galton  has 
established,  nor  those  others  on  which  I  should  venture  to 
differ  from  him.  His  main  doctrine  he  has,  I  believe, 
demonstrated  with  mathematical  certainty,  viz.,  that  all 
mental  faculties,  from  the  most  ordinary  to  the  highest  and 
apparently  most  erratic  forms  of  genius,  the  various  gifts 
of  the  statesman,  soldier,  artist  and  man  of  letters,  are 
distributed  according  to  conditions  among  which  inheritance 
by  descent  of  blood  occupies  the  foremost  place ;  and  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  in  the  order  of  nature  as  a  mighty 
genius  who  should  be  an  intellectual  Melchisedek. 

The  further  deductions  which  Mr.  Galton  draws  appear 
to  me  curious  and  suggestive  in  the  extreme  ;  as,  for  ex 
ample,  the  calculation  of  the  proportion  now  obtaining 
in  Europe  of  Eminent  Men  to  the  general  population  ; 
and,  again,  of  the  far  rarer  Illustrious  Men  to  those  of 
ordinary  eminence.  Based  on  this  calculation,  the  number 
of  both  illustrious  and  eminent  men  who  flourished  among 
the  135,000  free  citizens  of  Attica  during  the  age  of 
Pericles,  is  so  nearly  miraculous,  that  we  find  it  hard 
to  picture  such  an  intellectual  feast  as  life  must  then 
have  offered.  Society  at  Athens  in  those  days  must  have 
surpassed  that  of  the  choicest  circles  of  Paris  and  London 
now,  as  these  are  superior  to  the  ale-house  gossipings  of 
George  Eliot's  rustics.  That  populace  for  whose  eye  Phidias 
chiselled,  those  play- goers  for  whose  taste  Sophocles  and 
Aristophanes  provided  entertainment,  that  "jeunesse  doree" 
whose  daily  lounge  involved  an  argument  with  Socrates — • 
what  were  they  all  ?  What  rain  of  heaven  had  watered  the 
human  tree  when  it  bore  such  fruit  in  such  profusion  ? 
And  what  hope  may  remain  that  it  will  ever  bring  them 
forth  in  such  clusters  once  more  ? 

Again,  a  flood  of  light  is  poured  on  the  degeneracy  of 
mediaeval  Europe  by  Mr.  Galton's  observations  concerning 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  41 

the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  and  the  monastic  orders.  The 
moment  when,  as  Mr.  Lecky  shows,  chastity  (understood  to 
mean  celibacy)  was  elevated  into  the  sublimest  of  Chris 
tian  virtues,  that  moment  the  chance  that  any  man  should 
perpetuate  his  race  became  calculable  in  the  inverse  ratio 
of  his  piety  and  goodness.  Archbishop  Whately  long  ago 
exposed  the  absurdity  of  the  common  boast  of  Catholics 
concerning  the  learning  and  virtue  hidden  in  the  monasteries 
during  the  Dark  Ages.  It  would  be  equally  reasonable  to 
take  the  lamps  and  candles  out  of  every  room  in  a  house 
and  deposit  them  in  the  coal-cellar,  and  then  call  the 
passers-by  to  remark  how  gloomy  were  the  library  and 
drawing-room,  how  beautifully  illuminated  the  coal-hole ! 
But  Mr.  Galton  points  out  that  the  evil  of  the  ascetic 
system  was  immeasurably  wider  and  more  enduring  in  its 
results  even  than  the  subtraction  for  generation  after 
generation  of  the  brightest  minds  and  gentlest  hearts 
from  the  world .  which  so  grievously  needed  them.  Ac 
cording  to  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent,  it  was  the  whole 
future  human  race  which  was  being  cruelly  spoiled  of  its 
fairest  hopes,  its  best  chances  of  enjoying  the  services  of 
genius  and  of  true  saintship.  Some  of  those  who  read 
these  pages  may  remember  in  the  first  Great  Exhibition  a 
set  of  samples  of  what  was  called  "  Pedigree  "Wheat."  The 
gigantic  ears,  loaded  with  double-sized  seeds,  were  simply 
the  result  of  ten  years'  successive  selection  of  the  finest  ears, 
and  again  the  finest  in  each  crop.  The  process  which 
Romanism  effected  for  the  human  race  was  precisely  and 
accurately  the  converse  of  that  by  which  this  Pedigree 
Wheat  wras  obtained.  It  simply  cut  off  each  stem  which 
rose  above  the  average  in  mental  or  moral  gifts.  The 
moment  a  man  or  a  woman  showed  signs  of  being  some 
thing  better  than  a  clod,  a  little  more  disposed  for  learning, 
a  little  more  gentle-natured,  more  pious  or  more  charitable, 


42  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

instantly  lie  or  she  was  induced  to  take  the  vow  never  to 
become  a  parent ;  and  only  by  the  infraction  of  such  vows  was 
there  a  chance  for  the  world  of  an  heir  to  his  or  her  virtues. 
The  best-born  man  among  us  now  living,  if  he  could  trace 
out  the  million  or  so  of  his  ancestors  contemporary  twenty 
generations  ago,  would  hardly  find  among  them  a  single 
person  mentally  distinguished  in  any  way.  We  are  all 
the  descendants  of  the  caterans  and  hunters,  the  serfs  and 
boors  of  a  thousand  years.  The  better  and  greater  men  born 
in  the  same  ages  hid  their  light  under  a  bushel  while  they 
lived,  and  took  care  that  it  should  not  be  rekindled  after 
their  death.  When  the  Reformation  came,  the  case  was 
even  worse ;  for  then  the  ablest,  the  bravest  and  the  truest- 
hearted,  were  picked  out  for  slaughter.  The  human  tares 
were  left  to  flourish  and  reproduce  their  kind  abundantly, 
but  the  wheat  was  gathered  in  bundles  to  be  burnt.  To 
this  hour  France  feels  the  loss  of  Huguenot  blood  (so 
strangely  vigorous  wherever  it  has  been  scattered  !),  and 
Spain  halts  for  ever  under  the  paralysis  of  half  her  motor 
nerves,  cut  off  by  the  Inquisition. 

Besides  these  discussions,  Mr.  Gralton's  book  is  full  of 
suggestive  and  original  ideas  concerning  the  results  of  mar 
riages  with  heiresses, — concerning  the  influence  of  able 
mothers  on  their  sons, — concerning  the  choice  of  wives  by 
gifted  men, — and,  finally,  concerning  the  application  of  Mr. 
Darwin's  hypothesis  of  Pangenesis  to  human  inheritance 
of  special  qualities.  Of  these  topics  nothing  can  here  be 
said,  though  against  some  of  them  I  would  fain  enter  my 
expression  of  dissent.  There  remains  not  more  than  space 
enough  to  discuss  the  branch  of  Mr.  Galton's  subject  which 
properly  falls  under  the  notice  of  a  Theological  Review,  viz., 
the  statistics  he  has  collected  concerning  Divines. 

It  was  not  a  little  mischievous  of  Mr.  Galton  to  preface 
his  investigations  about  the  families  of  pious  men,  by 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  43 

quoting  Psalms  cxxviii.  3,  cxiii.  9,  xxv.  13,  and  then  inno 
cently  asking  whether  the  wives  of  Christian  divines  have 
any  special  resemblance  to  "  fruitful  vines/'  or  their  children 
to  "  olive-branches ;  "  and  whether,  on  the  whole,  their 
seed  does  "  inherit  the  land  "  in  any  noticeable  manner. 
Certainly,  on  the  one  hand,  almost  every  one  of  us  would 
be  ready  to  assure  the  inquirer  that,  to  the  best  of  our 
persuasion,  curates  with  small  salaries  have  larger  fami 
lies  than  men  of  any  other  profession ;  and  that  "  Mrs. 
Quiverfull "  was,  and  could  only  be,  according  to  the  natural 
fitness  of  things,  a  poor  clergyman's  wife.  But  then,  per 
contra,  our  author  is  evidently  unprepared  to  admit  that 
the  unbeneficed  clergy  of  the  National  Church  have  a 
monopoly  of  piety,  or  that  we  ought  to  look  among  them 
especially  for  the  fruits  of  the  first  part  of  the  patriarchal 
benediction  ;  while  it  is  manifest  that  the  second  blessing, 
namely,  the  "inheriting  of  the  land,"  falls  much  more 
richly  on  the  profane  generation  of  the  squirearchy. 

Mr.  Galton  says  he  finds  two  conflicting  theories  afloat 
on  this  matter.  The  first  is,  that  there  is  a  special  good 
providence  for  the  children  of  the  godly.  The  second  is, 
that  the  sons  of  religious  persons  mostly  turn  out  excep 
tionally  ill.  He  proceeds  to  inquire  carefully  what  light 
statistics  can  throw  on  these  views,  and  whether  both  of 
them  must  not  yield  to  the  ordinary  law  of  heredity  as 
ruling  in  other  spheres  of  human  activity. 

It  was  not  an  easy  matter  to  settle  at  starting  what 
qualification  should  entitle  a  man  to  be  reckoned  among 
the  eminently  pious.  Obviously  Roman  Catholic  saints 
were  out  of  the  running,  owing  to  the  fatal  law  of  celibacy, 
whereby  fruitful  vines  and  numerous  olive-branches  are 
allowed  only  to  decorate  the  houses  of  persons  who  followed 
not  "  counsels  of  perfection."  Protestants,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  rarely  been  able  to  see  all  the  merits  of  men  of 


44  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

different  opinions  from  their  own.  The  name  of  Laud  has 
not  a  sweet  savour  in  Evangelical  nostrils  ;  while  the 
Ritualist  Dr.  Littledale  talks  unconcernedly  of  those  "scoun 
drels,"  the  martyrs  Hooper  and  Latimer.  Nevertheless, 
Mr.  Galton  has  happily  got  over  his  difficulty  through  an 
excellent  collection — "  Middleton's  Biographia  Evangelica," 
published  in  4  vols.  in  1786,  and  containing  196  picked  lives 
of  Protestant  saints,  from  the  Reformation  downwards.  Our 
author  subjects  these  biographies  to  sharp  analysis,  and  the 
following  are  the  conclusions  which  he  deduces  from  them. 

These  196  Protestant  saints  were  no  canting  humbugs. 
They  were  for  the  greater  part  men  of  exceedingly  noble 
characters.  Twenty-two  of  them  were  martyrs.  They  had 
considerable  intellectual  gifts.  None  of  them  are  reported 
to  have  had  sinful  parents  ;  and  out  of  the  last  100  (whose 
relations  alone  are  traceable),  41  had  pious  fathers  or  mothers. 
Their  social  condition  was  of  every  rank,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest.  Only  one-half  were  married  men,  and  of  these 
the  wives  were  mostly  very  pious.  The  number  of  their 
children  was  a  trifle  below  the  average.  No  families  of 
importance  in  England  are  traceable  to  divines  as  founders, 
except  those  of  Lord  Sandys  and  of  the  Hookers,  the 
famous  botanists,  who  are  the  lineal  descendants  of  the 
author  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity.  As  regards  health,  the 
constitution  of  most  of  the  divines  was  remarkably  bad. 
Sickly  lads  are  apt  to  be  more  studious  than  robust  ones, 
and  the  weakly  students  who  arrived  at  manhood  chiefly 
recruited  the  band  of  divines.  Among  these  semi-invalids 
were  Calvin,  Melancthon,  George  Herbert,  Baxter,  and 
Philip  Henry.  Reading  the  lives  of  eminent  lawyers  and 
statesmen,  one  is  struck  by  the  number  of  them  who  have 
had  constitutions  of  iron ;  but  out  of  all  Middleton's  196 
divines,  he  only  speaks  of  12  or  13  as  vigorous.  Out  of 
these,  5  or  6  were  wild  in  their  youth  and  reformed  in 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  45 

later  years;  while  only  3  or  4  of  the  other  divines  were 
ever  addicted  to  dissipated  habits.  Seventeen  out  of  the 
196  were  inter-related,  and  8  more  had  other  pious  con 
nexions.  The  influence  of  inheritance  of  character  through 
the  female  line  is  much  greater  in  the  case  of  divines  than 
in  that  of  any  other  eminent  men ;  an  influence  Mr.  Galton 
attributes  to  the  utility,  in  their  case,  of  a  "  blind  conviction 
which  can  best  be  obtained  through  maternal  teaching  in 
childhood." 

These  results,  as  Mr.  Galton  would  no  doubt  readily 
admit,  might  be  liable  to  considerable  modification,  could 
we  extend  our  field  of  operations  over  double  or  treble  the 
number  of  instances  of  piety,  and  especially  if  we  could  in 
clude  types  of  piety  from  other  creeds  and  a  greater  variety 
of  nations.  Taken  as  it  is,  however,  as  the  outcome  of  an 
inquiry  based  on  freely  gathered  specimens  of  Protestant 
religious  eminence,  it  appears  to  convey  one  of  the  most 
curious  morals  ever  presented  by  an  historical  investigation. 
A  true  Christian  has  been  often  defined  as  "the  highest 
kind  of  man,"  and  Mr.  Galton  himself  avows  that  these 
subjects  of  his  anatomy  were  "  exceedingly  noble  characters." 
And  yet  he  is  forced  to  pronounce  with  equal  decision  from 
the  evidence  before  him,  that  they  were  mostly  a  tribe  of 
valetudinarians;  that  there  must  exist  "a  correlation  between 
an  unusually  devout  disposition  and  a  weak  constitution ; " 
that  "  a  gently  complaining  and  fatigued  spirit  is  that  in 
which  Evangelical  divines  are  apt  to  pass  their  days  ; "  and, 
finally,  that  "  we  are  compelled  to  conclude  that  robustness 
of  constitution  is  antagonistic  in  a  very  marked  degree  to 
an  extremely  pious  disposition  " ! 

There  are  no  doubt  still  surviving  in  the  world  a  good 
many  people  who  will  find  in  these  conclusions  of  Mr. 
Galton's  nothing  to  shock  their  conceptions  of  what  ought 
to  be  the  causes,  tenor  and  temper  of  a  religious  life.  There 


46  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

are  those  who  still  repeat,  with  Cowper,  that  this  world  is, 
and  ought  to  be,  a  Vale  of  Tears,  and  that  a  very  proper 
way  to  view  our  position  therein  is  to  liken  ourselves  to 
"  crowded  forest  -trees,  marked  to  fall."  To  such  persons, 
no  doubt,  it  is  natural  to  pass  through  the  varied  joys  and 
interests  of  youth,  manhood  and  old  age,  plaintively  ob 
serving  to  all  whom  it  may  concern,  that  they 

Drag  the  dull  remains  of  life 
Along  the  tiresome  road. 

But  these  worthy  people  have  certainly  been  in  a  minority 
for  the  last  twenty  years,  since  the  Psalm  of  Life  took  de 
finitively  the  place  of  the  lugubrious  "  Stanzas  subjoined  to 
the  Bills  of  Mortality."  And  to  us  in  our  day  it  is  un 
doubtedly  somewhat  of  a  blow  to  be  told  that  Religion, 
instead  of  being  (as  the  old  Hebrews  believed)  the  correlative 
of  health  and  cheerfulness  and  length  of  years,  is,  on  the 
contrary,  near  akin  to  disease ;  and  that  he  among  men  whom, 
the  Creator  has  blessed  with  the  soundest  body  and  coolest 
brain,  is,  by  some  fiendish  fatality,  the  least  likely  of  all  to 
give  his  heart  to  Gfod  or  devote  his  manly  strength  to  His 
cause.  The  Glorious  Company  of  the  Apostles  is  reduced  to 
a  band  of  invalids,  and  the  Noble  Army  of  Martyrs  is  all  on 
the  sick  list ! 

Is  this  true  ?  Shall  we  sit  down  quietly  under  this  dic 
tum  of  Mr.  Galton's,  and  agree  for  the  future  to  consider 
health  and  piety  as  mutually  antagonistic  ?  For  my  own 
part,  I  must  confess  that  if  facts  really  drove  me  to  such  a 
conclusion,  I  should  be  inclined  to  say,  with  the  French 
philosopher  contradicted  in  his  theories,  "  Eh  bien,  mes 
sieurs  !  tant  pis  pour  les  faits ! "  No  statistics  should  lash 
my  (private)  opinion  over  that  six- barred  gate.  But  are  we 
reallv  driven  to  such  straits  at  all  ?  It  seems  to  me  that 
Mr.  Gralton's  own  words  give  us  the  key  to  the  whole  mys 
tery,  and  to  a  very  important  truth  beside.  He  tells  us  at 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  47 

starting  that  though  Middleton  assures  the  reader  that  no 
bigoted  partiality  rules  his  selection  of  divines,  yet  that  "  it 
is  easy  to  see  his  leaning  is  strongly  towards  the  Calvin- 
ists."  His  196  picked  men  are  chosen  (honestly  enough, 
no  doubt)  from  the  churches  in  which  more  or  less  closely 
the  Evangelical  type  of  piety  was  adhered  to  as  the  stan 
dard  of  holiness.  No  Unitarian  or  Latitudinarian,  no  Deist 
or  Freethinker,  had  a  chance  of  admission  into  his  lists. 
We  have  thus  196  specimens  of  the  plants  reared  in  the 
peculiar  hot-beds  of  the  dominant  Protestantism  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  Let  us  take  them, 
then,  by  all  means,  and  reason  on  them  as  excellent  exam 
ples,  1st,  of  the  persons  on  whom  that  creed  was  calculated 
to  fasten ;  and,  2ndly,  of  what  really  fine  characters  it  was 
able  to  form.  But  do  not  let  us  be  misled  for  a  moment 
into  the  use  of  generalizations  implying  that  it  is  "piety" 
pur  et  simple,  piety  as  it  must  always  be,  or  always  ought 
to  be,  which  is  intrinsically  "  unsuited  to  a  robust  consti 
tution/'  and  specially  calculated  to  take  root  in  a  sickly 
one.  Do  not  let  us  rest  content  with  the  picture  of  "the 
gently  complaining  and  fatigued  spirit,"  as  if  it  were  the 
normal  spirit  of  any  other  pious  folk  than  those  of  the 
orthodox  persuasion. 

And,  again,  does  not  this  remarkable  fact  discovered  by 
Mr.  Galton,  namely,  the  physical  sickliness  attendant  on 
the  prevalent  forms  of  Christian  piety,  let  in  some  light  on 
the  fact  which  has  been  so  often  noticed,  but  so  little 
explained,  namely,  the  lack  of  manliness  among  clergymen, 
bishops  and  "  professors "  at  large  ?  If  the  phenomenon 
were  not  so  familiar,  it  would  surely  be  the  most  astonish 
ing  in  the  world,  that  the  preachers  of  religion  and  morality 
should  be  as  a  body  less  straightforward,  less  simple,  less 
brave,  than  other  men.  When  a  clergyman  twaddles  and 
cants  and  equivocates ;  or  when  one  Bishop  "  chalks  up  Free 


48  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

Thought  and  runs  away;"  or  another  talks  blasphemously 
of  "The  Voice"  guiding  him  to  exchange  a  poor  and  pro 
vincial  See  for  a  rich  one  with  a  good  town -house ;  or, 
finally,  when  "  eminent  saints  "  prove  dishonest  bankers, — 
how  is  it  that  we  do  not  all  wring  our  hands  and  cry  that 
the  heavens  are  falling  ?  Why  do  we  only  nod  our  heads 
lugubriously  and  observe,  "  "What  a  different  sort  of  man  is 
the  Rev.  A.  B.'s  brother,  Captain  C.  D.,  of  the  Navy,  or 
Colonel  E.  F.,  of  the  — th  Dragoons  !  "  or,  "  How  the  episco 
pal  apron  transforms  a  man  into  an  old  woman  ! "  or,  "  How 
very  dangerous  it  is  to  have  dealings  with  the  saints  !  " l 

Things  like  these  ought  to  strike  us  dumb  with  amaze 
ment  and  horror,  had  not  experience  hardened  us  to  a  vague 
anticipation  of  a  correlation  between  an  extraordinary  dis 
play  of  Christian  sentiment  and  a  proportionate  lack  of  the 
element  of  manly  honesty  and  courage.  Without  forrnu- 
larizing  our  ideas  on  the  matter,  there  are  few  of  us  who, 
if  we  were  attacked  by  robbers  in  a  house  with  a  saintly 
clergyman  upstairs  and  a  profane  man  of  the  world  below, 
would  not  rush  first  to  seek  our  defender  in  the  lower  story. 
Again,  in  matters  of  veracity,  to  whose  recommendation  of  a 
servant  or  a  teacher  do  we  attach  most  value — that  of  the 
pious  vicar  of  the  parish,  or  that  of  the  fox-hunting  squire  ? 
Not  to  pursue  these  illustrations  further,  I  think  my  position 
will  be  hardly  gainsaid  if  I  assert  that,  while  the  theo 
logical  virtues,  faith,  hope,  charity,  purity,  and  resignation, 
flourish  abundantly  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Church,  the 
merely  moral  virtues,  courage,  fortitude,  honesty,  generosity 
and  veracity,  are  found  to  grow  more  vigorously  elsewhere. 
It  is  not  of  course  maintained  that  either  side  of  the  wall 


1  We  have  heard  an  authentic  story  of  a  clergyman  who,  being  present  at  a 
prayer-meeting  at  which  Sir  John  Dean  Paul  engaged  in  devotion,  immediately 
afterwards  rushed  up  to  town  and  drew  all  his  money  out  of  the  too  pious 
banker's  hands ! 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  49 

lias  a  monopoly  of  either  class  of  virtues ;  but  that  the 
priestly  or  evangelical  character  has  a  tendency  to  form 
a  distinct  type  of  its  own  ;  and  that  in  that  type  there  is 
a  preponderance  of  the  more  fragile  and  feeble  virtues, 
and  a  corresponding  deficiency  in  those  which  are  healthy, 
robust  and  masculine.  " Muscular  Christianity"  is  a  modern 
innovation,  a  hazardous  and  not  over- successful  attempt 
to  combine  physical  vigour  and  spiritual  devotion ;  and  the 
very  convulsiveness  of  the  efforts  of  its  apostles  to  achieve 
such  a  harmony  affords  the  best  possible  proof  of  how 
widely  apart  to  all  our  apprehensions  had  previously  been 
"  Muscularity"  and  "  Christianity." 

But  all  these  remarks  apply  to  what  has  hitherto  passed 
muster  as  the  received  type  of  piety,  and  not  by  any  means 
to  Piety  in  the  abstract  apart  from  its  orthodox  colouring. 
The  unmanliness  belongs  wholly  to  the  mould,  and  not  to 
the  thing  moulded.  No  man  has  ever  yet  felt  himself,  or 
been  felt  by  others  to  be,  less  manly  because  in  public  or  in 
private  he  has  professed  his  faith  in  God  and  his  allegiance 
towards  Him.  The  noblest  line  perhaps  in  all  French 
poetry  is  that  which  Racine  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Jewish  High-priest, 

"  Je  crains  Dieu,  cher  Abner,  et  n'ai  point  d'autre  crainte." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  same  cannot  be  said  of  the 
profession  of  belief  in  sundry  doctrines  of  orthodoxy.  The 
urgency  of  a  man's  dread  of  hell-fire,  his  anxiety  to  obtain 
the  benefits  of  the  Atonement,  and  his  undisguised  rejoicing 
that  "  Christ  his  Passover  is  slain  for  him,"  are  none  of 
them  sentiments  to  which  we  attach  the  character  of  man 
liness  or  generosity. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  point  on  which  the  religion  of  the 
future  is  so  certain  to  differ  from  that  of  the  past,  as  in  its 
comparative  healthfulness  of  spirit.  And  just  as  a  sickly 

4 


4 

50  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

creed,  full  of  dreadful  threats  and  mystic  ways  of  expiation, 
appealed  to  minds  more  or  less  morbidly  constituted,  so  it 
is  to  be  believed  that  a  thoroughly  healthy  and  manly 
creed  will  harmonize  no  less  distinctly  with  natures  happy, 
healthful  and  normally  developed. 

From  this  branch  of  the  subject  we  pass  to  a  most 
curious  and  original  analysis  which  Mr.  Galton  has  made 
of  what  he  considers  the  typical  religious  character.  It 
must  be  premised  that  in  another  part  of  his  book  he  has 
broached  the  doctrine,  that  the  sense  of  incompleteness  and 
imperfection  which  theologians  define  to  be  the  sense  of 
Original  Sin,  is  probably  only  our  vague  sense  that  we  are 
as  yet  not  thoroughly  trained  to  the  conditions  of  civilized 
life  in  which  we  find  ourselves,  and  that  there  yet  remains 
in  us  too  much  of  the  wild  beast,  or  at  least  of  the  hunter 
and  the  nomad,  to  accommodate  ourselves  perfectly  with  the 
polished  forms  of  life  in  our  age  and  country.  "  The  sense 
of  original  sin,"  he  says,1  "would  show,  according  to  my 
theory,  not  that  man  was  fallen  from  a  high  estate,  but 
that  he  was  rising  in  moral  culture  with  more  rapidity  than 
the  nature  of  his  race  could  follow."  Generations  hence, 
when  civilization  has  thoroughly  done  its  work,  and  the 
instincts  of  sudden  passion  and  unreasoning  selfishness  and 
impatience  of  law  and  rule  have  died  out  of  the  whole 
human  family,  then  we  may  expect  the  vague  sense  of 
imperfection  and  guilt  to  die  out  too.  We  are,  if  I  may 
venture  to  suggest  the  simile  to  Mr.  Galton,  at  the  present 
day  much  in  the  condition  of  that  unhappy  bird,  the  Apteryx. 
Through  long  ages  of  gradual  disuse  of  flying,  our  wings 
have  grown  smaller  and  weaker,  so  that  if  we  desired  to 
return  to  the  habits  of  our  remote  progenitors,  we  should 
infallibly  come  to  the  ground.  But  the  vestiges  of  the 
pinions  are  still  there,  more  or  less  hidden  under  our 

1  Page  350. 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  51 

plumage,  and  so  long  as  they  are  to  be  felt,  we  cannot  help 
flapping  them  sometimes  and  pining  for  a  flight.  The  dis 
covery  that  we  can  neither  be  happy  flying  or  walking, 
barbarous  or  civilized,  constitutes  the  grand  discontent  of 
life.  The  sense  that  we  are  always  inclined  to  make  flaps 
and  flights  and  fall  on  our  beaks  in  the  dust,  is  the  natural 
element  in  Original  Sin. 

On  this  very  singular  idea  Mr.  Galton  evidently  proceeds, 
in  the  part  of  his  book  under  present  consideration,  to 
define  what  he  deems  to  be  the  typical  Religious  Character. 
He  holds  that  its  chief  feature  is  its  conscious  moral  insta 
bility.  It  is  the  conjunction  of  warm  affections  and  high 
aspirations  with  frequent  failures  and  downfalls,  which 
makes  a  man  alike  sensible  of  his  own  frailty  and  inclined 
to  rely  on  the  serene  Strength  which  he  believes  rules 
above  him.  The  religious  man  is  "  liable  to  extremes  ;  now 
swinging  forwards  into  regions  of  enthusiasm,  now  back 
wards  into  those  of  sensuality  and  selfishness."  David,  in 
fact,  the  David  who  both  slew  Uriah  and  wrote  the  peni 
tential  psalms,  is  the  eternal  type  of  the  godly  man  ;  and 
it  is  much  more  easy  to  find  Davids  among  semi-civilized 
Judaean  shepherds  or  Negroes  or  Celts  than  among  long 
civilized  races  such  as  the  Chinese. 

With  this  religious  type  Mr.  Galton  contrasts  the  ideal 
Sceptic,  and  concludes  that  the  differences  of  character 
which  in  the  one  case  make  a  man  happy  in  the  belief  in 
a  Divine  Guide  and  Father,  and  in  the  other,  content  in  a 
mental  state  tantamount  to  Atheism,  must  needs  lie  in 
this,  that  while  the  Religious  man  is  conscious  of  his  in 
firmity  of  will  and  instability  of  resolution,  insomuch  that 
he  needs  the  thought  of  God  for  his  support,  the  Sceptic, 
on  the  contrary,  is  sufficiently  sure  of  himself  and  confident 
in  his  own  self- guidance  to  feel  comparatively  no  such  need 
for  external  aid,  and  to  be  able  without  pain  to  stifle  any 


52  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

instinctive  longings  for  a  Divine  Protector  which  may  arise 
in  his  heart.  In  other  words,  as  Religion  had  been  pre 
viously  found  to  be  correlated  with  a  feeble  physical  con 
stitution,  so  here  it  is  identified  with  a  moral  constitution 
feverish,  vacillating  and  incapable  of  self-reliance.  The 
sceptic,  on  the  contrary,  is  no  longer  to  be  looked  on,  as  we 
had  pictured  him,  as  a  man  in  whom  the  moral  nature  never 
rises  to  the  spring-tide  where  its  waves  break  at  the  feet  of 
Gfod.  He  is  the  exalted  being  whose  whole  moral  and 
intellectual  economy  is  in  such  perfect  balance  and  harmony, 
that  he  can  say  with  Heine,  "  I  am  no  longer  a  child.  I  do 
not  need  any  more  a  Heavenly  Father." 

These  views,  which  Mr.  Galton  has  by  no  means  illus 
trated  in  the  above  manner,  but  which  I  think  I  do  him  no 
injustice  in  so  translating,  are,  in  my  humble  judgment, 
among  the  most  original  and  striking  of  any  of  the  theories 
propounded  on  these  subjects  for  many  a  day.  That  there 
is  a  considerable  element  of  truth  in  them,  I  must  heartily 
acknowledge,  albeit  I  would  read  it  in  a  somewhat  different 
sense  from  Mr.  Galton.  The  impulsive  temperament  is 
beyond  question  by  far  the  most  genuinely  religious  tem 
perament.  The  calm,  cold,  prudential  nature,  when  it  adopts 
religion,  does  so  as  an  additional  precaution  of  prudence, 
and  is  "  other- worldly "  neither  more  nor  less  than  it  is 
worldly.  Real,  spontaneous,  self- forgetful  religion,  springs 
and  flourishes  in  the  heart  which  is  swayed  by  feeling,  not 
by  interest.  Nay,  more :  the  sense  of  Sin,  which  is  the 
deepest  part  of  all  true  piety  is  (we  cannot  doubt)  far  more 
vivid  in  natures  wherein  much  of  the  wild,  untamed  human 
being  still  survives,  which  are  swayed  alternately  by  oppo 
site  motives,  and  are  yet  far  from  having  been  so  disciplined 
and  moulded  in  the  school  of  the  world  as  to  be  mere 
civilized  machines.  Probably  it  has  happened  to  all  of  us 
at  some  time  or  other  to  wish  that  we  could  see  some  self- 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  53 

satisfied  paragon  of  steadiness  and  respectability  fall  for 
once  into  some  disgraceful  fault,  get  drunk,  or  swear,  or  do 
something  which  should  shake  him  out  of  his  self-conceit, 
and  give  him  a  chance  to  learn  that  Religion  and  Pharisaism 
are  not  convertible  terms.  Many  of  us  also  must  have 
watched  the  deplorable  delusion  of  some  originally  good  and 
always  well-balanced  character,  in  which,  as  there  seems 
no  need  for  self-restraint,  no  self-restraint  is  ever  tried,  and 
amiability  lapses  into  self-indulgence,  and  self-indulgence 
into  selfishness,  and  selfishness  into  hypocrisy  and  hardness 
of  heart. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  permanent  Sceptic  is  probably 
equally  fairly  described  as  a  man  who  has  not  only  made 
up  his  mind  to  the  intellectual  conclusion  that  there  is 
nothing  to  be  known  about  God,  but  also  has  reconciled  his 
heart  to  the  lack  of  religious  supports  and  consolations 
through  the  help  of  a  sturdy  self-reliance.  Either  he  is  a 
sinner  without  any  particular  shame  or  hatred  for  his  sin  ; 
or,  as  oftener  happens,  he  is  of  so  passionless  a  temperament, 
so  prudent  and  well-balanced  a  constitution,  that  he  recog 
nizes  few  sins  to  repent  of  in  the  past,  and  knows  that  no 
serious  temptation  is  likely  to  overmaster  him  in  the  future. 
In  every  case,  the  double  sense  of  self-abasement  and  self- 
mistrust  are  absent.  He  has  110  need  to  be  reconciled  with 
himself,  so  he  feels  no  need  of  being  reconciled  with  God. 
He  walks  firmly  along  a  certain  broad  and  beaten  path  of 
ordinary  honesty,  justice,  and  sobriety,  without  toiling  up 
celestial  heights  in  the  pursuit  of  love  and  faith  and  purity ; 
and  for  his  own  road,  and  so  far  as  he  means  to  travel,  he 
calls  for  no  angels  to  bear  him  on  their  wings. 

Lastly,  it  is  easy  to  verify  the  fact,  that  these  tempera 
ments  correspond  in  their  main  outlines  to  the  races  and 
sexes  in  which  religion  and  scepticism  are  each  most  fre 
quently  developed.  The  impulsive  races  of  mankind,  the 


54  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

Southern  nations  of  Europe,  are  more  inclined  to  religion 
and  less  to  incredulity  than  those  of  the  North.  The  un 
stable  Celt  is  more  pious,  whether  he  be  Catholic  in  Ireland 
or  Methodist  in  "Wales,  than  the  steady-going,  law-abiding 
Saxon  of  any  denomination.  And,  finally,  women  are  more 
religious  than  men,  while  displaying  usually  more  vacilla 
tion  of  the  will  and  (probably  in  most  cases)  higher  as 
pirations  after  ideal  holiness  and  purity. 

What  is  now  to  be  our  conclusion  respecting  Mr.  Galton's 
theory  of  the  Origin  of  Piety  ?  We  have  seen,  in  the  first 
instance,  that  he  identifies  it  with  a  sickly  physical  consti 
tution,  and  I  ventured  so  far  to  correct  this  result  as  to 
substitute  for  Piety  in  general,  Piety  in  the  particular  form 
of  Evangelical  Christianity.  I  pointed  out  that  it  was 
only  from  among  Evangelical  Divines  that  the  premisses 
of  his  argument  had  been  taken,  and  that  there  was  a  very 
strong  presumption  that  Piety  equally  deep  and  true,  but 
of  an  opposite  type,  would,  on  experience,  be  found  to  show 
a  no  less  marked  affinity  for  those  "  robust  constitutions  " 
wherein  the  orthodox  seed  finds  an  ungenial  soil. 

In  the  present  case,  we  have  to  decide  whether  we  can 
admit  Mr.  Galton's  second  correlation  of  Piety  with  moral 
instability  of  purpose.  In  my  opinion,  we  may  rightly 
trace  in  this  case  a  relation  between  all  true  types  of  piety 
and  such  instability,  provided  that  we  interpret  the  insta 
bility  to  consist,  not  in  an  unusual  degree  of  frailty  in  acting 
up  to  a  mediocre  standard  of  virtue,  not  in  having  merely, 
as  he  avers,  a  greater  "  amplitude  of  moral  oscillations  than 
other  men  of  equal  average  position,"  but  in  a  necessarily 
imperfect  attempt  to  act  up  to  a  standard  higher  than  that 
commonly  received,  and  for  which  the  man  (to  apply  Mr. 
Galton's  system)  has  not  been  sufficiently  highly  bred. 

What,  then,  is  the  bearing  of  our  admission  as  regards 
this  matter  ?  It  is  tantamount  only  to  this :  that  the  tern- 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  55 

perament  which  contains  the  noblest  elements  and  aspires 
highest,  even  if  it  fall  lowest,  is  also  the  nature  on  which 
the  crowning  glory  of  the  love  of  God  most  often  descends. 
Just  as  Longinus  decides  that  the  greatest  poem  is  not 
the  one  which  longest  sustains  an  even  flight,  but  the  one 
which  ever  and  anon  soars  into  the  highest  empyrean,  even 
so  the  man  who  in  his  highest  moments  rises  highest  is 
truly  the  greatest  man.  It  is  he  who,  though  his  nature 
be  a  very  chaos  of  passions — a  den  of  wild  beasts,  as  many 
of  the  saints  have  spoken  of  their  own  souls — yet  has  in 
him  longings  and  strivings  and  yearnings  after  the  Holy 
and  the  Perfect ;  it  is  he  who  is  not  only  naturally  predis 
posed  to  piety,  but  worthy  to  know  the  joy  of  religion.  Out 
of  such  stuff  demi-gods  are  made.  Out  of  well-ordered, 
prudent,  self-reliant  sceptics,  men  of  the  world  are  made, 
and  nothing  more. 

It  is,  I  apprehend,  a  definite  and  very  valuable  acquisition 
to  psychology,  to  recognize  that  it  is  not  by  accident,  but 
natural  law,  that  the  characters  wherein  flesh  and  spirit  do 
hardest  battle,  and  Apollyon  not  seldom  gains  temporary 
advantage,  are  yet  precisely  those  who  are  "  bound  for  the 
Celestial  City."  Mr.  Worldly- Wiseman  never  descends  into 
the  Yalley  of  Humiliation ;  but  neither  does  he  ever  climb  the 
Delectable  Mountains  nor  push  through  the  Golden  Gates. 

With  regard  to  the  hereditary  descent  of  religious  as  well 
as  other  qualities,  Mr.  Galton  developes  his  theory  in  the 
following  manner.  Starting  on  the  assumption  that  the 
typical  religious  man  is  one  who  combines  high  moral  gifts 
with  instability  of  character,  it  is  obvious  that  if  one  of  the 
two  elements  whose  combination  makes  the  parent's  piety 
is  separately  inherited  by  the  son,  an  opposite  result  will 
appear.  If  the  son's  heritage  "  consist  of  the  moral  gifts 
without  the  instability,  he  will  not  feel  the  need  of  extreme 


56  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

piety,"  and  may  become  Mr.  Gallon's  ideal  sceptic.  "  If  he 
inherit  great  instability  without  morality,  he  may  very  pro 
bably  disgrace  his  name."  Only  in  the  third  contingency, 
namely,  that  of  the  son  inheriting  both  the  father's  qualities, 
is  there  any  security  for  his  following  in  the  parental  steps. 

Thus  we  have  an  explanation  more  or  less  satisfactory 
of  the  double  phenomenon,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
hereditary  piety,  and  that  there  is  also  an  occasional  (though 
I  hardly  think  a  very  common)  tendency  for  the  sons  of  a 
really  religious  man  to  turn  out  either  sceptics  or  repro 
bates.  So  far  as  my  judgment  goes,  I  should  say  that  the 
common  disposition  of  children  is  to  share  in  a  very  marked 
manner  the  emotional  religious  constitutions  of  their  parents, 
and  that  this  is  only  counteracted  when  piety  is  presented  to 
them  in  so  repulsive  a  shape,  as  to  provoke  the  over-lectured 
"little  Samuels"  into  rebellion.  There  are  two  facts  connected 
with  such  heritage  which  must  have  forced  themselves  on 
the  attention  of  all  my  readers.  One  of  them  falls  in  with 
Mr.  Gallon's  theories  of  heredity,  but  the  other  must  needs 
be  explained  by  reference  to  post-natal  influences.  The  first 
is  the  tendency  of  strong  religious  feeling  to  pervade  whole 
families.  The  second  is  the  equally  strong  tendency  of  the 
different  members  of  such  religious  families  to  adopt  different 
creeds  and  types  of  piety  from  one  another,  insomuch  that 
the  sympathy  which  ought  to  have  united  them  in  closer 
bonds  than  other  households  is  too  often  converted  into  a 
source  of  dissensions. 

These  two  facts  will,  I  think,  be  disputed  by  few  observers. 
All  of  us  are  acquainted  with  families  in  which  no  vehement 
warmth  of  religion  has  ever  shown  itself,  and  in  which, 
according  to  Evangelical  language,  "conversions"  never  take 
place.  Again,  we  all  know,  personally,  a  few,  and  by  report 
a  great  many  families,  where  for  successive  generations  there 
are  men  and  women  of  either  saintly  piety  or  fanatic  zeal. 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  57 


As  Hindoos  would  say,  there  are  Brahmin  races  in  which 
twice-born  men  are  found,  and  Kshatriyas  and  Soodras  in 
which  the  phenomenon  of  regeneration  never  occurs. 

This  remarkable  fact  may,  of  course,  be  explained  doubly. 
There  is  the  hereditary  tendency  to  the  religious  constitution ; 
and  there  are  all  the  thousand  circumstances  of  youthful  im 
pression  likely  to  bring  that  tendency  into  action.  Family 
traditions  of  deeds  and  words,  family  pictures,  and  of  course 
family  habits  of  devotion,  where  these  are  maintained,  are 
incentives  of  incalculable  weight.  It  would  be  hard  for  the 
present  writer  to  define  how  much  of  her  own  earlier  feelings 
on  such  matters  were  due  to  a  handful  of  books  of  the 
Fenelon  school  of  devotion,  left  by  chance  in  an  old  library, 
the  property  of  a  long  dead  ancestress. 

But  if  the  fact  of  hereditary  piety  be  easily  explicable, 
who  is  to  explain  to  us  the  mystery  of  the  radiation  in 
opposite  directions  of  the  theological  compass,  so  frequently 
witnessed  in  the  sons  and  daughters  of  these  particular 
homes  ?  Do  we  see  in  an  Evangelical  family  one  son  become 
a  Roman  Catholic  ?  Then,  ten  to  one,  another  will  ere 
long  avow  himself  an  Unitarian.  Does  sister  A  enter  an 
Anglican  convent  ?  Then  brother  B  will  probably  become 
a  Plymouth  brother  ;  while  C,  having  gone  through  a  dozen 
phases  of  faith,  will  settle  finally  in  Theism. 

It  seems  to  be  a  law,  that  though  the  predisposition  to  piety 
may  be  conveyed  by  our  parents  both  by  blood  and  education, 
yet  the  awakening  to  strong  spiritual  life  rarely  or  never 
happens  under  their  influence,  or  that  of  any  one  altogether 
familiar  with  us.  The  spark  must  be  kindled  by  a  more  dis 
tant  torch,  the  pollen  brought  from  a  remoter  flower.  When 
the  mysterious  process  does  not  take  place  wholly  spon 
taneously,  it  comes  from  some  person  who  adds  a  fresh 
impetus  and  keener  sympathy  to  elements  hitherto  dormant 
in  our  souls.  Then  happens  the  marvellous  "  palingenesia  ;  " 


58  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

and  whether  he  who  has  helped  to  work  it  be  of  one  creed 
or  another,  he  colours  the  spiritual  world  for  us  at  that  deci 
sive  hour  and  evermore.  We  do  not  "  adopt  his  opinions ;  " 
we  seize  by  sympathy  on  his  faith,  and  make  our  own  both 
its  strength  and  its  limitations. 

If  we  admit,  on  the  whole,  Mr.  Galton's  views  with  these 
modifications,  the  serious  questions  arise :  What  must  be 
their  general  bearing  on  our  theories  of  the  Order  of  Pro 
vidence  ;  and  on  our  anticipations  respecting  the  probable 
future  of  Eeligion  ?  Is  it  not,  in  the  first  place  (as  our  fathers 
would  certainly  have  held),  injurious  to  the  Divine  character 
to  suppose  that  men  are  in  this  new  sense  "  elected "  to 
piety  by  the  accident  of  birth,  or,  conversely,  left  so  poorly 
endowed  with  the  religious  sentiment,  that  their  attainment 
of  a  high  grade  of  devotion  is  extremely  improbable  ?  And 
in  the  second  place,  if  the  impulsiA^e  character  be  the  most 
genuinely  religious,  and  the  tendency  of  civilization  be  to 
reduce  all  impulse  to  a  minimum,  is  there  not  reason  to  ap 
prehend  that  in  the  course  of  centuries  Religion,  no  longer 
finding  its  fitting  soil  in  human  characters,  will  dwindle 
and  continually  lessen  its  influence  ?  I  shall  do  my  best  to 
answer  both  these  questions  honestly  in  succession. 

The  blasphemy  of  the  Calvinistic  doctrines  of  Predesti 
nation  and  Election  does  not  lie  in  their  representing  God 
as  dealing  differently  with  His  creatures  A  and  B,  but  in 
representing  Him  as  inflicting  on  B  an  infinite  penalty  for 
no  fault  of  his  own,  or,  as  we  should  say  in  common  par 
lance,  for  his  ill-luck  in  having  been  born  B  and  not  A. 
Repudiating  all  ideas  of  such  penalties,  and  of  any  final  evil 
for  a  creature  of  God,  insisting,  as  the  first  article  of  our  faith, 

"  that  somehow  good, 
Shall  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will, 
Defects  of  doubt  and  taints  of  blood" 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  59 


the  doctrine  of  Election  is  reduced  to  dimensions  which  it 
would  be  hard  for  one  who  has  cast  an  eye  over  history 
or  society  altogether  to  deny.  The  inequalities  of  moral 
advantages  in  education  and  the  circumstances  of  life  are 
as  obvious  as  the  inequalities  of  height,  weight,  ability,  for 
tune,  or  any  other  of  the  conditions  allotted  to  us  by  Pro 
vidence.  If  we  mortals  would  fain  have  constructed  the 
world  on  the  plan  of  the  Spartan  commonwealth,  and  given 
each  man  an  equal  share  of  the  good  things  thereof,  it  is 
quite  certain  that  God  entertains  no  such  scheme,  and  that 
the  principle  of  infinite  Yariety  which  prevails  over  every  leaf 
and  blade  of  grass,  approves  itself  to  His  supreme  judgment 
no  less  perfectly,  applied  to  the  gifts  and  conditions  of  His 
rational  creatures.  Is  there  anything  in  this  to  hurt  our 
sense  of  justice  ?  It  is  to  be  trusted  that  there  is  not, 
seeing  that,  if  it  were  so,  religious  reverence  must  be  at  an 
end,  since  no  argument  can  possibly  overthrow  the  omni 
present  fact  before  our  eyes.  The  uneasiness  we  feel  in 
contemplating  it  arises,  I  believe,  from  causes  all  destined 
to  vanish  with  the  progress  of  a  nobler  theology.  Beside 
the  idea  of  the  final  perdition  of  the  sinful  which  it  is  so 
difficult  ever  thoroughly  to  root  out  of  our  minds,  we  are 
hampered  with  a  dozen  false  conceptions  all  allied  thereto. 
We  think  that  all  acts  which  we  call  sins,  and  which  would 
be  sins  for  us  who  recognize  them  as  such  and  have  no 
urgent  temptations  to  commit  them,  are  necessarily  the 
same  sins  to  the  ignorant,  the  helpless,  and  besotted ;  and 
we  dream  that  Divine  Justice  must  somehow  vindicate 
itself  against  them  in  the  next  life.  We  make  no  sufficient 
allowance  for  the  immeasurable  difference  of  the  standard 
by  which  the  Pharisee  and  the  Publican  must  be  weighed. 
We  forget  how,  when  the  poor  bodily  frames,  so  often 
disgraced,  fall  away  at  last  into  the  dust,  the  souls  which 
wore  them,  released  from  all  their  contaminations,  may 


60  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

arise,  purer  than  we  can  think,  cleaner  than  we  can  know, 
to  the  higher  worlds  above.  Least  of  all  do  we  take 
count  of  the  comparative  responsibility  which  must  belong 
to  what  must  be  called  the  comparative  sanity  of  human 
beings.  In  the  very  remarkable  and  exhaustive  treatise 
whose  title  I  have  placed  second  at  the  head  of  this 
article,  there  is  to  be  found  a  most  elaborate  analysis  of 
scores  of  cases  of  heinous  crime  committed  of  late  years 
in  France.  Making  allowance  for  the  author's  zeal 
leading  him  to  push  his  conclusions  somewhat  beyond 
what  his  premisses  warrant,  the  multitude  of  these  crimes, 
which  he  gives  us  good  reasons  to  believe  were  committed 
either  under  temporary  aberration  of  mind  or  congenital 
moral  idiotcy,  are  perfectly  appalling.  Little  doubt  can 
remain  on  any  reader's  mind  that  multitudes  of  men  and 
women  are  so  constituted  as  to  have  but  an  infinitesimal 
share  of  moral  responsibility.  The  most  atrocious  crimes 
are  often  precisely  those  which,  on  learning  the  utter  insen 
sibility  displayed  from  first  to  last  by  the  perpetrators,  we 
are  obliged  most  distinctly  to  class  with  such  maniacal 
homicides  as  that  of  poor  Lamb's  sister,  or  with  the  ravages 
of  a  man-eating  tiger  in  an  Indian  village. 

Again,  the  inequalities  of  moral  endowment  become  salient 
to  our  apprehension  when  we  contemplate  the  different  races 
of  mankind.  Who  can  imagine  for  a  moment  that  the  same 
measure  will  be  meted  to  a  Malay  or  a  Kaffir  assassin  as  to 
an  English  Pritchard  or  a  French  La  Pommerais  ? 

But  (it  may  be  said)  we  are  not  now  concerned  about  the 
righteous  judgments  of  God  on  human  transgressions.  We 
are  content  to  believe  they  will  be  meted  out  with  absolute 
impartiality  at  last.  What  is  painful  in  the  theory  of 
Hereditary  Piety  is  the  idea  that,  through  such  material 
instrumentality  as  natural  birth,  the  most  divine  of  all  gifts 
should  be  bestowed  or  denied,  and  that,  in  fact,  a  pious  man 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  61 

owes  his  piety  not  so  much  (as  we  had  ever  believed)  to  the 
direct  action  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  his  soul,  blowing  like  the 
wind  where  it  listeth,  but  rather  to  his  earthly  father's  physi 
cal  bequest  of  a  constitution  adapted  to  the  religious  emotions. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  the  two  views,  that  of  the 
need  for  the  free  inspiration  of  God's  Spirit,  and  that  of  the 
heritage  of  what  we  will  call  the  religious  constitution,  are 
in  themselves  incompatible.  The  one  is  the  seed  which 
must  needs  be  sown  ;  the  other  is  the  ground,  more  or  less 
rich  and  well  prepared,  into  which  it  must  be  cast.  That 
among  those  natural  laws  which  are  simply  the  permanent 
mode  of  Divine  action,  should  be  found  the  law  that  the 
ground-work  of  piety  may  be  laid  through  generations,  and 
that  the  godly  man  may  bequeath  to  his  child  not  only  a 
body  free  from  the  diseases  entailed  by  vice,  but  also  a  mind 
specially  qualified  for  all  high  and  pure  emotions, — this,  I 
think,  ought  to  be  no  great  stumbling-block.  That  there  is 
something  else  necessary  beside  a  constitutional  receptivity 
towards  pious  emotions,  and  that  there  remains  as  much  as 
ever  for  God  to  do  for  man's  soul  after  we  have  supposed 
he  has  inherited  such  receptivity,  is,  I  think,  sufficiently  clear. 

But  how  of  those  who  inherit  no  such  character,  but 
rather  the  opposite  tendency  towards  absorption  in  purely 
secular  interests,  towards  incredulity,  or  towards  that  evenly- 
balanced  nature  which  Mr.  Galton  attributes  to  the  typical 
sceptic,  and  is  alike  without  penitence  and  without  "  am 
bition  sainte"?  Surely  we  have  only  to  admit  that  here 
is  one  more  of  the  thousand  cases  in  which  this  world's 
tuitions  are  extended  only  to  the  elementary  parts  of  that 
moral  education  which  is  to  go  on  for  eternity  ?  That  God 
teaches  a  few  of  us  some  lessons  here,  which  others  must 
wait  to  learn  hereafter,  is  as  certain  as  that  infants,  idolators, 
idiots  and  boors,  are  not  on  the  intellectual  level  of  Plato  or 
the  moral  level  of  Christ.  That  it  is  all  the  more  (and  not 


62  HEREDITARY  PIETY. 

the  less)  certain  that  an  immortality  of  knowledge  and  love 
awaits  these  disinherited  ones  of  earth  and  "  trims  the 
balance  of  eternity,"  appears  to  me  the  most  direct  of  all 
deductions  from  the  justice  and  goodness  of  God. 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  every  human  soul  has  its 
special  task  and  its  special  help.  Some  of  us  have  to  toil 
against  merely  gross  sensual  passion.  Others  are  raised  a 
step  higher,  and  fight  with  less  ignoble  irascible  feelings 
and  selfish  ambitions.  Yet,  again,  others  rise  above  all  these. 
But  is  their  work  therefore  at  an  end  ?  Not  so.  Metaphy 
sical  doubts,  moral  despondencies,  spiritual  vanities,  meet 
them  and  buffet  them  in  the  higher  air  to  which  they  have 
ascended ;  and  who  may  say  that  their  battle  is  not  hardest 
of  all  ?  To  help  us  to  contend  against  these  difficulties, 
one  of  us  is  blessed  with  happy  circumstances,  another 
has  a  sunny  and  loving  disposition,  a  third  is  gifted  with  a 
stern  moral  sense,  and  a  fourth  with  a  fervent  love  for  God. 
He  who  sees  all  these  springs  and  wheels  moving  with  or 
against  one  another,  can  alone  judge  which  is  the  noblest 
victor  among  all  the  combatants. 

Lastly,  we  have  to  touch  the  question,  whether  the  ten 
dency  of  Civilization  to  check  the  impulsive  temperament 
and  foster  the  more  balanced  prudential  character,  will  in 
future  time  re-act  upon  Religion  by  suppressing  the  develop 
ment  of  those  natures  in  which  it  now  takes  easiest  root. 

At  first  sight,  it  would  undoubtedly  appear  that  such 
might  be  the  case.  Yet,  as  it  is  certain  that  in  our  day, 
while  civilization  increases  more  rapidly  than  ever  and  the 
power  of  mere  creeds  is  evaporating  into  thin  air,  the  reli 
gious  feelings  of  mankind  are  by  no  means  dying  out,  but 
are  perhaps  higher  pitched  than  ever  before,  so  we  may 
fairly  conclude  that  some  other  law  comes  into  play  to 
compensate  for  the  rude  zeal  of  semi-barbarism.  One  thing 
is  obvious.  The  moral  conception  which  men  entertain  of 


HEREDITARY  PIETY.  63 

God  rises  constantly  with  their  own  moral  progress.  When 
the  nations  shall  have  reached  a  pinnacle  of  ethical  excel 
lence  far  beyond  our  present  standard,  when  the  wild  and 
fierce  instincts  now  rampant  shall  have  died  out  of  the 
human  race,  and  the  ever-fostered  social  affections  wreathe 
the  earth  with  garlands  of  grace  and  fragrance, — even  when 
that  far-off  millennium  comes,  God  will  assuredly  seem  just 
as  far  above  man  as  He  seems  now.  His  holiness  will 
transcend  human  virtue,  as  the  Chaldsean  sky  overarched 
the  Tower  which  was  built  to  reach  it. 

Another  point  must  not  be  forgotten  in  this  connexion. 
The  conscious  instability  of  a  nature  capable  alike  of  great 
good  and  great  evil,  is  indeed  often,  as  Mr.  Galton  teaches 
us,  the  first  motive  which  makes  a  man  religious.  But  having 
become  religious,  he  does  not  normally  remain  in  a  con 
tinual  tempest  of  contending  principle  and  passion.  That 
Supreme  Guidance  which  he  looks  for  from  on  high,  and 
which  he  believes  himself  to  obtain,  leads  him  onward,  as 
the  years  go  by,  out  of  the  wilderness  with  its  fiery  scorpions 
of  remorse,  into  a  land  of  green  pastures,  beside  still  waters. 
The  calm  of  a  really  religious  old  age,  is  a  peace  compared 
to  which  the  equipoise  of  the  sceptic  is  as  the  stillness  of  a 
mill-pond  to  that  of  the  ocean  on  whose  breast  all  the  host 
of  stars  is  reflected. 

It  must  needs  be  the  same  as  regards  the  race.  Now  it 
is  ever  those, 

"  Who  rowing  hard  against  the  stream, 
See  distant  gates  of  Eden  gleam, 
And  do  not  dream  it  is  a  dream." 

But  hereafter,  in  the  far-off  future,  when  the  wilder  im 
pulses  are  dead,  mankind  may  not  need  to  strive  always  so 
violently  to  "take  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  by  force ;"  but 
glide  on  softly  and  surely,  borne  by  the  ever-swelling  cur 
rents  of  Faith  and  Love. 


ESSAY  III. 

THE   BELIGION   OF    CHILDHOOD. 

IN  his  great  work,  "  Les  Apotres,"  M.  Renan  prophesies 
that  a  hundred  years  to  come  the  ostensible  boundaries  of 
Judaism,  Catholicism  and  Protestantism,  will  not  have 
undergone  essential  alteration.  Each  church,  however,  will 
then  consist  of  two  distinct  classes  of  adherents — those  who 
honestly  believe  in  its  doctrines,  and  those  who  disbelieve 
them  altogether,  but  continue  to  pay  them  outward  homage, 
and  to  conform  to  established  rites,  from  motives  of  public 
policy,  tenderness  for  the  weak,  romantic  sentiment,  or,  per 
chance,  indifference.  Dogma  will,  in  those  happy  times,  be 
treated  as  a  sacred  ark,  never  to  be  opened,  and  therefore 
harmless  even  if  empty. 

I  must  beg  leave  to  doubt  that  this  millennium  is  so 
near  as  M.  Renan  supposes ;  nay,  that  it  will  ever  arrive. 
The  pure  love  of  theoretic  truth,  which  he  justly  lays  down 
as  the  one  proper  motive  for  those  historical  researches 
which  are  undermining  the  popular  creed,  will  hardly  con 
duct  men  generally  to  lives  of  practical  falsehood.  To  study 
with  the  simple  desire  of  obtaining  facts,  regardless  of  the 
bearing  such  facts  may  have  upon  our  most  cherished  pre 
judices,  can  scarcely  be  a  good  preparatory  training  for 
acting  ever  afterwards  as  if  there  were  no  such  things  as 
facts  in  the  most  solemn  concerns  of  human  existence.  To 

5 


66  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  the  Divine  mercy  is  withheld 
from  no  honest  seeker,  however  many  mental  errors  he  may 
have  ignorantly  imbibed,  is  not  precisely  the  same  con 
clusion  (albeit  M.  Renan  would  have  it  so)  as  that  religious 
belief  is  of  no  consequence  to  the  soul  which  entertains  it, 
and  that  it  is  just  as  possible  to  be  noble  with  a  base  faith 
as  with  the  purest — to  love  God  when  He  is  represented  as 
a  cruel  and  capricious  Despot,  as  when  He  is  revealed  as 
the  holy  and  blessed  Father  of  all. 

Rather  do  I  believe  that  a  very  different  future  is  before 
the  world.  The  reaction  has  come  from  the  belief  of  Chris 
tendom  for  eighteen  centuries,  that  "  everlasting  fire  "  might 
be  the  penalty  of  even  unwitting  error  concerning  Trinities 
and  Unities,  Incarnations  and  Processions ;  and  the  first 
result  of  that  reaction  is  very  obviously  and  naturally  to 
lead  men  to  depreciate  for  a  time  the  real  value  which  must 
for  ever  belong  to  the  possession  of  such  religious  truth  as 
each  soul  may  be  permitted  to  grasp.  Because  an  artificial 
extrinsic  penalty  upon  error  is  no  longer  feared,  the  intrinsic 
and  unchangeable  value  of  truth  is  for  a  moment  forgotten. 
But  ere  long  a  juster  estimate  will  be  made.  That  calm, 
earnest,  fearless  spirit  of  search,  which  distinguishes  so 
strangely  the  great  thinkers  of  pre-Christian  times  from  the 
feverish  and  terror-haunted  anxiety  of  those  who  followed 
them,  will  return  to  the  world,  and  will  become  the  habitual 
temper  of  all  the  wise  and  good.  Men  will  no  longer  seek 
the  waters  of  life,  as  in  a  tale  of  enchantment,  because  they 
can  save  the  drinker  from  some  fiend's  spell  of  torture  or 
transport  him  to  a  fairy  paradise.  But  they  will  seek  them 
as  when,  after  long,  weary  days  of  desert  march,  the  traveller, 
dust-soiled  and  parched  with  thirst,  sees  Jordan  eddying  be 
tween  its  willowy  banks,  and  flings  himself  on  the  grass  and 
drinks  its  sweet  waters  and  bends  in  its  waves  till  they  go 
over,  even  over  his  soul. 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  67 

Religious  errors  imbibed  in  youth  are  like  those  constitu 
tional  maladies  which  may  lie  latent  for  years  and  perhaps 
never  produce  acute  evil  of  any  kind,  but  which  also  may  at 
any  time  burst  into  painful  and  sharp  disease.  Human  nature 
possesses  sometimes  such  a  tendency  to  all  things  healthy, 
bright  and  beautiful,  that  the  most  gloomy  creeds  fail  to  de 
press  its  natural  buoyancy  of  hope  and  trustfulness,  and  the 
most  immoral  ones  to  soil  its  purity.  We  all  know,  and  rejoice 
to  know,  many  men,  many  more  women,  who  are  among  the 
excellent  of  the  earth,  but  who  if  they  did  but  succeed  (as  they 
profess  to  aim  to  do)  in  likening  themselves  to  the  Deity  they 
have  imagined,  would  needs  be  transformed  from  the  moat 
gentle  and  pitiful  to  the  most  cruel  and  relentless.  The 
non-operative  dogmas  in  such  creeds  as  theirs  would  terrify 
them,  could  they  but  recognize  them.  But  because  of  these 
blessed  inconsistencies,  numerous  as  they  are,  we  must  not 
suppose  that  such  seeds  of  unmeasured  evil  as  religious  false 
hoods,  are  always,  or  even  oftenest,  innoxious.  Like  the  man 
with  hereditary  disease,  the  mischief  may  long  lie  unper- 
ceived,  while  the  course  of  his  life  does  not  tend  to  bring 
it  into  action.  But  an  accident  of  most  trivial  kind,  a  blow 
to  body  or  mind,  a  change  of  climate  or  of  habits,  may 
suddenly  develope  what  has  been  hidden  so  long,  and  the  man 
may  sink  under  a  calamity  which  with  healthier  constitution 
he  would  have  surmounted  in  safety. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  words  can  adequately  describe  the 
value  of  a  religious  faith  which  supplies  the  soul,  I  will  not 
say  with  absolute  and  final  truth,  but  with  such  measure  of 
truth  as  is  its  sufficient  bread  of  life,  its  pure  and  healthful 
sustenance.  We  may  not  always  see  that  this  is  so.  As 
error  may  lie  long  innoxious,  so  truth  may  remain  latent  in 
the  mind,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  useless  and  unprofitable. 
He  who  has  been  blessed  with  the  priceless  boon  may  go 
his  way,  and  the  "  cares  of  the  world  and  deceitfulness  of 


68  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

riches,"  the  thousand  joys  and  sorrows,  pursuits  and  interests, 
faults  and  follies  of  life,  may  carry  him  on  year  after  year 
heeding  but  little  the  treasure  he  carries  in  his  breast.  Yet, 
even  in  his  worst  hours,  that  truth  is  a  talisman  to  ennoble 
what  might  else  be  wholly  base,  to  warm  what  might  be  all 
selfish,  to  purify  and  to  cheer  by  half-understood  influence 
over  all  thoughts  and  feelings.  But  it  is  in  the  supreme 
moments  of  life,  the  hours  of  agony  or  danger  or  temptation 
to  mortal  sin,  the  hours  when  it  is  given  to  us  either  to  step 
down  into  a  gulf  whose  bottom  we  may  not  find  before  the 
grave,  or  to  spring  back  out  of  falsehood  or  bitterness  or 
self-indulgence  upon  the  higher  level  of  truth  and  love  and 
holiness — it  is  in  these  hours  that  true  religious  faith  shows 
itself  as  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  With  it,  there  is 
nothing  man  may  not  bear  and  do.  Without  it,  he  is  in 
danger  immeasurable.  With  a  false  creed — a  creed  false  to 
the  instincts  of  the  soul,  incapable  of  supplying  its  needs  of 
reverence  and  love,  such  as  they  have  been  constituted  by 
the  Creator — a  man's  joys  may  cover  the  whole  surface  of  his 
life ;  but  underneath  there  is  a  cold,  dark  abyss  of  doubt  and 
fear.  He  passes  hastily  on  in  the  bright  sunshine,  but  under 
his  feet  he  knows  the  ice  may  at  any  time  give  way  and  crash 
beneath  him.  Happiness  is  to  him  the  exception  in  the 
world  of  existence.  The  rule  is  sorrow  and  pain  ;  endless 
sorrow,  eternal  pain.  But  he  whose  creed  tells  him  of  a  God 
whom  he  can  wholly  love,  entirely  trust,  even  though  his 
outward  life  may  be  full  of  gloom  and  toil,  has  for  ever  the 
consciousness  of  a  great  deep  joy  underlying  all  care  and 
grief;  a  joy  he  pauses  not  always  to  contemplate,  but  which 
he  knows  is  there,  waiting  for  him  whenever  he  turns  to  it ; 
and  his  sorrows  and  all  the  sorrows  of  the  world  are  in  his 
sight  but  passing  shadows  which  shall  give  place  at  last  to 
everlasting  bliss.  His  plot  of  earth  may  be  barren  and 
flowerless,  and  he  may  till  it  often  in  weariness  and  pain, 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  69 

but  he  would  not  exchange  it  for  a  paradise,  for  within  it 
there  is  the  well  of  water  springing  up  into  everlasting  life. 
The  time  will  come,  I  am  persuaded,  when  men  will  be 
more  than  ever  awake  to  these  facts  of  the  value  of  true 
religious  faith  and  the  danger  and  misery  of  error.  When  this 
happens,  so  far  from  becoming  indiiferentists  and  treating 
all  creeds  as  alike,  they  will  necessarily  seek  more  earnestly 
than  ever  for  truth,  not  under  the  scourge  of  the  terrors  of 
hell,  but  with  a  calm,  deep  appreciation  of  the  intrinsic  im 
portance  of  such  faith  for  its  own  sake.  Will  they  then  be 
content,  as  M.  Renan  supposes,  to  go  on  paying  outward 
adhesion  to  churches  whose  office  it  is  to  teach  the  very 
errors  from  which  they  have  escaped  ?  Will  they  endure  to 
perform  solemn  rites  before  God  which  have  become  to  them 
solemn  mockeries  ?  Will  they  by  their  countenance  and 
example  maintain  for  the  young  and  uneducated  the  delu 
sions  from  which  every  hour  they  thank  God  they  have  been 
themselves  delivered  ?  Will  they  act  lies  such  as  the  saints 
of  old  went  to  the  stake  and  the  rack  rather  than  be  guilty 
of,  because  they  have  found  higher,  nobler,  more  heart- 
encouraging  truths  than  it  was  given  to  those  saints  to  know  ? 
I  believe  it  not  !  The  day  will  yet  come  when  the  con 
sciences  of  mankind  will  recognize  that  it  was  for  no  delusion 
those  martyrs  died,  no  fictitious  virtue  of  honesty  of  lips 
and  brain,  which  our  greater  enlightenment  has  discovered 
to  be  but  a  fanaticism  and  a  prejudice.  It  will  be  recognized 
that  to  live  a  lie  is  more  base  even  than  to  speak  a  lie ;  and 
that  a  religious  lie  is  the  basest,  because  the  cowardliest,  of 
lies.  It  will  be  recognized  that  to  mislead  others  by  our- 
example  or  teaching,  is  to  do  them  a  wrong  and  injury  only 
to  be  measured  by  the  tremendous  realities  of  the  spiritual 
and  moral  life  into  which  we  dare  to  interpose  our  falsehoods 
to  serve,  or  frustrate,  God's  designs.  It  will  be  recognized 
that  as  religious  truth  is  the  greatest  of  treasures,  so  every 


70  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

word  and  deed  by  which  we  tamper  therewith  involves  a 
dishonesty  which,  when  all  the  cheats  and  thefts  of  this 
world's  goods  are  forgotten  and  pardoned,  the  offender  may 
need  to  weep  over  and  repent. 

If  these  views  have  in  them  any  justice,  the  question  so 
often  asked  in  our  day,  "  What  religion  shall  we  teach  our 
children?"  assumes  new  significance.  That  all- precious  re 
ligious  truth  which  year  by  year  men  will  learn  better  to 
value  and  more  simply  to  follow,  how  are  the  young  to  be 
taught  to  seek  and  aided  to  find  it  ?  How  are  we  to  guard 
them  against  that  fatal  pseudo-liberal  indifferentism  which 
would  make  of  Christendom  another  China,  with  each  man 
lauding  his  neighbour's  religion  and  depreciating  with  mock 
humility  his  own  ?  These  are  large  questions,  which  for  the 
general  public  correspond  to  the  anxious  private  inquiry  of 
so  many  parents  :  What  shall  we  teach  our  children  concern 
ing  God  and  Christ  and  the  Bible  ?  In  what  position  ought 
we  to  place  them  as  regards  the  popular  theology,  and  the 
Churches  wherein  we  were  ourselves  brought  up,  and  whereto 
we  now  hold  more  or  less  loosely  ?  In  a  word,  what  is  the 
Religion  for  Childhood  in  our  age  and  phase  of  thought  ? 

With  much  distrust  of  my  own  power  to  deal  with  so  great 
a  theme  or  offer  counsel  to  those  who  alone  have  practical 
knowledge  of  the  training  of  children,  I  shall  venture  to 
attempt  some  answer  to  these  questions  in  the  following 
pages.  It  must  happen  to  all  who  have  striven  to  urge  the 
claims  of  a  creed  founded  upon  consciousness  rather  than 
authority,  to  be  frequently  challenged  by  the  inquiry,  "  How 
would  your  faith  suit  children  and  ignorant  persons  ?  It  may 
be  all  very  well  for  educated  men  and  women,  but  how  would 
it  apply  to  the  poor  ?  How  could  you  bring  up  a  child  under 
its  simple  doctrines?"  The  faith  which  shrinks  from  such  a 
challenge  stands  self-condemned.  To  prove  that  the  most 
liberal  theology  need  not  do  so,  but  has  its  blessed  work  to 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  71 

accomplish  for  the  child  no  less  than  for  the  man,  will  be 
my  present  task. 

It  might  be  thought  at  first  sight  and  prior  to  experience 
of  the  fact,  that  in  this  latest  Reformation,  as  in  all  pre 
ceding  ones,  it  would  be  a  matter  of  course  for  parents  not 
only  freely  to  transmit  their  religious  ideas  to  their  sons 
and  daughters,  but  to  take  peculiar  care  to  guard  them 
against  the  errors  they  have  renounced,  and  to  instruct 
them  in  the  truths  they  have  gained.  The  children  of  the 
early  Christians,  Moslems,  Protestants,  were  no  doubt  im 
bued  to  the  uttermost  of  their  parents'  skill  with  the  doc 
trines  of  their  religion.  The  idea  of  teaching  a  young 
Huguenot  to  believe  in  the  Real  Presence  or  to  worship  the 
Virgin,  or  even  of  sending  him  to  a  school  where  he  might 
learn  to  do  so,  would  have  been  held  scarcely  less  than  a  crime 
in  the  eyes  of  his  father  and  mother.  Nay,  to  let  him  grow 
up  with  the  notion  that  the  question  was  an  open  one,  and 
that  his  parents  were  as  ready  to  see  him  choose  a  religion 
as  a  secular  profession,  and  become  a  Romanist  or  a  Jew  as  he 
might  become  a  soldier  or  a  physician, — this  also  would  have 
seemed  to  them  monstrous,  and  even  impious. 

How  far  we  are  from  such  a  view  of  parental  duty,  it  is 
startling  to  reflect.  Professed  Unitarians,  indeed,  habitually 
train  their  children  in  Unitarian  principles,  and  lead  them 
to  the  public  services  of  their  church.1  But  even  they  con 
tinually  allow  motives  of  convenience  or  economy  to  induce 
them  to  send  them  to  schools  where  they  know  that  the 
young  minds  and  hearts  will  be  subjected  to  the  fullest 
influences  of  orthodoxy.  The  whole  tenor  of  their  guidance 
is  calculated,  hardly  so  much  to  secure  their  children's 
intelligent  adherence  to  the  creed  they  themselves  profess, 
as  to  afford  them  a  fair  option  to  accept  it  if  they  see  fit. 
Of  course  there  are  many  exceptions,  but  I  venture  to 
1  This  Essay  was  first  published  in  the  Theological  (Unitarian)  Eeview. 


72  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

think  this  description  may  be  taken  as  a  true  one  as  regards 
the  majority  of  Unitarian  families,  and  that  the  result  may 
be  traced  in  the  innumerable  lapses  of  the  sons  and  daugh 
ters  of  Unitarians  into  the  ranks  of  churches  from  whose 
errors  a  very  moderate  share  of  parental  care  and  warning 
ought  to  have  protected  them.  That  worldly  interest  has 
some  part  in  all  this  must  perhaps  be  conceded.  The  social 
and  (let  it  be  added,  shameful  as  it  is)  the  matrimonial  dis 
advantages  of  membership  in  a  small  sect,  may  make  some 
Unitarian  parents  less  unwilling  than  they  ought  to  be  to  sac 
rifice  their  sons'  and  daughters'  spiritual  for  temporal  benefit. 
I  am  persuaded,  however,  that  far  more  often  the  motives  of 
Unitarian  parents,  even  of  those  who  act  most  unguardedly, 
are  higher  than  these.  Many  of  them  doubtless  imagine 
that  what  is  so  clear  to  their  minds  will  needs  be  clear  to 
those  of  their  children.  Others  suppose  that  even  if  their 
son  receive  false  instruction  at  school,  they  will  be  able  in 
a  few  weeks  of  holidays  to  supply  an  antidote  of  rational 
argument  which  shall  neutralize  the  poison  which  month 
after  month  has  been  slowly  infiltered  and  taken  up  into 
the  child's  system  of  thought  and  feeling.  Manj*  more, 
having  been  themselves  educated  in  the  older  and  stricter 
Unitarian  training,  have  never  experienced  and  have  formed 
no  adequate  idea  of  the  evil,  and  of  the  tenacity  of  the 
darker  doctrines  of  the  popular  creed.  They  think  them 
silly  rather  than  deadly.  They  have  never  known  what  it 
is  to  believe  in  Eternal  Hell.  They  have  never  knelt  to 
thank  God  when  that  horror  of  horrors  was  lifted  from  their 
souls.  Nay,  even  their  own  boasted  doctrine  of  the  Divine 
Unity  has  been  always  to  them  a  mere  negation  of  Trini 
tarian  error.  They  have  never  known  the  power  of  that 
flood- tide  of  reverence  and  love  when  all  the  religious  emo 
tions,  long  divided,  confused,  and  scattered,  are  turned  at  last 
into  the  one  channel,  and  the  same  Lord  is  recognized  as 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  73 

Creating,  Redeeming,  and  Sanctifying  God.  All  these  expe 
riences,  which  belong  to  those  who  have  been  brought  up 
in  the  old  creed  and  through  struggle  and  difficulty  have 
reached  to  the  new,  are  unknown  to  Unitarians  born  and 
educated  in  the  church  of  Channing  or  Priestley.  They 
almost  marvel  at  the  ardour  of  converts  for  truths  valuable 
indeed,  they  admit,  in  the  highest  degree,  but  still,  so  obvious  ! 
the  very  alphabet,  to  them,  of  religious  knowledge.  They 
as  little  expect  their  children  to  renounce  these  elementary 
truths  and  go  back  to  the  creeds  which  their  grandfathers 
renounced,  as  they  expect  them  to  give  up  modern  geology 
and  astronomy  for  those  of  the  dark  ages ;  and  they  take  as 
little  precaution  to  guard  them  against  one  mistake  as  the 
other.  "When  the  catastrophe  arrives,  and  the  entail  of 
Unitarianism  is  broken,  as  usual,  at  the  third  generation, 
they  are  grieved  and  wounded ;  but  perhaps  even  then  they 
hardly  realize  all  their  child  has  lost  of  an  inheritance  which 
they  were  bound  to  transmit  to  him  securely. 

The  case  of  those  who  are  not  members  of  the  Unitarian 
Church,  but  who  entertain  Unitarian  or  Theistic  opinions 
while  nominally  ranked  with  the  orthodox,  is  of  course  still 
worse  than  the  others.  For  them  to  bring  up  their  children 
to  believe  as  they  do  themselves  is  a  real  difficulty,  and  one 
they  very  rarely  even  try  to  surmount.  Those  who  have 
not  such  definite  views  as  to  make  them  wish  to  break  with 
the  Church  in  which  they  were  born,  or  who,  while  having 
them,  lack  courage  to  do  it,  are  not  very  likely  to  train 
their  children  in  clearer  light  or  greater  sincerity.  The 
extreme  latitude  of  opinion  which  the  laity  enjoy  in  the 
National  Church,  makes  it  appear  a  needless  and  ungrateful 
effort  to  release  ourselves  from  the  arms  which  received  us 
in  baptism,  and  will  (whatever  be  our  offences)  drop  us 
gently  and  tenderty  into  the  grave,  but  which,  in  all  the 
interval  between,  will  never  exercise  over  us  any  forceful 


74  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

interference.  How  many  thus  remain  in  the  Church  be 
cause  they  are  never  called  on  by  any  test,  or  even  inquiry, 
to  renew  or  renounce  their  adherence  to  it ;  how  many 
more  remain  with  the  idea  of  Colenso  and  Presbyter  An- 
glicanus,  that  they  have  a  right  as  members  of  the  nation 
to  be  members  of  the  National  Church,  whatever  their 
views  may  be  of  its  doctrine — how  many  of  all  these  there 
are  now  in  England,  it  is  not  easy  to  tell.  Such  as  they 
are,  while  young  men  and  women,  their  position  perhaps 
entails  little  difficulty  of  a  moral  sort.  But  when  they 
become  parents  the  case  is  altered.  Shall  they  have  their 
children  baptized  ?  Shall  they  teach  them  to  read  the 
Bible,  and  repeat  the  usual  hymns  and  collects  ?  Above  all, 
shall  they  take  them  to  church  and  make  them  learn  prayers 
and  listen  to  sermons  all  and  each  saturated  with  doctrines 
the  parent  disbelieves  ?  On  the  other  hand,  shall  they 
omit  all  these  traditional  processes  and  bring  up  the  children, 
as  their  friends  will  assuredly  say,  like  little  heathens  ? 
The  question  is  making  many  a  father  anxious,  and  giving 
many  a  mother  the  heart-ache,  in  England  at  this  moment. 

It  must  be  owned  that  the  case  is  beset  with  difficulties. 
Putting  aside  special  family  difficulties — difference  of  opinion 
between  the  two  parents,  interference  of  other  relatives,  and 
last,  not  least,  the  forbidden  efforts  of  orthodox  servants 
to  impress  children  with  their  crude  and  cruel  theology — 
putting  all  these  aside,  there  remain  gravest  difficulties  com 
mon  to  all.  I  cannot  presume  to  offer  counsel  as  to  these 
difficulties  in  detail,  but  I  venture  to  urge  the  considera 
tion  of  a  few  general  principles  which,  if  approved,  may 
serve  as  guides  to  decide  the  outline  of  conduct  to  be  filled 
by  each  parent  according  to  special  circumstances. 

In  the  first  place,  a  critical  spirit  can  never  be  rightly 
fostered  in  a  child.  It  is  not  for  one  who  has  all  the  evi 
dence  yet  to  learn,  and  even  the  process  by  which  evidence 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  75 

must  be  weighed,  to  mount  any  seat  of  judgment  and  pro 
nounce  sentence.  To  lead  a  child  to  do  so,  even  in  matters 
tenfold  less  solemn  than  those  which  pertain  to  religion, 
must  needs  distort  the  natural  order  and  development  of 
his  faculties.  jN"ay,  more  :  the  critical  faculty,  even  when 
exercised  in  the  plenitude  of  the  powers  of  middle  life,  is 
always  somewhat  opposed  to  the  instincts  of  reverence  and 
humility,  and  only  becomes  good  and  noble  when  used  under 
the  spur  of  pure  love  of  truth,  and  with  all  the  caution 
and  self-distrust  which  facts  may  warrant.  Often  must  it 
have  happened  to  all  of  us  to  feel  how  violent  a  revulsion 
is  created  when  a  sermon  appealing  to  criticism,  and 
demanding  of  us  to  revise  arguments  of  history,  philology, 
metaphysics,  has  followed  suddenly  upon  prayers  which 
for  the  time  had  restored  us  to  a  more  humble,  childlike 
attitude  of  mind.  To  be  brought  to  realize  somewhat  of 
the  distance  between  ourselves  and  the  Divine  Holiness, 
to  feel  some  of  the  deeper  emotions  of  penitence  and  aspi 
ration,  perhaps  to  pray  in  the  true  sense  of  prayer,  and 
then,  a  moment  afterwards,  instead  of  having  fresh  moral 
life  poured  into  us,  with  high  thoughts  of  God  and  duty 
and  immortality,  instead  of  being  lifted  by  our  stronger 
brother  into  nearer  gaze  at  the  Supreme  Goodness,  to  be 
suddenly  called  on  to  revise  our  intellectual  stores,  recall 
this  detail  of  history  and  that  fact  of  science,  and  then 
balance  the  validity  of  the  arguments  by  which  the  preacher 
has  appealed  to  us  for  a  verdict  of  "Proven"  or  "Not  proven," 
— this  is  the  weariness  of  preaching,  this  is  the  feast  where 
the  rich  Intellect  may  be  fed,  but  the  hungry  Soul  goes 
empty  away.  There  is  no  harm  in  it  all.  Perhaps  it  is 
very  necessary  that  congregations  should  have  such  facts 
and  arguments  often  placed  before  them ;  and  if  they  are 
to  be  placed  at  all,  they  must  needs  be  placed  for  critical 
free  judgment.  Only  the  religious  sentiment  and  the  reli- 


76  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

gious  intellect  are  brought  into  painful  and  jarring  proximity, 
the  attitude  of  the  soul  is  altered  too  rudely. 

But  if  this  be  so  with  us  all  in  middle  life,  how  much 
more  incongruous  must  be  anything  like  such  critical  judg 
ment  in  a  child  !  The  most  fatal  and  hopeless  lack  in  any 
child's  character  is  that  of  the  feeling  of  reverence ;  and  it 
would  almost  seem  that  when  from  any  cause  it  is  deficient, 
it  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  create  it  afresh.  But  if  a  mode 
were  to  be  devised  expressly  for  the  extinction  of  reverence, 
it  would  manifestly  be  to  set  a  child  to  pass  its  wretched  little 
judgments  on  the  opinions  of  those  who  constitute  for  it 
the  world.  Thus,  whatever  else  a  child  ought  to  be  taught 
about  the  popular  religion,  it  is  quite  clear  it  must  not  be 
taught  to  set  itself  up  to  decide  that  such  and  such  doctrines 
are  foolish  or  absurd. 

Secondly :  We  have  been  all  a  good  deal  misled  by  the 
vaunt  of  our  ancestors,  that  a  Christian  child  knows  more 
about  God  than  Socrates  or  Plato.  We  have  a  latent  idea 
that  it  is  our  business  to  verify  the  boast,  and  stock  a 
baby's  mind  with  formulae  about  that  Ineffable  Existence, 
whose  relations  to  us  we  may  indeed  learn,  but  whose 
awful  Nature  not  all  the  wisdom  of  the  immortal  life  may 
fully  reveal  to  His  creatures.  Thus  there  is  a  constant 
effort  to  give  a  child  notions  about  what  could  only  be 
fitly  treated  as  too  solemn  a  mystery  to  pretend  to  have 
notions  of  at  all;  and  the  natural  inquisitive  questions  of 
the  pupil  are  not  met  by  the  grave  warning  which  best 
would  instil  reverence  and  awe,  but  by  efforts  to  give  or 
correct  ideas  where  no  ideas  may  be.  We  have  all  been  so 
accustomed  to  "  Bodies  of  Divinity,"  Catechisms  and  Creeds, 
that  we  find  it  hard  to  imagine  religion  despoiled  of  such 
paraphernalia,  and  mothers  ask,  with  an  alarm  which  would 
be  ludicrous  were  the  subject  less  solemn  :  "  What  am  I  to 
teach  my  child  if  I  am  not  to  make  him  learn  the  Church 


RELIGION  OF   CHILDHOOD.  77 


Catechism,  or  the  Shorter  Catechism,  or  Watts'  Catechism, 
or  tell  him  the  story  of  Adam  and  Eve  and  the  apple,  and 
Noah's  ark,  or  the  history  of  Elisha  and  the  naughty  boys, 
or  the  fate  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira  ?  If  all  these  things 
are  to  be  left  out,  and  the  child  is  not  even  to  know  what 
each  Person  of  the  Trinity  does  for  him,  and  what  his  god 
fathers  and  god-mothers  have  promised  he  shall  believe,  what 
remains  for  me  to  teach  him  of  religion  ?  " 

It  is  a  startling  idea  to  such  good  mothers  to  reflect  that 
all  these  lessons  are  not  religion  at  all,  but  instructions  which 
much  oftener  turn  their  children  from  religion  than  engage 
them  to  love  it,  and  that  the  utter  cessation  of  such  tasks 
would  leave  them  open  to  far  more  devout  feelings.  "No 
religious  teaching?"  But  can  a  mother,  herself  penetrated 
with  religious  feeling,  teach  anything  to  her  child  which 
shall  not  also  teach  him  religion?  Can  she  direct  his  mind 
to  the  objects  around  him,  sun  and  star  and  bird  and  bee, 
can  she  lead  him  to  check  his  little  selfishnesses  and  angry 
passions,  and  be  kind  to  his  brothers  and  sisters  and  obedient 
to  herself,  can  she  read  with  him  a  single  story  or  poem  or 
book  of  infant  science,  in  which  the  thought  of  God  the 
Maker,  God  the  Observer,  God  the  Lord  of  all  things 
beautiful  and  good,  shall  not  shine  over  all  her  teachings  ? 
Religion  entering  in  this  its  natural  way  is  full  of  interest 
and  delight  to  the  child.  Behind  the  dry  facts,  which 
have  for  him  perhaps  little  value,  he  finds  that  meaning 
which  elevates  Fact  into  Truth.  All  things  have  a  personal 
sense  and  purpose,  since  he  is  made  to  see  a  Personal  Will 
directing  them  all ;  and  by  degrees  the  vast  unity  of  the 
world,  the  unity  of  order,  beauty  and  beneficence,  dawns 
upon  his  soul. 

Again :  There  is  need  to  bear  in  mind  that  a  child's  facul 
ties  of  love  are  given  data  in  his  nature.  We  have  not  got 
to  create  them,  and  we  can  in  very  small  degree  warp  and 


78  RELIGION  OF    CHILDHOOD. 

alter  them  from  what  they  have  been  created.  They  are  so 
constituted  as  spontaneously  to  open  to  an  object  of  one 
kind,  and  to  shrink  from  an  object  of  another.  The  task  of 
him  who  believes  children's  hearts  to  be  God's  handiwork 
and  not  that  of  a  Devil,  is  to  educate  (draw  out)  what  God  has 
put  there,  and  to  present  to  those  faculties,  as  they  grow,  that 
idea  of  God  and  duty  which  they  are  made  to  fasten  upon 
with  honour  and  love.  Divines  talk  of  children  being  wholly 
corrupt,  and  poets  tell  us  they  "  trail  clouds  of  glory"  ;  but 
parents  neither  find  the  corruption  nor  see  much  of  the 
clouds  of  glory.  It  is  a  germ  of  a  soul,  rather  than  a  soul 
either  burdened  with  sin  or  "trailing"  any  foreknown  light, 
which  lies  covered  up  in  a  little  child's  cradle.  But  assuredly 
it  is  a  germ  in  which  God  has  folded  potentially  all  the 
blossoms  of  holy  feelings  man  can  know  on  earth.  Surely 
it  is  always  proof  that  the  teaching  is  wrong,  when  those 
sentiments  which  God  has  intended  should  turn  to  Himself 
do  not  turn  to  Him  as  spontaneously  as  the  young  plant  to 
the  light  ?  It  must  always  be  because  it  is  not  God,  the  true 
God,  whom  we  have  presented  to  the  soul  of  the  child,  but 
some  grim  idol  whom  it  was  never  made  to  love,  that  it  has 
failed  to  lift  itself  to  Him. 

Again  :  The  sense  of  sin  is  so  deeply  connected  with  the 
religious  sentiment,  it  is  so  profoundly  true  that  the  holiness 
of  God  is  first  intimately  revealed  to  us  through  the  sense 
of  our  own  unholy  deeds  and  thoughts,  that  it  is  of  the  first 
importance  in  all  religious  teaching  to  place  aright  this  matter 
of  "  the  exceeding  sinfulness'of  sin."  No  human  piety,  even 
the  piety  of  a  little  innocent  child,  can  live  and  bloom  with 
out  some  tears  of  penitence  to  water  it.  Nay,  the  readiness 
and  fulness  of  repentance  in  early  youth,  the  April  flood  of 
pure  and  blessed  sorrow  which  falls  so  abundantly  and  then 
leaves  the  sky  so  clear  and  earth  so  tremulously  bright,  is 
evidence  enough  that  repentance  has  its  inevitable  work 


RELIGION   OF  CHILDHOOD.  79 

even  in  the  religious  life  of  the  infant.  But  there  is  no 
part  of  religion  which  has  been  so  cruelly  perverted  as  this. 
No  theological  dogmas  impressed  on  a  child's  intellect 
can  be  half  so  mischievous  as  the  practical  moral  training 
which  distorts  for  it  the  natural  processes  of  penitence  and 
restoration ;  and  no  efforts  of  religious  teachers  have  been 
so  persistent  as  those  which  have  been  directed  to  this  fatal 
aim.  Starting  with  the  wholly  false  conception  of  the 
highest  religious  life  as  if  it  were  one  perpetual  sickly 
anxiety  and  "  worrying  about  the  soul,"  they  are  uneasy  if 
their  child  enjoys  a  healthier  state,  and  weeps  only  for  a 
real  fall,  instead  of  puling  continually  from  over-tenderness 
of  conscience.  A  child's  moral  life  ought  to  go  on,  like  its 
physical  life,  all  unconsciously  to  itself;  but  just  as  the  preco 
cious  offspring  of  over-anxious  parents  think  about  cold  or  heat 
or  unwholesome  food,  the  children  of  some  religious  people 
are  made  to  know  all  about  their  own  spiritual  condition,  and 
commence  in  the  nursery  a  life  of  moral  valetudinarianism. 
Of  course  such  mistakes  lie  chiefly  with  Evangelical  parents, 
and  few  others  are  likely  to  fall  into  them,  but  into 
opposite  errors  of  which  we  shall  speak  presently.  But  the 
narrowness  of  a  woman's  life  has  undoubtedly  a  tendency 
to  make  mothers  vastly  exaggerate  the  lilliputian  sins  and 
miniature  transgressions  of  their  little  kingdom,  the  nursery ; 
and  the  result  is  too  often  an  attempt  to  construct  for  its 
inhabitants  a  baby-house  morality,  wherein  the  true  propor 
tion  of  good  and  evil  is  lost,  and  the  horrible  mischief  intro 
duced  of  perpetual  forced  and  untrue  repentance.  A  wise 
mother  once  said  to  me — "  I  wish  my  children  to  know  there 
are  such  things  as  great  crimes  in  the  world.  It  will  teach  them 
that  their  own  little  sins  and  bad  feelings  are  not  enormous 
offences,  but  are  the  seeds  which,  if  unchecked,  may  grow  to 
be  enormous  offences.  I  wish  them  to  understand  the  soli 
darity  of  sin,  and  that  all  sins  are  allied  and  interactive." 


80  RELIGION  OF    CHILDHOOD. 

The  opposite  error  of  moral  laxity  and  indifferentism  is 
one  into  which  parents  who  have  themselves  escaped  from 
the  evils  of  Calvinistic  training  are  naturally  most  prone  to 
fall.  While  one  child's  conscience  is  over-stimulated  to  the 
verge  of  disease,  another  finds  its  own  instinctive  penitence 
treated  so  lightly,  its  real  faults  passed  over  as  if  so  trivial 
and  unimportant,  that  it  is  impossible  but  that,  with  a  child's 
susceptibility  to  the  opinion  of  those  above  it,  the  penitence 
soon  dies  away  and  the  fault  is  repeated. 

Now  the  parent  who  would  hold  the  mean  between  these 
two  errors,  and  neither  excite  a  child's  conscience  to  disease 
nor  lull  it  to  lethargy,  has  a  most  difficult  task  to  perform 
in  face  of  the  common  preaching  and  common  juvenile  reli 
gious  literature  of  the  day.  Clergymen  addressing  audiences 
of  grown  men  and  women  may  well  be  excused  if  they  con 
sider  that  there  is  small  danger  of  their  adult  hearers  making 
too  much  of  their  sins,  but  much  danger  of  their  making  too 
little.  The  most  spirit-stirring,  and  probably  on  the  whole 
the  most  useful,  preachers  in  the  orthodox  churches  are  those 
who  are  for  ever  proclaiming  "the  wrath  of  God  against 
sin,"  and  urging  their  hearers  to  more  earnest  self-scrutiny 
and  deeper  penitence.  But  these  spiritual  medicines,  meted 
out  for  the  hard  conscience  of  a  man,  are  almost  poison  to 
the  tender  heart  of  the  child ;  and  the  very  solemnity  of  the 
place  where  the  lesson  is  heard  increases  the  power  of  the 
words  to  exaggerate  and  distort.  Again  :  religious  books 
for  children  and  religious  novels  for  the  young  are  half  of 
them  written  by  women  of  sickly  sentiment,  full  of  that 
trivial,  baby-house  morality  of  which  I  have  spoken;  and 
the  child  whose  mind  is  fed  with  such  petty  thoughts  cannot 
possibly  grow  up  to  health  and  vigour  of  soul.  The  truth 
cannot  be  too  often  recalled  that  human  beings  have  not  got 
an  infinite  store  of  attention  and  reverence  to  bestow,  insomuch 
that  they  may  harmlessly  lavish  a  great  deal  of  either  upon 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  81 

trifles,  and  then  retain  afterwards  an  equal  amount  ready 
for  really  important  and  sacred  things.  Waste  of  the 
spiritual  emotions  is  the  most  fatal  waste  of  which  we  can 
be  guilty. 

If  the  reader  concede  the  principles  now  stated,  the 
ground  of  debate  regarding  the  religious  education  of  a 
child  will  be  found  at  least  considerably  narrowed.  If  the 
possession  of  religious  truth  be  the  most  priceless  of  heri 
tages — if  a  critical  spirit  must  never  be  fostered  in  a  child — 
if  systems  of  theology  and  a  store  of  cut-and-dried  facts  in 
divinity  be  no  needful  or  desirable  part  of  a  child's  religion 
— if  a  child's  faculties  of  love  and  reverence  be  given  data, 
and  our  task  in  relation  to  them  only  to  present  worthily  their 
proper  Object — if  the  due  place  to  be  assigned  in  moral  train 
ing  to  sin  and  penitence  be  the  most  important  and  sacred 
part  of  education,  wherein  to  err  either  on  the  side  of  exag 
geration  or  underrating  is  well-nigh  fatal — if  all  these  things 
be  so,  then  some  of  the  following  consequences  may  be  fairly 
assumed  to  follow. 

1st.  The  admission  that  religious  truth  is  the  most  price 
less  of  heritages  must  surely  decide  the  question  for  each 
parent,  what  are  the  doctrines  which  he  or  she  individually 
is  morally  bound  to  teach  to  son  or  daughter.  Catholic  and 
Calvinist  parents,  with  their  gloomy  creeds,  their  gospels 
of  evil  tidings,  still  without  hesitation  feel  it  their  duty  to 
teach  what  is  to  them,  subjectively,  true.  Common  honesty, 
common  regard  for  the  welfare  of  their  children,  require  it 
of  them ;  and  no  greater  causes  of  public  and  even  national 
disturbance  are  found  than  the  efforts  of  rulers  to  interfere 
with  this  duty,  and  teach  the  child  of  a  Catholic,  Calvinism, 
or  of  a  Jew,  Catholicism.  Shall,  then,  those  whom  I  am 
addressing  in  this  paper,  whose  creed  (as  they  are  at  least 
persuaded)  is  truest  of  all,  and  ten  thousand  times  a 
happier,  holier,  nobler  faith  than  that  of  Borne  or  Geneva, 


82  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

— shall  they  alone  hesitate  whether  they  shall  bring  up  their 
children  in  their  own  creed  or  in  that  of  their  neighbours  ? 
How  deplorable  is  it  there  should  even  be  a  question  in 
such  a  matter !  Yet  question  there  is ;  and  the  actual 
practice  of  liberal-minded  parents  at  this  moment  is  so 
variable  and  devoid  of  fixed  principle  of  action,  that  it  would 
be  ridiculous,  were  it  not  lamentable,  to  describe  it.  Here 
is  a  mother  who  does  not  believe  a  syllable  of  the  popular 
theology,  but  brings  up  her  daughters  carefully  to  believe 
it  all,  and  pretends  to  them  that  she  believes  it  also,  guard 
ing  them  from  the  chance  of  reading  a  book  or  conversing 
with  a  person  who  could  disturb  their  faith.  Here  is  a 
father  who  allows  his  boys  to  be  taught  the  whole  system* 
which  he  himself  believes  to  be  as  much  a  delusion  as  the 
vortices  of  Descartes ;  but  he  thinks  to  remedy  some  of  the 
evil  by  applying  an  antidote  in  the  shape  of  a  little  levity. 
Here  is  one  who  trains  his  child  to  criticize  the  opinions  of 
those  around,  and  to  set  up  its  small  judgment  over  the 
mysteries  of  heaven  and  earth.  Here  is  another  who  teaches 
"Elegant  Extracts"  of  Christianity,  and  leaves  the  child 
by  and  by  to  discover  that  the  authority  for  what  it  was 
told  was  true  and  what  it  was  told  was  false,  was  precisely 
one  and  the  same.  Here,  again,  is  one  who,  from  fear  of 
''prejudicing"  the  child's  mind,  teaches  him  no  religion  at 
all,  and  thus  loses  for  him  for  ever  all  the  tender  associa 
tions  of  youthful  piety.  Placed  clearly  before  a  parent's 
mind,  the  idea  of  deliberately  teaching  a  child  falsehood,  or 
choosing  for  it  secular  advantage  rather  than  spiritual  benefit, 
would  seem  shocking  and  monstrous  to  all  save  the  most 
worldly.  But  the  falsehoods  are  popular  falsehoods,  filling 
the  very  air  of  English  thought  ;  the  secular  advantages 
offered  by  orthodoxy  are  tangible,  considerable,  every  day 
present.  The  spiritual  benefits  of  a  pure  creed  (now  we  have 
ceased  to  believe  in  eternal  penalties  for  error)  are  purely 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  83 

spiritual ;  and  in  the  violent  reaction  from  the  old  over 
estimate  of  the  importance  of  opinion,  it  is  a  natural  error 
of  liberalism  to  overlook  them.  We  see  good  men  and 
women — nay,  noble  and  saintly  men  and  women — whose 
opinions  are  the  furthest  from  our  own ;  and  many  a  parent 
may  feel  he  would  be  content  to  see  his  son  or  daughter 
like  them,  and  at  the  same  time  making  "  the  best  of  both 
worlds"  in  the  safe  shelter  of  orthodoxy.  But  we  forget 
perhaps  that  another  generation  will  not  stand  where  the 
last  stood,  and  that  the  good  fruit  we  admire  did  not  indeed 
grow  off  the  thorns  of  the  Five  Points  of  Calvinism,  but  off 
the  true  vine  of  Divine  Love  which  wreathed  itself  around 
them.  The  chance  that,  if  we  plant  only  the  thorns,  the  vine 
will  grow  over  them,  is  one  assuredly  not  to  be  counted 
upon. 

2ndly.  From  the  observation  of  the  evil  results  of  instil 
ling  a  critical  spirit  at  an  age  when  a  child  cannot  possibly 
possess  either  the  materials  or  true  method  for  forming  a 
critical  judgment,  it  follows  that  liberal  parents,  like  others, 
must  needs  teach  their  religion  to  their  children  didactically. 
There  lies  here  a  great  practical  difficulty.  On -the  one 
hand,  we  all  know  too  well  the  evil  and  danger  of  bringing 
up  a  young  mind  to  believe  a  whole  mass  of  doctrines  as 
certain  and  unquestionable,  and  then  leaving  it  to  find  out 
at  its  entrance  into  independent  life  and  when  temptation 
is  at  its  highest,  that  many  of  these  doctrines,  if  not  all  of 
them,  are  utterly  uncertain  and  doubtful.  On  the  other 
hand,  to  teach  a  child  to  consider  all  the  truths  of  the  un 
seen  world  as  matters  of  speculation,  would  be  still  more 
absurd  and  mischievous.  To  impart  knowledge  of  them, 
and  yet  to  impart  at  the  same  time  that  other  knowledge; 
that  parents  are  not  infallible  ;  that  no  human  knowledge 
is  infallible ;  that  to  love  Truth  and  search  for  it  as  for  hid 
treasure,  rather  than  to  receive  it  unasked  and  undeserved, 


84  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

like  the  rain,  is  the  duty  and  the  lot  of  man ; — to  impart 
this  must  needs  be  a  task  of  great  delicacy  and  difficulty 
It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that  a  child  is  always 
naturally  disposed  to  look  on  his  parents'  opinion  as  final 
truth  so  long  as  the  parents'  mind  bounds  its  narrow  horizon 
of  all  wisdom.  Thus  to  make  a  child  understand  that  any 
doctrine  is  or  is  not  true  in  its  parents'  opinion,  is  to  give 
it  at  once  the  prestige  of  truth,  and  yet  not  to  incur  any 
risk  of  future  break-down  and  discovery.  By  and  by  the 
child  will  learn  what  is  the  value  of  its  parents'  opinions 
on  all  matters,  and  if  the  parent  be  truly  good  and  wise, 
that  value  will  be  very  great  indeed,  though  of  course  far 
short  of  absolute  authority.  In  any  case,  the  parent  will 
obtain  for  his  religious  teaching  precisely  the  respect  it  de 
serves  to  obtain — that  of  his  own  personal  weight  in  the 
estimation  of  his  son  or  daughter.  How  much  this  view  of 
the  proper  nature  of  instruction  adds  to  the  responsibility 
of  forming  the  opinions  which  are  thus  to  be  bequeathed 
as  the  most  precious  heritage,  there  is  no  need  to  tell.  In 
this,  as  in  all  other  things,  a  man  or  woman's  responsibility 
in  thought,  feeling  and  action,  seems  to  become  doubled  and 
quadrupled  as  they  assume  the  holy  rank  of  a  father  or  a 
mother.  Doubtless,  many  of  them  must  in  their  hearts 
echo  poor  Margaret  Fuller's  exclamation  :  "I  am  the 
parent  of  an  immortal  soul !  God  be  merciful  to  me — a 
sinner  !  " 

3rdly.  If  we  abandon  the  idea  that  children  should  be 
crammed  with  facts  connected  somehow  with  religion,  and 
made  capable  of  "  telling  more  about  God  than  Plato  and 
Socrates"  (much  more  indeed  than  it  is  likely  Plato  and 
Socrates  can  now  tell  after  two  thousand  years  of  heaven), 
there  will  be  an  end  in  a  great  measure  of  the  difficulty 
which  now  besets  liberal  parents  in  their  inquiry,  "  What 
shall  we  teach  our  children  of  a  Sunday  ?  "  With  the  ima- 


RELIGION  OF   CHILDHOOD.  85 


ginary  necessity  will  disappear  the  imaginary  duty  of  meet 
ing  it,  and  small  Platos  of  five  years  old  and  Socrates  in 
white  frocks  will  no  longer  be  made  to  pore  over  catechisms 
or  repeat  the  beautiful  collects  like  so  many  little  parrots 
in  a  row.  The  abolition  of  those  "burdens  grievous  to  be 
borne,"  the  wearisome  Sunday  lessons  of  childhood,  would,  we 
believe,  accomplish  no  small  step  towards  making  children 
love  the  religion  which  they  heard  of  in  other  and  happier 
ways.  Can  anybody  fancy  the  result  of  teaching  "  Affection 
to  Parents "  by  a  regular  educational  battery  of  catechisms 
and  texts  once  a  week?  Would  it  make  a  child  love  its 
mother  better  ?  We  rather  imagine  the  reverse.  Nor  can 
we  conceive  why  the  analogous  sentiment  of  love  to  the 
Father  in  heaven  should  follow  a  different  law. 

The  old  Hebrew  prophet  believed  that  a  special  blessing 
would  come  to  those  who  "  called  the  Sabbath  a  delight'' 
It  would  seem  to  have  been  the  peculiar  pride  of  our  Puritan 
fathers  to  make  this  blessing  as  difficult  of  attainment  as 
possible,  especially  to  children.  Those  to  whom  this  paper 
is  addressed  need  not  be  adjured  to  abandon  the  Puritanical 
Sabbath-keeping,  whose  memory  returns  to  some  of  us  as 
the  dreariest  recollection  of  youth  ;  Sabbaths  with  the  hard 
est  lessons  of  the  week,  whose  imperfect  acquirement  some 
how  involved  double  offence ;  Sabbaths  with  wearisome 
litanies  and  incomprehensible  sermons  through  long  bright 
summer  mornings,  when  we  sighed  to  run  out  and  gather 
cowslips  in  the  sweet  green  grass  ;  Sabbaths  with  unwhole 
some  cold  meals  crowded  one  on  another,  making  young 
and  old  heavy  and  ill-tempered ;  Sabbaths  toyless  and  joy 
less,  when  all  books  permitted  to  be  read  had  the  same 
indescribable  flavour  of  unreal  goodness,  and  whose  perusal 
was  accompanied  by  the  same  sense  of  soreness  of  the 
elbows  and  weariness  of  the  poor  little  dangling  legs ! 
These  are  not  Sabbaths  which  the  children  of  liberal 


86  RELIGION  OF   CHILDHOOD. 

thinkers  arc  likely  ever  to  recall.  But  there  would  surely 
be  a  loss  incurred  the  other  way,  were  the  Sunday  oblite 
rated  from  their  childish  calendar  or  made  a  purely  secular 
holiday.  There  is  no  need  it  should  be  so.  Calvinism  and 
all  the  forms  of  the  old  theology  appeal  to  grown  men  and 
women,  that  is,  to  persons  conscious  of  actual  sin,  and  they 
either  need  to  be  modified  to  meet  the  requirements  of  inno 
cent  childhood,  or  else  they  distort  childish  souls  to  meet 
their  darker  lessons.  But  a  true  theology,  whose  basis  shall 
be  the  spontaneous  religious  consciousness  of  our  nature, 
is  not  thus  -unfitted  for  childhood,  nor  will  its  simple  and 
natural  services  be  otherwise  than  delightful  to  the  young 
mind  and  heart  to  whom  the  sentiments  of  awe  and  love  are 
full  of  joy.  Parents,  we  believe,  will  be  obliged  rather  to 
hold  back  and  calm  the  fervent  religious  emotions  of  their 
children,  than  fictitiously  to  nurse  them  as  now,  when  they 
teach  them  to  think  of  God  as  indeed  He  is,  and  not 
as  the  creeds  have  represented  Him.  We  have  known  a 
few  such  happy  children,  and  in  nearly  every  case  their 
mothers  have  said,  "  I  hardly  dare  to  speak  much  of  religious 
things,  they  feel  too  much." 

Bible-reading,  again,  is  a  difficulty.  An  education  which 
should  omit  the  study  of  the  greatest  of  all  books — a  book 
which,  in  a  literary  sense  alone,  is  to  other  books  as  Shake 
speare  is  to  the  puny  poets  of  the  age  of  Queen  Anne,  and 
which,  in  a  religious  sense,  is  the  quarry  whence  men  will 
draw  praise  and  prayer  while  the  world  remaineth — an 
education  which  should  omit  the  study  of  the  Bible,  would 
be  no  education  at  all.  Even  as  the  chief  historical  docu 
ment  of  the  past,  and  the  Guide-book  (we  had  almost  said, 
"idol")  of  half  Christendom  at  present,  the  Bible  is  a  fact 
no  more  to  be  ignored  in  the  instruction  of  a  child,  than 
the  existence  of  the  sovereign  or  the  capital  city  of  its 
native  country.  But  how  is  a  child  to  read  the  Bible  and 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  87 

not  acquire  the  orthodox  theology  ?  Let  me  rather  ask, 
Would  any  child  construct  for  itself  the  orthodox  theology 
if  it  were  to  ponder  over  the  Bible  for  years,  provided  it 
had  not  been  previously  taught  to  find  that  theology  therein  ? 
That  the  idea  of  the  Trinity  and  the  "Plan  of  Salvation" 
would  even  occur  to  a  child  on  reading  the  Gospels,  I 
utterly  disbelieve.  "What  it  would  find  there,  beyond  some 
beautiful  stories  and  words  of  prayer  and  precept  grandly 
sounding  in  its  ears,  it  is  hard  to  say.  But  a  child's  mind 
does  not  construct  systems.  The  simple  system  of  God's 
Unity  and  Fatherhood  once  presented  to  it,  will  more  than 
suffice  for  its  wants  in  this  respect. 

The  evil  which  comes  of  Bible-reading  for  children  surely 
arises  from  the  ineradicable  habit  of  treating  the  book  mysti 
cally,  and  as  differing,  not  in  degree  only,  but  utterly  in 
kind,  from  other  books.  The  child  reads  it  long  before  any 
other  history,  and  quite  as  a  different  lesson,  and  therefore  he 
thinks  of  Adam  and  Eve  and  Noah  and  Balaam  quite  other 
wise  than  he  thinks  of  the  characters  he  reads  of  elsewhere. 
The  writer  knew  a  case  of  a  boy  whose  education  was  con 
ducted  on  the  opposite  principle.  His  parents  (disciples  of 
Theodore  Parker)  first  gave  him  to  read  some  of  Mr.  Cox's 
beautiful  Grecian  stories,  and  then  afterwards,  without  any 
special  preparation,  the  book  of  Genesis.  The  little  fellow, 
a  clever  child  of  eight  or  nine,  was  immensely  delighted 
with  it,  but  very  manifestly  had  no  other  impression  than 
that  the  Israelites  believed  in  the  One  God  and  the  Greeks 
in  many  false  ones,  and  that  the  early  legends  of  each  might 
fitly  be  compared.  He  even  found  out  for  himself  the  re 
semblance  between  the  story  of  Noah  and  Deucalion,  of 
Jephtha's  daughter  and  Iphigenia.  To  a  child  thus  begin 
ning  it,  the  Bible  would  have  a  thousand  good  lessons,  but 
no  lesson  of  superstition.  I  may  add  that  the  same  boy 
was  without  exception  the  most  religious  I  ever  knew, 


88  RELIGION  OF    CHILDHOOD. 

brave  and  true,  and  beautifully  dutiful  to  his  parents,  and 
his  early  manhood  bears  no  less  excellent  promise. 

Finally,  there  is  the  church-going  difficulty.  Unitarians 
of  course  have  a  clear  path  before  them  ;  they  naturally  take 
their  children  to  the  chapels  they  themselves  attend.  The 
assurance  that  the  worship  in  such  chapels  is  addressed  to 
the  Supreme  Father  only,  that  the  prayers  are  always  of  a 
pure  and  spiritual  cast,  and  that  the  morals  inculcated  in 
the  sermon  are  universally  lofty  and  true, — all  these  are  im 
mense  advantages  which  may  well  solve  the  question  for 
any  parent  as  to  the  desirability  of  bringing  his  child  to 
public  worship.  But  even  Unitarians  must  feel  how  little 
of  the  service  or  sermon  suited  for  intellectual  men  and 
women,  can,  by  any  effort  of  the  minister,  be  made  also 
suitable  for  little  children.  Some  of  the  preaching,  indeed, 
suggests  rather  the  impression  of  the  utter  unfitness  that 
childish  ears  should  hear  it  and  childish  minds  be  called 
to  judge  in  such  controversies.  The  Evangelical  teaching, 
over-stimulating  to  sickliness  and  burning  out  in  brief  flame 
of  excitement  the  fuel  of  sentiment  which  should  have 
warmed  a  life- time, — even  this  is  hardly  more  injurious  to 
a  child  than  to  be  introduced  in  infancy  to  the  polemics  of 
the  churches,  and  allowed  to  turn  to  the  page  of  scepticism, 
before  it  has  learned  the  lesson  of  faith.  As  well  might  a 
primrose  grow  in  a  dusty  arena,  as  the  tender  piety  of  youth 
flourish  in  the  midst  of  theological  controversy. 

Liberal  parents  who  take  their  children  to  the  services 
of  the  Church  of  England  have  perhaps  not  so  much  to  fear 
in  the  way  of  controversy  from  the  pulpit,  though  they 
may  be  compelled  to  sit  by  silent  and  helpless  while  their 
children  hear  their  own  profoundest  convictions  treated  as 
criminal  and  abominable,  and  those  who  hold  them  com- 
demned  to  everlasting  fire.  They  may  hear  these  things. 
But  what  they  are  sure  to  hear  are  doctrines  they  believe 


RELIGION   OF  CHILDHOOD.  89 

to  be  false,  and  prayers  which,  according  to  their  views, 
are  mockeries  as  regards  the  things  asked  for,  and 
well-nigh  idolatrous  as  regards  the  Person  at  intervals 
addressed. 

Is  this,  can  this,  be  right  ?  It  seems  as  if  we  must  have 
wandered  far  from  simplicity  and  honesty  before  we  can 
say  so  deliberately.  Of  course  there  are  all  sorts  of  moral 
expediencies  in  the  case.  The  impression  produced  by  a 
dignified  cuttus,  by  the  sense  of  public  opinion  and  sympathy, 
and  by  all  the  historical  associations  and  aesthetic  influences 
belonging  to  the  great  National  Church — all  these  are  excel 
lent  things  to  give  a  child.  "When  it  is  added,  that  giving 
them  cuts  the  knot  of  twenty  petty  difficulties  which  beset 
the  course  of  keeping  him  at  home,  and  that  it  is  so  much 
the  natural  order  of  the  family  that  to  diverge  from  it 
would  require  an  effort,  there  is  of  course  a  goodly  show  of 
argument  for  the  expediency  of  taking  a  child  to  church. 
But  is  there  not  a  higher  expediency  which  points  a  different 
way,  even  that  expediency  of  simple  truth  and  honesty 
which  must  needs  be  the  best  guide  to  the  ultimate  good 
of  any  human  soul  ? 

Among  the  numerous  immoral  stories  of  the  Jewish 
Scriptures  there  is  one  which  is  always  strangely  slurred 
over  by  friends  and  foes  ;  by  friends  because  it  is  inde 
fensible,  by  foes  because  in  condemning  it  they  must  con 
demn  their  own  conduct.  In  the  moment  of  his  rapturous 
gratitude  for  his  miraculous  cure,  we  are  told  that  Naaman 
bargained  with  the  prophet,  that  his  conversion  to  the 
worship  of  the  true  God  was  not  to  prevent  him  from 
attending  his  sovereign  and  bowing  to  his  idol  in  courtier 
fashion  whenever  it  might  be  desirable.  The  inspired 
prophet  is  recorded  to  have  sanctioned  this  stipulation, 
and  bade  the  deliberate  hypocrite  "  Go  in  peace. "  Can 
this  wretched  story  have  had  much  influence  ?  I 


90  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

hardly  believe  it,  and  yet  it  might  pass  fo.r  a  parable  of 
what  is  done  every  day  in  England.  So  commonly  is  it 
done,  that  to  speak  gravely  of  it  as  moral  error  sounds 
crude  and  rough  ;  the  residue  of  the  harsh  prejudices  and 
trenchant  ideas  of  bygone  times.  "We  have  been  accus 
tomed  to  soften  down  everything  of  this  kind ;  to  concede 
gracefully  that  every  opinion  is  true  in  some  sense  or  other, 
and  that  it  is  fanatical  to  make  a  stand  against  this  phrase 
in  a  creed  or  that  expression  in  a  prayer,  or  talk  as  if  the 
sin  of  idolatry  could  possibly  be  incurred  in  England  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  But  it  does  not  clearly  appear  how  truth 
and  sincerity  have  altered  their  characters,  or  why,  because 
we  are  enabled  to  do  better  justice  to  our  neighbour's  views, 
we  are  to  be  less  honest  in  following  out  our  own.  If,  to  the 
individual  concerned,  it  be  as  clear  a  conviction  that  Christ 
is  not  the  Infinite  Deity  as  (according  to  the  story)  it  was 
to  Naaman  that  Hirnmon  was  not  He,  it  remains  to  be 
shown  how  bowing  to  the  one  differs  essentially  as  a  moral 
act  from  bowing  to  the  other. 

These  are  matters  of  solemn  import,  rising  to  questions 
beyond  the  subject  of  this  paper.  Let  it  be  remarked,  at 
all  events,  that  the  free-thinking  parent  who  means  to  make 
his  son  a  thoroughly  upright  man,  hardly  sets  about  it  in 
the  best  way,  when  he  makes  the  most  impressive  action 
of  his  childish  life  consist  in  praying  for  things  which  he 
believes  are  never  granted  to  prayer,  and  in  paying  divine 
worship  to  a  being  whom  he  believes  to  have  been  a  mortal 
man.  When  the  two  fallacies  are  discovered  (as  the  parent 
who  knows  the  current  of  modern  thought  must  expect  they 
will  be)  in  the  boy's  advancing  youth — when  the  son  shall 
find  out  that  the  father  taught  him  what  he  did  not  himself 
believe — how  shall  filial  respect  for  the  veracity  of  the  parent 
survive,  or  an  example  of  uprightness  be  derived  from  his 
conduct  ? 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  91 

To  conclude,.  The  last  principle  laid  down  was  this  : 
That  in  teaching  religion  to  a  child,  our  task  is  not  to  dis 
tort  and  forcibly  wrench  aside  the  child's  spontaneous  senti 
ments,  but  to  present  to  them  the  Object  they  are  made 
expressly  to  love  and  reverence. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  revert  to  first  principles  to  set  before 
ourselves  clearly  what  is  the  aim  of  religious  education. 

Each  human  love  has  its  peculiar  character.  Parental 
love  combines  itself  with  tenderness  and  protection,  filial 
love  with  reverence,  conjugal  love  with  passion,  friendly 
love  with  esteem,  brotherly  and  sisterly  love  with  the  sym 
pathies  and  confidence  of  consanguinity.  Love  directed, 
not  to  child  or  parent,  wife  or  friend,  but  to  GOD,  has  also 
its  peculiar  character.  It  is  a  love  of  Reverence,  of  Admira 
tion,  of  Gratitude;  above  all,  of  absolute  MORAL  ALLEGIANCE, 
as  to  a  rightful  Moral  Lord.  Such  sentiments  as  may  be 
given  to  an  unseen  Creator,  which  are  not  of  this  character — 
the  sentiments  to  which  history  bears  horrible  testimony, 
of  raptures  of  devotion  felt  by  wicked  and  cruel  men  who 
believed  God  to  be  as  cruel  and  unjust  as  themselves — these 
sentiments  do  not  constitute  Love  of  God.  They  are  hideous 
aberrations  of  the  soul,  diseased  emotions  addressed  to  an 
imaginary  Being. 

Again :  The  true  love  of  God,  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
is  not  merely  a  part  of  religion,  or  the  ultimate  aim  of 
religion.  It  is  religion.  The  dawn  of  it  in  the  heart  is  the 
aurora  of  the  eternal  day  which  is  to  shine  more  and  more 
perfectly  through  the  ages  without  end.  Till  it  begins,  there 
is  no  real  religion,  only  at  best  the  preparation  for  religion. 

Thus  it  follows  that  to  awaken  in  a  child's  heart  the  true 
love  of  God,  is  the  alpha  and  omega  of  religious  education. 
Make  it  feel  this  love,  and  the  highest  good  a  creature  can 
know  has  been  secured  for  it.  Fail  to  make  it  feel  it,  and 
the  most  elaborate  instructions,  the  largest  store  of  theo- 


92  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

logical  knowledge  and  religious  precepts,  are  useless  and 
absurd.  In  the  battle  of  life,  children  taught  everything 
else  except  this  love,  go  forth  like  those  mockeries  of  steam 
ships  the  Chinese  constructed  to  contend  with  ours,  fitted 
with  all  the  appliances  which  would  have  been  useful  had 
there  been  any  engine  within,  but  without  that  which  should 
have  given  power  and  motion. 

These  are  principles  to  which  all  will  agree.  Even  Roman 
ists  say  their  colossal  system  of  priestly  mediation  aims 
at  the  end  to  help  souls  to  the  love  of  God ;  and  Calvinists, 
whose  dogmas  make  the  Deity  hateful,  yet  profess  to  instil 
them  with  the  view  of  inspiring  a  love  which  can  only  be 
the  reaction  from  fear.  But  the  great  difference  between 
the  followers  of  such  churches  and  those  who  hold  a  happier 
faith  must  consist,  not  in  the  end  all  may  contemplate  as  de 
sirable,  but  in  the  means  each  may  pursue  for  its  attainment. 

There  is  something  very  deplorable,  when  we  reflect  upon 
it,  in  the  way  in  which  mankind  in  all  ages  have  sought 
to  take  by  violence  that  kingdom  of  heaven  whose  golden 
gates  are  ever  open  to  him  who  knocks  thereat  in  filial 
entreaty.  From  lands  and  times  when  they  tortured  the 
body,  to  days  like  our  own  in  England  when  they  only  strive 
to  wrench  the  affections  and  distort  the  judgment,  the  same 
all-pervading  error  may  be  traced.  Naturally,  men  who 
have  thus  acted  in  the  case  of  their  own  souls,  have  no 
scruple  to  act  so  in  their  children's  behalf ;  and  to  drill  a 
young  mind  to  religion  is  conceived  of  from  first  to  last  as 
a  difficult  task,  to  be  achieved  by  constant  coercion  of  the 
spontaneous  sentiments,  and  the  enforcement  of  a  duty  natu 
rally  distasteful.  It  is  an  immense  evidence  of  the  readiness 
of  the  human  heart  to  love  the  Divine  Father,  that,  with  the 
training  usually  given  in  this  Christian  land,  so  many  are 
still  found  to  resist  its  natural  consequences,  and  to  love  God 
in  spite  of  their  education. 


RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD.  93 

If  a  mother  wished  to  make  her  boy  grow  up  full  of 
affection  and  respect  for  a  father  in  India  or  Australia,  how 
would  she  set  about  it  ?  Would  she  first  start  with  the 
notion  that  it  would  be  a  very  hard  thing  to  do,  and  contrary 
to  the  child's  nature  ?  "Would  she  insist  on  it,  morning, 
noon  and  night,  as  his  severe  duty  ?  Would  she  talk  of  the 
absent  parent  in  a  conventional  voice,  and  make  addressing 
him  by  letter,  or  doing  anything  for  him,  a  sterner  task  than 
any  other  ?  Lastly,  would  she  perpetually  tell  the  child 
that  when  the  father  came  home,  if  he  had  not  been  obedient 
and  was  not  affectionate  to  him,  the  father  would  turn  him 
out  of  the  house  and  burn  him  alive  ?  Are  these  the  methods 
by  which  a  wife  and  mother's  instincts  would  lead  her  to 
act  ?  Surely  we  have  only  to  imagine  the  reverse  of  all 
these — the  popular  processes  of  religious  instruction — to  find 
the  true  method  for  guiding  children's  hearts  to  love  their 
Father  in  heaven  ?  A  child  must  not  think  it  a  hard  thing, 
a  task  of  fear  and  awe,  a  notion  to  be  dragged  into  its 
lessons  and  its  play  to  make  them  more  irksome  and  less 
joyous,  that  it  ought  to  be  feeling  what  it  does  not  feel. 
Above  all  things,  the  idea  that  such  a  thing  is  possible  as 
an  ultimate  and  final  rejection  by  God  ought  never  so  much 
as  to  be  presented  to  the  mind  of  a  child.  A  child  can  very 
well  understand  punishment ;  nor  does  it  at  all  love  the  less, 
but  rather  the  more,  those  who  punish  it  justly  and  for 
its  good.  But  punishment  extending  into  infinity  beyond 
justice,  punishment  whose  aim  and  result  is  the  evil,  not  the 
good,  of  the  sufferer,  this  is  an  idea  utterly  opposed  to  all 
the  instincts  of  childhood.  Of  course  the  poor  little  mind 
takes  in  the  shocking  doctrine,  presented  to  it  like  poison 
from  its  mother's  hand.  But  the  results  are  fatal.  In  one, 
it  is  indifference  ;  in  another,  dislike  ;  in  another,  an  atrophy 
of  the  religious  nature  ;  in  a  fourth,  a  fever  of  terror,  from 
which  the  soul  escapes  only  by  casting  off  all  belief.  Even 


94  RELIGION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

when  the  most  fortunate  end  is  reached,  and  the  man  throws 
away  in  adult  life  the  doctrine  taught  him  in  childhood, 
even  then  for  long  years  the  shadow  remains  over  him.  We 
return  to  early  fears,  as  well  as  loves,  many  a  time  before  we 
relinquish  them  for  ever.  The  parent  who  would  give  his 
child  a  truly  religious  education,  must  make  it  his  care  to 
insure  him  (as  he  would  insure  him  against  listening  to  far 
lesser  blasphemies)  from  ever  even  hearing  of  an  Eternal 
Hell.  This  done,  we  firmly  believe  that,  if  he  himself  love 
God,  he  will  find  it  the  easiest  of  lessons  to  teach  his  child 
to  love  Him  likewise.  "We  must  remember  this :  God's  voice 
speaks  in  the  heart  of  a  child  as  in  the  heart  of  a  man  ;  nay, 
far  more  clearly  than  in  the  heart  of  a  disobedient  and  world- 
encrusted  man.  To  teach  a  child  Whose  voice  that  is,  to 
make  him  identify  it  with  the  Giver  of  all  good,  the  Creator 
of  this  world  (so  fresh  and  lovely  in  his  young  eyes  !) — to  do 
this  is  to  give  him  religion.  And  the  religion  thus  given 
will  grow  into  fuller,  maturer  life,  till  it  rises  to  the  reality 
of  prayer,  the  full  blessedness  of  Divine  communion. 

A  wise  mother  once  told  me  she  had  taught  her  child  a 
few  simple  prayers  to  repeat  at  morning  and  night,  and  then 
had  given  the  advice  to  ask  of  God,  whenever  the  child 
needed  it,  help  to  overcome  her  temptations,  and  to  thank 
Him  when  she  felt  very  happ)^  After  some  months  she 
asked  the  little  girl — "  Tell  me,  my  child,  when  you  pray  to 
God  do  you  feel  as  if  it  were  a  real  thing,  as  if  there  were 
some  One  who  heard  you  ?  "  The  child  pondered  a  moment, 
and  then  replied  :  "  Not  when  I  say  my  prayers  morning 
and  evening,  mama,  I  do  not  think  I  feel  anything ;  but 
whenever  I  do  as  you  told  me,  and  just  say  to  God  what  I 
am  wanting,  or  how  happy  I  am,  I  am  quite  sure  He  knows 
what  I  say." 

Do  we  need  better  instance  of  how  real  and  holy  a  thing 
may  be  the  Religion  of  Childhood  ? 


ESSAY  IV. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.1 

THERE  exist  at  all  times  in  the  world's  history,  but  rather 
pre-eminently  in  our  own  age,  minds  of  an  order  with  which 
it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  deal  justly.  They  are  those 
which  seem  to  be  without  logical  cohesion,  whose  ideas  and 
opinions  (often  full  of  genius  and  of  wisdom)  seem  disparate 
one  from  another,  and  out  of  whose  recorded  words  it  is 
impossible  to  construct  a  consistent  or  even  intelligible 
system.  Like  so  many  orchids,  their  luxuriant  flowers 
attract  our  eyes,  while  their  sweetness  touches  our  hearts ; 
but  when  we  try  to  find  the  root  of  faith  from  which  such 
beauty  has  sprung, — lo  !  some  old  decaying  tree,  to  which 
the  delicate  stem  lightly  adheres,  is  all  we  can  discover.  We 
always  seem  in  the  wrong  as  regards  them.  They  attract 
us,  delight  us,  truly  aid  our  spiritual  life  by  their  insight 
and  their  tender  piety.  Then  we  think  to  make  them  our 
guides ;  but  •  the  magi  of  old  might  as  well  have  followed  a 
fire-fly  !  Again,  we  are  provoked,  indignant.  We  condemn 
them,  and  even  in  our  impatience  question  their  honesty : 
Why  does  not  the  man  who  says  this  and  this,  say  also 
this  and  this  ?  Why  does  he  who  avows  ideas  such  as  the 

1  The  Life  and  Letters  of  the  Rev.  Frederick  W.  Robertson,  M.A.,  Incumbent 
of  Trinity  Chapel,  Brighton.  Edited  by  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  M.A.,  late  Chaplain 
to  tlie  Embassy  at  Berlin.  2  vols.  8vo.  London  :  Smith  and  Elder.  1865. 


96  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 

founders  of  his  Church  never  dreamed  of,  or  condemned 
bitterly  if  they  did,  stop  within  their  fold,  and  profess  to 
find  green  pastures  where  there  are  but  swine's  husks  of 
dead  symbols  ?  Hardly  have  we  uttered  the  question,  but 
we  are  rebuked.  "  Men  so  good,  so  meek  of  heart,  so  pure  of 
life,  so  full  of  high  and  holy  thoughts — what  are  we  that 
we  should  summon  them  before  our  tribunal,  or  judge  them 
by  the  laws  of  our  individual  conscience  of  sincerity  ?  Let 
us  return  and  hearken  to  their  prophesyings."  The  books  of 
these  men  are  like  those  districts  of  Wales  and  Ireland, 

"  Where  sparkles  of  golden  splendour 
All  over  the  surface  shine." 

Every  page  has  its  glittering  thought,  its  grain  of  pure,  true 
gold.  But  the  "  Lagenian  mine "  can  somehow  never  be 
worked  to  profit.  The  ore  is  too  mixed  and  scattered.  We 
explore  it,  and  of  our  spoils  make  for  us  a  ring  of  remem 
brance,  a  locket,  perhaps  a  delicate  chain  of  linked  thoughts. 
But  we  cannot  mint  it  into  coin  to  pass  from  hand  to  hand, 
enriching  ourselves  and  the  world. 

These  reflections  have  occurred  to  me  while  reading  the 
Sermons  of  one  of  the  greatest  and  purest  of  these  cloudy 
prophets,  the  lamented  Frederick  Robertson.  They  are  not 
those  which  his  Biography  (which  it  is  now  my  task  to 
review)  most  prominently  suggests.  No  man  of  ordinary 
sympathies  could  read  this  book  and  think  first  of  dissecting 
the  opinions  of  its  subject,  and  testing  whether,  as  in  a 
child's  toy,  one  piece  fitted  accurately  into  another.  Few, 
on  the  contrary,  will  read  it,  I  am  persuaded,  without 
being  moved  to  a  sad  and  tender  sympathy,  that  sympathy 
with  the  soul  of  our  brother  wherein  his  intellectual  gifts 
and  failures  alike  become  well-nigh  indifferent.  Robertson's 
name  has  for  some  years  been  one  of  power  in  the  religious 
life  of  England.  Dating  from  the  publication  of  this  admir 
able  Life  and  these  Letters,  I  believe  it  will  become  hence- 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  97 

forth  a  typical  one,  like  those  of  Arnold  and  Blanco  White. 
The  personal  impression  which  he  made  on  those  who  knew 
him  in  life,  and  which  always  seems  to  have  exceeded  (in  the 
proportion  common  to  'highly  emotional  characters)  the  im 
pression  received  through  his  written  words,  will  now  be 
shared  by  thousands.  I  envy  not  those  who  can  receive 
it  without  being  thereby  touched  to  the  heart  as  by  the 
self-disclosure  of  a  friend  who  should  be  worthy  of  all  our 
admiration,  and  at  the  same  time  claim  from  us  such  com 
passion  as  may  yet  be  given  to  one  who  walked  with  God  on 
earth,  and  is  surely  gone  home  to  Him  now. 

The  tangible  facts  of  the  Life  of  Robertson  may  be  sum 
med  up  in  a  few  brief  sentences.  Never  had  a  biographer 
less  practical  material  to  work  with,  scarce  even  an  anec 
dote  worth  narrating.  If  the  result  in  this  book  be  in  a 
literary  sense  somewhat  monotonous,  it  is  redeemed  by 
great  simplicity  on  the  part  of  the  biographer,  and  much 
discriminating  analysis  of  character ;  and  perhaps  I  may 
add,  by  an  almost  excessive  reticence  as  to  family  and 
social  relations,  which  would  have  filled  in  the  background 
of  the  picture  and  given  it  more  familiar  reality,  at  the 
expense,  perchance,  of  delicacy  wisely  respected.  Few  even 
of  the  letters  have  any  names  attached  to  them,  and  if 
they  ever  contained  expressions  of  individual  attachment, 
they  have  been  expunged,  leaving  much  of  the  true  charac 
ter  of  the  letters  unexplained.  I  cannot  but  think  the  judg 
ment  which  dictated  this  last  measure  in  any  case,  a  mistake. 
Letters  are  not  the  same  things  addressed  to  persons  of  dif 
ferent  ages,  sexes,  and  characters  ;  persons  with  whom  the 
writer  holds  totally  different  relationships.  Many  expres 
sions  of  weariness,  annoyance,  personal  feelings  of  all  kinds, 
such  as  these  letters  contain,  are  natural  or  morbid,  legiti 
mate  or  else  unmanly  and  egotistical,  according  to  the  indi 
vidual  addressed,  and  his  or  her  relationship  to  the  writer. 

7 


98  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 

In  matters  like  these,  of  course  we  are  bound  to  give  credit 
to  the  biographer  for  having  exercised  his  best  judgment 
under  circumstances  unknown  to  us.  We  can  but  regret 
the  fact,  and  do  so  the  more  unhesitatingly,  since,  whatever 
inimical  and  slanderous  tongues  may  have  said,  these  letters, 
to  whomsoever  addressed,  bear  with  them  the  refutation  of 
all  calumny,  save  such  as  first  goads  its  victim  to  irritation, 
and  then  points  to  the  irritation  with  sanctimonious  con 
demnation. 

Again,  Robertson's  friendships  are  not  only  left  anony 
mous,  but  his  closest  ties  and  relationships  are  mentioned 
in  the  briefest  way.  His  marriage  is  detailed  in  one  sen 
tence  ;  and,  after  the  beginning  of  the  work,  where  one 
beautiful  letter  to  his  brother,  and  a  few  others  to  his 
parents  are  inserted,  there  is  hardly  half  a  page  of  the  two 
bulky  volumes  devoted  to  either  his  early  or  later  home  circle. 
What  Renan  has  striven  to  do  for  us  in  the  case  of  Robert 
son's  great  Master,  namely,  to  give  us  a  clear  mental  picture 
of  the  milieu  in  which  his  life  and  thoughts  revolved,  is 
precisety  what  Robertson's  biographer  seems  to  have  care 
fully  avoided,  till  in  his  care  to  protect  the  susceptibilities 
or  respect  the  privacy  of  the  living,  he  has  left  us  rather 
the  startling  apparition  of  "  a  priest  after  the  order  of  Mel- 
chisedek,"  than  the  portrait  of  an  English  clergyman  who 
within  all  our  memories  was  the  popular  preacher  of  a  fami 
liar  Brighton  chapel.  We  can  resume  the  bare  facts  of  his 
career,  such  as  Mr.  Brooke  gives  them,  in  a  single  page. 

Frederick  William  Robertson  was  the  son  and  grandson 
of  soldiers,  and  from  his  boyhood  was  passionately  desirous 
of  entering  the  military  profession.  After  a  year's  futile 
attempt  to  make  him  a  solicitor,  his  father  endeavoured  to 
obtain  for  him  a  commission  in  the  army.  A  long  delay 
occurred  before  the  request  was  granted ;  arid  during  the 
interval,  the  influence  of  friends  and  his  father's  wishes 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  99 

induced  Frederick  Robertson  to  enter  Oxford  and  prepare 
for  the  Church.  In  1840  he  was  ordained,  and  acted  as 
curate  first  at. Winchester,  subsequently  at  Cheltenham  and 
Oxford.  Brief  journeys  to  Germany  and  the  Tyrol  formed 
his  holiday  recreation.  On  one  of  these  occasions,  as  his 
biographer  succinctly  states,  "he  met  (at  Geneva),  and  after 
a  short  acquaintance  married,  Helen,  third  daughter  of  Sir 
G.  W.  Denys,  Bart.,  of  Easton  ISTeston,  Northamptonshire. 
Almost  immediately  after  his  marriage  he  returned  to 
Cheltenham."  The  "only  external  events  which  marked 
the  subsequent  five  years  of  his  life,"  during  which  he 
was  curate  to  the  Rev.  Archibald  Boyd,  were  "  the  birth  of 
three  children  and  the  death  of  one."  In  1847  he  accepted 
the  incumbency  of  Trinity  Chapel,  Brighton,  and  there  he 
laboured,  becoming  each  year  more  beloved  and  honoured, 
but  each  year  more  feeble  in  health  and  weary  of  spirit,  till 
in  1853  his  condition  became  alarming,  and  his  congrega 
tion  subscribed  to  supply  him  with  a  curate,  by  whose  aid 
his  work  might  be  lightened.  Robertson  chose  his  friend 
Mr.  Tower  for  the  office.  The  appointment  was  subject  to 
the  approval  of  Mr.  Wagner,  vicar  of  Brighton,  who  had 
previously  been  engaged  in  controversy  with  Mr.  Tower  on 
financial  matters  connected  with  a  charitable  institution. 
Mr.  Wagner  refused  to  ratify  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Tower, 
and  Robertson  refused  to  appoint  another  curate.  During 
the  angry  contention  which  thereupon  occupied  the  entire 
population  of  Brighton,  the  last  chances  of  recovery  for 
Robertson's  health  were  irretrievably  lost.  A  disease  whose 
seat  seemed  to  be  at  the  base  of  the  brain,  and  which  caused 
him  intense  suffering,  terminated  his  life  on  the  15th  of 
August,  1853,  in  his  thirty- seventh  year.  His  last  words 
were :  "I  cannot  bear  it.  Let  me  rest.  I  must  die.  Let 
God  do  His  work." 

Such    is  the  outline  of  a  life   which  was  filled  in  by  a 


100  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 

thousand  touches  of  piety,  genius,  and  goodness.  The  study 
of  it  is  indeed  purely  the  study  of  the  man  Robertson,  not 
of  the  career  of  a  more  or  less  successful  preacher  or  student 
or  reformer.  Of  the  world  at  large,  nothing  is  to  be  learned 
from  his  Biography,  save  the  old  lesson,  that  a  good  man 
must  needs  find  friends,  and  a  gifted  one,  admirers,  and  an 
honest  and  bold  one,  enemies.  The  observations  on  books 
and  on  social  and  religious  problems  contained  in  the  letters 
are  interesting,  but  rather  as  affording  glimpses  into  the 
feelings  of  the  writer,  than  as  illuminating  the  subjects 
themselves  in  the  way  a  great  mind  generally  effects  by 
each  passing  gleam  of  notice.  Of  politics,  we  only  hear 
that  Robertson  was  by  sentiment  an  aristocrat ;  but  by  force 
of  his  allegiance  to  the  great  Reformer  of  Galilee,  who  spake 
the  parable  of  Dives,  a  democrat  and  an  inveigher  against 
the  luxuries  of  the  rich.  Of  those  works  of  philanthropy 
which  men  of  his  energy  usually  choose  whereon  to  centre 
their  labours,  we  hear  little.  Neither  the  relief  of  poverty, 
nor  the  reform  of  crime,  nor  the  repression  of  vice,  no  en 
thusiastic  alliance  with  abolition  or  temperance  movements, 
is  to  be  traced  as  a  thread  connecting  his  efforts  at  any 
period  of  his  life.  One  only  work  did  he  seem  to  undertake 
with  peculiar  zest.  The  Association  of  the  Working  Men 
of  Brighton  found  in  him  their  warmest  friend.  His  Ad 
dresses  to  them  contain  some  of  his  very  finest  thoughts, 
and  he  appears  to  have  had  their  cause  nearer  to  his  heart 
than  any  other.  If  this  be  so,  we  may  perhaps  adjudge  to 
Robertson  the  exalted  praise  of  having  been  one  of  the 
very  first  to  turn  philanthropy  into  a  new  and  noble  channel 
wherein  it  has  since  run  freely.  Beyond  his  lectures  and 
assistance  to  the  working  men,  it  would  seem,  however,  as  if 
his  great  tenderness  of  heart  poured  itself  out  rather  gene 
rally  than  with  any  special  purpose  or  object.  In  a  word, 
the  power  of  Robertson  was  almost  unnaturally  devoid  of 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  101 

external  or  tangible  manifestation.  Even  the  religious  doc 
trines  he  taught  have  singularly  little  definiteness  of  shape 
or  substance,  such  as  might  enable  us  to  account  him  the 
prophet  of  this  or  that  truth,  or  precept.  We  insensibly 
describe  him  rather  by  negatives  than  affirmatives,  and  say  he 
did  not  do  or  teach  what  others  have  done  or  taught,  rather 
than  that  he  accomplished  such  a  work  or  gave  to  the  world 
such  a  doctrine.  We  close  his  Life  with  the  sense  (oftener 
left  on  us  by  women  than  by  men)  that  we  have  been  im 
pressed  beyond  the  calculable  power  of  the  impressing  spirit, 
and  attracted  rather  magnetically  than  by  any  gravitation  of 
mere  mass  of  mind.  He  was  the  living  evidence  of  the 
truth  that  Character  is  greater  than  Action ;  and  that  to  be 
good  is  more  effectual  to  benefit  mankind  than  the  doing  of 
any  work  whatsoever. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  interest  to  the  reader  of  the 
life  of  Robertson  is  the  history  of  his  religious  opinions. 
It  may  be  told  briefly,  though  less  briefly  than  that  of  his 
worldly  career. 

Whatever  be  the  evils  and  errors  of  that  form  of  Chris 
tianity  which  claims  the  name  of  "  Evangelical,"  it  must  be 
admitted  to  leave  commonly  on  souls  which  have  received 
its  influences  in  childhood,  what  we  may  describe  as  a  high- 
strung  spiritual  temperament.  The  early  initiation  into  the 
most  solemn  mysteries  of  the  inner  life  ;  the  perpetual 
strain  after  a  repentance  disproportionately  meted  to  childish 
offences ;  the  awful  terrors  of  eternal  woe  made  familiar 
even  before  one  human  sorrow  has  dimmed  the  brightness 
of  life's  morning ; — all  these  features  of  Evangelical  educa 
tion  tend  to  the  formation  of  a  moral  constitution  delicate 
to  the  verge  of  disease.  Much  that  is  best  and  holiest, 
much  deep  sense  of  the  realities  of  the  unseen  world,  much 
of  that  keener  conscientiousness  which  never  leaves  a  man 
content  with  merely  outward  performance  of  duty  unless 


102  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 

he  also  feels  the  dutiful  sentiment,  much  self-distrust  and 
self- depreciation  judged  by  the  standard  of  an  almost  super 
human  purity  and  devotion,  are  the  legacies  of  a  youth  spent 
under  the  influences  of  Evangelical  Christianity.  But,  like 
a  child  who  has  heen  nurtured  in  heated  rooms  on  too 
stimulating  food,  and  whose  brain  has  been  overtaxed  by  his 
tutors,  there  are  also  inherited  highly-strung  feelings  subject 
to  morbid  excitement  and  no  less  morbid  exhaustion  and 
deadness,  for  which  largest  allowance  must  be  made  when 
we  would  estimate  the  later  attainments  of  one  subjected  to 
such  discipline.  Robertson  received  these  influences  with 
the  peculiar  susceptibility  of  his  character,  and  with  the 
additional  force  derived  from,  his  physical  predisposition  to 
disease  of  the  brain.  It  would  seem  as  if  there  never  were 
a  temperament  of  body  or  mind  more  needing  the  calming 
influence  of  a  perfectly  healthy  creed ;  nor  one  which  more 
vividly  manifested  the  results,  both  for  good  and  evil,  of  the 
faith  in  which  he  was  trained,  and  of  the  different  but  far 
from  perfectly  joyful  one  in  which  he  lived  and  died. 

The  early  Evangelical  impressions  of  Robertson,  derived 
apparently  from  both  parents,  were  full  of  childlike  fervour. 
He  seems  to  have  been  "  good  "  as  a  school-boy,  in  the  same 
degree  as  Channing,  whose  comrades  said  of  him  that  ifc 
was  no  merit  in  him  to  be  obedient  and  studious ;  he  had  no 
temptation  to  be  otherwise.  His  childhood  and  youth  ap 
pear  to  have  been  exemplary  and  faultless.  If  they  were  in 
any  measure  diversified  by  more  natural  traits,  his  biographer 
has  erred  in  suppressing  them,  for  it  is  to  be  confessed  that 
the  impression  left  on  us  by  these  early  pages  and  by  certain 
over- wise  school-boy  letters  is  not  altogether  a  pleasant 
one.  Robertson,  indeed,  seems  to  have  been  a  manly  boy, 
steady,  brave,  active,  fond  of  field  sports,  and  enthusiastic 
about  military  glory  ;  a  "  muscular  Christian  "  even  in 
his  Evangelical  days.  His  ambition,  therefore,  curiously 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  103 

compounded  of  the  different  elements  of  his  character, 
took  the  form  of  desiring  to  set  "  the  example  of  a  pure  and 
Christian  life  in  his  corps,  and  becoming  the  Cornelius  of  his 

regiment To  two   great  objects  he  devoted  himself 

wholly,  the  profession  of  arms  and  the  service  of  Christ." 
When  he  was  persuaded  to  give  up  the  military  career 
and  adopt  that  of  a  clergyman,  which  he  had  often  vehe 
mently  repudiated,  he  seems  to  have  done  it  under  a  sin 
gular  sense  of  constraint  and  self-abnegation,  and,  as  his 
biographer  expresses  it,  to  have  accepted  "  somewhat  sternly 
his  destiny."  He  was,  however,  at  that  time,  according  to 
his  friend  Mr.  Davies,  in  the  full  flush  of  youthful  spirits 
and  energy.  "  At  the  time  to  which  I  refer,  I  never  knew 
him  otherwise  than  cheerful,  and  there  were  times  when 
his  spirits  were  exuberant — times  when  he  was  in  the  mood 
of  thoroughly  enjoying  everything.  He  was  a  constant  and 
prayerful  student  of  his  Bible.  At  this  time  he  held  firmly 
what  are  understood  as  Evangelical  views.  He  advocated 
strongly  the  pre- millennial  advent  of  Christ." 

Beginning  his  residence  at  Brasenose  in  October,  1837, 
it  was  impossible  that  Robertson  should  not  have  been 
drawn  into  the  vortex  of  the  great  Tractarian  movement 
then  in  progress.  The  result  seems  to  have  been  a  speedy 
recoil,  and  an  effort  to  counteract  the  tendency  among  his 
friends  by  the  establishment  of  a  society  for  prayer  and  reli 
gious  discussion.  "No  change  took  place  in  his  doctrinal 
views,  which  were  those  of  the  Evangelical  school,  with  a 
decided  leaning  to  moderate  Calvinism."  After  a  college 
course  of  faultless  moral  excellence,  he  was  ordained,  in 
1840,  to  a  curacy  in  Winchester.  "  The  prevailing  tone  of 
his  mind  on  entering  the  ministry  was  one  of  sadness.  His 
spirit  consumed  the  body.  He  never  was  content,  he  never 
thought  that  he  had  attained,  rather  that  he  was  lagging 
far  behind,  the  Christian  life.  Everywhere  this  is  reflected 


104  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN. 

in  his  letters.  His  feeling  of  it  was  so  strong,  that  it  seemed 
rather  to  belong  to  a  woman  than  to  a  man,  and  at  certain 
times  the  resulting  depression  was  so  great  that  he  fell  into 
a  morbid  hopelessness."  His  work  at  Winchester,  however, 
was  largely  successful,  his  rector  proved  a  kind  and  con 
genial  friend,  and  his  mode  of  life  seemed  the  ideal  of 
devotion.  "  Study  all  the  morning  ;  in  the  afternoon  hard 
fagging  at  visitation  of  the  poor  in  the  closest  and  dirtiest 
streets  of  Winchester ;  his  evenings  were  spent  sometimes 
alone,  but  very  often  with  his  rector."  His  habits,  indeed, 
here  took  an  ascetic  shape,  such  as  by  some  occult  law  of 
nature  it  would  appear  every  strong  soul,  at  the  outset  of  its 
higher  life,  spontaneously  adopts.  The  Quarantania  fast 
of  Christ  has  had  its  unconscious  copyists  in  every  age  and 
under  every  creed.  Elijah,  and  Buddha,  and  Zoroaster, 
each  earned  through  such  means  their  prophet-mantles, 
and  since  their  day  thousands  of  lesser  men  have  felt  that 
"  lusting  of  the  spirit  against  the  flesh,"  in  which  the  spirit 
is  ever  cruel  in  its  first  victory.  Robertson,  we  are  told, 
"  created  a  system  of  restraint  in  food  and  sleep.  For  nearly 
a  year  he  almost  altogether  refrained  from  meat.  He  com 
pelled  himself  to  rise  early.  He  refrained  also  much  from 
society."  In  some  private  meditations  and  resolutions  writ 
ten  at  this  time  (1843-1845)  there  occur  long  strings  of 
reasons  to  fortify  the  determination  to  eat  with  stringent 
self-denial  and  to  rise  early ;  and  the  "  Resolves  "  are  full 
of  that  still  deeper  asceticism  which  starts  from  holiest 
ambitions,  and,  alas  !  ends  too  often  in  the  most  morbid  self- 
anatomy  and  self- consciousness. 

"  To  try  to  feel  my  own  insignificance.  To  speak  less  of  self,  and 
think  less.  To  feel  it  degradation  to  speak  of  my  own  doings  as 
a  poor  braggart.  To  perform  rigorously  the  examen  of  conscience," 
etc.1 

1  Pages  99,  100. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  105 


On  all  this  portion  of  Robertson's  life,  the  biographer 
makes  wise  and  pertinent  remarks ;  how  it  was  the  natural 
result  of  the  school  in  which  he  had  been  trained,  and  how 
he  escaped  from  it  into  a  manlier  spirit,  not  without  bearing 
away  some  fruit  of  self-knowledge  and  of  knowledge  of  other 
men.  His  sermons,  in  later  years,  at  Brighton,  were  full  of 
protests  against  these  mistakes  of  his  youth,  when  his  very 
genius  seemed  under  a  cloud,  and  the  force  and  originality 
he  was  soon  to  develope  were  kept  under  by  the  restraints 
of  his  creed. 

A  threat  of  hereditary  consumption  in  1841,  compelled 
him  to  give  up  his  work  at  Winchester  and  go  abroad, 
oppressed  by  a  sense  of  despondency  and  failure.  A 
pedestrian  tour,  extending  to  Geneva,  soon  renewed  his 
health  and  spirits.  He  plunged  into  controversy  with  every 
one  who  would  discuss  with  him,  Catholics,  Rationalists, 
Atheists,  and  "  believed  that  there  is  at  this  time  a  deter 
mined  attack  made  by  Satan  and  his  instruments  to  subvert 
that  cardinal  doctrine  of  our  best  hopes — justification  by 
faith  alone."  A  Geneva  minister  denying  the  "  Deity  of 
Christ,"  is  told  that  he  cannot  be  a  Christian,  and  that  his 
young  monitor  "  trembles  for  him."  Altogether  we  have  a 
picture  of  the  earnest,  narrow,  devout  Evangelical  clergy 
man,  familiar  enough  to  all  of  us  who  have  seen  much  of 
the  world,  but  who,  we  have  rarely  had  reason  to  suppose, 
could  in  this  life  assume  the  spiritual  wings  of  a  Robertson, 
and  fly  like  him  into  free  fields  of  air. 

In  the  summer  of  1842,  Robertson  became  the  curate  of 
the  Rev.  Archibald  Boyd,  then  of  Cheltenham,  a  gentleman 
for  whom  he  entertained  the  greatest  respect,  and  who  was 
certainly  not  likely  to  have  guided  him  out  of  the  very 
straitest  sect  of  the  orthodox.  I  can  remember  hearing 
Mr.  Boyd  about  this  period  preaching  at  Cheltenham,  and 
denouncing  Unitarians  with  such  singular  vehemence,  that 


106  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 

it  induced  me  to  institute  careful  inquiries  concerning  a  body 
of  whose  tenets  at  that  time  I  was  in  total  ignorance.  Ro 
bertson  was  at  first  in  full  harmony  with  Mr.  Boyd's  opinions, 
but  the  hour  for  a  great  revolution  in  his  soul's  history  was 
approaching. 

Calvinism,  has  had  its  Heroic  Age ;  the  age  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  of  Brainerd  and  of  Hopkins.  It  has  an  Age  of 
Saints  still,  as  many  a  bed  of  agonizing  disease  testifies  in 
home  and  hospital  in  England  to-day.  But  there  is  a  phase 
of  the  religion  not  heroic  nor  yet  saintly ;  a  phase  to  check 
the  ardour  and  alienate  the  allegiance  of  any  man  true  of 
heart  like  Robertson.  Probably  in  such  a  place  as  a  fashion 
able  church  at  Cheltenham,  that  unlovely  phase  may  be 
met  with  in  its  most  exaggerated  development. 

"At  first  (says  his  biographer)  he  believed  that  all  who  spoke 
of  Christ  were  Christ-like.  But  he  was  rudely  undeceived.  His 
truthful  character,  his  earnestness,  at  first  unconsciously  and  after 
wards  consciously,  recoiled  from  all  the  unreality  around  him.  He 
was  so  pained  by  the  expressions  of  religious  emotion  which  fell 
from  those  who  were  living  a  merely  fashionable  life,  that  he  states 
himself  in  one  of  his  letters  that  he  gave  up  reading  all  books  of  a 
devotional  character,  lest  he  should  be  lured  into  the  same  habit  of 
feeling  without  acting.  His  conceptions  also  of  Christianity  as  the 
religion  of  just  and  loving  tolerance  made  him  draw  back  with  horror 
from  the  violent  and  blind  denunciations  which  the  religious  agitators 
and  the  religious  papers  of  the  extreme  portion  of  the  Evangelical 
party  indulged  in  under  the  cloak  of  Christianity.  '  They  tell  lies,'  he 
said,  '  in  the  name  of  God.  Others  tell  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Devil :  that  is  the  only  difference.'  It  was  this,  and  other  things  of 
the  same  kind,  which  first  shook  his  faith  in  Evangelicalism."  l 

In  1843  he  wrote  to  a  friend :  "  As  to  the  state  of  the 
Evangelical  clergy,  I  think  it  lamentable.  I  see  sentiment, 
instead  of  principle,  and  a  miserable  mawkish  religion  super 
seding  a  state  which  once  was  healthy.  I  stand  alone,  a 
theological  Ishmael."  In  the  following  year  other  doubts 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  108. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN.  107 

and  difficulties  arose.  His  preaching  altered  in  tone,  and 
he  suddenly  awoke  to  the  conviction  "  that  the  system  on 
which  he  had  founded  his  whole  faith  and  work  could  never 
be  received  by  him  again."  An  outward  blow — the  sudden 
ruin  of  a  friendship — accelerated  the  inward  crisis  ;  and  the 
result  was  a  period  of  spiritual  agony  so  awful  that  it  smote 
his  spirit  down  into  a  profound  darkness,  and  of  all  his 
early  faiths  but  one  remained,  "It  must  be  right  to  do 
right !  "  He  travelled  away  to  Germany,  and  there,  amid 
the  beautiful  hills  and  vales  of  the  Tyrol,  in  long  lonely 
walks  and  solitary  musings,  he  passed  through  the  great 
ordeal. 

He  fought  his  doubts  and  gathered  strength, 
He  would  not  make  his  judgment  blind, 
He  faced  the  spectres  of  the  mind 

And  laid  them  :  thus  he  came  at  length 

To  find  a  stronger  faith  his  own  ; 

And  power  was  with  him  in  the  night, 
Which  makes  the  darkness  and  the  light. 

And  dwells  not  in  the  light  alone. 

Never  has  that  dread  battle  been  more  faithfully  fought ; 
never  has  the  victory  been  more  nobly  won.  Long  years 
afterwards,  speaking  to  those  working  men  with  whom 
perhaps  of  all  his  hearers  he  had  closest  sympathies,  men 
from  whom  most  of  our  preachers  would  shut  out  the 
very  name  of  religious  doubt,  or,  if  forced  to  treat  of  it, 
sternly  dismiss  them  "to  the  law  and  to  the  testimony" 
— to  these  men  Robertson  disclosed  what  we  cannot  doubt 
was  the  history  of  his  own  spiritual  struggle  and  the  tri 
umphant  peace  which  followed  it.  I  must  be  pardoned  for 
copying  the  story  at  length.  Few  words,  I  believe,  in  any 
book,  bear  in  them  seeds  of  greater  usefulness  for  our  day 
of  doubt  and  troubling  of  the  waters.  Like  every  true  pro 
phet,  Robertson  was  the  forerunner  of  his  brethren,  and 


108  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 


passed  before  them  through  the  dark  river,  telling  them 
where  ground  might  yet  be  found  for  their  feet,  even  in  its 
depths,  till  they  should  reach  "  the  new  firm  land  of  faith 
beyond."  For  all  the  thousands  who  are  now  passing,  and 
must  presently  pass,  through  those  dread  waters,  and  fear 
lest  they  go  over,  even  over  their  souls,  and  whelm  them  in 
their  deeps  for  ever,  the  history  of  Robertson's  transition  of 
faith  is  a  most  blessed  lesson.  By  that  way  he  went,  and 
by  that  way  only,  I  believe,  in  our  day,  shall  the  .Nations 
of  the  Saved  pass  over. 

"  It  is  an  awful  moment  when  the  soul  begins  to  find  that  the  props 
on  which  it  blindly  rested  so  long  are,  many  of  them,  rotten,  and 
begins  to  suspect  them  all  ;  when  it  begins  to  feel  the  nothingness 
of  many  of  the  traditionary  opinions  which  have  been  received  with 
implicit  confidence,  and  in  that  horrible  insecurity  begins  also  to 
doubt  whether  there  be  anything  to  believe  at  all.  It  is  an  awful  hour, 
let  him  who  has  passed  through  it  say  how  awful,  when  this  life  has 
lost  its  meaning,  when  the  grave  appears  to  be  the  end  of  all,  human 
goodness  nothing  but  a  name,  and  the  sky  above  this  universe  a 
dead  expanse,  black  with  the  void  from  which  God  has  disappeared. 
In  that  fearful  loneliness  of  spirit,  when  those  who  should  have  been 
his  friends  and  counsellors  only  frown  upon  his  misgivings,  and 
profanely  bid  him  stifle  doubts  which,  for  aught  he  knows,  may  arise 
from  the  Fountain  of  truth  itself,  I  know  but  one  way  in  which  a 
man  may  come  forth  from  his  agony  scatheless ;  it  is  by  holding  fast 
to  those  things  which  are  certain  still, — the  grand,  simple  landmarks 
of  morality.  In  the  darkest  hour  through  which  a  human  soul 
can  pass,  whatever  else  is  doubtful,  this  at  least  is  certain — If  there 
be  no  God  and  no  future  state,  yet,  even  then,  it  is  better  to  be  generous 
than  selfish,  better  to  be  chaste  than  licentious,  better  to  be  true  than  false, 
better  to  be  brave  than  to  be  a  coward.  Blessed,  beyond  all  earthly 
blessedness,  is  the  man  who  in  the  tempestuous  darkness  of  the 
soul  has  dared  to  hold  fast  to  these  venerable  landmarks.  Thrice 
blessed  is  he  who,  when  all  is  drear  and  cheerless  within  and  without, 
when  his  teachers  terrify  him  and  his  friends  shrink  from  him,  has 
obstinately  clung  to  moral  good.  Thrice  blessed,  because  his  night 
shall  pass  into  clear  bright  day.  I  appeal  to  the  recollection  of  any 
man  who  has  passed  through  that  hour  of  agony,  and  stood  upon  the 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  109 

rock  at  last,  the  surges  stilled  below  him,  and  the  last  cloud  drifted 
from  the  sky  above,  with  a  faith  and  hope  and  trust  no  longer  tra 
ditional,  but  of  his  own — a  faith  which  neither  earth  nor  hell  shall 
shake  thenceforth  for  ever." 

Here  is  the  "Saints'  Tragedy  "  ;  nay,  the  Saints'  triumph 
ant  Drama  of  Victory  ;  the  "  Prometheus  Unchained  "  of 
the  inner  life  for  us  moderns,  with  our  perishing  theologies, 
our  science  and  philosophy  presenting  to  us  a  daily  changing 
phantasmagoria  of  the  material  and  mental  universe.  Our 
Apollyons  are  not  the  Apollyons  of  our  fathers  ;  our  Valley 
of  the  Shadow  of  Death  is  haunted  by  far  direr  spectres, 
and  opens  into  far  deeper  and  more  fathomless  abysses, 
than  ever  they  beheld.  But  for  us,  too,  there  is  a  weapon 
to  slay  the  dragon,  a  path  through  the  realm  of  darkness 
and  despair.  Not  any  close-linked  chain-mail  of  Evidences, 
any  buckler  of  resolute  Belief,  shall  defend  us  ;  scarce  may 
we  even  find  strength  to  send  to  Heaven  one  winged  arrow 
of  Prayer.  No  guiding  Star  shall  light  our  way  through 
the  pitfalls  of  the  Valley.  But,  fighting  blow  for  blow, 
winning  step  for  step,  against  every  fiend-like  passion,  every 
hell-born  temptation,  we  shall  gain  at  last  the  victory ; 
pressing  Grod's  lamp  close  to  our  breasts, 

"  Its  radiance  soon  or  late  shall  pierce  the  gloom  ; 
We  shall  emerge  some  day." 

One  struggle  to  obey  Conscience,  when  Conscience  has  been 
for  the  time  bereft  of  all  her  insignia  of  royalty,  when  she 
no  longer  claims  to  be  vicegerent  of  an  Almighty  Lord,  nor 
points  with  outstretched  sceptre  to  a  world  where  her  faith 
ful  servants  shall  be  rewarded  when  their  tasks  are  done  ; 
one  free  and  loyal  act  of  obedience  to  her  then,  will  roll  back 
the  bars  of  heaven,  as  no  giant  intellectual  labours  can  ever 
help  us  to  do. 

Is  this  mysterious  ?  It  is  the  most  simple  of  all  the  laws 
of  Providence.  Moral  goodness  is  the  character  of  God. 


110  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 


To  love  goodness  is  to  love  God,  in  a  far  deeper,  truer  sense, 
than  to  love  any  intellectually-conceived  idea  of  a  Supreme 
Being,  whether  revealed  or  unrevealed.  Man  meets  God 
when  he  feels  godlike  feelings  and  performs  godlike  acts. 
He  gets  above  and  behind  all  the  secondary,  third  and 
thousandth  arguments  for  believing  in  God,  and  finds  Him 
at  the  first  and  fountain-head  of  all  religious  knowledge. 
Small  marvel  it  is  if  his  doubts  thenceforth  are  banished 
for  ever. 

Robertson  wrote  during  the  fever  of  his  struggle, 

"  Moral  goodness  and  moral  beauty  are  realities  lying  at  the  base 
and  beneath  all  forms  of  religious  expression.  They  are  no  dream, 
and  they  are  not  mere  utilitarian  conveniences.  That  suspicion  was 

an  agony  once.     It  is  passing  away As  to  the  ministry,  I  am 

in  infinite  perplexity.  To  give  it  up  seems  throwing  away  the  only 
opportunity  of  doing  good  in  this  short  life  that  is  now  available  to  me  ; 
yet  to  continue  when  my  whole  soul  is  struggling  with  meaning  that  I 
cannot  make  intelligible,  is  very  wretched." 

Returning  back  to  England  after  some  weeks'  work  at 
Heidelberg,  Robertson  accepted  from  Bishop  Wilberforce 
the  charge  of  St.  Ebb's  Church,  Oxford.  How  he  came  to 
seek  employment  in  such  a  quarter  is  hardly  accounted  for. 
He  was  not  a  High  Churchman.  "  While  the  Tractarians 
seemed  to  say  that  forms  could  produce  life,  he  said  that 
forms  were  necessary  only  to  support  life  ;  but  for  that  they 
were  necessary.  Bread  cannot  create  life,  but  life  cannot 
be  kept  up  without  bread/'  Neither  was  he  a  Broad  Church 
man  of  that  first  school  which  before  the  era  of  Essays  and 
Reviews  was  held  to  represent  the  widest  views  in  the 
Church  of  England.  "  Though  holding  Mr.  Maurice  in 
veneration,  he  differed  on  many  and  important  points  both 
from  him  and  Professor  Kingsley.  He  was  the  child  of  no 
theological  father/'  A  few  months,  however,  terminated  his 
labours  under  the  great  Tractarian  Bishop,  and  in  August, 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  HI 

1847,  Robertson  accepted  the  charge  of  Trinity  Chapel, 
Brighton,  the  field  of  his  noblest  work,  the  post  at  which 
he  died. 

Trinity  Chapel  (I  speak  from  the  recollection  of  some 
five-and-twenty  years)  is  an  ugly  square  building,  devoid 
of  a  chancel  properly  so  called,  and  with  green  niches 
on  either  side  of  the  communion-table,  the  one  of  course 
serving  as  desk,  the  other  as  pulpit.  It  was  a  drowsy, 
dreary  locality,  much  favoured  by  the  schools  wherewith 
Brighton  abounds.  Robertson  at  once  took  his  part,  and 
preached  as  he  thought  and  as  he  felt,  awakening  many 
echoes.  "  At  Oxford  he  was  like  the  swimmer  who  has 
for  the  first  time  ventured  into  deep  water ;  at  Brighton 
he  struck  out  boldly  into  the  open  sea."  From  this  time 
there  does  not  appear  to  have  occurred  any  essential  modi 
fications  of  his  opinions.  He  continued  to  speak  out  freely 
and  with  surpassing  energy  and  eloquence,  till  after  six 
brief  years  his  life  burnt  itself  out,  and  his  place  knew 
him  no  more.  I  need  not  pursue  chronologically  the  order 
of  the  few  events  which  diversified  his  career,  but  endeavour 
to  put  together  such  materials  as  are  given  us  for  forming 
a  correct  idea  of  the  man — his  creed  and  his  character,  his 
strength  and  his  weakness. 

Mr.  Brooke's  view  of  the  great  work  of  Robertson  is  well 
summed  up  in  the  following  passage : 

"  He  represented  to  men,  not  sharp,  distinct  outlines  of  doctrine, 
but  the  fulness  and  depth  of  the  Spirit  of  Christianity.  .  .  .  He 
cannot  be  claimed  especially  by  any  one  of  our  conflicting  parties. 
But  all  thoughtful  men,  however  divided  in  opinion,  find  in  his  writings 
a  point  of  contact.  He  has  been  made  one  of  God's  instruments  to 
preserve  the  unity  of  the  Christian  Church  in  this  country.  .  .  .  But 
though  his  teaching  was  more  suggestive  than  dogmatic,  he  did  not 
shrink  from  meeting  in  the  pulpit  the  difficulties  involved  in  many 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  English  Church.  His  explanation  of  the 
Atonement,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  sacraments,  of  absolution,  of 


112  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN. 

imputed  righteousness,  of  the  freedom  of  the  gospel  in  contrast  to 
the  bondage  of  the  law,  have  solved  the  difficulties  of  many.  He 
believed  himself  that  they  were  the  true  solutions.  But  he  also 
believed  that  the  time  might  come  when  they  would  cease  to  be 
adequate  solutions.  Yet  notwithstanding  all  this,  he  had  a  fixed  basis 
for  his  teaching.  It  was  the  Divine-human  Life  of  Christ.  He  felt 
that  an  historical  Christianity  was  absolutely  necessary,  that  only 
through  a  visible  Life  of  the  Divine  in  the  flesh  could  God  become 

intelligible  to  man The  Incarnation  was  to  him  the  centre  of 

all  history."1 

The  idea  which  evidently  underlies  this  defence  of  Ro 
bertson's  theology,  or  rather  his  Christianity  without  dog 
matic  theology,  seems  to  me  partially  true  and  partially 
false.  It  is  true  that  mere  intellectual  ideas,  whether  con 
nected  or  not  with  religious  belief,  have  in  them  no  power 
to  produce  true  unity  between  human  souls.  Sentiment 
unites  men ;  opinion  only  serves,  at  the  best,  to  make 
partisans  and  fellow- sectaries.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
false  to  assume  that  "sharp,  distinct  outlines  of  doctrines" 
have  in  them  any  necessary  antagonism  to  fervent  sentiment, 
or  that  (according  to  a  belief  which  seems  gaining  ground 
in  our  day)  the  more  misty  is  a  man's  creed,  the  more  warm 
are  likely  to  be  his  affections.  Our  reaction  from  Calvinistic 
stiffness  is  carrying  us  too  far  if  it  persuade  us  that,  to  love 
God  much,  it  is  needful  to  be  extremely  uncertain  regarding 
all  His  dealings  and  attributes.  Hobertson  himself,  we 
suspect,  was  a  proof  that  "  sharp  and  distinct  outlines  of 
doctrine"  were  no  bar  to  the  power  of  uniting  men  of  various 
denominations ;  for  he  accomplished  that  end  not  by  lacking 
such  distinct  outlines,  but  (among  other  causes)  by  very 
distinctly  preaching  a  certain  form  of  Christ- worship  attrac 
tive  to  thousands.  What  he  really  seems  to  have  lacked, 
was  a  logical  and  self-consistent  system.  He  had  sharply- 
defined  isolated  doctrines  in  abundance. 
1  Pp.  167,  168. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  113 

The  peculiar  form  of  Christolatry  to  which  I  have  now 
referred,  formed  so  prominent  a  feature  in  Bobertson's  life 
and  religion,  as  well  as  in  his  scheme  of  theology,  that  it 
is  needful  to  give  it  a  very  important  place  in  any  estimate 
of  him,  as  well  as  being  in  itself  a  matter  deserving  the 
gravest  attention  of  all  thinkers  of  the  present  age. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  to  one  who  looks  over  the 
past  and  present  of  Christendom,  than  to  observe  how  very 
variously  the  sentiments  of  professed  Christians  towards 
their  common  Lord  have  differed,  apparently  without  the 
slightest  relation  to  the  doctrines  they  entertained  concerning 
his  person  and  office.  The  isothermal  lines  (if  I  may  so 
express  it)  of  love  to  Christ  intersect  every  altitude  of  intel 
lect,  every  latitude  of  opinion.  Or  rather  we  may  say,  that 
as  in  geological  maps  all  artificial  political  frontiers  and  divi 
sions  disappear,  and,  instead  of  states  and  provinces,  we 
have  districts  of  granite,  of  sandstone,  chalk  or  clay, — so  in 
studying  Christian  Europe  beneath  the  surface,  instead  of 
meeting  again  the  great  divisions  of  churches  and  minor 
subdivisions  of  sects,  we  find  a  wholly  new  chart,  wherewith 
the  superficial  lines  have  little  or  no  concern.  Let  us  take 
any  dozen  great  religious  writers  of  past  times,  and  any 
dozen  more  of  different  existing  sectarian  denominations, 
and  let  them  all  be  accounted  believers  in  the  actual  Deity 
of  Christ — how  immeasurably  different  is  the  place  which 
He  holds,  not  so  much  in  their  opinions  as  in  their  affections ! 
One  man's  writings  are,  so  to  speak,  saturated  with  the  love 
of  the  great  Teacher.  Another  merely  pays  him  a  brief 
passing  homage  when  the  exigencies  of  his  therne  seem  to 
demand  it.  Yet  no  reader  may  tell  that  it  is  either  a 
plenitude  of  religious  life  or  a  deficiency  of  it  which  makes 
an  a  Kempis  so  full  of  Christ,  or  a  Fenelon  or  Tauler  so 
wrapped  in  God  as  to  seem  well-nigh  to  forget  him.  Nay, 
even  among  those  who  dogmatically  deny  Christ's  claim  to 


114  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 

worship,  lie  assumes  a  position  in  some  minds  so  prominent, 
in  others  so  far  in  the  background,  that,  to  return  to  our 
metaphor,  the  line  marking  the  warmest  devotion  to  him 
must  be  made  to  run  half  through  the  Unitarian  church, 
after  threading  the  heights  of  Romanism  and  Tractarianism, 
and  descending  to  the  lowest  vales  of  Evangelical  and 
Methodistical  opinion.  Channing  and  hundreds  of  Channing's 
disciples  seem  to  make  up  in  personal  attachment  many  times 
more  than  they  deduct  from  official  homage.  Even  Theists 
who  differ  in  little  else,  differ,  widely  as  the  poles,  when  they 
come  to  express  their  sentiments  towards  him  who,  to  them 
all,  is  only  the  Man  of  Nazareth. 

Among  those  who  have  felt  vividly  this  supreme  attraction 
to  Christ's  character,  Robertson  stands  eminent.  From  his 
first  desire  to  devote  himself,  like  a  knight  of  old,  to  "military 
service  and  the  service  of  Christ,"  Christ's  name  seems  to 
have  been  uppermost  in  his  mind  and  on  his  lips ;  and,  as  his 
biographer  affirms,  he  endeavoured  to  bring  everything,  even 
the  petty  worries  of  Brighton  scandal,  in  some  occult  way  to 
the  test  of  the  life  passed  in  Galilee  eighteen  centuries  ago. 
He  deliberately  identifies  his  whole  religion  with  the  ivorship 
of  Christ,  rather  than  with  the  attempt  to  follow  God  accord 
ing  to  the  doctrines  of  Christ.  Christianity  in  his  view  is 
not  so  much  the  religion  which  Christ  taught  to  men  (though 
of  course  this  he  would  also  maintain  it  to  be),  as  the  religion 
which  teaches  men  about  Christ.  In  one  of  his  sermons 
(quoted  by  Mr.  Brooke)  he  says  :  "  In  personal  love  and 
adoration  of  Christ  the  Christian  religion  consists,  and  not  in 
a  correct  morality  or  a  correct  doctrine,  but  in  a  homage  to  a 
King."  In  another  place  he  writes  to  a  friend  :  *  "  Only  a 
human  God  and  none  other  must  be  adored  by  man."  Thus 
it  appears  that  his  intellect  ratified  the  tendency  of  his 
feelings.  He  deliberately  made  "  the  Christian  religion " 

1  Vol.  i.,  page  290. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  115 

(i.e.,  his  own  religion)  consist  in  "love  and  adoration,"  not 
of  God,  but  of  Christ ;  not  in  morality,  not  in  true  belief, 
not  in  allegiance  to  the  Lord  of  conscience,  but  in  "  homage 
to  a  King,"  namely,  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth.     How  far  this 
creed    harmonized  with    his    other    ideas,    how  it   coincided 
with  that   faith  in  the  supremacy  of  moral  good  which  he 
must  have  brought  away  from  that  grandest  passage  of  his 
life,  when  fidelity  to  his  own  sense  of  Duty  and  Right  alone 
saved  him  amid  the  shipwreck  of  all  his  theology,  how  far 
the   "homage   to  Christ"  could  be  made  the  substance  of 
religion   by   one   who   had   learned    that   lesson — I   cannot 
explain.     It  remains  one  of  the  thousand  self-contradictions 
of  the  human  mind  which  we  are  called  on  only  to  notice 
and  not  to  reconcile.     One  remark,  however,  I  must  be  per 
mitted   to   make    ere    we    leave    the    subject.       Those    who, 
like  Robertson,  affirm  that  a  "  human  God  and  none  other 
must  be  adored  by  man,"  seem  strangely  to  forget  those 
loftier  views  of  the  origin  of  our  knowledge  of  God  which 
at    other    moments    they    earnestly    maintain.       Has    the 
Divine   Father,   then,-  indeed   so   constituted   His   children, 
and  so  ordered  His  relation  to  them,  that  they  can  never 
love   Him   in  His   own   essential  Fatherhood,  but   only  in 
some    "  hypostasis "    of   Sonship    or    Incarnation  ?      I    con 
fess  to  being  somewhat  wearied  of  this  doctrine,  which  we 
meet  in  our  day  from  a  dozen  opposite  quarters ;   a  doctrine 
which  out-herods  Herod,  and  would  have  set  the  Fathers  of 
the  JSTicean  Council  aghast.     Men  who  speak  of  "  a  human 
God    only  being   knowable  or  adorable  by  man,"   seem  to 
have   formed   for   themselves   a    conception    of    our   mortal 
life  as  if  it  were  spent  in  a  dwelling  close  beside  the  sea, 
yet  so  constructed  as  that  by  no  door  or  window,  no  loop 
hole  or  crevice,  should  the  inhabitants  behold,  or  be  enabled 
so  much  as  to  guess  at,  the  existence  of  that  mighty  Deep 
beneath  whose  thunder  the    foundations    of   their  dwelling 


116  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 

tremble,  and  the  voice  of  whose  waters  is  ever  sounding  in 
their  ears.  At  length — so  these  teachers  would  have  it — 
at  length  a  Mariner  from  the  far-off  blessed  isles  has  landed 
on  that  desolate  shore,  and  said,  "  Behold  the  Ocean !  " 

God  did  not  so  make  for  man  his  tenement  of  clay.  He 
made  therein  a  window  opening  out  to  seaward,  a  window 
where,  ofttimes  kneeling,  he  may  gaze  and  wonder  and 
adore.  The  great  Mariner  indeed  has  come — many  mariners 
have  come — and  brought  tidings  of  the  boundless  expanse, 
the  measureless  brightness,  of  that  Ocean  of  all  good.  But 
their  tales  would  be  as  idle  words,  could  not  each  one  of  us 
for  himself  look  forth  and  with  his  own  eyes  behold  the 
Infinite  Deep  beside  him  and  around. 

To  assert  that  man  can  only  know  God  as  a  human  God, 
is  tantamount  to  denying  that  man  has  any  direct  conscious 
ness  of  Deity.  But,  setting  aside  the  terrible  subtraction  of 
all  the  deepest  part  of  our  religious  feelings  which  ought  (if 
men  were  but  logical)  to  go  with  such  denial,  let  us  consider 
how  such  a  view  can  be  reconciled  with  the  most  familiar 
facts  of  human  nature.  There  are  in  us  all,  various  affections 
and  sentiments,  having  each  their  proper  objects  and,  neces 
sarily,  their  proper  means  of  knowing  those  objects.  One 
of  these  affections  cannot  be  substituted  or  exchanged  for 
another ;  for  if  given  a  different  object,  it  thereupon  becomes 
a  different  affection.  There  is  one  affection  for  a  parent, 
another  for  a  child,  another  for  a  wife,  another  for  a  friend. 
A  parent  cannot  give  a  filial  affection  to  his  son,  nor  a  wife 
a  parental  one  to  her  husband,  nor  a  man  a  friendly  one  to 
an  infant.  In  like  manner,  there  are  different  affections  for 
human  beings  and  for  a  Being  superhuman.  The  human 
affections  (like  those  of  which  I  have  spoken)  have  for 
their  objects  our  human  relatives  and  friends,  all  known 
to  us  through  our  bodily  senses ;  the  religious  affections 
have  for  their  object  a  Divine  Being,  not  known  to  us 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  117 

through  the  senses,  but  through  that  special  organ  of  con 
sciousness  which  I  have  called  the  Window  of  the  soul 
which  opens  on  Deity.  When  Comtists  talk  of  the  "  Re 
ligion  of  Humanity,"  and  attempt  to  attach  the  religious 
sentiment  to  such  an  abstraction  as  this  idea  of  Humanity, 
or  to  such  a  concrete  image  thereof  as  a  dead  or  living 
woman,  we  answer  confidently,  "  Not  so — that  is  not  '  reli 
gion/  Call  the  sentiment  by  what  name  you  please,  it 
is  not  religion,  any  more  than  conjugal  or  parental  love 
is  religion.  It  is  another  sentiment  and  must  have  another 
name.  Religion  is  a  sentiment  having  for  its  object  an 
invisible  Entity,  not  an  abstraction  or  a  symbol."  Just  the 
same  answer  may  be  fitly  given  to  Christians  who  tell  us  that 
"  a  human  God  "  is  to.  be  alone  adored.  A  "  human  God  "  is 
not  an  object  of  religion  at  all,  but  of  esteem,  honour,  human 
sympathy,  or  (if  such  sentiments  be  transgressed  and  real 
adoration  offered)  then  of  Idolatry,  of  the  sinful  transference 
of  the  sentiment  due  to  God  alone  to  an  idol,  or  being 
having  a  bodily  image.  In  sober  truth,  all  such  wild  phrases 
are  self- deceptive.  Men  feel  such  a  profound  love  and  vene 
ration  for  Christ,  that  they  seek  an  infinite  expression  for 
their  lawful  sentiment,  and  then  call  it  by  a  name  which 
applies  only  to  the  love  of  God.  When  they  really  feel 
religion  to  Christ,  it  is  when  they,  like  half  the  Christian 
world,  give  his  beloved  name  to  "his  Father  and  our  Father." 
For  "  Christ"  read  "  God  in  His  attributes  of  Love  and 
Redemption  " — would  be  the  first  correction  of  an  immense 
portion  of  modern  religious  literature. 

In  the  case  of  Robertson,  some  clue  to  the  meaning  of  his 
strange  words  about  a  "  human  God  "  may  perhaps  be  found 
where  he  says,1  "  What  is  it  to  adore  Christ  ?  To  call  him 
God,  and  say,  Lord,  Lord  ?  No.  Adoration  is  the  mightiest 
love  the  soul  can  give  —  call  it  by  what  name  you  will. 
1  Vol.  ii.,  page  171. 


118  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN. 

Many  a  Unitarian,  as  Channing,  has  adored,  calling  it  only 
admiration,  and  many  an  orthodox  Christian,  calling  Christ 
God,  with  most  accurate  theology,  has  given  him  only  a 
cool  intellectual  homage."  All  this  is  true  in  a  sense,  but 
overlooks  the  fact  on  which  I  have  been  insisting,  that  the 
affections  are  not  interchangeable,  and  that  the  sentiments 
duly  given  to  a  -human  being  are  not  the  sentiments  duly 
given  to  God,  or  vice  versa,  any  more  than  conjugal  and 
filial  and  parental  affections  are  interchangeable.  Robertson 
insists  only  on  degree.  He  forgets  there  is  also  difference 
in  kind,  and  that  to  confound  the  kinds  of  love  introduces 
into  the  religious  life  a  disorder  similar  to  that  brought  into 
social  life  by  the  misapplication  of  natural  affections. 

What  Robertson's  creed  actually  was  during  the  later 
years  of  his  life,  it  is  (strange  to  say)  almost  impossible  to 
discover.  We  meet  such  curious  glimpses  of  it  as  these 

"If  you  hate  evil,  you  are  on  God's  side,  whether  there  be  a  personal 
evil  principle  or  not.  /  myself  believe  there  is,  but  not  so  unquestion- 
ingly  as  to  be  able  to  say,  I  think  it  a  matter  of  clear  revelation."  1 

Again  : 

"  Mr.  Robertson  was  not  a  universalist  in  doctrine,  however  he  may 
have  hoped  that  universalism  was  true.  '  My  only  difficulty,'  he  once 
said  to  a  friend,  '  is  how  not  to  believe  in  everlasting  punishment.'  " 2 

Yet  with  this  possible  Devil  and  probable  Hell,  Robert 
son  managed  to  attain  views  of  God  so  high  and  devout, 
that  there  has  surely  never  been  a  reader  of  his  Sermons 
whose  heart  has  not  thereby  been  warmed  to  more  fervent 
piety,  and,  above  all,  to  the  effort  to  make  pious  feelings  lead 
to  holy  actions.  His  abhorrence  of  the  indulgence  of  religious 
emotions  as  a  luxury  was  indeed  one  of  the  most  marked 
features  of  his  character,  and  one  which  doubtless  the  popular 
preacher  of  a  Brighton  chapel,  no  less  than  the  Cheltenham 
curate,  had  reason  to  feel  pretty  frequently.  Undoubtedly,  the 
1  Vol.  ii.,  poge  64.  -  Vol.  ii.,  page  163. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  119 

great  secret  of  his  influence  lay  in  the  reality  of  his  religion. 
This  seems  a  mere  truism  at  first  sight,  but  when  we  reflect 
how  much  of  self-deception,  not  to  speak  of  the  deception  of 
others,  "  lest  we  spoil  our  usefulness,"  mingles  with  the  religion 
of  all  save  the  highest  and  the  holiest,  it  will  be  confessed  that 
for  a  man  to  be  in  his  home  what  he  is  in  his  pulpit,  in  his 
heart  what  he  is  in  his  books,  in  his  life  what  he  is  in  his  prayer, 
is  to  be  real  in  a  sense  which  few,  alas !  may  claim  to  be. 

The  great  and  peculiar  glory  of  Robertson,  in  my  estima 
tion,  was  his  power  to  discern  the  living  germ  of  truth  in 
dogmas  long  wrapped  in  such  hard  husks  of  forms  as  to 
need  genius  like  his  to  break  them  through  and  give  the 
seed  within  power  to  fructify  once  more.  He  deliberately 
adopted  this  high  task.  "  I  always  ask  "  (he  says,  in 
a  letter  dated  May  17,  1851)  what  does  that  dogma 
mean,  and  how  in  my  language  can  I  put  into  form  the 
underlying  truth,  in  corrector  form  if  possible,  but  in  only 
approximative  form  after  all.  In  this  way,  Purgatory,  Ab 
solution,  Mariolatry,  become  to  ine  fossils,  not  lies/'  Every 
reader  of  his  Sermons  must  remember  how  well  he  fulfilled 
this  high  purpose,  and  how  under  his  hand  these  very 
doctrines  came  forth  out  of  the  dust  of  ages  beautiful  and 
full  of  fresh  spiritual  life.  By  this  means  also  it  happened 
that  Robertson  became  in  so  remarkable  a  degree  the  har- 
monizer  of  men  of  the  most  opposite  denominations.  By 
his  profound  insight  he  was  enabled  to  get  at  the  truth  which 
lies  behind  Dogma.  Now  as  Truth  is  one  and  unchangeable, 
and  Dogma  only  a  distorted  image  of  Truth,  refracted  by  the 
atmospheres  of  those  human  minds  through  which  it  has 
passed  and  wearing  their  colours — whether  of  one  century  or 
another,  one  race,  or  people,  or  church,  or  philosophy — so  the 
setting  forth  of  Truth,  once  more  freed  from  the  discolour- 
ations  of  Dogma,  is  the  most  effectual  way  to  unite  men  who 
have  been  kept  apart  by  Dogma.  Each  now  sees  that  his 


120  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN. 

truth  is  also  his  neighbour's  truth ;  the  same  great  fact 
of  the  religious  consciousness,  the  same  idea  of  God  and 
duty,  the  same  universal  phenomenon  of  the  inner  life. 
He  perceives  that  it  has  only  been  the  Dogma  discolouring 
it  which  made  it  appear  different.  Henceforth,  now  that 
each  knows  the  living  truth  to  be  the  same  for  himself  and 
his  neighbour,  he  not  only  feels  reconciled  to  his  neighbour, 
but  united  with  him.  He  learns  perfect  indulgence  for  his 
neighbour's  dogma,  and  much  indifference  for  his  own.  The 
root  of  bitterness  is  extirpated. 

In  another  manner,  also,  this  particular  work  confers  an 
immense  benefit  on  mankind.  He  who  can  stand  before 
us  as  the  Interpreter  of  the  Past,  does  much  to  strengthen 
all  that  is  best  in  the  Present.  In  the  last  century,  Protes 
tants  and  Deists  joined  in  holding  up  to  contempt  as  utterly 
valueless  those  elder  dogmas,  which,  once  living  and  beau 
tiful,  had  one  by  one  become  dead,  and  then  had  been 
embalmed  by  the  Church  of  Rome  and  placed  like  so  many 
saints  in  her  shrines  as  things  to  be  worshipped  by  believing 
and  adoring  crowds,  not  rudely  uncovered  and  gazed  upon 
by  common  mortals.  Robertson  was  perhaps  the  first  and 
greatest  of  those  who  in  our  age  have  striven  to  undo  the 
mischief  alike  of  the  Romish  embalming,  and  the  contumely 
wherewith  Protestants  had  torn  these  mummies  from  their 
tombs  and  made  them  mere  objects  of  curiosity  or  derision. 
He  has  aided  us  to  see  that  the  men  of  the  primitive  ages 
were  men  of  like  passions  and  like  thoughts  with  ourselves, 
and  that  it  was  much  more  the  clothing  of  their  thoughts, 
the  forms  wherewith  the  mental  fashion  of  that  bygone 
world  naturally  dressed  them,  than  any  real  difference  in 
the  thoughts  themselves  which  distinguish  them  from  our 
own.  To  feel  this  thoroughly  is  to  resume  the  heirlooms 
of  our  race,  to  feel  ourselves  the  "  heirs  of  all  the  ages,"  the 
lawful  inheritors  of  wisdom  doubly  precious  because  tested 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN.  121 

by  the  currency  of  millenniums.  The  philosophy  of  the 
eighteenth  century  believed  itself  of  mushroom  birth,  and 
adopted  all  the  rude  airs  of  an  upstart.  The  better  philo 
sophy  of  the  nineteenth  seeks  to  attach  itself  to  the  noblest 
names  in  the  spiritual  pedigree  of  the  human  race,  and 
speaks  with  somewhat  of  the  calm  dignity  of  one  who 
though  far  surpassing  his  fathers,  yet  deems  himself  to  come 
of  goodly  stock  and  worthy  parentage. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  not  a  few  dangers  connected 
with  this  rehabilitating  of  discredited  dogmas  ;  dangers, 
above  all  to  candour  and  simplicity.  From  these,  however, 
Robertson  was  nobly,  I  had  almost  written,  splendidly, 
exempt.  No  one  could  tax  him  with  "putting  new  wine 
into  old  bottles,"  in  the  spirit  of  that  Janus-preaching  we 
hear  so  often ;  one  face  for  those  who  adhere  to  the  Past, 
and  one  for  those  who  aspire  to  the  Future.  He  was  beyond 
the  suspicion  of  tampering  with  the  purest  simplicity  of 
the  truth,  as  he  understood  it ;  nay,  he  seemed  to  desire  to 
find  always  to  express  his  thoughts,  not  old  consecrated 
words  which  remain  for  ever  burdened  with  first  associa 
tions,  but  the  freshest  phrases  of  English  life  of  to-day 
wherein  his  meaning  might  be  absolutely  transparent.  And 
one  other  great  service  llobertson  did  for  us.  He  taught  in 
a  thousand  forms  the  truth,  best  expressed  in  one  of  his 
Sermons,  where  he  says,  that  the  Yineyard  is  made  indeed 
for  the  culture  of  vines,  but  if  vines  be  found  healthy  and 
full  of  fruit  outside  the  vineyard,  they  are  none  the  less 
therefore  to  be  accounted  true  vines.  Perhaps  the  relation 
of  the  Church  to  the  individual  soul  was  never  more  happily 
exemplified.  Brought  home,  as  by  Robertson's  eloquence,  to 
a  thousand  hearts,  we  all  owe  much,  and  shall  year  by  year 
owe  more,  to  this  lesson,  gradually  spreading  among  minds 
whose  orthodox  creed  would  formerly  have  seemed  to  be  a 
wall  of  partition  forbidding  them  to  recognize  any  test  of 


i-22  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN. 


Divine  Sonship  in  those  who  "  followed  not  us  "  ;  or  any 
fruit  in  the  vines  which  grow  outside  the  vineyard. 

With  pleasure  we  see  from  this  Biography  that  practically 
he  felt  no  less  than  preached  such  liberalism.  We  read/ 
"  He  revered  and  spoke  of  Dr.  Channing  as  one  of  the  truest 
and  noblest  Christians  of  America.  He  was  deeply  indebted 
to  his  writings."  And  again  :  u  He  read  James  Martineau's 
books  with  pleasure  and  profit.  The  influence  of  '  The 
Endeavours  after  the  Christian  Life  '  may  be  traced  through 
many  of  his  sermons.  Theodore  Parker  he  admired  for  his 
eloquence,  earnestness,  learning  and  indignation  against  evil, 
and  against  forms  without  a  spirit,  which  mark  his  writings. 
But  he  deprecated  the  want  of  reverence  and  the  rationaliz 
ing  spirit  of  Parker."2 

I  must  pass  briefly  over  the  private  character  of  this 
noble  man.  The  Biography  we  are  reviewing,  in  spite 
of  all  its  warm  eulogiums  and  discriminating  criticisms,  will 
probably  be  felt  by  most  readers  to  leave  much  to  be  desired 
in  the  filling  up  of  the  picture  of  Robertson's  character. 
Those  who  personally  and  intimately  knew  Mr.  Hobertson 
affirm  that  he  was  a  most  warm-hearted  man,  capable  of 
strong  attachment,  and  I  can  hardly  think  his  biographer 
has  done  wisely  in  eliminating  so  completely  the  traces,  or  at 
least  all  means  of  identifying  the  traces,  of  the  friendships 
of  his  manhood  from  these  volumes. 

In  a  most  vigorous  defence  of  Tennyson  from  the  charge 
of  overstrained  enthusiasm  for  Arthur  Hallam,  he  says  : 

"  The  friendship  of  a  school-boy  is  as  full  of  tenderness  and  jealousy 
and  passionateness  as  even  love  itself.  I  remember  my  own  affection 
for  G.  R.  M.  How  my  heart  beat  at  seeing  him  ;  how  the  conscious 
ness  that  he  was  listening  while  I  was  reading  annihilated  the  presence 
of  the  master  ;  how  I  fought  for  him  ;  how  to  rescue  him  at  prisoner's 

1  Vol.  ii.,  page  171. 

2  I  cannot  pause  to  answer,  for  the  thousandth  time,  the  imputation  conveyed 
in  the  last  paragraph. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN.  123 


base  turned  the  effect  of  mere  play  into  a  ferocious  determination,  as 
if  the  captivity  were  real ;  how  my  blood  crept  cold  with  delight  when 
he  came  to  rescue  me  or  when  he  praised  me."  l 

Yet,  after  his  boyhood,  we  are  hardly  admitted  to  guess 
even  the  names  of  those  he  loved  best.  He  details  continu 
ally  to  his  anonymous  correspondents  little  circumstances 
of  his  life  which  read  like  the  pictures  drawn  for  a  friend's 
perusal  of  the  life  of  an  invalid  woman,  but  the  passages 
which  should  account  for  such  pages  are  withheld.  Again, 
we  are  assured,  by  those  who  knew  him  best,  that  he  dis 
played  great  gentleness  and  magnanimity  regarding  the  mis 
representations  and  slanders  heaped  on  him.  The  printed 
fragments  of  letters  unfortunately  recall  what,  in  such  case, 
must  have  been  almost  his  sole  utterances  of  indignation, 
weariness,  and  complaint.  These  are,  doubtless,  unfortunate 
results  of  a  system  which  yet  it  is  probable  the  biographer 
was  justified  in  following.  At  least  his  own  testimony,  and 
that  of  many  who  knew  Robertson  more  intimately,  should 
be  generally  known,  to  absolve  him  from  suspicions  of  weak 
ness  which  these  severed  fragments  may  suggest. 

We  are  told  that  Robertson's  eloquence  became  obvious 
from  the  first  sermon  he  ever  preached.  He  was,  as  I  may 
venture  to  add,  like  his  biographer,  eloquent  in  the  best  sense, 
that  is,  rich  in  thoughts,  as  well  as  in  words  to  clothe  his 
thoughts.  His  voice  was  fine,  his  person  (it  is  said)  even 
unfortunately  handsome.  The  photograph  and  the  bust 
give  the  idea  of  a  man  too  slender  of  make,  with  too  narrow 
chest  and  drooping  shoulders,  and  a  head  too  high  and 
defective  in  depth  to  make  such  storms  of  emotions  as  he 
habitually  underwent  otherwise  than  perilous.  To  use  Canon 
Kingsley's  phrase,  there  was  a  complete  lack  of  "  healthy 
animalism"  about  his  head  and  figure.  To  compensate  for 
this,  however,  he  was  soldier-like  in  bearing  as  in  taste ; 


Page  81. 


124  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN. 

"muscular"  before  the  term  became  the  cant  name  for  his 
school  of  theology.  Nay,  he  was  not  only  a  soldier,  but 
also  to  the  backbone  a  sportsman.  We  have  all  heard  the 
remark  that  a  man  rarely  enjoys  a  walk  in  the  country  during 
which  he  has  not  had  the  chance  of  killing  something.  With 
out  discussing  this  supposed  evidence  of  manliness,  I  confess 
to  a  little  pain  at  finding  Robertson  writing,  that  "  as  he  had 
not  a  gun"  he  could  not  discover  what  some  sea-gulls  were 
eating.  Even  these  beautiful  and  harmless  sea-birds,  which 
a  Turk  deems  it  sin  and  pity  to  destroy,  would,  it  seems, 
not  have  been  safe  from  his  slaughter.  Robertson's  love  of 
sport,  indeed,  led  him  far.  With  his  sisters  one  after  another 
dying  of  consumption  and  his  own  constitution  continually 
threatened,  we  read  that  "  he  would  walk  for  hours  after  a 
single  bird,  and  reluctantly  leave  off  the  pursuit  of  this  coy 
grouse  when  night  began  to  fall.  He  would  sit  for  hours  in 
a  barrel  sunk  in  the  border  of  a  marsh  waiting  for  wild 
ducks.  These  hours  of  delight  (says  his  biographer)  he 
obtained  once  a  year."1  All,  doubtless,  very  manly  and 
"  muscular,"  but  a  curious  study  withal !  A  great  religious 
Teacher,  cheered  by  the  sublime  hope  of  killing  a  fowl,  sitting 
"for  hours  in  a  barrel  sunk  in  a  marsh,"  and  counting  the  time 
spent  in  such  durance  as  "  hours  of  delight,"  is  a  spectacle 
at  which  the  feeble  feminine  mind  stands  by  in  amazement. 
Robertson's  feelings  about  women  form  a  remarkable 
feature  in  his  character.  In  his  early  boyhood  he  seems  to 
have  had  a  sort  of  worship  for  them,  like  that  of  an  old 
knight  of  romance.  Later  in  life,  a  high  and  most  pure 
tenderness  of  feeling  marks  almost  all  his  intercourse.  In 
one  letter  he  remarks,  "  I  rather  agree  with  the  view  of  St. 
Paul  having  taken  personally  a  low  estimate  of  women.  It 
seems  to  me  inseparable  from  his  temperament.  .  .  .  That 
respectful  chivalry  of  feeling  which  characterizes  some  men 

1  Page  198. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  125 

can  only  exist  where  that  is  found  which  St.  Paul  lacked." 
In  another  letter  soon  afterwards,  he  says :  "  In  the  estimate 
formed  of  women,  I  should  think  there  cannot  be  a  doubt 
which  is  the  truer  and  deeper,  that  which  makes  her  a 
plaything,  or  that  which  surrounds  her  with  the  sacredness 
of  a  silent  worship.  A  temperament  like  that  of  St.  Paul's 
is  happier,  and  for  the  world  more  useful."  It  is  rather 
surprising  to  think  that  to  such  a  man  as  Eobertson  there 
was  no  medium  between  a  "plaything"  and  a  being  "sur 
rounded  with  the  sacredness  of  a  silent  worship ; "  and  that 
while  considering  the  latter  view  "  truer  and  deeper,"  he 
attributed  the  "plaything"  theory  to  the  great  apostle  of 
the  Gentiles,  and  considered  it  (though  less  true  and 
deep)  "  happier,  and  for  the  world  more  useful! "  The 
"usefulness"  of  making  half  the  human  race  playthings 
for  the  other  half,  is  surely  open  to  some  discussion  !  Again, 
this  man,  with  his  "  sacred  and  silent  worship,"  did  not 
shrink  from  attributing  to  the  objects  of  this  "  worship " 
a  corruption  and  baseness  which  I  may  venture  to  say  few 
women  could  hear  of  without  indignation.  He  writes :  "  I 
do  believe  that  a  secret  leaning  towards  sin,  and  a  secret 
feeling  of  provocation  and  jealousy  towards  those  who  have 
enjoyed  what  they  dare  not,  lies  at  the  bottom  of  half  the 
censorious  zeal  for  morality  which  we  hear.  I  am  nearly 
sure  it  is  so  with  women  in  their  virulence  against  their 
own  sex ;  they  feel  malice  because  they  envy  them" 1  A 
virtuous  woman  malicious  to  an  unchaste  one  because  she 
envies  her,  seems  to  me  rather  an  unworthy  object  of  "the 
sacredness  of  a  silent  worship  "  ;  nay,  even  of  being  made 
the  "plaything"  of  an  honest  man.  Will  men  never  have 
done  with  this  jargon  of  inflated  and  impossible  reverence; 
this  under-current  of  vilest  mistrust  and  contempt  ? 

When  Eobertson  was  a  boy,  he  is  recorded  to  have  been 

283. 


126  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN. 

full  of  life  and  gaiety,  but  from  the  time  lie  grew  up  lie 
appears  to  have  been  constantly  subject  to  morbid  depres 
sion.  At  first  there  were  alternating  fits  of  cheerfulness 
and  gloom  ;  but  at  last  he  seems  to  have  deliberately  justi 
fied  himself  in  condemning  mirth  and  adopting  a  fixed 
melancholy.  In  one  place,  after  a  touching  description  of 
the  sufferings  of  a  poor  soul  he  had  visited,  he  says,  inci 
dentally,  of  his  general  habit,  "  My  laugh  is  now  a  ghastly, 
hollow,  false  lie  of  a  thing."  l  In  another  place,  detailing 
a  meeting  of  men  assembled  to  thank  him  for  his  instruc 
tions,  he  says,  "The  applause  was  enthusiastic,  yet  all  seemed 
weary,  flat,  stale,  and  unprofitable.  In  the  midst  of  the 
homage  of  a  crowd,  I  felt  alone  and  as  if  friendless." 2 
Again,  in  1852,  he  writes  :  "  All  was  warm  and  effervescing 
once,  now  all  is  cold  and  flat.  If  a  mouse  could  change  into 
a  frog,  would  the  affections  be  as  warm  as  before,  albeit  they 
might  remain  unalterable  ?  I  trow  not ;  so  I  only  say  you 
have  as  much  as  a  cold-blooded  animal  can  give,  whose  pul 
sations  are  something  like  one  per  minute."  Again  we  are 
told :  "  He  also  felt  deep  sympathy  with  that  want  of  the 
sense  of  the  ridiculous  in  \Vordsworth,  which  made  all  the 
world,  even  to  its  meanest  things,  a  consecrated  world.  The 
ludicrous  now  rarely  troubles  me,  he  says ;  all  is  awful." 3 
It  would  be  hard,  I  venture  to  think,  to  put  more  deplorable 
and  distorted  ideas  into  one  sentence.  That  the  want  of  a 
sense  could  be  a  subject  of  congratulation — a  sense  the  source 
of  incalculable  innocent  gratification,  the  corrector  of  all  taste, 
the  true  correlative  of  the  sense  of  the  sublime,  to  which  it 
bears  the  relationship  which  tenderness  does  to  strength — to 
rejoice  in  the  loss  of  this  God- given  aid  to  cheer  us  over  the 
stony  places  of  life,  and  then  to  sit  down  and  say  that  this 
sense  rarely  troubles  him,  for  "all  is  awful,"  is  (in  my  humble 
thinking)  to  fall  into  some  of  the  worst  errors  of  Calvinism. 
1  Vol.  ii.  page  58.  2  Vol.  ii.  page  107.  3  Vol.  ii.  page  175. 


AN  ENGLISH  BROAD   CHURCHMAN.  127 


Shall  I  be  pardoned  if  I  write  of  a  contrast  suggested 
to  me  by  these  expressions,  and  by  those  of  distaste  for  his 
work,  of  morbid  annoyance  at  the  attacks  of  the  Record 
newspaper,  and,  lastly,  of  continual  longing  to  end  his  task 
and  die  ?  There  was  another  Reformer  who  died  soon  after 
Robertson,  worn  out  like  him  in  the  prime  of  manhood  by 
his  labours.  He  also  was  abused  and  vilified,  and  more 
cruelly  so  than  Robertson,  since  life  and  limb  were  often  in 
his  case  in  peril.  There  was  in  his  home-life  a  want 
Robertson  never  felt,  which  the  other  felt  keenly  :  the 
absence  of  children.  Taking  all  in  all,  in  outward  circum 
stances  there  was  not  much  to  choose  as  to  happiness 
between  one  lot  and  the  other.  But  let  any  one  take  up 
the  Biography  of  Theodore  Parker  (not  comparable  as  a 
literary  work  to  that  of  Robertson),  and  read  page  after 
page  telling  of  his  delight  in  his  task,  his  gratitude  to  God 
when  his  labours  were  blessed  by  helping,  perchance,  some 
poor  backwoodsman,  some  stranger  far  away,  his  manly 
scorn  of  danger  and  actual  good-humour  to  those  who  reviled 
and  threatened  him,  his  joyousness  of  spirit,  revelling  in 
innocent  jest  and  mirthfulness  to  the  last,  let  him  read  his 
letters,  overflowing  with  friendliness  and  tenderness  to 
brother,  wife,  teacher,  friend,  disciple,  as  if  his  heart  were 
a  very  treasure-house  of  all  the  kindly  emotions,  let  him 
watch  him  at  last  when  his  health  failed  and  he  left  his 
place  in  sorrow,  wishing  yet  to  spend  and  be  spent,  desiring 
to  live,  for  "the  world  was  so  interesting  and  friends  so 
dear,"  and  dying  at  last  with  the  words  on  his  lips,  "  I  am 
not  afraid  to  die,  but  I  would  fain  have  lived  to  finish  my 
work ;  I  had  great  powers  ;  I  have  but  half  used  them  :  " — 
let  him  compare  these  lives  and  these  feelings  on  the  verge 
of  the  grave,  and  then  say  whose  was  the  healthier  creed,  the 
sounder  thought  of  God  and  human  destiny  ?  We  must  not 
press  such  parallels  far.  There  is  ever  injustice  in  doing  so; 


128  AN  ENGLISH  BROAD  CHURCHMAN. 

and  the  law  by  which  the  joyous  nature  chooses  a  joyful 
creed  and  is  thereby  for  ever  confirmed  in  its  joyousness? 
and  the  depressed  and  morbid  mind  chooses  a  sad  creed  and 
is  thereby  made  more  morbid,  had  probably  never  stronger 
exemplification  than  in  the  case  of  the  sturdy  New- England 
farmer's  son  and  the  over-sensitive  English  gentleman. 
Parker  had  a  hero's  soul  in  a  body  which,  till  he  thoroughly 
wore  it  out,  fairly  bore  its  part  in  the  "  give  and  take  " 
of  matter  and  spirit.  Robertson  had  an  angelic  soul,  ap 
parently  never  fitted  to  bear  this  world's  jars  and  strug 
gles,  lodged  in  a  body  where  every  nerve  was  strung  to 
torture,  and  brain  disease  seemed  to  be  indigenous.  To 
ask  of  the  two  the  same  bearing,  the  same  spirit,  would  be 
unjust.  Yet  it  must  remain  at  least  as  the  lesson  of  the 
two  Biographies,  that  the  religious  faith  which  animated 
the  life  of  Parker  and  upheld  him  in  death  was  pre-emi 
nently  the  healthiest  conceivable  in  all  its  results ;  and  that 
the  belief  adopted  by  the  devout  and  noble-hearted  E/obert- 
son  left  him,  on  the  other  hand,  to  a  condition  of  sentiment 
and  a  view  of  human  life  which  must  almost  be  qualified  as 
morbid.  It  is  not  allowable  to  ask,  Was  not  such  differ 
ence,  in  a  measure  at  least,  the  legitimate  result  of  the 
difference  of  their  creeds  in  that  one  supreme  point  whereon 
they  separated  ?  Were  not  the  joyous  trust,  the  love  of  his 
work,  the  delight  in  success,  the  carelessness  of  rebuke,  the 
longing  to  live,  which  characterized  the  one — and  the  gloom 
and  depression  which  hung,  deeper  and  heavier  year  by  year, 
over  the  other — both  the  natural  results  of  their  opinions? 
The  one  saw,  as  the  central  Power  of  the  universe,  a  radiant 
Sun  of  Light  and  Love,  "with  whom  was  no  darkness  at 
all "  ;  and  the  other  beheld  an  awful  vision  of  blackened 
heavens  and  rending  graves,  and  over  all,  upon  the  torturing 
Cross,  an  Agonizing  God. 


ESSAY  F. 


A    FKENCH    THEIST.1 

IT  is  a  fact  so  familiar  as  to  be  proverbial,  that  there  are 
some  things  in  which  all  human  beings  feel  alike  ;  that 
"  one  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin."  It  is 
also  a  fact,  though  a  less  recognized  one,  that  there  are 
again  other  things  in  which  individuals,  classes,  and  nations 
feel  so  differently,  that  the  display  of  their  peculiar  sensi 
bilities,  far  from  making  others  feel  akin,  inspires  them 
with  something  very  like  aversion.  To  take  our  examples 
only  from  the  largest  instances,  the  various  passions  and 
sentiments  of  the  Classic  and  of  the  Teutonic  nations  rather 
jar  on  one  another  than  call  out  any  hidden  harmony ;  and 
in  our  own  day,  English  reserve  and  German  gemuthlichkeitt 
the  "sentimens  delicats  "  of  a  Frenchman  and  the  "  fervido 
cuore  "  of  an  Italian,  have  the  least  possible  attraction  the 
one  for  the  other.  Till  we  have  lived  long  in  each  country, 
fed  on  its  literature,  and  drank  the  wine  of  friendship  with 
its  sons  and  daughters,  we  are  rather  offended  than  won  by 
its  peculiar  spirit ;  rather  tempted  to  laugh  at  than  to  be 
softened  by  its  tenderness.  Perhaps  we  "  insular  Britons  " 
feel  this  an ti- social  repulsion  more  than  others ;  at  all  events, 

1  Le  Christ  et  la  Conscience.  Par  Felix  Pecaut.  12mo.  Paris:  Cherbuliez 
et  Cie. 

De  V  A.venir  du  Theisme  Chretien  considers  comme  Religion.  Par  Felix  Pecaut. 
12mo.  Paris  :  Cherbuliez  et  Cie. 

9 


130  A  FRENCH  THEIST. 

we  show  it  more  candidly.  How  cordially  most  of  us 
dislike  "  German  sentiment,"  with  its  (wholly  imaginary) 
tendenc}^  to  lax  morality,  and  the  unlimited  indulgence  in 
smoke,  metaphorical  and  actual !  How  we  abhor  American 
"bunkum"  and  "tall  talk."  Above  all,  how  we  distrust 
French  ideas,  French  phrases,  French,  turns  of  thought, 
the  pitiless  logic,  the  unattackable  dialectics,  the  senti 
mental  hyperboles,  of  a  true  French  writer  !  To  hear 
a  Frenchman  talk  of  "la  femme,"  with  mingled  gallantry, 
fathomless  pity,  and  acute  curiosity,  is  enough  to  set  John 
Bull,  who  has  known  Mrs.  Bull  by  heart  these  twenty 
years,  and  finds  her  a  good,  comfortable  wife,  not  in  the 
least  mysterious  or  pitiable,  stamping  with  rage.  To  find 
him  apostrophizing  a  mother,  "  Une  mere,  voyez  vous  c'est 
une  chose,"  etc.,  etc.,  and  winding  up  every  peroration  with 
the  Divine  Name  as  a  grand  rhetorical  flourish,  is  cause 
enough  to  justify  all  the  wars  of  history.  We  don't  like  to 
hear  that  Napoleon  lost  Waterloo  because,  as  M.  Hugo  says, 
"  il  genait  Dieu."  First,  we  don't  believe  in  such  a  philo 
sophy  of  history ;  and,  secondly,  we  are  less  shocked  by  a 
man  breaking  the  third  commandment  for  the  purpose  of 
devoting  somebody's  eyes  to  eternal  perdition,  than  for  that 
of  producing  a  rhetorical  coup  de  theatre. 

Yery  naturally,  these  national  antipathetic  feelings  come 
out  most  strongly  in  the  case  of  the  deepest  and  most 
sacred  sentiments,  wherein  a  single  jarring  note  is  always 
painfully  discernible.  The  intensity  of  pleasure  we  derive 
from  complete  religious  sympathy,  is  only  paralleled  by  the 
soreness  of  the  mental  ear  to  which  approximate,  but  im 
perfect,  harmonies  are  presented.  The  nearer  the  approxi 
mation  may  be,  if  the  harmony  is  not  achieved,  the  worse  is 
the  jar.  Thus  when  we  read  the  religious  writings  of  Pagans 
or  Moslems,  we  feel  no  annoyance  at  the  wide  divergence 
between  their  expressions  of  piety  arid  our  own.  But  the 


A   FRENCH  T HEIST.  131 

habitual  variations  from  our  tone  of  sentiment  of  another 
and  intimately  known  Christian  nation,  by  whom  the  same 
order  of  ideas  is  discussed  with  similar  power,  is  a  stone  of 
stumbling  we  cannot  easily  overpass.  I  believe  I  shall 
not  misrepresent  our  countrymen  if  I  say,  that  to  nineteen 
out  of  twenty  English  readers  of  the  most  thoughtful  classes, 
the  rich  religious  literature  of  France  is  almost  unknown, 
not  from  any  inability  to  appreciate  it,  or,  in  the  main,  from 
any  great  difference  of  opinion  with  its  authors,  but  because 
of  a  certain  latent  objection  to  see  sacred  sentiments  in 
the  dress  in  which  French  taste  habitually  clothes  them, 
and  from  a  dislike  even  to  the  terminology  of  Gallic 
religion. 

Nor  is  this  antipathy  (doubtless  just  as  reasonably  reci 
procated  by  French  readers  towards  English  writers)  con 
cerned  specially  with  differences  of  opinion,  such  as  those 
which  render  the  peculiar  phrases  of  our  own  High-church 
and  Low- church,  orthodox  and  liberal  parties,  mutually  so 
distasteful.  English  Catholics  are  not  particularly  fond  of 
Bossuet  and  Massillon,  and  I  believe  that  few  English 
evangelical  Protestants  would  read  without  disgust  the 
exhortations  of  M.  Adolphe  Monod  to  regard  the  awful 
Creator  as  debonnaire,  and  to  address  Him  in  prayer  always 
with  confidence  in  this  astounding  attribute  of  the  "  debon- 
nairete  de  Dieu."  Nay,  to  English  liberals  of  even  the 
least  reverential  section,  by  whom  Strauss's  opinions  are  fully 
accepted,  the  Vie  de  Jesus  of  M.  Kenan,  with  all  its  poetry 
and  even  tenderness  of  feeling  towards  Christ,  is  invariably 
somewhat  shocking  ;  and  while  they  can  coolly  read  a 
grave  German  debate  as  to  whether  imposture  mingled  in 
his  performance  of  miracles,  they  turn  with  a  sense  of 
indignation  from  hearing  him  styled  "  ce  charmant  doc- 
teur,"  who  was  "jaloux  pour  la  gloire  de  son  Pere,"  in 
the  beauty  of  Magdalenes,  and  proffered  "  delicieuses  para- 


132  A  FRENCH  THEIST. 

boles'7  of  the  Prodigal  Son  to  the  petit  socieie  of  fishermen 
and  douaniers.1 

It  is  a  circumstance  worthy  of  very  joyful  recognition 
that  there  is  a  school  of  theological  writers  now  arising  in 
France  between  whom  and  our  English  sensibilities  no  such 
barrier  as  that  I  have  described  has  any  existence,  and 
with  whom,  whether  we  coincide  with  them  or  not  in  matters 
of  opinion,  the  most  reverent  of  us  are  sure  to  sympathize 
profoundly  in  sentiment.  Perhaps  here  also  may  be  found 
one  proof  the  more  of  the  truth,  that  the  nearer  any  mind 
approaches  to  a  strictly  monotheistic  faith,  so  much  will  it 
gain  in  spontaneous  reverence  of  spirit ;  so  much  the  further 
will  it  be  from  the  hateful  familiarity  of  cant  on  one  side, 
and  the  rude  defiance  of  atheism  on  the  other. 

I  do  not  design  in  this  article  to  give  any  general 
account  of  French  liberal  Protestantism,  of  which  M.  Bost 
has  lately  issued  so  able  a  defence,2  and  which  numbers 
among  its  teachers  such  able  and  excellent  men  as  M.  Albert 
Reville  of  Rotterdam,  MM.  Coquerel  and  Martin  Paschoud 
of  Paris,  M.  Gaufres  President  of  the  Institution  Duplessis- 
Mornay,  M.  Fontanes  of  Havre,  M.  Zaalberg  of  the  Hague, 
and  MM.  Colani  and  Leblois  of  Strasbourg.  My  object  is  to 
introduce  to  better  acquaintance  one  writer  of  the  school 
whose  works  seem  pre-eminently  qualified  to  interest  Eng- 

1  So  completely  has  this  English  repulsion  to  Kenan's  tone  been  recognized 
by  the  most  clever  of  our  ecclesiastical  parties,   that  something  very  like  an 
instigation  to  read  the  Vie  de  Jesus  may  be  traced  in  all  allusions  to  the  work 
in  the  High-church   organs.     It  is,  of  course,  "  fearfully  blasphemous ;  "  still 
it  is  so  original,  poetical,  learned,    attractive  in  all  ways,  that  strong  minds, 
well  rooted  in  the  faith,  may  be  tempted  to  read  it,  and  (as  the  reviewers  know 
very  well)  induced  to  confound  it  and  all  books  of  liberal  theology  in  common 
disgust.     On  the  other  hand,  such  works  as  Jowett's,  Colenso's,  and  Martineau's, 
have  (if  we  may  believe  these  critics)  nothing  in  them  in  the  slightest  degree 
novel  or  interesting.     They  are  the  dangerous  books  from  which  orthodoxy  in 
earnest  strives  to  deter  all  readers. 

2  "Le  Protestantisme  Liberal.     Par  M.  le  Pasteur  Th.  Bost."     1  vol.  12mo. 
Paris :  Germer  Bailliere. 


A  FRENCH  T HEIST.  133 

lish  readers.  There  are,  I  believe,  few  liberal  thinkers 
amongst  us  who  will  not  rejoice  to  come  into  contact  with  a 
mind  at  once  so  lofty,  so  wide  and  so  profoundly  devout,  as 
that  of  M.  Felix  Pecaut. 

The  first  of  M.  Pecaut's  books  known  to  us  is  an  essay  of 
considerable  length,  Christ  and  the  Religious  Consciousness. 
The  second  is  a  shorter  work,  On  the  Future  of  Christian 
Theism  considered  as  a  Religion1  (1864). 

When  Strauss  and  Renan  and  the  other  great  critics  of 
our  time  afford  us  their  lights  to  judge  what  was  and  was 
not  true  of  the  recorded  words  and  deeds  of  the  historical 
Christ,  and  construct  for  us  images  more  or  less  vivid  of 
what  they  suppose  him  to  have  actually  seemed  as  a  living 
person  upon  earth,  they  do  but  accomplish  a  portion  of  the 
task  which  lies  before  the  theologian  who  shall  effectually 
rectify  the  errors  of  the  past  and  map  out  the  creed  of  the 
future.  They  show  us  what  Christ  (probably)  was ;  and  this 
step  being  (approximately)  ascertained,  they  leave  us  to 
estimate  the  place  he  ought  to  hold  in  the  religion  of  man 
kind.  But  why  he  has  occupied  for  eighteen  centuries  a  very 
different  place  from  that  to  which  their  theories  would  thus 
consign  him,  why  he  now  holds  such  supreme  dominion 
over  countless  thousands  of  hearts,  what  is  the  value  of 
their  alleged  spiritual  experience  of  his  power,  in  a  word, 
what  is  the  basis  of  fact  in  human  consciousness  which 
underlies  popular  Christianity— -this  the  mere  historical 
critic  cannot  help  us  to  learn.  We  want  the  philosopher, 
the  religious  man,  nay,  the  man  of  double  religious  experi 
ence,  who  has  felt  all  the  great  phenomena  of  the  inner  life 
under  the  two  dispensations  of  supernaturalism  and  natu- 

1  Both  published  by  Cherbuliez  et  Cie.,  Paris,  and  to  be  had  of  Messrs.  "Williams 
and  Norgate,  Henrietta-street.  Beside  these,  M.  Pecaut  has  since  published 
Four  Conferences  on  Liberal  Christianity  and  Miracles,  and  several  minor  pieces. 


134  A  FRENCH  THE  1ST. 

ralism,  to  tell  us  this.  And  it  is  the  real  crux  of  the 
problem.  Historical  truth  ought  logically,  no  doubt,  to 
harmonize  absolutely  with  consciousness,  and  must  do  so  when 
men  have  fully  received  and  digested  it.  But  as  a  matter  of 
common  every-day  life,  it  is  our  own  consciousness  of  how 
an  historical  fact  affects  us  which  inclines  us  to  adjust  its 
records  to  our  political  or  social  bias  ;  and  as  a  matter  of 
religious  experience  we  may  safely  affirm  that  every 
argument  in  Strauss's  arsenal  must  inevitably  fall  dead  on 
the  mind  of  a  man  who  imagines  he  recognizes  in  his  own 
soul  the  positive  experience  of  Christian  phenomena  dis 
proving  them  all.  If  Christ's  atonement  has  saved  him,  it 
is  quite  clear  that  Christ  was  not  what  Strauss  asserts  him  to 
have  been.  It  is  the  real,  actual  relation  of  Christ  to  the 
consciousness  of  humanity,  the  question  of  "  Le  Christ  et  la 
Conscience,"  which  we  must  decide,  if  we  want  not  only  to 
open  the  way  to  fresh  light,  but  to  shut  the  door  on  the 
perpetual  and  eternal  recurrence  of  error. 

This  task  it  is  which  M.  Pecaut  undertakes,  namely,  a 
very  careful  examination  of  the  actual  facts  of  the  inner 
consciousness  of  devout  persons  as  regards  their  supposed 
relation  to  Christ,  and  an  inquiry  as  to  how  far  these  facts 
testify  to  the  reality  of  such  relation.  In  conducting  this 
most  solemn  investigation  into  the  penetralia '  of  the  soul, 
M.  Pecaut  proceeds  by  the  simple  process  of  discussion 
between  a  Theist  and  a  man  of  the  very  widest  and  most 
enlightened  type  of  what  we  in  England  should  designate 
as  Broad  Church  views  ;  and  I  can  only  say  that  as  regards 
the  fairness  of  the  representation  of  these  views,  few  books 
written  by  professed  adherents  have  seemed  to  me  to  give 
so  noble  and  beautiful  an  exposition  of  them.  Even  were 
the  result  of  the  discussion  a  matter  of  indifference,  it  would 
be  a  great  gain  merely  to  read  such  a  delineation  of  deep 
spiritual  experience.  But  the  conclusion  towards  which 


A  FRENCH  THEIST.  135 


the  long  argument  winds  itself  bears  in  truth  the  highest 
value.  It  is,  that  the  supposed  experience  of  any  action 
on  the  soul  by  Christ  as  an  Incarnate  Deity  (i.e.  as  distinct 
from  the  historical  Teacher  and  Exemplar)  cannot  be  main 
tained  ;  and  that  the  One  God  and  Father  in  His  own  person 
fills  the  whole  circle  of  the  soul's  heaven ;  in  Himself  alone 
Creating,  Redeeming,  and  Sanctifying  God. 

Few  things  are  more  needed  to  amend  our  current  phi 
losophy  than  the  adoption  of  sounder  ideas  concerning  the 
proper  scope  and  domain  of  what  is  called  "  consciousness." 
It  is  small  marvel  that  materialists  should  make  light  of 
arguments  founded  on  this  basis,  while  those  who  use  them 
indulge  in  the  wildest  licence  in  setting  down  to  the  credit 
of  consciousness  notions  which,  from  the  constitution  of  the 
human  mind,  cannot  possibly  be  derived  from  such  a  source. 
Every  day  we  may  behold  historical  events,  ecclesiastical 
dogmas  and  metaphysical  theories,  thus  treated  as  "first  prin 
ciples"  and  "facts  of  consciousness,"  till  the  jest  of  the  Ger 
man  Professor,  "constructing  the  idea  of  the  camel  out  of  his 
moral  consciousness,"  appears  a  plain  statement  of  the  actual 
method  which  our  divines  and  philosophers  are  in  the  habit  of 
adopting  when  they  "evolve"  a  scheme  of  theology  or  ethics. 
Till  we  have  corrected  this  absurd  error,  and  confined  the 
use  of  the  word  "consciousness"  to  things  of  which  it  is 
possible  for  a  man  to  have  moral  or  spiritual  perception, 
we  shall  but  waste  words  in  arguing,  and  at  the  same  time 
bring  undeserved  discredit  on  the  source — fallible,  indeed, 
yet  still  the  ultimate  and  highest  source — of  our  knowledge. 

Probably,  as  regards  religious  consciousness  in  particular, 
a  considerable  amount  of  lucidity  would  be  gained  were 
we  to  relinquish  the  vague  term  "  sentiment,"  and  adopt 
the  plain  phrase  the  RELIGIOUS  SENSE.  To  those  who  believe 
in  the  sacred  mysteries  of  Divine  communion,  in  the  reality 
of  those  events  of  the  inner  life  which  constitute  the  history 


136  A  FRENCH  T HEIST. 

of  every  regenerated  soul,  the  words  "a  religious  sense" 
scarcely  can  appear  metaphorical.  They  express,  perhaps, 
as  simply  as  may  be,  the  fact  acknowledged  by  all  such 
believers,  that  there  is  in  man  an  Eye  of  the  spirit  which 
truly  beholds  God,  an  Ear  which  hears  His  voice,  a  Feeling 
which  perceives  His  ineffable  presence  in  the  high  hour  of 
visitation.  Of  course  the  phrase  is  unfit  for  the  use  of  those 
who  deem  these  things  uncertain  or  illusive,  but  all  the 
more  is  it  suitable  for  those  who  steadfastly  hold  to  their 
reality. 

Supposing  such  a  term  to  be  generally  adopted,  it  is  clear 
that  the  result  would  follow,  that  a  misapplication  of  the 
organ  in  question  would  be  more  easily  detected  than  while 
the  vaguer  phrases  of  Sentiment  or  Consciousness  were  em 
ployed.  To  say,  for  instance,  that  a  man's  religious  sense 
assures  him  of  an  historical  fact  (such  as  the  life  of  Christ), 
would  speedily  be  recognized  as  no  less  absurd  than  to  say 
that  a  man's  moral  sense  supplied  him  with  the  zoological 
fact  of  the  camel's  conformation.  In  either  case,  once  we 
are  compelled  to  define  the  faculty  we  speak  of,  we  in 
evitably  perceive  the  absurdity  of  transferring  to  it  the 
office  of  another  and  wholly  different  faculty — namely,  the 
intellect,  as  informed  either  by  testimony  or  the  bodily 
senses. 

Again,  in  the  case  of  another  error,  favoured  by  some  of  the 
leading  minds  of  our  day,  the  phrase  "religious  sense"  serves 
to  dissipate  the  obscurity  of  the  language  usually  employed 
on  the  argument,  and  to  reveal  the  untenability  of  their 
position.  It  is  alleged  by  some  excellent  men,  attached  by 
strong  affection  to  Christianity,  yet  unable  to  find  in  either 
Church  or  infallible  Bible  firm  anchorage  for  their  faith, 
that  they  know  by  direct  consciousness  that  there  is  an  Incar 
nate  Deity,  and  that  He  acts  immediately  upon  their  souls. 
Now  that  the  religious  sense  may  and  does  inform  us  of  the 


A   FRENCH  T HEIST.  137 

action  (and  consequently  of  the  existence)  of  a  divine,  in 
visible  Lord  and  Guide,  is  what  we  most  heartily  believe. 
But  that  it  can  inform  us  further  that  the  Being  whose  awful 
monitions  or  blessed  consolations  or  sanctifying  influences 
it  receives,  is  not  God  the  Father  and  is  God  the  Son,  is 
what  cannot  in  any  way  be  proved  in  accordance  with  the 
known  laws  and  nature  of  the  sense  in  question.  Nothing 
but  a  special  revelation  to  the  individual  soul  that  such  was 
the  case  (a  revelation  of  which,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  no 
claim  has  ever  been  made),  could  enable  a  man  to  assert 
that  he  had  made  such  a  discovery.  Nay,  it  is  probable 
that  none  of  those  who  hold  by  this  peculiar  form  of  Chris 
tian  evidence  would  actually  lay  claim  to  the  power  of 
making  such  a  distinction  between 'the  divine  agents  whose 
influences  they  experience,  on  any  other  ground  than  that, 
the  common  voice  of  Christendom  having  assured  them  that 
the  work  of  God  on  the  soul  was  triformous,  they  have 
always  classified  their  experiences  on  such  an  hypothesis, 
and  referred  them  accordingly  to  the  Creator,  the  Redeemer, 
or  the  Sanctifier.  Such  a  process  would  be  most  natural 
and  blameless  under  the  circumstances ;  and  the  consequent 
conviction  that  there  were  really  three  Divine  influences 
perceived  by  the  soul,  would  follow  of  course.  Yet  by  no 
means  can  the  calm  inquirer  admit  such  testimony  to 
prove  the  existence  of  three  Divine  Persons,  any  more 
than  the  similar  testimony  of  Romanists  can  be  admitted  to 
prove  the  invisible  influence  of  Mary  and  the  Saints.  The 
religious  sense  cannot  be  held  competent  to  witness  such 
multiplicity  of  Divine  Persons,  for  by  no  means  conceivable 
could  it  discern  the  difference  between  one  and  another, 
save  under  the  contingency  of  a  moral  difference  in  their 
monitions  perceptible  to  the  moral  sense.  If  there  were  a 
Devil,  a  man  might  perfectly  distinguish  his  influence 
from  that  of  God.  But  every  inward  sanctifying  influence 


138  A   FRENCH  THEIST. 

is  the  same  as  God's  influence.  How,  then,  can  it  be  dis 
tinguished  therefrom  ? 

Surely  the  truth  which  underlies  all  our  differences,  all 
the  mystery  of  prayer,  heard,  and  felt  to  be  heard,  even 
by  those  who  have  offered  it  under  the  most  cloudy  con 
ceptions  of  God,  is  simply  this.  There  is  a  voice  which 
calls  to  us  all  through  the  thick  darkness  of  our  mortal  night. 
We  hear  it,  and  give  it  many  different  names  ;  but  it  is  the 
same  voice  always.  And  we  answer  that  voice,  philosopher 
or  peasant,  saint  or  sinner,  all  alike, 

"  Infants  crying  in  the  night, 
Infants  crying  for  the  light, 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

And  the  Great  Parent  who  is  "  about  our  bed  "  hears  us  all ; 
hears  His  poor  helpless  children  none  the  less  if  some 
times  they  call  in  their  ignorance  on  other  than  any  of 
His  thousand  names.  Even  an  earthly  mother  leaves  not 
her  babe  un tended  because  it  cries  to  nurse  or  brother 
rather  than  to  herself,  who  loves  it  better  than  any  beside 
may  love. 

It  is  on  the  whole  subject  of  these  inner  evidences  of 
what  we  may  term  Broad-church  Christianity,  as  opposed  to 
strictly  Unitarian  Theism,  that  M.  Pecaut  writes ;  and  with 
a  depth  of  insight,  a  tenderness  of  feeling  even  towards  the 
opinions  from  which  he  most  widely  differs,  which  make 
his  book  in  itself  a  lesson  of  piety  and  charity.  It  would 
seem  as  if  he  had  laboured  to  represent  the  interlocutor  who 
takes  the  more  orthodox  side  of  the  argument  as  the  most 
able  and  the  most  devout  of  the  two.  Certainly  fairness 
towards  an  antagonist  can  no  further  go;  and  if  the  argument 
in  favour  of  a  real  Christian  consciousness  as  distinguished 
from  a  simple  consciousness  of  God  be  found  to  fail,  the 
conclusion  can  hardly  be  avoided,  that  no  true  handling  of 
the  subject  would  have  resulted  differently.  It  is  obviously 


A   FRENCH  THEIST.  139 

vain  in  the  compass  of  a  review  to  give  any  fair  abstract  of 
such  a  work,  whose  value  lies  in  the  cumulation  of  details 
of  sentiment,  all  needing  tender  and  reverent  treatment. 
I  shall,  therefore,  in  the  remaining  pages  of  this  article 
attempt  to  give  an  account  of  M.  Pecaut's  second  and 
smaller,  but  by  no  means  less  interesting  book,  L'jLvenir  du 
Theisme  Chretien.  The  questions  of  which  it  treats  are  thus 
stated  in  the  Preface : 

"  Will  France  dispense  with  a  religion  and  a  cultus  ?  "Will  she  be 
Catholic  ?  Will  she  be  Protestant  ?  Will  she  cease  to  be  Christian  ? 
Is  a  national  religion  henceforth  incompatible  with  the  free  exercise 
of  criticism  and  the  principles  of  science  ?  Can  a  people  found  public 
and  private  morals,  support  liberty,  explore  the  highways  of  intellectual 
activity,  and  keep  alive  in  its  breast  those  noble  ambitions  whose  aim 
is  the  True,  the  Good  and  the  Beautiful — in  a  word,  can  it  deserve  to 
live,  without  the  aid  of  a,  religion  conformed  to  its  degree  of  civili 
zation  ? " 

To  those  who  are  interested  in  these  questions  the  author 
addresses  himself.  He  begins  by  asserting  that,  for  all  so 
much  is  said  of  the  universal  decay  and  disruption  of  ancient 
creeds  and  ecclesiastical  institutions, — 

"  —  these  creeds  and  institutions  have  never  been  appreciated  with 
more  impartiality  and  even  sympathy  than  at  present.  Never  have 
their  doctrines,  their  martyrs,  their  merits  of  all  kinds,  obtained  more 
complete  justice.  Never  have  they  on  their  part  displayed  a  zeal 
more  pure  and  active,  whether  for  the  propagation  of  dogma  or  for  the 
foundation  of  works  of  charity.  Yet  public  feeling  recedes  from  them. 
The  religious  reaction  of  the  beginning  of  our  century,  which  seemed 
calculated  to  stop  for  ever  the  philosophic  undertaking  of  the  age 
of  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  was  not  long  in  changing  to  a  serious 
movement  in  a  different  direction.  We  still  continue  to  condemn  the 
Encyclopaedists  for  their  lack  of  comprehension  of  antiquity,  their 
profane  levity  in  sacred  studies,  their  want  of  moral  depth ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  have  understood  that  their  errors  and  excesses  must 
not  make  us  close  our  eyes  to  the  justice  of  their  intellectual  insurrec 
tion Their  criticism  in  its  broad  results  is  found  as  true  in  the 

nineteenth  as  in  the  eighteenth  century." 


140  A  FRENCH  THEIST. 

M.  Pecaut  then  sketches  briefly,  but  with  the  hand  of  one 
intimately  acquainted  with  the  various  phases  of  social  life 
in  France,  the  actual  condition  of  religion  in  the  country. 

"  The  educated  classes,  when  they  do  not  follow  the  caprice  of  a 
fashion,  generally  belong  only  by  name  to  the  churches  from  which 
they  have  received  baptism  ;  and  from  the  upper  ranks  incredulity  has 
descended,  passing  through  the  artisans  of  the  towns  even  to  the 
agricultural  labourers,  especially  in  the  Departments  of  the  North. 
Young  men  who  receive  a  liberal  education  detach  themselves  soon 
from  the  creed  of  their  mothers,  simply  in  consequence  of  the  discord 
between  such  creeds  and  the  whole  method  of  their  studies.  A  small 
number  among  them,  willing  at  any  price  to  satisfy  the  imperative 
need  of  a  religion,  return  in  later  life  to  the  same  faith,  while  others  as 
they  advance  in  years  find  themselves  from  a  thousand  causes — the 
pressure  of  custom,  the  influence  of  women,  the  necessity  of  educating 
their  children  (for  which  they  have  no  sufficient  guidance  or  institutions 
in  harmony  with  their  secret  principles) — above  all,  the  lack  of  definite 
ideas  and  principles  to  resist  the  incessant  ecclesiastical  action  armed 
at  all  points  for  good  and  evil — from  all  these  causes  together,  we  say, 
they  find  themselves  all  their  lives  long  divided  between  an  apparent 
adhesion  to  the  Church  and  a  concealed  hostility  thereto.  Further, 
how  many  are  there  who  in  our  time  remain  outside  of  all  the  sects 
because  they  can  find  no  church  ready  to  receive  them,  such  as  they 
really  are,  with  their  religious  aspirations  more  or  less  ardent,  but  in 
any  case  -sincere,  and  with  their  intellectual  uncertainty  regarding  all 
doctrines  !  The  greater  number  of  these  accustom  themselves  to  live 
in  a  vague  scepticism,  or  in  a  state  of  indifference  regarding  their 
highest  interests,  only  falling  into  the  forms  of  the  dominant  Church 
on  occasions  of  family  or  state  ceremonies.  Others,  again,  and  they 
are  among  the  best,  abstain  on  principle  from  participation  in  any 
religious  association.  They  refuse  to  carry  into  it  a  mutilated  con- 
. science  ;  but  they  would  enter  it  to-morrow,  if  they  might  do  so, 
with  their  heads  raised  and  without  denying  their  true  position  or 
subscribing  to  degrading  conditions.  .  .  .  It  is  for  these  last  that  I 
write  ;  I  who  in  many  ways  belong  to  the  same  class.  I  confess 
I  cannot  resign  myself  without  pain  to  the  condition  of  religious 
isolation  in  which  we  find  ourselves." 

My  space  will  not  permit  me  to  follow  M.  Pecaut  at  length 


A  FRENCH  THE  1ST.  141 

through  the  deeply  philosophic  discussion  which  follows  re 
garding  the  prospects  of  obtaining  what  we  may  call  a 
new  term  of  religious  life  for  such  men  as  he  has  described. 
Perhaps  the  spirit  of  the  constructive  part  of  his  book  cannot 
be  better  illustrated  than  in  the  passage  (p.  211)  where,  after 
tracing  how  the  elder  Deism  and  all  merely  moral  systems 
fail  to  attract  or  to  retain  the  souls  of  men,  he  shows  what 
he  trusts  will  be  the  faith  of  the  future  and  whence  it  will 
be  derived. 

"  This  it  is  which  has  been  wanting  in  the  experiments  of  which  we 
have  spoken — the  gift  of  prayer — the  supremacy  of  the  religious  idea 
— a  deeper  alliance  between  human  nature  and  the  drama  of  the  moral 
life.  And  this  it  is  which  we  demand  of  Christian  tradition,  not  as  an 
artificial  loan  which  we  should  rejoice  riot  to  owe  to  it,  but  as  the  most 
precious  part  of  our  patrimony  which  it  transmits  to  us  from  God, 
having  preserved  it  through  the  ages."  ,  .  .  "What  (he  elsewhere  says1) 
is  Christian  Theism  ?  Is  it  a  system  of  philosophy  or  theology  ?  No. 
Is  it  one  particular  tradition  among  all  those  which  have  ploughed 
their  furrow  in  the  history  of  Christianity  1  No.  Is  it  a  confused 
eclecticism,  an  incoherent  assemblage  of  divers  traditions  1  No.  Is  it 
then  perhaps  a  simple  critical  residuum,  obtained  by  means  of  elimin 
ation  ?  Not  so.  What  is  it  then  ?  It  is  the  Christian  spirit  itself,  the 
spirit  of  the  Church,  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  which  by  its  own  proper 
virtue  and  by  the  experience  of  ages  has  disengaged  itself  of  the 
mythological  elements,  the  errors,  and  perishable  forms  with  which 
the  disciples,  and  in  some  respects  even  the  Master  himself,  had 
clothed  it." 

And  this  religion,  this  Christian  Theism,  he  believes  will 
eventually  prevail.2 

"  Traditional  Protestantism  and  Catholicism,  the  refuges  of  so  many 
pious  souls,  the  provisional  shelter  of  so  many  uncertain  ones,  cannot 
satisfy  us  ;  for  their  dogmatic  tradition  and  the  principle  of  super 
natural  authority  contradict  alike  the  testimony  of  history  and  the 
religious  needs  of  the  human  soul,  once  it  has  attained  self-guidance. 
But  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  man  being  essentially  religious,  a 

1  Chapter  i.  2  Introduction,  page  xii. 


142  -4   FRENCH  THEIST. 

religious  society  is  a  natural  fact,  no  less  inevitable  than  civil  society  ; 
and  if  this  be  so,  it  must  be  open  to  us  to  found  it  on  the  basis  of  ideas 
which  our  reason  recognizes  as  true." 

M.  Pecaut's  volume,  of  which  I  have  now  given  so  brief 
a  sketch,  has  a  peculiar  interest,  as  affording  to  the  English 
reader  both  a  view  of  the  actual  state  of  religion  in  France 
and  an  insight  into  the  aims  of  its  most  spiritual  reformers. 
Much  that  he  says,  however,  is  quite  equally  apposite  to 
the  condition  of  things  in  our  own  country ;  and  to  us,  no 
less  than  to  him,  the  questions  are  paramount :  As  the  old 
creeds  are  losing  their  hold,  which  are  the  creeds  acquiring 
strength?  Is  it  any  one  of  the  existing  churches  which 
bears  in  its  bosom  the  precious  seed  hereafter  to  make  the 
harvests  of  the  world  ?  Or  is  it  the  yet  scarcely  sown 
"  Christian  Theism  "  of  such  men  as  Felix  Pecaut  which  is 
to  give  to  us  all  the  bread  of  life  ?  Or,  yet  again,  shall  every 
form,  alike  of  Christianity  and  of  Theism,  dwindle  away 
and  disappear,  even  as  Comte  foretells,  and  some  vague 
"  Religion  of  Humanity  "  like  his,  some  yet  more  material 
belief  in  a  Fluid  or  mere  recognition  of  a  Protean  Force, 
henceforward  fill  up  in  human  existence  that  stupendous 
vacuum  to  be  left  by  the  disappearance  of  God  ? 

It  has  been  frequently  remarked  that  each  of  our  present 
churches  seems  to  have  its  raison  d'etre,  not  so  much  in  a 
claim  to  intrinsic  and  eternal  truth  or  the  possession  of 
any  complete  and  consistent  scheme  of  theology,  but  in  its 
extrinsic  and  temporary  antagonism  to  some  other  church. 
Admitting  this  to  be  true,  we  are  driven  to  conclude  that 
none  of  these  churches  can  be  the  prototype  of  the  Church 
of  the  Future.  A  sect  which  exists  mainly  as  a  protest 
against  another  sect  can  have  nothing  to  support  it  when 
the  antagonism  dies  with  its  object.  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
Churchman  and  Dissenter,  High  Churchman  and  Evangelical, 
Calvinist  and  Unitarian,  can  hardly  live  the  one  without  the 


A   FRENCH  THEIST.  143 

other,  more  than  so  many  Hegelian  contraries.  At  best, 
like  the  old  orders  of  soldier-monks,  when  the  Crusades  are 
over,  if  they  be  not  extinguished,  like  the  Templars,  they 
must  change  their  character,  like  the  Knights  of  St.  John. 
A  man  beginning  to  study  theology  ab  initio,  without  know 
ledge  of  any  of  the  present  churches  which  crowd  the  arena 
of  Christendom,  would  hardly,  we  conceive,  deduce  from 
either  the  Bible  or  the  Book  of  Nature  the  doctrines  of  any 
one  of  them.  And,  sooner  or  later,  according  to  the  im 
mutable  principles  of  things,  as  one  after  another  of  these 
little  systems  "have  their  day  and  cease  to  be,"  its  anta 
gonist  sect  or  Protestantism  must  cease  also,  and  only  such 
a  creed  survive  as  a  spiritual  worshipper  might  arrive  at  in 
a  world  empty  of  sects.  This  last  only  can  be  an  immortal 
church  ;  this  only  can  be  the  type  of  religion  which  will 
perpetuate  itself  in  perennial  vigour.  The  rest  are  but  a 
crop  of  annuals  doomed  ere  long  to  die ;  nay,  rather  fungi 
growing  each  on  its  decaying  stem,  and  destined,  with  it,  at 
last  to  perish. 

But  to  enable  ourselves  to  discover  the  creed  which  has 
its  right  of  existence  not  in  such  mere  antagonism  to  error, 
but  in  the  possession  of  positive  truth,  it  is  needful  that 
we  ascend  into  a  region  of  speculation  very  far  above  the 
debates  of  sects  and  jostlings  of  religious  parties.  We  need 
to  explore  the  secrets  of  human  nature  itself,  and  deduce 
from  the  ever-repeated  characteristics  of  past  generations 
the  facts  of  our  common  wants  and  ineradicable  propensi 
ties.  We  require  to  learn  which  are  the  things  whose  hold 
on  our  hearts  no  time  can  loosen  while  those  hearts  remain 
what  they  are ;  and  which  again  are  those  whose  tenure  may 
be  as  transitory  as  the  beliefs  and  dreams  of  infancy.  Above 
all,  we  need  to  assure  ourselves  whether  Religion  be  indeed 
an  integral  part  of  human  nature,  even  as  the  love  of  kin 
dred,  of  justice,  of  truth,  of  beauty,  are  parts  thereof;  or  if 


144  A   FRENCH  THEIST. 

it  be,  on  the  contrary,  an  accident  of  the  world's  youth  ; 
a  mist  of  the  morning,  dissipating  even  now  in  the  glare 
of  the  noontide  sun.  The  analogies  of  the  past,  the 
testimony  of  science  respecting  the  existing  religious  senti 
ments  of  all  the  races  of  men  upon  earth,  the  deepest 
consciousness  of  our  individual  souls — what  evidence  do 
they  bring  to  aid  us  to  decide  this  question  ?  Let  us  face 
the  matter  resolutely. 

"Will  the  time  ever  arrive  when  the  historian  will  write 
words  like  these : 

"  In  these  remote  ages,  namely,  from  unrecorded  antiquity  till  the 
third  millennium  after  Christ,  there  existed  among  all  nations  of  whom 
we  possess  any  records  an  extraordinary  affection,  or  sentiment,  called 
RELIGION.  They  experienced  this  singular  feeling  very  variously,  and 
applied  it  sometimes  to  one  supposed  invisible  Being,  sometimes  to 
many ;  but  they  generally  agreed  in  displaying  a  mixture  of  fear, 
reverence,  allegiance  and  love  to  some  unseen  Master  or  Protector 
whom  they  held  to  be  present  at  all  times  and  cognizant  of  their 
invocations  and  thanksgivings,  and  who  was  also  understood  to  be 
the  supreme  Guardian  of  morality.  This  ;  Religious  Sentiment,'  as 
they  called  it,  caused  men  to  establish  the  largest  institutions  and 
spiritual  corporations,  called  churches  and  priesthoods,  and  to  build 
the  greatest  edifices  in  a  profusion  which  amazes  the  archaeologist,  who 
discovers  their  foundations,  we  had  almost  said,  over  every  mile  of 
the  habitable  globe, — edifices  whose  sole  purpose  was  the  imaginary 
service  of  an  imaginary  Being.  More  remarkable  than  all  other  facts, 
however,  connected  with  this  long-passed-away  'Religion,'  is  the  un 
questionable  one  that  it  raised  those  who  experienced  it  strongly  to 
heights  of  self-devotion,  ascending  even  to  positive,  painful  martyrdoms 
most  difficult  for  us  to  picture  under  the  present  sounder  views  of 
social  duty.  The  books  also  which  have  descended  to  us  from  those 
ages,  filled  as  they  are  with  idle  fables,  appear  to  reveal  an  intensity  of 
aspiration  after  goodness,  and  traces  of  laborious  striving  after  inward 
holiness  and  perfection,  which,  while  we  can  only  ascribe  them  to  this 
delusive  idea  of  an  invisible  Spectator  of  the  secrets  of  the  heart,  we 
are  forced  to  regard  with  somewhat  of  admiration  as  well  as  astonish 
ment." 


( 


A   FRENCH  THEIST.  145 

It  is  certain  that  either  the  time  will  come  when  some 
such  words  as  these  will  be  used,  or  else  that  Religion  will 
never  die  out  of  humanity.  If  Grerman  Materialists  and 
French  Positivists  be  right,  then  that  time,  however  remote, 
is  surely  approaching.  Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  The 
substitutes  which  the  best  of  them,  such  as  Comte,  offer  us 
as  Religion,  is  not  what  toe  call  Religion  at  all,  nor  therefore 
by  the  laws  of  language  properly  to  be  called  by  the  name. 
It  is  a  mere  verbal  trick,  a  shuffle  of  words,  to  call  it  "  Reli 
gion,"  to  worship,  not  (as  all  the  religions  of  the  past  have 
done)  an  Invisible  Person,  but  instead  thereof  the  Abstrac 
tion  of  our  Race,  or  a  Visible  Woman  conventionally  elevated 
to  the  representation  of  such  an  Abstraction  of  Humanity. 
It  is  another  thing,  whether  it  be  a  better  or  a  worse ;  and  he 
who  speaks  of  the  religious  sentiment  being  thus  given  the 
change  by  the  intellect  as  to  the  object  of  its  emotions,  talks 
as  idly  as  he  who  should  say  that  filial,  parental,  conjugal  and 
fraternal  love  could  be  counterchanged  at  our  option.  When 
Comte  talks  of  the  world  passing  through  the  consecutive 
stages  of  Fetichism,  Polytheism,  Monotheism  and  Positivism, 
he  deceives  himself  and  us.  He  speaks  like  one  who  should 
describe  the  progress  of  an  individual  from  Infant  to  Boy, 
and  from  Boy  to  Man,  and  should  add  as  the  next  stage, 
"  and  then  he  became  a  Woman."  Polytheism  was  indeed  a 
stage  developed  out  of  Fetichism,  and  Monotheism  a  stage 
out  of  Polytheism.  But  Positivism  is  no  stage  beyond 
Monotheism,  for  it  is  not  on  the  same  road  at  all.  Instead 
of  a  development,  it  is  a  solution  of  continuity ;  instead  of 
a  growth,  it  is  the  stroke  of  the  axe  at  the  very  root  of  the 
tree.  What  can  be  more  monstrous  than  to  call  it  the 
development  of  belief  in  God,  to  arrive  at  belief  in  no  Grod  ? 
If  Comte  were  right,  it  would  prove  that  among  all  the 
feelings  and  affections  of  our  humanity,  the  religious  senti 
ment  alone,  since  the  world  began,  has  been  false,  diseased, 

10 


146  A  FRENCH  THEIST. 

distorted  and  misapplied.  While  every  other  feeling  cor 
responded  to  some  reality,  the  parental,  the  filial,  the  con 
jugal,  the  patriotic,  each  to  their  true  and  proper  objects, 
this  alone,  the  highest  of  all,  has  from  first  to  last  been 
thrown  away  on  an  imaginary  entity  ;  this  alone,  the  source 
of  holiest  joy,  truth,  and  virtue,  has  been  a  delusion  and  a  lie. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  true  thought  which  books  like  those  of  M. 
Pecaut  bring  before  us.  In  the  long  pilgrimage  of  our  race 
we  have  reached  a  point  where  the  way  to  the  Celestial  City 
is  no  longer  clear,  and  where  no  Angel  or  Interpreter  stands 
by  to  direct  us.  To  the  right  lies  the  old  road  which  our 
fathers  trod,  and  where  we  yet  can  recognize  their  venerable 
footsteps.  But  that  path  is  a  quicksand  now,  hardly  able  to 
bear  the  weight  of  a  traveller  who  would  plant  his  feet 
firmly  as  he  goes.  To  the  left  there  is  another  path,  but  it 
turns  visibly  before  our  eyes  away  from  that  City  of  God 
which  has  been  hitherto  our  goal,  and  passes  down  fathom 
less  abysses  of  lonely  darkness  where  our  hearts  quail  to 
follow.  Straight  before  us  lies  a  field  hardly  tracked  as  yet 
by  the  few  pilgrim  feet  which  have  passed  over  it,  a  vast 
field  full  of  flowers  and  open  to  the  sun.  May  the  "  King 
of  that  Country  "  guide  us,  so  that  walking  thereon  we  may 
find  a  new  and  straighter  road  to  the  Celestial  City  on  high 
beyond  the  dark  Eiver ;  and  to  the  "  Beulah  land"  of  peace 
ful  faith  here  upon  earth  ! 


ESSAY  VI. 


THE    DEYIL.1 

AN  alarming  rumour  has  recently  gone  forth  that  in  the 
new  Revision  of  the  Bible  the  Lord's  Prayer  will  be  altered, 
and  instead  of  praying  to  be  delivered  from  "evil"  we  shall 
be  called  on  to  pray  to  be  delivered  from  the  "Evil  One," 
i.e.,  the  Devil.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  whether  such  an 
emendation  of  the  text  would  be  more  startling  or  painful. 
One  thing  there  has  been  hitherto  left  about  which  Christians 
of  every  church  were  agreed ;  and  wherein  even  men  who 
could  follow  no  other  Christian  formula  were  wont  to  join. 
And  now  that  blessed  note  of  harmony  in  a  jarring  world 
threatens  to  become  a  discord  too !  The  prayer,  merely  to 
pronounce  whose  exordium  was  an  act  of  faith,  hope,  and 
charity  together,  is  doomed  to  become  a  test  of  orthodoxy, 
a  subject  of  debate  in  each  congregation  and  household. 
Assuredly  thousands  amongst  us  who  have  prayed  all  their 
lives  to  be  "delivered  from  evil"  will  deem  it  nothing  short 
of  a  blasphemy  to  pray  to  be  delivered  from  a  personal 
"ghostly  enemy"  in  whose  existence  they  have  not  the 
smallest  belief. 

1  Histoire  du  Diable.  Ses  Origines,  sa  Grandeur,  et  so,  Decadence.  Par  Albert 
Reville.  Strasburg  and  Paris,  1870.  An  excellent  translation  of  this  little 
book,  very  handsomely  got  up,  and  adorned  Avith  portraits  of  the  Egyptian  and 
Assyrian  Devils,  has  just  been  published.  12mo.  pp.  72.  London:  Williams 
and  Norgate.  1871.  The  present  Essay  was  originally  written  as  now  printed, 
but  was  curtailed  in  the  first  publication  by  the  exigencies  of  space  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  and  for  other  reasons. 


148  THE  DEVIL. 


The  mere  suggestion  of  such  an  unfortunate  result  of  criti 
cism  in  the  case  of  the  Paternoster  must,  I  presume,  call  forth 
some  debate  on  the  half-obsolete  "doctrine  of  devils,"  and 
may  ver}r  probably  afford  some  startling  revelations  as  to  the 
extent  to  which  the  belief  in  it  now  prevails  in  the  minds  of 
Englishmen.  In  the  present  paper  I  propose  to  make  some 
inquiry  into  the  subject ;  and  to  follow  the  brilliant  pages  of 
M.  Reville  in  an  important  branch  of  the  subject,  namely, 
the  question,  How  Christendom  came  b}r  its  Devil  ?  The 
lower  races  of  mankind,  as  Sir  John  Lubbock  tells  us  {Origin 
of  Civilization,  p.  254),  believe  in  no  Satan,  for  the  obvious 
reason  that  their  gods  themselves  have  no  moral  character, 
and  where  morality  is  wholly  disconnected  from1  religion, 
a  tempter  can  have  no  part  to  play.  It  is  only  in  the  higher 
forms  of  human  thought  that  we  come  to  the  idea  of  a  devil ; 
and — singular  paradox  ! — it  is  in  the  religion  of  Europe  that 
the  hideous  chimera  has  risen  to  its  full  height  of  mon 
strosity.  The  How  and  the  Why  of  such  an  abnormal 
growth,  and  the  story  of  its  decline  and  decay,  seem  every 
way  worthy  of  attention. 

The  Report  of  the  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  for 
inquiring  into  the  Adulteration  of  Food  and  Drink  must  have 
suggested  to  many  readers  the  remark :  What  a  wonderful 
amount  of  abominable  stuff  is  the  human  machine  capable  of 
absorbing  without  being  altogether  clogged  and  brought  to  a 
standstill !  But  it  is  by  no  means  only  the  food  of  the  body 
which,  it  appears,  may  be  thus  adulterated  with  at  least  par 
tial  impunity.  Mental  food  seemingly  quite  as  well  qualified 
to  poison  the  intellect,  paralyze  the  will,  and  stop  the  action 
of  the  heart,  is  yet  every  day  gulped  down  by  multitudes 
in  the  sight  of  all  men ;  and  when  we  look  that  they  should 
show  signs  of  its  morbific  action,  lo  !  we  find  them  going 
cheerfully  about  their  business  as  if  they  had  supped  full, 
not  of  horrors,  but  of  good  bread  and  cheese.  If  we  could 


THE  DEVIL.  149 


have  set  ourselves,  for  example,  to  create  a  conception  which 
ought  (so  to  speak)  to  disagree  with  the  human  mind,  we 
should  unhesitatingly  say  that  such  a  notion  would  be  the 
existence  of  a  great  Bad  God ;  a  being  of  absolute  malignity 
who  ceaselessly  employs  his  stupendous  supernatural  powers, 
by  inward  suggestion  and  outward  temptation,  in  luring  each 
of  us  to  his  subterranean  dungeon,  where  he  will  preside 
over  our  combustion  for  infinite  ages.  Certainly  such  a 
notion  is  far  from  being  nourishing,  refreshing,  or,  as  we 
should  have  supposed,  in  any  way  wholesome  or  digestible. 
Yet,  marvellous  to  relate !  this  oil- of- vitriol  kind  of  thing 
slips  down  the  throats  of  tens  of  thousands  of  honest  Britons 
at  least  once  every  week,  and  they  go  home  afterwards  from 
church  and  eat  their  luncheons  with  admirable  appetite,  and 
never,  by  word  or  deed,  betray  that  they  have  drained  a 
cup  to  which  that  of  Hecate  \vas  a  mild  tisane.  Sweet  and 
gentle  elderly  ladies, 

whose  eyes 
Grow  tender  over  drowning  flies, 

and  who  refuse  to  believe  any  harm  of  the  worst  scapegrace 
among  their  nephews,  allow  this  particular  horror  to  enter 
their  minds  unchallenged,  and  even  seem  to  turn  it  over 
under  the  tongue  as  if  it  were  a  bon-bon,  and  inquire,  plain 
tively,  in  the  same  breath,  Does  their  visitor  believe  in  the 
eternity  of  future  punishment — and  will  he  not  take  another 
lump  of  sugar  in  his  tea  ?  Between  these  good  folk  and 
their  neighbours  who  refuse  to  believe  in  the  horrid  dogma 
there  is  hardly  a  pin  to  choose  so  far  as  cheerfulness  goes, 
or  general  easiness  of  demeanour.  One  believes  he  walks 
on  a  thin  crust  of  lava  over  a  bottomless  crater,  and  the 
other  thinks  he  treads  on  rock  ;  but  there  is  no  perceptible 
difference  in  the  way  they  put  their  feet  to  the  ground. 
One  loses  his  son  and  believes  he  may  possibly  be  in  Hell ; 
the  other  loses  his  daughter  and  is  sure  she  is  gone  to  a 


150  THE  DEVIL. 


better  world.  But  the  tears  of  the  two  fathers  are  much 
alike ;  the  grief  of  the  first  is  not  more  inconsolable  than 
that  of  the  second.  Truly  the  paradox  would  be  inexplicable 
were  it  quite  clear  that  those  who — so  to  speak — bite  freely 
at  unhealthy  ideas,  actually  masticate  them  and  assimilate 
them  with  their  mental  constitutions.  The  fact  seems  rather 
to  be  that  both  clergy  and  laity  are  apt  to  take  a  great 
many  more  such  things  into  their  mouths  than  ever  go  any 
farther.  Some  divines  and  parents,  indeed,  obviously  are 
possessed  of  a  natural  pouch,  similar  to  that  of  the  pelican, 
wherein  they  lodge  an  astonishing  quantity  of  undigested 
notions,  and  whence  they  distribute  them  liberally  to  the 
young  without  any  necessity  for  swallowing  them  on  their 
own  account. 

With  respect  to  the  particular  dogma  of  the  existence  of 
a  Devil,  the  attitude  of  the  Christian  world  at  this  moment 
is  not  a  little  singular.  The  idea  is  ostensibly  accepted  by 
the  whole  mass  of  members  of  all  the  great  churches,  Greek, 
Roman,  and  Protestant,  national  and  dissenting.  Only  by 
the  small  sects  of  Universaiists  and  Unitarians,  and  for  a 
few  years  back  has  it  been  officially  repudiated.  Not  one 
clergyman  in  a  thousand  hints  at  a  doubt  of  Satan's  per 
sonality,  while  many  insist  upon  it  with  as  much  urgency 
as  if  (as  Mr.  Maurice  suggests)  the  great  message  of  the 
Gospel  had  been,  "The  Kingdom  of  Hell  is  at  hand."  Nine- 
tenths  of  the  educated  men  and  women  in  England  have 
duly  learned  in  childhood  to  "renounce  the  Devil,"  as  if 
on  the  assumption  (authorized,  indeed,  by  the  formularies  of 
the  Church)  that  we  were  born  his  subjects  or  children. 
In  a  word,  Christendom  at  large  professedly  believes  in 
Satan  with  as  much  formality  and  emphasis  as  it  believes, 
let  us  say,  in  the  Third  Person  of  the  Trinity. 

On  the  other  hand,  and  as  an  off-set  to  this  official  recog 
nition  of  the  Devil,  we  have  to  place  his  actual  status  in 


THE  DEVIL.  151 


the  minds  of  men  of  the  present  generation ;  and  it  appears 
that  if  we  have  in  our  creed  a  Devil  de  jure,  we  are  far  from 
having  one  de  facto.  Theological  legitimists,  like  the  old 
Jacobites,  still  continue  on  stated  occasions  to  express  their 
conviction  of  the  rights  of  the  potentate  "over  the  water" 
— or  over  another  element.  But  practically,  and  for  all  the 
purposes  of  common  every-day  life,  they  live  peaceably  under 
quite  another  dynasty.  Nothing  is  more  notorious  than  that 
of  the  once  compact  bundle  of  doctrines  which  Wycliffe  and 
Luther  began  to  untie,  and  which  each  sect  and  individual 
has  been  knotting  up  into  little  select  fasces  ever  since,  the 
rotten  stick,  labelled  "  The  Devil,"  is  the  one  which  the 
fewest  persons  retain  now-a-days  in  their  private  collections. 
At  all  events,  it  is  always  the  first  thing  to  drop  out  when 
the  band  of  orthodoxy  grows  a  little  loose.  Great  thinkers 
and  small  thinkers  agree  here,  if  nowhere  else.  Profane 
folk  laugh  whenever  the  Devil  is  mentioned,  as  if  there  were 
a  hidden  joke  in  the  very  word ;  and  pious  people  smile 
when  the  parson  alludes  to  him,  and  say,  like  La  Mothe  le 
Yayer,  "Mon  ami,  j'ai  tant  de  religion  que  je  ne  suis  point 
de  ta  religion." 

Of  those  who  remain,  and  who  think  that  they  believe  in 
such  a  being,  M.  Albert  Reville,  in  the  paper  before  us,  says, 
very  aptly,  that  "  if  they  only  knew  how  people  acted  who 
really  believed  in  a  Devil,"  their  delusion  would  quickly  be 
dispelled.  They  would  then  perceive  that  their  conventional 
adhesion  to  the  dogma. is  an  extremely  different  thing  from 
the  awful  soul-prostrating  faith  in  it,  such  as  their  fathers 
entertained  two  or  three  centuries  ago. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  it  would  be  a  benefit  to  the 
world  if  this  outworn  doctrine  were  confessedly  abandoned. 
Such  decaying  exuvice  of  faith,  still  clinging  about  us,  are 
unhealthful  and  embarrassing  things  at  the  best.  The 
proverbial  "  wisdom  of  the  serpent "  is  displayed  by  rubbing 


152  THE  DEVIL. 


off  its  old  skin  at  the  proper  time,  and  allowing  the  new  one, 
however  tender,  to  shine  unincumbered ;  and  not  by  "  stop 
ping  its  ears  to  the  voice  of  the  charmer/'  as  the  Fathers 
ingeniously  explained  that  difficult  feat,  by  jamming  one  ear 
against  a  stone,  and  cramming  their  tails  into  the  other. 

In  matters  however  remotely  connected  with  religion,  the 
principle  that  "lies  should  be  served  on  one  plate  and  truth 
on  another"  is  pre-eminently  valuable.  It  would  be  hard  to 
say  how  much  of  the  worst  form  of  scepticism  of  our  day  is 
due  to  nothing  else  than  the  pertinacity  wherewith  the  clergy 
insist  on  always  embarking  in  one  boat  to  sink  or  swim  to 
gether  the  things  of  deepest  import  and  simplest  evidence,  with 
the  things  of  pettiest  consequence  and  most  uncertain  proof. 
At  best  much  inconvenience  always  comes  from  maintaining 
a  public  creed  which  is  not  conterminous  with  the  private 
creed  of  its  professed  adherents ;  leaving  Faith  like  a  Roman 
noble  shivering  in  one  wing  of  his  palace,  while  vast  suites  of 
halls  and  chambers,  once  filled  writh  life  and  animation,  are 
now  silent  and  dark.  Perhaps  it  may  seem  vain  to  hope 
that  persons  who,  in  our  day,  still  linger  in  the  old  world 
of  thought  sufficiently  fondly  even  to  suppose  that  they 
believe  in 

"  The  Chief  of  many  throned  Powers, 
"Who  lead  the  embattled  Seraphim  to  war," 

will  be  in  any  way  affected  in  their  opinions  by  a  mere 
historical  study  of  the  great  myth,  or  of  the  Rise  and 
Progress,  Decline  and  Fall,  of  this  singular  Eidolon  of  Jewish 
and  Christian  imagination.  Nevertheless,  as  Isaiah  thought 
he  did  something  to  expose  the  folly  of  contemporary 
paganism  when  he  described  how  the  image  to  be  worshipped 
was  cut  out  of  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  one  part  of  which  was 
applied  to  roasting  meat  and  warming  mankind,  while  the 
other  part  was  fashioned  into  a  god ;  so  M.  Reville  may  hope 
to  achieve  a  little  in  the  way  of  discountenancing  devil- 


THE  DEVIL.  153 


belief  by  showing  how  the  ugly  idea  was  manufactured  out 
of  notions  half  of  which  at  least  we  have  long  ago  consigned 
to  contempt  and  oblivion. 

Are  Satan  and  Ahrimanes  merely  the  Jewish  and  Persian 
forms  of  the  same  myth  ?  It  would  seem  that  they  are  of 
wholly  different  origin,  and  that  the  "  root-idea  "  of  each 
is  entirely  distinct ;  or,  that  if  they  sprang  from  the  same 
source,  it  was  at  the  immeasurably  remote  epoch  before  the 
Aryan  and  Semitic  branches  of  the  human  family  were 
separated,  and  when  the  myth  itself  had  scarcely  begun  to 
be  developed.  The  two  separately  evolved  ideas  were  indeed 
brought  into  juxtaposition  at  the  time  of  the  Jewish  Cap 
tivity,  and  a  singular  exchange  of  costume  took  place  between 
them,  causing  the  similarity  of  character  thenceforth  to  appear 
greater  than  it  actually  is.  Satan,  on  his  side,  assumed  a 
grandeur  almost  bringing  him  up  to  the  level  of  Ahrimanes ; 
and  the  latter  in  the  more  modern  portion  of  the  Zend 
Avesta  (the  Boundeheseh)  is  made  to  leap  to  earth  in  the 
shape  of  an  adder,  and  to  tempt  Meschia  and  Meschiane, 
the  parents  of  mankind,  apparently  in  imitation  of  the  story 
of  Genesis,  wherein  an  actual  serpent  (not  yet  identified 
with  any  spiritual  power)  effects  the  same  mischief.  But 
the  earlier  idea  of  Ahrimanes  differs  altogether  from  the 
first  idea  of  Satan.  The  story  of  the  former  is  briefly  this. 
In  the  most  ancient  parts  of  the  Zend  Avesta,  Evil  is  not 
personified  at  all :  it  is  spoken  of  as  drucks,  "  destruction/' 
"  falsehood,"  against  which  Ormuzd  and  good  men  contend. 
Goodness  is  understood  as  a  positive  thing,  and  evil  as  its 
negation.  In  each  rational  being  there  is  said  to  exist 
a  good,  holy  will;  and  also  its  shadow  or  negative.  The 
famous  passage  supposed  to  be  the  inaugural  address  of 
Zoroaster  himself,  at  the  beginning  of  his  prophetic  mission 
(Gatha  Ahunavaiti,  Yasna  30),  shows  where  the  doctrine 
had  then  advanced.  "In  the  beginning  there  were  twins, 


154  THE  DEVIL. 


the  Good  and  the  Base  in  thought,  word,  and  deed.  Choose 
one  of  those  two  spirits.  Be  good,  not  base.  Ye  cannot 
belong  to  both  of  them.  Ye  must  choose  one,  either  the 
originator  of  the  worst  actions,  or  the  true  Holy  Spirit. 
Some  may  choose  the  hardest  lot.  Others  adore  Ahura 
Mazda  (Ormuzd)  by  means  of  faithful  actions."  In 
later  ages  Angro  Mainyus  (Ahrimanes)  became  a  posi 
tively  Evil  Being  of  almost  equal  power  with  Ahura  Mazda. 
To  him  is  attributed  the  creation  of  all  noxious  beasts  and 
insects,  the  addition  of  smoke  to  fire,  of  thorns  to  roses,  and 
generally  of  all  evil,  falsehood,  and  pain  to  the  world.  He 
is  the  chief  of  the  seven  arch-demons,  just  as  Ahura 
Mazda  is  the  chief  of  the  seven  Amschaspands  or  arch 
angels;  and  is  lord  also  of  an  infinite  train  of  devas,  or  fiends, 
beings  whom  the  Yasna  says  are  "nourished  by  evil-doers," 
and  into  whom  evil-doers  themselves  are  transformed  after 
death.  But,  great  as  Ahrimanes  became  in  the  developed 
Zoroastrian  belief,  the  blessed  faith  that  "somehow,  good 
shall  be  the  final  goal  of  ill,"  never  seems  to  have  deserted 
the  worshippers  of  Ormuzd.  They  held  that  at  the  end 
of  all  things,  after  the  final  resurrection,  and  the  three  days' 
penance  by  the  wicked  in  the  rivers  of  molten  metal,  Ahri 
manes  himself,  with  all  his  train  of  demons,  would  repent 
and  adore  Ahura  Mazda,  and  be  received  into  Gorotrnan 
(paradise).  Nay,  so  important  was  felt  to  be  this  doctrine 
of  the  final  Restoration  of  all  spirits,  that  the  assertion  of 
it  forms  a  part  of  the  morning  prayer  which  every  Parsee 
is  bound  to  use.  The  charitable  hope  which  Burns  was 
thought  to  commit  a  sort  of  blasphemy  in  breathing  in 
Christian  Scotland,  a  few  years  ago, — that  the  arch-enemy 
should 

Tak'  a  thought  and  men', 

has  thus,  it  seems,  been  a  part  of  the  religious  duty  of 
"heathens  "  to  entertain  for  about  three  thousand  years.  To 


THE  DEVIL.  155 


the  pious  Parsee  the  conception  of  the  final  perdition  of  a 
single  spirit,  not  the  restoration  of  the  worst  of  them,  was 
the  blasphemous  idea.  He  would  have  said,  that  it  implied 
the  final  defeat  of  the  "Great  Wise  God";  and  perhaps  would 
not  have  greatly  erred  in  that  conclusion. 

But  when  the  notion  of  the  personality  of  Ahrimanes  had 
become  complete,  and  his  power  had  been  extended  to  the 
whole  measure  of  physical  and  moral  evil  in  the  world,  it 
began  to  be  felt  by  the  ancient  Zoroastrians  that  their  fun 
damental  dogma  of  the  Unity  of  God,  and  his  supremacy 
over  all  beings,  was  endangered.  To  correct  this  error,  at 
the  time  of  the  revival  of  the  faith  under  the  Sassanian 
kings,  there  began  to  be  heard  of  a  Zeruane  Akerene  (Time 
without  Bounds),  the  First  Cause  of  both  Ormuzd  and  Ahri 
manes.  But  this  conception  (though  still  held  by  a  few 
Parsee  teachers)  has  been  shown  by  recent  European  students 
of  Zend  MSS.  to  be  wholly  unsupported  by  the  older  sacred 
writings,  which  only  describe  Ormuzd  as  existing  in  "  Bound 
less  Time/'  by  no  means  as  derived  from  it. 

In  nearly  all  respects  it  will  be  seen  presently  that  the 
biography  of  the  Jewish  Satan  contrasts  strangely  with  that 
of  the  Persian  Ahrimanes  as  above  described.  When  the 
former  first  makes  his  appearance  on  the  stage  of  Hebrew 
thought,  it  is  under  the  aspect  of  a  talking  reptile ;  or 
rather  the  reptile  first  appears  as  a  bond  fide  speaking  animal, 
such  as  those  of  which  the  folk-lore  of  all  nations  is  full; 
and  not  till  long  ages  afterwards  was  this  Serpent  of  Eden 
identified  with  a  supposed  angel,  having  an  office  somewhat 
analogous  to  that  performed  by  the  malicious  snake.  There 
is  no  trace  of  a  belief  in  Satan  in  the  patriarchal  ages,  nor 
during  the  period  immediately  succeeding  the  Exodus  and 
the  conquest  of  Canaan.  Had  the  compilers  of  the  Penta 
teuch  and  of  the  Books  of  Joshua  and  Judges  known  of  the 
existence  of  such  a  being,  it  is  inexplicable  why  they  should 


156  THE  DEVIL. 


have  not  alluded  to  him  as  often  as  do  the  Evangelists. 
"Gods  of  the  nations,"  evil  and  " lying  spirits"  they  speak 
of,  and  of  those  who  consult  them ;  but  of  the  Arch-Fiend 
they  seem  not  to  have  heard  a  rumour.  On  the  contrary, 
when  we  first  come  on  definite  traces  of  Satan  in  Scripture, 
he  has  not  yet  assumed  such  a  position  at  all.  His  "fall 
like  lightning  from  heaven"  no  prophet's  reverted  eye  had 
yet  beheld.  The  great  poet  of  the  Book  of  Job  saw  Satan, 
in  his  sublime  vision,  not  as  a  rebel  and  outcast  of  paradise, 
but  as  going  in  and  out  of  the  court  of  Jehovah  with  others 
of  the  sons  of  God,  coming  thither  to  do  homage.  Nay, 
he  imagines  him  to  hold  there  a  certain  office  as  Public 
Prosecutor ;  and  that  he  is  permitted  to  descend  to  earth 
(if  we  may  so  speak  without  irreverence  for  that  glorious 
book)  in  the  character  of  an  "  agent  provocatif."  How 
much  of  this  conception,  and  of  all  the  myths  which  have 
been  built  on  it  ever  since,  we  owe  to  the  genius  of 
the  poet  himself — perhaps  almost  wholly  creating  the 
character  for  his  artistic  purposes,  or  else  defining  and 
immortalizing  a  vague  and  temporary  phase  of  Eastern 
thought — can  never  be  known.  Long  after  the  days  of 
Job,  and  when  the  Jews  (as  Maimonides  confesses)  had 
acquired  their  knowledge  of  the  angels  from  the  Persians 
in  Babylon,  Satan  became  a  "  Prince  of  the  Powers  of  the 
Air,"  with  his  train  of  subordinate  archdemons ;  and  the 
story  of  his  rebellion  and  fall  gradually  took  shape. 

When  the  first  Hebrew  conception  of  the  Elohim  had 
settled  into  the  strict  monotheism  wherein  Jehovah  alone 
was  adored  as  the  sole  God  of  Israel,  the  theology  of  the 
age  attributed  to  Him  the  doing  of  every  act  and  inspiring 
every  thought,  both  good  and  bad.  Under  this  theocratic 
pragmatism,  as  the  Germans  call  it,  the  Lord  "  hardens  the 
heart  of  Pharaoh;"  and  his  "Spirit"  comes  on  Samson, 
and  makes  him  rise  and  slay  forty  men,  to  pay  a  wager  with 


THE  DEVIL.  157 


their  spoil.  There  is  obviously,  as  yet,  no  question  in  the 
Hebrew  mind  whether  the  act  so  inspired  be  right  or  wrong, 
worthy  or  unworthy  of  Divine  guidance.  Some  of  the  pur 
poses  of  Jehovah  are  carried  out  by  angels,  obedient,  spiritual 
messengers,  who  fly  about  and  visit  the  patriarchs  in  visible 
shapes,  and  drive  Saul  melancholy  mad,  and  startle  the  ass 
of  Balaam.  One  of  these  fulfils  the  office  of  Accuser- General 
or  "adversary"  (Satan}.  In  the  performance  of  his  in 
vidious,  but  as  yet  apparently  loyal  and  legitimate  service, 
this  angel  grows  suspicious  and  malicious ;  and  we  can 
trace,  as  to  him  are  attributed,  a  series  of  acts  of  enmity 
to  the  human  race  in  general,  and  to  the  house  of  Israel 
in'  particular  (Zechariah  iii.  1),  the  dislike  of  the  Jews  to 
him  gradually  rising,  till  he  is  at  last  made  responsible 
for  all  evil  under  the  sun.  The  turning-point  of  the 
national  creed  in  this  matter  is  most  acutely  fixed  by  M. 
Reville  between  the  dates  of  the  Second  Book  of  Samuel 
and  of  the  First  Book  of  Chronicles.  In  the  former  (xxiv.  1) 
the  ill-omened  census  of  David  is  attributed,  according 
to  the  old  theory,  to  the  inspiration  of  Jehovah.  "The 
anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against  Israel,  and  He  moved 
David  against  them  to  say,  Go,  number  Israel  and  Judah;" 
after  which  He  punishes  the  people  by  a  pestilence  for 
David's  action.  But  in  the  latter  book  (1  Chronicles 
xxi.  1),  recording  the  same  story,  the  evil  inspiration  is 
laid  at  the  door  of  the  Devil,  and  we  are  told  "  Satan  stood 
up  against  Israel  and  provoked  David  to  number  the 
people ; "  after  which  (verse  7)  the  sequel,  "  God  was  dis 
pleased  with  this  thing,"  follows  much  more  easily. 

From  the  critical  moment  in  which  this  strange  exchange 
of  functions  took  place  between  Jehovah  and  Satan,  we  can 
easily  understand  how  the  consciences  of  the  pious  Jews 
of  the  great  prophetic  age  constantly  sought  refuge  from 
the  dread  mysteries  of  the  order  of  Providence,  by  laying 


158  THE  DEVIL. 


more  and  more  the  blame  of  evil  on  Satan,  and  thereby 
relieving  their  faith  in  the  goodness  of  Jehovah  from  too 
severe  a  strain.  Just  as,  in  a  previous  still  less  reflective 
epoch,  their  fathers  had  not  been  disturbed  by  the  attri 
bution  of  evil  inspirations  to  the  holy  Jehovah,  so  they, 
only  a  little  more  advanced,  were  content  (as  are  millions 
to  this  hour  in  Christendom)  to  attribute  such  evil  to  God's 
creature,  Satan,  without  asking  whence  this  incarnate  Evil 
derived  his  nature,  or  obtained  his  power  of  access  to  the 
soul. 

The  age  of  the  Apocrypha,  with  its  intermixture  of  Persian 
and  Alexandrian  ideas,  saw  Satan,  or,  a.s  the  Septuagint  call 
him,  DIABOLOS,  the  Slanderer,  already  robed  in  some  of 
the  borrowed  glory  of  Ahrimanes,  and  no  longer  a  servant 
of  Jehovah,  but  a  rebel  banished  from  those  courts  of  heaven 
wherein  the  poet  of  Job  beheld  him  freely  entering.  He 
now  hates  God,  and  labours  to  injure  man,  from  rebellious 
spite  to  the  Creator.  He  is  at  the  head  of  a  grand  hier 
archy  of  evil  powers ;  the  Asmodeus  of  the  Book  of  Tobit, 
the  demon  of  lust  (identified  by  M.  Breal  with  a  similar 
Persian  fiend),  being  one  of  the  chief.  Death  itself  is  dis 
covered  to  be  Satan's  work  ;  and  every  inexplicable  disease 
— blindness,  dumbness,  madness,  epilepsy,  and  St.  Vitus's 
dance — is  traced  directly  to  his  malignity.  Sometimes  one 
of  his  minions,  sometimes  a  legion  of  them,  takes  possession 
of  a  man  altogether,  and  makes  him  a  "  demoniac,"  whose 
deplorable  state  only  the  exorcism  of  a  divinely  commissioned 
apostle,  or  of  Messiah  himself,  can  relieve.  At  the  name 
of  Jehovah,  indeed,  the  devils  tremble  and  retreat,  never 
presuming,  like  Ahrimanes,  to  contend  face  to  face  with 
the  Power  of  Good;  and  their  circle  of  action  is  always 
strictly  limited  by  the  Divine  Will.  But  the  malignity  of 
the  Jewish  evil  spirits  is  sharpened  by  despair,  for  they 
know  that  for  them  await  only  the  eternal  fires. 


THE  DEVIL.  159 


Such  was  pretty  nearly  the  state  of  the  Hebrew  belief 
regarding  devils  at  the  time  when  Christ  was  born  in 
Palestine.  To  his  followers,  who  were  anxious  to  identify 
him.  with  the  Messiah,  his  relations  with  persons  supposed  to 
bear  in  their  diseased  bodies  or  minds  the  special  mark  of 
Satanic  possession,  was  a  matter  of  paramount  importance. 
The  Messiah  could  in  no  way,  as  they  imagined,  prove  his 
mission  so  effectually  as  by  constraining  the  devils  to  ac 
knowledge  his  superior  power.  Incidents  which  apparently 
corroborated  this  supremacy  became  of  more  interest 
as  "  evidences  "  than  all  the  divine  precepts  and  affecting 
parables  to  which  in  our  day  Christians  turn  to  justify  their 
faith  ;  and  the  road  to  orthodox  belief  was  diligently  paved 
with  histories  which  have  long  since  become  stumbling-blocks 
in  the  way.  Modern  liberal  Christians  have  exhausted 
themselves  in  efforts  to  determine  whether  Christ  did  or  did 
not  share  the  common  belief  of  his  countrymen  in  Satanic 
agency ;  the  conclusion  that  he  did  so  being  only  less  painful 
than  the  opposite  horn  of  the  dilemma,  that  he  knowingly  sanc 
tioned  a  superstition  which  he  did  not  share.  The  reader  who 
desires  to  see  the  subject  candidly  discussed  will  do  well  to 
consult  the  pages  of  M.  Eeville.  In  concluding  his  remarks 
he  urgently  reminds  us,  that  if  Christ  did  believe  in  the 
Devil,  he  never  insists  on  the  doctrine ;  that  he  tells  us  that 
our  evil  thoughts  "  proceed"  out  of  our  own  hearts,  and  not 
(as  a  Rabbin  would  have  taught)  from  the  suggestion  of 
Satan ;  and  that  he  even  calls  one  of  his  disciples  "  Satan  " 
when  he  makes  an  immoral  suggestion ;  thus  using  the  term  in 
a  merely  metaphorical  sense  as  any  disbeliever  in  the  doctrine 
might  do  now.  The  same  observations  apply  to  St.  Paul, 
who  avowedly  believes  in  Satan,  but  who,  in  his  delineation 
of  the  great  struggles  of  the  soul,  always  makes  the  Flesh, 
not  the  Devil,  the  opponent  of  the  spirit  of  righteousness. 
During  the  whole  New  Testament  period,  though  the  devils 


160  THE  DEVIL. 


occupy  quadruple  the  space  they  did  in  the  older  canon,  they 
are  still  lingering  in  the  human  mind  in  a  half-shadowy 
condition.  They  are  neither  visible  nor  palpable  ;  and  the 
more  grotesque  mediaeval  ideas  concerning  them,  were  yet 
unimagined.  It  needed  another  atmosphere  to  develope  such 
monstrous  growths  out  of  the  spawn  as  yet  hidden. 

The  primitive  Christians  used  Satan,  chiefly  it  would  seem, 
as  a  ready-made  and  easy  explanation  of  everything  which 
thwarted  their  progress  or  aided  their  enemies.  The  Roman 
Empire  itself  was  shrewdly  suspected  of  being  the  kingdom 
of  the  Devil.  All  the  oracles  and  miracles  of  the  heathen 
gods  were  believed  to  be  accomplished  directly  by  the  help 
of  the  evil  spirits.  In  illustration  of  all  this  M.  Eeville 
might  have  quoted  a  passage  in  Tertullian's  "  Apology," 
which,  long  as  it  is,  I  am  tempted  to  introduce,  as  affording 
a  general  view  of  the  part  allotted  to  the  devils  in  that  same 
patristic  teaching  to  which  some  of  our  living  divines  revert 
as  the  "pure  milk  of  the  Word,"  which  we  in  our  day  have 
only  to  imbibe  and  be  blessed  : — 

"  But  how  from  certain  angels,  corrupted  of  their  own  will,  a  more 
corrupt  race  of  demons  proceeded  is  made  known  in  the  Holy  Scrip 
tures.  Their  work  is  the  overthrow  of  man.  Wherefore  they  inflict 
upon  the  body  both  sickness  and  many  severe  accidents,  and  on  the 
soul  perforce  sudden  strange  extravagances.  Their  own  subtle  and 
slight  nature  furnisheth  to  them  means  of  approaching  either  part  of 
man.  Much  is  permitted  to  the  power  of  spirits,  as  when  some 
working  evil  in  the  air  blighteth  the  fruit  or  grain,  and  when  the 
atmosphere,  tainted  in  some  secret  way,  poureth  over  the  earth  its 
pestilential  vapours.  They  commend  the  gods  to  the  captive  under 
standings  of  men,  that  they  may  procure  for  themselves  the  food  of 
sweet  savour  arid  of  blood  offered  to  images.  [This  idea,  that  the 
devils  fed  on  the  idol  sacrifices,  is  upheld  by  Athenagoras,  Justin 
Martyr,  Chrysostom,  Gregory  Nazianzen,  and  many  others  of  the 
Fathers.]  Every  spirit  is  winged.  Whatever  is  done  anywhere  they 
know.  The  councils  of  God  they  both  snatched  at  in  the  times  when 
the  prophets  were  proclaiming  them,  and  now  also  cull  in  the  readings 


THE  DEVIL.  161 


which  echo  them.  And  so,  taking  the  allotted  courses  of  the  future, 
they  ape  the  power  while  they  steal  the  oracles  of  God.  But  in  the 
(heathen)  oracles,  with  what  cunning  do  they  shape  their  double  mean 
ings  to  events  ;  witness  the  Crcesi,  witness  the  Pyrrhi !  It  was  in  the 
manner  of  which  I  have  before  spoken  that  the  Pythian  god  sent  back 
the  message  that  a  tortoise  was  being  stewed  with  the  flesh  of  a  sheep. 

They  had  been  in  a  moment  to  Lydia By  dwelling  in  the  air 

and  being  near  the  stars,  they  are  able  to  know  the  threatening  of  the 
skies.  They  are  sorcerers  also  as  regards  the  cure  of  sickness.  They 
first  inflict  the  disease,  and  then  prescribe  remedies." — Tertullian, 
Apol  i.  23. 

Such  was  the  world  to  the  primitive  Christians ;  a  place 
in  which  devils  exercised  every  imaginable  spiritual  and 
physical  power,  causing  at  once  evil  thoughts  in  the  minds 
of  men,  diseases  in  their  bodies,  and  blights  on  their  fields ! 
Within  and  without,  from  the  height  of  the  stars  to  the 
depths  of  hell,  the  universe  was  full  of  these  agents  of  malig 
nity  and  deception.  Truly  the  days  of  the  Roman  Empire 
were  bad  enough,  but  this  view  of  human  existence  in 
them  surpasses,  for  horror,  anything  that  history  has  told 
us.  JSTor  was  it  exclusively  among  the  Christians  that  a 
belief  in  devils  at  that  time  prevailed.  Polytheism  itself, 
as  it  became  a  more  moral  creed,  tended  towards  a  dualism 
previously  unknown,  and  the  Magian  religion,  which  found 
a  welcome  in  Rome  amid  the  general  Maelstrom  of  faith, 
added,  doubtless,  its  part  to  the  popularity  of  the  idea  of 
evil  spirits.  Apollonius  of  Tyana  was  as  much  the  enemy 
of  demons  as  any  Christian  saint  of  them  all;  and  lam- 
blichus,  the  lofty-minded  pious  Egyptian  priest,  raised — 

Eros  and  Anteros  at  Gadara  ; 

like  a  Catholic  exorcist.  That  strange  hybrid  between 
the  religions  of  Christ  and  Zoroaster,  Manicheism,  became, 
at  a  very  early  period,  a  faith  numbering  thousands  of  ad 
herents,  and  has  left  to  this  day  its  dregs  in  the  sect  of 
Yezidis  in  Persia,  who  offer  distinct  worship  to  Shaitan. 

11 


162  THE  DEVIL. 


Finally,  the  Talmud,  compiled  at  this  time,  affords  ample 
evidence  that  the  Jewish  mind  received  in  full  the  fashion 
of  the  age.  How  much  the  ascetic  practices,  which 
now  also  came  into  vogue,  and  drove  men  by  hundreds 
crazy  with  fasting  and  austerities,  abetted  the  growth  of  a 
belief  in  tempting  devils,  Asmodeus,  Belphegor,  and  Mam 
mon,  inspirers  of  Lust,  Grluttony,  and  Avarice,  it  is  needless 
to  point  out.  St.  Anthony's  experience  was  enough  to  have 
originated  the  nightmare  of  diabolic  agency,  had  none  such 
ever  been  heard  of  before. 

But  the  most  important  part  played  by  Satan  in  the  re 
ligion  of  the  primitive  Christians  was  unquestionably  that 
which  they  assigned  to  him  in  the  awful  drama  of  the 
Atonement.  The  original  conception  of  the  nature  of  that 
event,  as  held  by  the  saints  and  Fathers  of  the  first  cen 
turies,  has  been  too  much  overlooked  by  those  who  in  our 
day  discuss  its  moral  character.  The  "ransom  of  blood," 
understood  commonly  in  modern  times  to  have  been  paid 
on  Calvary  to  the  justice  of  God,  was  taken  by  the  Fathers 
in  quite  a  different  sense,  namely,  as  paid  in  discharge  of 
the  claims  of  the  Devil.  St.  Irenseus  distinctly  taught  that 
mankind  since  the  Fall  had  become  the  property  of  Satan 
in  the  sense  in  which  slaves  belonged  to  their  masters ;  and 
that  it  would  have  been  unjust  for  Grod  to  rob  him  of  souls 
which  belonged  to  him.  Christ,  as  a  perfect  man,  and 
therefore  independent  of  the  Devil's  claims,  had  offered 
himself  as  a  ransom  for  the  rest  of  mankind ;  and  the  Devil 
had  accepted  the  bargain.  By-and-by  it  was  observed  that 
in  this  negotiation  Satan  had  made  an  egregious  blunder; 
and  Origen  candidly  admitted  that  he  had  been  outwitted, 
and  had  been  induced  to  accept  the  ransom  of  Christ's  life, 
which  the  Redeemer  had  given  knowing  that  he  could  not 
retain  him  in  hell.  This  idea  (to  our  minds  so  shocking), 
of  the  Devil  being  the  deceived  party  and  Christ  the  deceiver, 


THE  DEVIL.  163 


was  accepted  almost  universally  throughout  the  Church  till 
the  scholastic  theology  discarded  it  in  favour  of  the  scheme, 
expounded  in  Anselm's  "  Cur  Deus  Homo," — namely,  that 
it  was  the  Father's  justice,  and  not  the  Devil's  claims,  which 
were  satisfied  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ. 

But  even  while  the  Devil  was  supposed  to  have  relin 
quished  his  infernal  rights  to  human  souls,  in  consideration 
of  Christ's  blood,  he  was  paradoxically  believed  to  be  still 
tempting,  and  betraying  thousands  continually  to  his  prisons 
below.  The  time  and  care  of  the  saints  were  principally 
occupied  in  evading  his  toils ;  and  as  to  sinners,  they  were 
altogether  his  servants.  The  whole  cultus  of  Christianity 
assumed  a  new  aspect  from  this  dread  Shadow,  always  in 
the  background.  Baptism  became  primarily  an  exorcism. 
To  become  a  Christian  was  to  "  renounce  the  Devil,  his 
pomps,  and  his  works."  To  be  turned  out  of  the  Church 
was  to  be  "  delivered  to  Satan." 

Of  course  the  Natural  History  of  Devils  occupied  in 
telligent  minds  not  a  little  during  this  first  Reign  of  Terror. 
The  mysterious  allusion  in  Genesis  to  the  "  Sons  of  God" 
(the  Beni  Elohim),  who  "  saw  the  daughters  of  men  that 
they  were  fair,"  furnished  sufficient  data  for  an  entire 
authoritative  Demonogony,  to  which  St.  Augustine  added 
the  touch  that  at  their  fall  the  devils  (whose  bodies  had  been 
previously  aerial)  acquired  gross  animal  forms,  subject  to  all 
carnal  passions.  This  point  once  established,  there  followed, 
in  the  simple  order  of  development,  the  invention  of  Incubi 
and  Succubi,  or  devils  who  haunted  sleeping  men  and 
women ;  with  other  fiends  of  ill  design,  like  the  one  who 
seduced  St.  Yictor  under  the  semblance  of  a  young  girl 
lost  in  a  wood.  Decrees  of  Councils  from  the  fourth 
century  onward  begin  to  notice  these  perils,  and  advise 
bishops  to  look  sharply  after  women  who  wander  about 
at  night  along  with  heathen  goddesses.  The  Sabbath  of 


1C4  THE  DEVIL. 


the  Brocken  was  already  brewing  in  the  mind  of  terrified 
Christendom. 

As  soon  as  the  devils  were  known  to  assume  visible  forms* 
it  became  naturally  a  matter  of  extreme  curiosity  to  deter 
mine  what  was  their  proper  shape  and  semblance.  The 
Father  of  Lies,  of  course,  was  understood  to  practise  various 
deceptions  in  this  as  in  every  other  way ;  and  his  audacity 
in  the  case  of  St.  Martin  went  so  far  as  to  present  himself 
disguised  as  Christ.  But  his  ordinary  working  dress,  if  we 
may  so  describe  it,  was  at  that  time  merely  a  domino  noir. 
He  was  the  Angel  of  Darkness,  and  as  a  black  figure  was 
often  seen  to  escape  when  heathen  temples  were  overthrown 
and  idols  shattered.  It  was  somewhat  later  in  the  course  of 
his  career  ere  he  adopted  the  horns  and  hoofs  of  the  god 
Pan  ;  and  presented  himself  to  Europe  under  the  familiar 
guise  wherewith  he  is  identified  in  our  imaginations,  and 
wherein  the  characteristics  of  the  harmless  ruminant  are 
so  unscientifically  combined  with  the  propensities  of  the 
"  Roaring  Lion  going  about  seeking  whom  he  may 
devour." 

The  next  step,  taken  in  the  sixth  century,  and  made  by 
St.  Theophilus,  was  the  notable  discovery  that  compacts 
could  be  made  with  the  Devil.  Documents  duly  signed  by 
the  high  contracting  parties  conveyed  on  one  side  the 
diabolic  promise  to  give  the  man  riches,  power,  revenge,  or 
whatever  else  he  desired  ;  and  on  the  other  the  human 
engagement  to  submit  to  the  demon's  summons  of  the  soul 
to  the  regions  below  at  a  stipulated  period.  The  interest 
of  the  innumerable  tales  to  which  this  brilliant  idea 
gave  birth  centred  on  the  acuteness  of  the  man  in  cheating 
the  Devil  at  the  last  moment  by  some  flaw  in  the  con 
tract,  or  by  the  interference,  on  behalf  of  the  sinner,  of 
some  benevolent  saint  or  of  the  Virgin  descending  to  the 
rescue. 


THE  DEVIL.  165 


Of  course  the  man  who,  believing  in  a  Power  of  Evil, 
voluntarily  accepted  such  allegiance  and  bound  himself  to 
do  his  will  for  the  sake  of  some  coveted  reward,  was  guilty 
of  a  moral  offence  tantamount  (so  far  as  his  poor  benighted 
mind  could  go)  to  absolute  renunciation  of  all  duty  and 
religion.  There  was  such  a  sin  as  Dernonolatry,  although 
no  demon  existed  to  receive  the  worship.  The  enormous 
mischief  of  the  popular  delusion  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  con 
stantly  presented  this  capital  offence  of  spiritual  treason  as 
a  temptation  to  all  men  spurred  by  passion  to  seek  any  of 
the  prizes  supposed  to  be  attainable  by  its  means.  Love, 
jealousy,  hate,  covetousness,  ambition,  were  naturally  ex 
cited  to  madness  by  the  idea  that  their  complete  gratification 
was  always  possible ;  and  the  wretched  being  who  once 
imagined  he  had  "  sold  his  soul "  of  course  from  that  hour 
became  desperate  and  irreclaimable. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  we  find  the  doctrine  of  devils  as 
suming  a  shape  altogether  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of 
the  time.  Feudalism,  with  its  accurately  ranged  orders,  was 
matched  by  corresponding  orders  in  the  diabolic  realm.  Just 
as  the  barons  and  knights  assembled  round  the  king  and 
swore  fealty  to  him,  so  the  sorcerers  were  believed  to  assem 
ble  at  their  Sabbath  on  the  Brocken  and  to  swear  allegiance 
to  Satan.  Even  the  favourite  sport  of  the  time  had  its 
parody  in  the  nightly  chase  of  the  infernal  Wild  Huntsman. 
The  ceremonies  of  the  Church  were  travestied  and  the  Pater 
Noster  repeated  backwards  to  worship  the  Devil.  In  a  word, 
day  and  night  did  not  rule  the  natural  world  more  com 
pletely  than  the  Church  and  the  Devil  filled  between  them 
the  imagination  of  our  fathers.  From  the  thirteenth  to  the 
fifteenth  century  the  superstition  seems  to  have  been  at 
its  height.  Satan  had  reached  the  zenith  of  his  grandeur. 
As  a  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  his  doings  occupied  the 
minds  of  men,  the  reader  should  consult  the  Liber  Revela- 


166  THE  DEVIL. 


tiomtin  de  Insidiis  et  Versutiis  Dcemonum  ad  versus  Homines, 
by  the  Abbot  Richalmus,  who  flourished  in  1270.  Every 
thing  which  happened  of  a  disagreeable  sort  to  this  good 
man,  from  the  distractions  of  his  mind  at  Mass  to  the  nausea 
he  felt  after  eating  unwholesome  food,  from  the  false  notes  of 
his  choir  to  the  coughing  fits  which  interrupted  his  sermons, 
all  was  the  work  of  a  malicious  fiend.  "  For  example,"  says 
he,  "  when  I  sit  down  to  read  a  pious  book,  the  devils 
manage  to  make  me  immediately  feel  sleepy.  "When  I  try  to 
rouse  myself  by  drawing  my  hands  out  of  my  sleeves  they 
bite  me  like  fleas,  and  so  distract  my  attention."  The  busi 
ness  of  some  devils,  he  observes,  is  solely  to  make  men  ugl}r, 
and  he  knows  a  case  wherein  a  little  devil- kin  has  been 
hanging  on  a  holy  man's  under  lip  for  twenty  years  to  make 
it  pendent  in  an  unseemly  manner.  There  are  as  many 
devils,  he  assures  us,  round  each  of  us,  as  there  are  drops 
of  water  round  a  drowning  man.  "The  uses  of  the  sign  of 
the  cross  and  of  salt  are  indeed  considerable  in  repelling 
these  enemies.  When  a  devil  has  taken  away  a  monk's 
appetite,  it  is  surprising  how  eating  a  little  salt  with  his 
meat  will  improve  it  again."  Thus,  for  130  chapters,  con 
tinues  this  remarkable  book  of  Revelations,  whose  popularity, 
like  that  of  the  Golden  Legend  of  Voragine,  on  the  same 
topic,  proves  sufficiently  how  far  both  works  were  in  harmony 
with  the  feelings  of  their  age. 

Now  at  last,  then,  the  world  was  ripe  for  the  terrible 
cruelties  to  which  the  belief  in  Satan  led  up,  and  which  were 
its  logical  outcome.  Angela  de  Labarete,  a  noble  lady,  was 
in  1275  burnt  at  Toulouse  as  a  sorceress — the  first  of  the 
long  array  of  victims  to  the  same  superstition,  who  (accord 
ing  to  Gibbon's  calculation)  exceeded  in  number  in  one 
country  of  Europe  alone,  and  in  a  single  century,  all  the 
martyrs  of  the  ten  Roman  persecutions.  The  dreadful  story 
of  the  witch  trials  needs  not  to  be  told  again  in  these  pages. 


THE  DEVIL.  167 


For  three  centuries  they  went  on,  growing  more  frequent, 
and  shifting  their  area  from  one  part  of  Christendom  to 
another,  till  at  last  every  nation,  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
had  caught  the  hideous  frenzy ;  and,  as  we  look  back  over 
the  horrible  scene,  it  would  seem  as  if  France,  Spain,  Italy, 
Germany,  the  Netherlands,  England,  and  America  were,  like 
the  " Black  Country"  at  night,  blazing  everywhere  with 
lurid  fires,  whose  fuel  was  the  living  flesh  of  men  and 
women  and  innocent  children. 

It  was  when  the  witch  persecutions  had  only  just  com 
menced  in  Southern  France  that  Dante  drew  his  portrait 
(dignified  in  comparison  to  the  demonology  of  the  age)  of 
the  great 

Imperator  del  doloroso  regno  ; 

and  from  his  descriptions  it  is  probable  that  the  Devil  of 
Orcagna  and  of  the  few  other  Italian  painters  who  con 
descended  to  touch  him,  was  derived.  But  it  was  when  the 
witch  mania  was  in  its  fury  throughout  Europe  and  America 
that  England's  great  republican  poet  took  on  himself  the 
astounding  task  of  rehabilitating  the  celestial  rebel.  The 
grotesque  fiend  of  the  popular  imagination,  transformed 
into  the  magnificent  Lucifer  of  Paradise  Lost,  was  a  stroke 
of  poetic  fancy  which  perhaps  even  Milton  would  scarcely 
have  dared  had  not  St.  Avitus  of  Vienne  preceded  him  on 
the  same  track.1  Be  this  as  it  may,  his  success  was  equal 
to  his  boldness,  and  it  may  be  fairly  said  that  from  his  time 
we  have  had  at  least  two  Devils  in  English  imagination. 

1  The  resemblance  between  this  Saint's  old  Latin  poem,  De  Initio  Mundi  and  the 
Paradise  Lost  of  Milton,  both  as  regards  plot,  characters,  and  even  long  parallel 
passages,  has  been  recently  brought  to  light  by  an  American  critic.  Todd,  in  his 
Inquiry  into  the  Origin  of  Paradise  Lost,  betrays  that  he  had  never  read  St.  Avitus. 
He  says,  "Mr.  Bowie,  in  his  catalogue  of  poets  who  have  treated  Milton's  subject, 
mentions  Alcinus  Avitus,  Archbishop  of  Vienna  (!),  who  wrote  a  poem  in  Latin 
hexameters,  De  Initio  Mundi,  but  offers  little  else  respecting  it.  Possibly  some 
of  the  sentiments  and  expressions  in  this  poem  might  arrest  the  attention  of 
Milton." — Todd's  Milton,  vol.  i.  p.  60. 


168  THE  DEVIL. 


One  is  the  semi- ridiculous  Mediaeval  Devil,  the  "  Old  Nick," 
or  "  Muckle-horned  Clootie,"  with  the  aspect  of  Pan  and 
a  disposition  which,  although  malicious  and  cunning,  is  yet 
easily  liable  to  be  cheated  and  outwitted  by  ordinary  mortals. 
The  other  is  the  superb  Miltonic  Lucifer,  whose  blasted  form 
of  "  archangel  ruined  "  the  pencil  of  Ary  Schefter  can 
scarcely  render  grand  enough  for  our  ideal  ;  and  who, 
instead  of  contending  with  clowns  in  ignoble  trial  of  wits, 
is  the  very  incarnation  of  giant  Pride,  the  mighty  rebellious 
Will  which  prefers 

"  Kather  to  reign  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven  ! " 

This  latter  and  nobler  Devil  has  indeed  so  impressed  him 
self  on  the  minds  of  all  cultivated  Englishmen  that  he  is 
almost  universally  accepted  by  us  as  the  true  Biblical  Satan  ; 
and  what  we  have  learned  from  Milton  is  so  jumbled  with 
what  we  have  learned  from  the  Bible,  that  nine  out  of  ten 
amongst  us  would  probably,  on  sudden  inquiry,  unhesitat 
ingly  answer  that  there  exists  Scriptural  authority  for  a 
whole  series  of  myths  for  which  our  English  poet  is  alone 
responsible.  As  we  have  now  seen,  the  Old  Testament 
Satan  really  afforded  only  a  hint  of  the  Miltonic  Lucifer ; 
while  the  ISTew  Testament  Beelzebub  bore  scarcely  any 
resemblance  to  him  whatever. 

Lastly,  as  the  Devil  took  his  place  in  the  masterpieces 
of  Hebrew,  Italian,  and  English  literature,  so,  in  the  begin 
ning  of  our  own  age,  he  re-appeared  once  more  in  the  great 
poem  of  Germany.  And  what  a  true  modern  Devil  is  Mephis- 
topheles  !  His  creator  foresaw  that,  at  least  for  the  current 
century,  not  Cruelty,  not  Malice,  not  Falsehood,  not  Pride, 
would  be  the  great  evil  of  the  world,  but — the  Incarnate 
Sneer. 

When  the  flames  of  the  witch  persecutions  at  length  died 
away  (no  longer  ago  than  in  1781  in  Spain,  and  in  1783  in 


THE  DEVIL.  169 


Switzerland),  and  the  world  began  to  breathe  again  after 
its  dream  of  terror  and  cruelty,  it  became  evident  that  the 
Devil  had  lost  much  of  his  intimidating  power,     nationalism 
was  advancing,  not  only  in  the  realm  of  theology,   but  of 
medicine,  physiology,  and  psychology.     The  wild  and  base 
less  notions  which  did  duty  for  science  before  the  age  of 
Bacon  faded  gradually  away,  and  men  began  to  see  things 
in  the  light  of  common  day,  and  not  of  a  hundred  will-o'- 
the-wisps    of    unreclaimed    fancy.      The    Reformation    had 
laid  the  train   of   thought  which  is    even   now    exploding, 
one  after  another,  all  the  strongholds  of  superstition.     The 
inkstand  which  Luther  threw    at   the    Devil   at  Wartburg 
proved  to  be  a  true  prophetic  symbol,    for   the  black  fluid 
has  done  more  to  extinguish  the  powers  of  darkness  than  all 
the   holy  water  of  the  saints.     Experience   proves   that  as 
religion  becomes  more  spiritual,  in  the  true  sense   of   the 
word,    the    belief   in    "  spirits,"    good,    bad,    or   indifferent, 
invariably  evaporates.     Such  beings  are  the  creations,   not 
of  Faith,  not  of  reliance  on  the  intuitions  of  conscience  and 
the  religious  sentiment,   but,   on  the  contrary,   of  a  carnal 
and  materialistic  mind,  which  seeks  assurance  of  supernal 
things  through  the  evidence  of  the  bodily  senses,  and  uses 
mechanical   means   for    obtaining    spiritual   ends.      In  pro 
portion  as  the   priesthood   resigns  its    pretensions  to  work 
sacramental   miracles,  so    far   prayer  and   exhortation   take 
the  place    of   exorcisms  and   incantations.     As   the   Divine 
Power    becomes     recognized    in     the     ordinary    course    of 
nature,  and    is    no  longer  sought  exclusively  in  the  realm 
of    miracle    and    prodigy,    so    the   whole   world    of    spirit- 
marvels  is  pushed  farther  back  out  of  the  path  of  thought. 
Of  course  the   Devil  and  his  doings  are  the   very  first  to 
undergo  the  influence  of  this  silent  rising  of  the  intellectual 
tide.     Even  for  those  who  still  believe  in  his  existence  he 
has  dwindled  into  an  invisible  and  impalpable  being,  whose 


170  THE  DEVIL. 


suggestions  are  made  only  in  the  heart,  and  not  through 
external  malific  artifices ;  and  whose  influence  must  be  com 
bated,  not  by  charms  and  exorcisms,  but  by  moral  efforts  and 
prayers.  In  a  word,  the  Devil  is  dying  out. 

Does  there  remain  no  lesson  to  us  from  all  this  chain 
of  error  after  error  which  for  so  many  centuries  has  fet 
tered  our  race  ?  What  has  been  the  principle  in  human 
nature  on  which  this  belief  has  fastened,  and  by  whose 
energy  it  must  have  been  supported  so  long  ?  Is  it  the 
need  laid  on  us  to  find  some  explanation  of  all  the  evil  we 
behold  within  and  around  us  in  creation?  M.  Eeville  thinks 
this  cannot  be  so,  because  the  myth  of  Satan  offers  no  logical 
solution  of  the  problem  at  all,  but  rather  adds  new  difficulties 
thereto.  But  is  he  right  in  arguing  that  because  the  story 
of  the  Devil  ought  not  to  satisfy  a  troubled  mind,  it  is 
therefore  a  fact  that  it  has  not  satisfied  thousands  for  twenty 
centuries  ?  It  is  a  matter  of  hourly  astonishment  to  any 
one  who  earnestly  contemplates  the  religion  of  his  fellows  to 
observe  how  small  a  part  logic  plays  in  it,  and  how  readily 
men  are  put  off  with  answers  to  inquiries  which  are  no 
answers  at  all.  The  "schemes  of  salvation,"  for  example, 
which  are  commonly  announced  as  vindications  of  the  Divine 
justice,  and  are  popularly  accepted  as  such, — what  are  they 
but  vindications  of  their  authors'  incapacity  to  understand 
the  rudiments  even  of  human  equity  ?  It  would  seem 
nowise  more  improbable  that  our  ancestors  should  have  taken 
the  myth  of  Satan  as  a  satisfactory  account  of  the  origin 
of  evil,  than  that  millions  in  our  day  should  take  other 
parts  of  the  same  theology  as  affording  satisfactory  views 
of  the  goodness  of  God. 

We  have  seen  in  this  sketch  a  gradual  rising  of  the  moral 
sense  of  mankind  in  reference  to  the  source  of  evil.  In  the 
earliest  stage  of  all,  and  long  before  Hebrew  thought  had 
reached  the  level  whereon  the  Book  of  Genesis  was  written, 


THE  DEVIL.  171 


there  was  no  connexion  between  religion  and  morality ;  for 
the  gods  of  savages  have  no  moral  attributes,  and  are  merely 
unseen  Powers  imbued  with  all  the  passions  of  the  savage 
himself.  By  degrees,  and  as  soon  as  the  moral  law  begins 
to  make  itself  felt  in  the  yet  half-brutal  human  soul,  the  idea 
that  the  higher  powers  approve  such  virtues  as  man  yet 
perceives,  and  punish  his  crimes,  dawns  on  the  understand 
ing.  When  he  has  reached  the  development  of  a  Greek  of 
the  days  of  Hesiod  he  has  become  well  assured  that — 

"  Jove's  all-seeing  and  all-knowing  eye 
Beholds  at  pleasure  things  that  hidden  lie, 
Pierces  the  walls  which  gird  the  city  in, 
And,  on  the  seat  of  judgment,  blasts  the  sin." 

And  this  although,  at  the  same  moment,  this  justice- 
vindicating  Zeus  is  believed  to  be  himself  capable  of  what 
at  a  further  stage  are  recognized  as  atrocious  crimes.  At  the 
far  higher  moral  stand-point  of  the  author  of  the  Elohistic 
fragment  of  Genesis,  the  Elohim  are  recognized  as  holy  ;  but 
there  is  no  sense  yet,  or  even  in  the  later  writers  of  the 
Pentateuch,  that  God  may  not  consistently  tempt  men  to  sin 
or  "  harden  the  hearts "  of  kings,  and  prompt  all  manner 
of  injustice.  As  we  have  noticed  above,  this  very  imperfect 
conception  changes  between  the  dates  of  the  Book  of  Samuel 
and  of  Chronicles.  Evil  inspirations  could  no  longer  be 
suffered  to  be  attributed  directly  to  Jehovah.  His  servant 
Satan  must  whisper  them  in  the  ear  of  David.  Then,  as 
the  next  step,  the  Satan  who  effects  such  mischief  can  be  no 
longer  recognized  as  the  servant  of  God.  He  must  be  a 
rebel  against  Jehovah,  and  his  evil  work  must  be  done,  not 
by  His  behest,  but  in  opposition  to  Him.  At  this  point  of 
advance,  it  would  seem,  the  human  mind  stopped  for  about 
twenty-six  centuries.  It  was  trapped,  in  fact,  in  a  sort  of 
theologic  cul  de  sac;  for,  as  God  was  recognized  as  Creator 
of  all  things,  He  must  needs,  it  was  clear,  have  been  Satan's 


172  THE  DEVIL. 


Creator  also.  ~No  further  separation  could  be  made  on  the 
Hebrew  basis,  between  the  powers  of  good  and  evil,  than  to 
allege  that  the  latter,  though  made  originally  by  God,  had 
in  remotest  time  rebelled  against  and  opposed  Him.  The 
questions  how  and  why  an  All- foreseeing  Being  created  this 
foe  to  Himself  and  his  creatures,  and  an  Omnipotent  One 
granted  him  the  necessary  powers  for  carrying  on  his  rebel 
lion,  were  either  never  thought  of,  or  they  were  soon  laid 
aside  as  unanswerable.  Evil  existed,  and  the  Devil  caused 
it.  That  was  all  that  was  known  on  the  subject.  It  was 
some  satisfaction,  at  least,  to  be  sure  that  the  earth  rested 
on  an  elephant,  and  the  elephant  on  a  tortoise,  even 
though  nobody  could  conjecture  on  what  the  tortoise  might 
stand. 

JSTow,  in  our  day,  we  have  come  at  last  to  be  forced  to 
look  into  this  tremendous  problem  a  little  more  deeply. 
"With  the  disappearance  of  the  Devil,  the  plain  and  hideous 
fact  of  the  existence  of  evil  is  left  staring  us  in  the  face. 
God  help  us  to  make  the  next  great  step  safely  !  Is  it  too 
presumptuous  to  surmise  that  its  direction  will  prove  to  be 
that  of  a  retrocession  from  the  arrogant  dogmatism  which 
has  caused  us,  first,  to  give  to  the  Divine  Might  the  name 
of  "  Omnipotence/7  because,  forsooth,  we  know  nothing  of 
its  bounds  or  conditions  ;  and  then,  secondly,  to  argue  back 
from  that  purely  arbitrary  metaphysical  term,  that  He 
could  do  this  or  that,  if  it  so  pleased  Him,  since  He  is 
"  Omnipotent "  ?  Who  has  given  us  to  know  that  God  is 
absolutely  able  to  do  everything  ?  The  simple  proposition 
(which  it  might  seem  the  blindest  could  not  have  overlooked) 
that  no  conceivable  power,  of  whatever  magnitude,  can  pos 
sibly  include  contradictions,  might  have  taught  us  more 
modesty  than  we  have  hitherto  shown  in  scanning  the  order 
of  providence.  When  we  have  thoroughly  taken  in  the  idea 
that  God  could  not  make  twice  two  five,  nor  the  three 


THE  DEVIL.  173 


angles  of  a  triangle  more  than  two  right  angles  ;  then  we 
may  begin  to  ask  ourselves,  May  not  contradictions  equally 
great,  for  all  we  can  know,  lie  in  the  way  of  every  removal 
of  evil  which  we  would  fain  demand  at  the  hands  of  the 
Lord  ?  And  may  not  the  accomplishment  of  the  highest 
of  all  possible  good,  the  training  to  virtue  of  finite  spirits, 
be  as  incompatible  with  a  thornless  and  sinless  world  as 
would  be  the  making  of  a  circle  and  a  triangle  having  the 
same  mathematical  properties  ? 

Philosophically  considered,  the  error  on  which  the  doc 
trine  of  the  existence  of  a  Devil  is  founded  is  precisely 
the  same  as  that  into  which  Aristotle  fell  when  he  treated 
Lightness  and  Coldness  as  positives,  instead  of  merely  as 
the  negations  of  weight  and  heat.  We  are  all  prone  to  make 
the  same  mistake,  even  as  regards  our  own  natures,  and  to 
talk  as  if  our  lower,  blind,  and  animal  part  were  something 
more  than  that  Negative  mind  (Akomano)  which  Zoroaster 
named  it.  To  call  our  passions  inspirations  of  devils,  and 
treat  our  lower  nature  as  the  Devil's  realm,  and  our  delin 
quencies  as  cases  of  his  victory  and  possession,  is,  of  course, 
the  next  error,  and  the  most  natural  one  in  the  world ;  just 
as  it  is  natural  to  speak  of  cold  "causing"  water  to  freeze, 
and  of  night  being  the  "  dominion  of  Darkness."  But  as 
physical  science  repudiates  the  latter  phrases,  so  must  our 
theology  henceforth  renounce  the  former.  And  in  the 
highest  region  of  our  conceptions  the  same  principle  must 
hold.  We  speak  of  God  as  a  Person,  because  we  are 
compelled  to  believe  that,  between  the  only  alternatives 
conceivable  to  us — personality  and  impersonality — person 
ality  is  the  highest,  and,  therefore,  that  God  is  personal. 
But  for  the  very  same  reason  that  we  attribute  to  Him 
positive  and  personal  existence,  we  are  bound  to  deny  the 
same  to  His  antithesis.  Whatever  other  explanation  may 
or  may  not  be  found  for  the  existence  of  pain  and  sin,  it 


174  THE  DEVIL. 


is  impossible  that  it  can  be  other  than  impersonal  and 
negative.  The  Black  Sun  imagined  by  the  novelist,  whose 
rays  were  streams  of  darkness  and  frost,  was  not  a  more 
unscientific  conception  than  that  of  a  mighty  intelligent 
"Will,  wholly  evil,  as  God  is  wholly  good.1 

1  "While  the  present  volume  has  been  passing  through  the  press,  Lord  Lyttelton 
has  published  the  second  series  of  his  Ephemera,  in  which  he  does  me  the  honour 
to  devote  an  article  to  the  refutation  of  the  present  Essay.  Lord  Lyttelton  says 
that  the  reason  why  the  theory  I  advocate  (that  of  the  non-existence  of  a  Devil) 
ought  to  be  resisted,  is  the  general  one  that  "  forced  and  peculiar  constructions 
of  Scripture  are  inexpedient."  In  the  same  week  the  Duke  of  Somerset  has 
published  his  essay  on  Christian  Theology  and  Modern  Scepticism,  and  therein 
describes  the  "  first  difficulty"  in  the  way  of  accepting  the  authority  of  the  Bible 
to  be,  the  presence  therein  of  the  doctrine  of  devils  and  diabolic  possession. 
"The  educated  Protestant,"  he  observes,  "no  longer  believes  what  the  Evan 
gelists  believed  and  affirmed"  (p.  17).  I  can  only  reply  to  Lord  Lyttelton's 
courteous  criticism  by  observing  that,  in  writing  my  Essay,  I  had  much  more  in 
my  thoughts  such  a  view  of  the  matter  as  that  of  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  than 
the  remotest  intention  to  introduce  "  a  forced  and  peculiar  construction  of  Scrip 
ture."  I  rejoice  to  find  that  even  so  decided  an  adversary  as  Lord  Lyttelton 
will  go  with  me  so  far  as  to  treat  the  eternity  of  future  punishment  and  the 
final  restoration  of  the  Devil  as  open  questions ;  while  he  appears  to  agree  with 
Mr.  Brookfield  in  denying  the  materiality,  though  not  the  personality,  of  the 
being  in  question.  May  I  venture  to  remark  that  there  are  controversies  in 
which,  when  our  opponent  is  willing  to  go  with  us  a  mile,  we  may  hope,  ere 
long,  to  find  him  contented  to  go  with  us  twain  ? 


ESSAY   VII. 

A    PRE-HISTOEIG    RELIGION.1 

ANCIENT  History,  it  has  been  well  said,  tends  continually 
more  to  become  the  History,  not  of  Facts,  but  of  Opinions 
and  Sentiments.  What  actually  occurred  at  any  given  time 
and  place,  what  deeds  were  done,  what  words  were  spoken, 
what  were  the  characters  of  the  actors  of  each  scene,  grows 
ever  more  doubtful  as  we  are  enabled  to  check  one  narrative 
by  another ;  or  to  apply  to  the  antique  chronicle  the  rules 
by  which  we  determine  the  value  of  modern  evidence.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  the  common  Belief  of  contemporary  and 
succeeding  generations  concerning  those  doubtful  things  said 
and  done,  and  the  feelings,  whether  of  admiration  or  of 
contempt,  wherewith  they  regarded  the  actors  and  speakers, 
are  matters  very  plainly  revealed  to  us,  and  afford  to  the 
student  of  human  nature  his  best  and  safest  materials. 

In  proportion  as  such  a  view  of  the  proper  scope  of 
ancient  history  becomes  recognized,  and  books  are  written 
more  carefully  collating  and  delicately  weighing  the  indices 
of  opinion  and  feeling,  and  expending  less  time  in  disquisi 
tions  over  irrecoverable  details  of  facts,  it  may  be  hoped 
that  there  will  arise  for  us  quite  a  new  aspect  of  the  old 
world.  We  shall  live  again — not  with  the  few  who  acted 
its  great  dramas  of  war  and  conquest,  but  with  the  many 

1  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship.  By  James  Fergusson,  F.R.S.  London:  India 
Museum.  4to.  pp.  217. 


176  A   PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

who  looked  on  at  them  at  lesser  or  further  distance,  and 
felt  their  hearts  beat,  like  our  own,  with  triumph  and  regret, 
love  and  detestation.  We  shall  learn,  not  what  Theseus  and 
Regulus  did,  but  what  were  the  types  of  character  which 
the  whole  Greek  and  Roman  nations  set  up  as  their  ideals. 
We  shall  acquire  a  true  knowledge,  not  of  the  History  of 
the  Six  Days  of  Creation  or  of  the  Exodus,  but  of  what  the 
Hebrews  in  the  time  of  their  kings  believed  about  the  origin 
of  the  world  and  the  early  migrations  of  their  race.  We 
shall  be  able  to  satisfy  ourselves,  not  of  the  incidents  of 
that  wondrous  story  over  which  Strauss  and  his  critics  may 
wrangle  for  ever,  but  of  what  the  writer  of  each  Gospel 
and  each  Epistle,  the  men  of  the  apostolic  age,  and  the  men 
of  the  patristic  ages,  successively  thought  and  felt  about  its 
great  subject. 

To  this  newer  form  of  historical  research,  the  contributions 
which  pour  in  on  all  sides,  regarding  the  ancient  creeds  of 
the  world,  are  especially  valuable.  Already  the  difference 
between  our  views  and  those  which  even  well-informed  and 
liberal  men  entertained  twenty  years  ago,  on  the  whole 
subject  of  comparative  theology,  is  enormous ;  and  as  the 
various  pieces  of  the  puzzle  are  put  together,  the  place  for 
each  new  acquisition  appears  easier  to  find,  till  by  degrees 
the  hope  of  a  not  wholly  incomplete  "Philosophy  of  All 
Religions"  comes  into  view.  Nor  are  those  grander  and 
more  complete  systems  which  may  deserve  properly  to 
be  classed  as  Religions  alone  useful  for  such  a  purpose. 
Between  a  great  body,  such  as  the  Christian  or  the  Brah- 
minical,  with  its  organized  Hierarchy,  and  Canonical  Books, 
and  those  minor  beliefs  and  superstitions  which  have  pre 
vailed  in  less  formal  shape  over  the  world,  there  are  many 
degrees  of  importance,  down  to  the  fairy  tales  and  folk-lore 
which  our  fathers  banished  to  the  nursery,  but  which  the 
scholars  of  our  generation  find  nowise  unworthy  of  notice ; 


A   PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  177 

and  which  certainly  formed  during  the  Middle  Ages  a  sort 
of  secondary  popular  religion  in  Europe.  Few  problems 
are  more  curious  than  the  rise  and  the  distribution  of  these 
invertebrate  creeds  (if  we  may  so  describe  them)  over  the 
globe.  The  short  and  easy  method  of  our  fathers  which 
derived  them  all  out  of  that  very  capacious  receptacle, 
Noah's  Ark,  will  hardly  serve  our  turn  better  now  than  in 
the  case  of  the  beasts  and  plants  of  South  America  and 
New  Zealand.  Perhaps,  as  our  zoologists  and  botanists 
have  discovered  that  in  geology  lies  the  key  to  their  secrets, 
and  that  the  distribution  of  the  fauna  and  flora  is  every 
where  the  monument  of  the  changes  of  land  and  sea  in  far 
off  epochs,  so  the  myths  and  emblems  which  we  likewise 
find  scattered  apparently  so  unaccountably,  may  finally  be 
all  affiliated  to  the  races  of  men  among  whom  they  originally 
sprung,  and  who  as  aborigines  or  conquerors  have  dwelt  in 
the  localities  where  they  flourish.  As  Heraldry  has  been 
often  the  clue  to  Genealogy,  so  may  fables  and  forms  of 
worship,  often  of  the  lightest  or  the  rudest  kind,  afford 
hints  of  incalculable  value  in  aiding  the  philologist  and 
the  ethnologist  to  track  out  the  various  branches  of  the 
human  family  in  their  wanderings  over  the  globe.  How 
it  is  that  during  all  their  journey  ings  these  heirlooms  of 
fancy  never  seem  to  drop ;  how  they  endure  through  succes 
sive  religious  conversions  and  reformations,  springing  up 
like  wild  flowers  after  the  plough  has  turned  again  and 
again  the  ground  they  live  in, — is  a  marvel  of  psychology. 
We  cannot  explain  it ;  we  can  only  note  the  fact  that  while 
"marble  may  moulder,  monuments  decay,"  while  some  of 
the  noblest  works  of  the  human  mind  have  been  destroyed 
in  the  conflagration  of  libraries,  while  poems,  pictures, 
statues,  which  gold  could  not  purchase  now,  have  dis 
appeared  out  of  the  treasure-house  of  humanity  for  ever, 
these  mere  idle  superstitions,  these  playful  fairy  legends, 

12 


178  A  PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

these  gossamer  threads  of  thought,  float  on  for  ever  in  the 
very  air  we  breathe.  The  Jupiter  of  Phidias  has  long  been 
dust,  but  the  story  of  Llewellyn's  dog  is  still  told  from 
the  Himalayas  to  Snowdon,  and  will  be  told  while  the  Aryan 
race  survives  upon  the  globe.1 

Obscure  forms  of  religion  and  crude  superstitious  beliefs 
and  observances  have  in  them  both  the  general  antiquarian 
interests  of  this  curious  order  of  wild-flower  myths,  and 
also  the  special  theological  value  of  disclosing  to  us  the 
first  feeble  stirrings  of  the  religious  sentiment,  the  half- 
blind  "feeling  after  God  if  haply  they  might  find  him," 
of  yet  infant  nations,  conscious  of  want  and  dependence, 
and  dimly  conscious  also  of  an  unseen  Power  on  whom  they 
depend.  The  instinct  which  makes  the  tendril  of  the  vine 
creep  up  the  stem  of  the  oak,  and  its  roots  shoot  through 
the  dark  soil  towards  the  water, — even  so  blind  and  uncon 
scious  seem  these  first  religious  impulses  of  man.  Among 
them,  therefore,  the  true  principles  of  science  call  upon  us 
to  look  for  the  simple  elements  of  those  sentiments  which 
have  long  since  become  complex  and  conventional.  And 
they  afford  us  more  than  such  a  field  for  study ;  they  give  us 
by  their  mere  existence  the  reassuring  proof  that  Religion 
is  not  a  matter  primarily  of  ideas,  but  of  Sentiments ;  and 
that  Sentiments  are  permanent  in  human  nature^  while  the 
Ideas  in  which  they  clothe  themselves,  the  fashions  of  their 
intellectual  garments,  for  ever  change.  The  first  shape  which 
each  sentiment  assumes  as  it  passes  out  of  the  world  of  feeling 
into  the  world  of  thought — a  shape  gross  in  the  lower  race,  the 
Scythian,  the  Negro,  the  Australian  ;  finer  and  more  delicate 
in  the  higher,  the  Greek,  the  Persian,  or  the  Jew, — that  Idea 
is  by  degrees  worn  out,  to  be  replaced  by  another.  But  the 
feeling  which  originated  it,  though  constantly  developed 

1  See  the  wonderful  collection  of  these  tales  in  Baring- Gould's  Curious  Myths 
of  the  Middle  Ages. 


A   FEE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  179 

and  exalted,  is  never  lost.  The  "conservation  of  force" 
holds  as  true  of  human  Sentiment  as  of  any  physical  agent. 
The  sweeping  away  of  old  religious  Ideas  (which  Comte  would 
have  us  think  equivalent  to  the  sweeping  awray  of  Religion), 
is  in  fact  quite  an  opposite  process.  It  is  the  periodical 
clearance  of  a  mass  of  mental  rubbish  which  has  become  a 
burden  and  a  stoppage,  and  the  opening  of  free  space  for 
new  development,  not  of  ideas  absolutely  true,  yet  of  ideas 
relatively  nearer  to  truth  than  those  which  preceded  them. 
The  cycles  of  religious  revolution,  the  secular  outbursts  of 
apparently  the  most  desolating  Doubt,  are  but  the  new 
births  of  Religion.  The  serpent  casts  its  outgrown  scales, 
and  renews  its  immortal  youth ;  the  phoenix  rises  fresh- 
plumed  from  its  pyre. 

A  large  contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  these  cruder 
religions  of  the  world,  these  stirrings  of  the  religious 
sentiment  among  the  inferior  races  of  mankind,  has  been 
made  in  the  splendid  book  which  I  now  purpose  to  review. 
Mr.  Fergusson  is  the  Murchison  of  a  new  Siluria  ;  he 
has  traced  out  and  described  a  buried  world,  underlying 
all  the  continents  of  the  present  globe.  The  subject 
is  almost  new  in  his  hands.  The  share  which  the  wor 
ship  of  Serpents  and  Trees  has  had  in  universal  prime 
val  history  has  probably  attracted  the  passing  thoughts  of 
scarcely  a  dozen  living  scholars ;  and  certainly  the  vast 
extension  of  it,  which  our  author  exhibits,  is  altogether 
a  fresh  discovery.  I  think  I  shall  hardly  wrong  my  readers 
if  I  assert  that  even  such  a.s  have  taken  interest  in  compara 
tive  mythology  will  find  these  researches  open  to  them  a 
flood  of  new  ideas.  For  the  majority  of  us,  were  we  to 
follow  Gibbon's  advice,  and  before  beginning  to  read,  go 
over  in  our  minds  during  a  country  walk  all  that  we  have 
already  learned  touching  the  theme  of  this  book,  it  is  to 


180  A   P RE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

be  feared  that  a  very  short  excursion  indeed  would  suffice 
for  our  purpose.  "  There  were  the  serpents  of  Eden  and  of 
Moses ;  and  -ZEsculapius'  serpents ;  and  there  was  the  sect 
of  Gnostics  called  Ophites,  because  they  worshipped  ser 
pents  ;  and  the  idols  of  Yishnu  have  generally  got  serpents 
twisted  about  them ;  and  in  the  Norse  mythology  there  was 
the  great  Midgard  serpent.  Then  for  Tree-worship  there 
was  the  Norse  Yggdrasil ;  and  the  Tree  of  Life  and  Know 
ledge  in  Eden ;  and  Apollo's  Laurel,  and  Minerva's  Olive  ; 
and  the  Oaks  of  Dodona,  and  the  '  groves '  mentioned  in 
the  Bible ;  and  it  is  said  the  Druids  worshipped  Hesus 
under  the  form  of  an  oak,  and  cut  the  mistletoe  at  Yule- 
tide — a  practice  not  yet  exploded  in  England."  That  is,  I 
venture  to  think,  not  a  very  unfair  summary  of  the  amount 
of  knowledge  possessed  by  nine  out  of  ten  "  general  readers  " 
about  the  matters  on  which  Mr.  Fergusson  has  given  us 
a  magnificent  quarto  volume.  Wishing  that  some  hydraulic 
press  could  be  invented  to  enable  weak  reviewers  to  condense 
into  magazine  articles  such  masses  of  facts,  I  shall  do  my 
best  to  present  the  more  salient  conclusions  of  a  work  whose 
costliness  necessarily  limits  its  circulation,  and  of  which 
therefore  an  analysis  will  be  generally  more  desired  than 
a  critique. 

My  first  remark  must  be  that  the  way  in  which  the  book 
is  compiled  is  itself  unusual.  Such  works  mostly  seem  to 
have  their  origin  in  a  theory  of  some  sort  which  has  oc 
curred  to  a  philosopher  in  his  study.  Anxious  to  bring  it 
forth  to  the  world,  he  makes  a  nest  for  it  of  a  reasonable 
quantity  of  sticks  and  straws,  collected  wherever  he  can 
find  any  suitable  to  his  purpose  ;  and  then  sits  down  and 
broods  over  it  till  it  comes  out  full  fledged  in  a  goodly 
octavo.  The  present  tome  has  apparently  taken  shape  in 
quite  a  different  manner.  Mr.  Fergusson  having  found  a 
quantity  of  sculptures  bearing  traces  of  a  curious  extinct 


A   FEE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  181 

religion,  first  set  about  studying  them  accurately,  draw 
ing  from  them  sundry  inferences,  and  illustrating  them  by 
parallels  taken  from  history  and  archaeology ;  all  very  much 
as  a  geologist  who  finds  the  track  of  a  foot  in  the  sandstone, 
by  degress  obtains  a  pretty  distinct  idea  of  the  long  lost 
beast  which  left  it  there  uncounted  ages  ago.  As  Mr. 
Fergusson  has  not  had  the  pretension  to  start  with  the 
statement  of  any  large  generalization,  the  reader — and  more 
especially  the  reviewer — misses  that  easy  synthesis  which 
at  once  saves  him  the  labour  of  careful  perusal  and  enables 
him  to  assert,  with  dogmatism  equal  to  that  of  the  author, 
that  he  does,  or  does  not,  agree  with  his  conclusions.  There 
is  nothing  for  the  student  of  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship  to 
do  but  to  read  the  book  all  through  carefully ;  and  when 
he  has  done  so,  and  perceived  all  the  stores  of  information 
which  are  brought  together  in  its  construction,  he  will  prob 
ably  be  more  inclined  to  admire  the  author's  modest  way 
of  putting  forth  the  few  hypotheses  he  ventures  upon,  than 
to  presume  hastily  to  contradict  him. 

The  two  idolatries  of  Trees  and  of  Serpents,  seem  to  have 
been  nearly  always  allied  and  co-existent.  Sometimes  the 
worship  of  Trees  was  most  prominent,  sometimes  that  of 
Serpents,  but  it  is  rare  to  find  the  one  altogether  dissevered 
from  the  other.  In  many  cases  the  religion  was  a  well-defined 
latria  of  living  Serpents  kept  in  temples  erected  for  them ; 
and  of  Trees  held  as  objects  of  direct  worship  and  laden 
with  gifts.  In  other  cases,  the  serpents  and  trees  were 
merely  honoured  in  subsidiary  manner,  with  a  sort  of 
dulia,  while  higher  gods  received  more  direct  and  formal 
worship. 

The  origin  of  both  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship  Mr. 
Fergusson  finds  very  simply  in  the  natural  qualities  of  both 
objects.  We  are  not  called  upon  by  him  either  to  identify 


182  A   FEE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

the  etymologies  of  Fire  and  Serpent ;  or  to  look  on  the 
latter  as  the  types  of  the  former;  nor  yet  does  he  ask  us  to 
see  that  the  Serpent  means  the  "Sun,"  and  a  Tree  the 
"Moon,"  or  vice  versa;  or  "Heavens,"  or  the  "Dawn,"  or 
any  other  astronomical  phenomenon  whatever.  "With  all 
their  poetry  and  all  their  usefulness,"  he  says,  "  we  can 
hardly  feel  astonished  that  the  primitive  races  of  mankind 
should  have  considered  Trees  as  the  choicest  gift  of  the 
gods,  or  believed  that  their  spirits  still  delighted  to  dwell 
amongst  the  branches  or  spoke  oracles  through  the  rustling 
of  their  leaves.  Nor  is  the  worship  of  the  Serpent  so 
strange  as  it  might  at  first  sight  appear."  As  old  Sanchon- 
iathon  remarked,  "  The  serpent  alone  of  all  animals,  without 
legs  or  arms,  or  the  usual  appliances  for  locomotion,  still 
moves  with  singular  celerity.  He  periodically  casts  his 
skin,  and  by  that  process,  as  the  ancients  fabled,  renews  his 
youth.  Thus,  too,  a  serpent  can  exist  for  an  indefinite  time 
without  food  or  hunger." 

Strangely  enough  to  our  apprehension  this  honour  of  the 
serpent  was  not  one  mainly  of  fear  but  of  love : 

Although  fear  might  seem  to  account  for  the  prevalence  of  the 
worship,  on  looking  closely  at  it,  we  are  struck  with  phenomena  of 
a  totally  different  character.  When  we  first  meet  Serpent  worship, 
either  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai,  the  groves  of  Epidaurus,  or  in  the 
Sarmatian  huts,  the  serpent  is  always  the  Agathodsemon,  the  bringer 
of  health  and  good  fortune.  He  is  the  teacher  of  wisdom,  the  oracle 
of  future  events.  His  worship  may  have  originated  in  fear,  but  long 
before  we  became  acquainted  with  it,  it  had  passed  to  the  opposite 
extreme  among  its  votaries.  Any  evil  that  ever  was  spoken  of  the 
serpent  came  from  those  who  were  outside  the  pale,  and  were  trying  to 
depreciate  what  they  considered  as  an  accursed  superstition. 

May  we  not  add  that  the  idolatry  of  Trees  and  Serpents, 
like  other  idolatries,  must  have  always  involved  some  vague 
conception  of  a  beneficent  Spirit  represented  by,  or,  at  most, 
enshrined  in,  the  idol  ?  The  worship  of  reptiles  and  vege- 


A  PRE-HISTORIO  RELIGION.  183 

tables  as  suoh  can  never  have  really  occurred  among  man 
kind;  any  more  than  the  worship  of  a  marble  statue  of 
Apollo  or  a  wooden  one  of  the  Madonna  as  a  statue  and 
nothing  more. 

The  races  of  men  among  whom  Tree  and  Serpent  worship 
prevailed  were  not  at  any  time  either  the  Aryans  or  Semites. 
The  Touranians,  undoubtedly,  were  its  great  supporters  ;  so 
much  so,  that  Mr.  Fergusson  thinks  himself  justified  in 
arguing  backward  from  any  distinct  symptom  of  such 
worship,  to  the  existence,  in  the  same  age  and  country,  of  a 
considerable  Touranian  or,  at  all  events,  inferior  population 
underlying  the  Aryan  or  Semitic  conquerors.  Thus  the 
Serpent  dulia  of  the  Jews  he  attributes  to  the  Canaanites ; 
and  that  of  the  Greeks  to  the  Pelasgi,  whom  he  considers  as 
Touranians,  and  imagines  to  have  survived  and  carried  down 
their  traditions  after  the  return  to  Greece  of  the  descendants 
of  Hercules  (the  Serpent- slayer,  i.e.,  conqueror  of  Serpent- 
worshippers),  even  to  the  latest  ages  of  Greek  civilization. 
In  any  case  it  appears  that  new  and  valuable  hints  for  the 
historian  and  ethnologist  will  hereafter  be  found  in  following 
out  this  "  trail  of  the  serpent "  in  the  literature,  the  coins, 
and  the  sculptures  of  the  ancient  world. 

A  curious  circumstance  connected  with  Serpent  worship  is 
its  apparently  arbitrary  alliance  with  the  practice  of  Human 
Sacrifices.  Mr.  Fergusson  considers  it  to  be  established  that 
wherever  human  sacrifices  existed  there  also  was  the  Serpent 
an  object  of  worship ;  and  where  they  have  been  most  fre 
quent  and  terrible,  as  in  Mexico  and  Dahomey,  there  also 
has  serpent  worship  been  the  typical  form  of  the  popular 
religion.  Nevertheless,  no  direct  connexion  between  the  two 
things  is  traceable.  "No  human  sacrifice  was  anywhere 
made  to  propitiate  the  serpent,  nor  was  it  ever  pretended 
that  any  human  victim  was  ever  devoured  by  the  snake- god." 
And,  though  the  sacrifices  are  never  found  without  the 


184  A   PRE-IIISTORIC  RELIGION. 

serpent  worship,  the  serpent  worship  has  often  largely  pre 
vailed  without  the  sacrifices. 

Before  commencing  the  description  of  Serpent  Worship 
and  its  monuments  in  India,  which  form  the  great  substance 
of  his  book,  Mr.  Fergusson  takes  a  rapid  survey  of  the  traces 
left  by  the  same  cultus  all  over  the  world.  The  amount  of 
information  condensed  into  these  fifty  quarto  pages  is  very 
remarkable,  and  it  would  be  vain  to  attempt  to  give  any 
fair  resume  of  it  in  still  smaller  compass.  Nevertheless,  I 
must  endeavour  to  state  the  outlines  of  his  conclusions. 

Dahomey  is  the  present  chief  seat  of  Serpent  worship, 
where  it  is  now  practised  with  more  completeness  than  any 
where  else,  and  where  this  most  ancient  of  idolatries  may 
probably  have  remained  from  the  earliest  times  almost  un 
changed.  And  as  the  student  of  the  new  science  of  Pre 
historic  Archaeology  goes  to  the  savages  of  Polynesia  and 
Greenland  to  understand  the  meaning  and  use  of  the  stone 
and  bronze  weapons  he  finds  in  the  lacustrine  dwellings  of 
Switzerland,  so  the  student  of  the  pre-historic  religion 
of  Serpent  worship  will  certainly  do  well  to  examine  in 
Dahomey  its  yet  surviving  barbarities.  The  chief  God  of 
the  national  triad  is  the  Serpent ;  the  second  the  Tree- God  ; 
and  the  third  the  Ocean.  "  The  first,  called  Danh  gbwe,  is 
esteemed  the  Supreme  Bliss  and  General  Good.''  He  has  a 
thousand  female  votaries  and  is  worshipped  with  all  the 
splendour  his  savage  people  can  afford.  The  "customs"  of 
Dahomey  with  their  sacrifices  of  500  or  600  victims  at  the 
death  of  a  king,  or  of  30  or  40  as  an  annual  slaughter  to 
the  honour  of  ancestors,  are  here  seen  in  that  unaccountable 
connexion  with  a  worship  of  which  they  form  no  part,  of 
which  I  have  spoken  above. 

In  America,  there  is  a  whole  wrorld  of  archaeological 
interest  waiting  for  investigation.  The  mounds  of  Ohio  and 
Iowa  have  been  declared  to  be  serpent  images  1000  feet  long. 


A  PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  185 

The  ruined  temples  of  Mexico  and  the  brief  mention  which 
the  Spanish  historians  deigned  to  give  of  the  diabolic  religion 
of  their  enemies,  open  out  a  most  curious  problem.  Was 
Serpent  worship  indigenous  in  the  western  continent,  and 
did  human  nature  here,  as  so  often  elsewhere,  seem  to  re 
produce  for  ever  the  same  ideas  ?  Or,  does  the  legend  of 
Quetzal-coatl, — the  Feathered  Serpent  born  of  a  Virgin,  the 
Lycurgus  and  Bacchus  of  Central  America,  who  came  from 
some  unknown  land  like  Manco  Capac  of  Peru,  and  returned 
thither,  having  civilized  Anahuac — point  to  a  connexion  in 
long  past  years  between  America  and  the  further  India 
where,  at  the  date  assigned  to  Quetzal-coatl,  Serpent  worship 
was  in  its  glory  ?  Mr.  Fergusson  seems  to  incline  to  the 
last  suggestion,  yet  candidly  admits  that  the  fact  that  all 
American  Serpent  worship  was  that  of  the  native  noxious 
Rattlesnake,  argues  against  the  Indian  hypothesis. 

Returning  to  the  old  world,  where  Mr.  Fergusson  begins 
his  survey,  we  find  Egypt  with  only  a  "fractional  part"  of 
its  great  theology  occupied  by  either  trees  or  serpents.1 

In  Greece,  as  already  remarked,  the  frequent  traces  of 
both  worships,  very  loosely  connected  with  the  Olympian 
mythology,  forces  us  to  suppose  that  we  have  here  an 
instance  of  the  religions  of  two  distinct  races  intermingled  ; 
the  lower  cropping  up  through  the  higher  like  weeds  in  a 
cornfield.  Not  to  dwell  on  the  numerous  earlier  myths 
regarding  Serpents,  the  Pythons  and  Hydras,  Echidna  and 
the  Dragon  of  the  Garden  of  the  Hesperides  (the  Greek 
counterpart  of  the  Hebrew  Serpent  of  the  Tree  of  Life  in 
Eden),  there  appear  actualty  in  historic  times  the  Serpent 
kept  in  the  Erechtheum,  whose  escape  warned  the  Athenians 

1  A  learned  friend  has  favoured  me  with  some  notes  tending  to  show  that  Mr. 
Fergusson,  in  this  short  chapter,  has  not  done  justice  to  the  extent  of  Serpent 
worship  and  Serpent  honour  in  Egypt.  He  seems,  especially,  to  have  overlooked 
the  importance  of  the  myths  relating  to  Apoph  or  Typhon,  the  Evil  Serpent, 
a  personage  whose  history  it  is  particularly  desirable  to  explore. 


186  A   PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

to  fly  from  the  Persians  ;  and  the  serpents  of  .ZEsculapius  at 
Epidaurus,  which  the  Eoman  Senate  sent  an  embassy  to 
obtain.  The  latter  incident  indeed  will  form  one  of  the 
most  astonishing  in  that  future  History  of  Opinion  of 
which  I  have  spoken.  The  facts  are  stated  by  Livy  (x.  47), 
Valerius  Maximus  (i.  8,  2),  and  Aurelius  Victor  (xxii.  1)  ; 
while  Ovid  devotes  a  long  poem  (Met.  xv.  5)  to  their  embel 
lishment.  A  plague,  it  seems,  ravaged  Rome,  and  in  the  year 
of  the  city  462 — more  than  a  century,  be  it  remembered,  after 
Socrates,  two  generations  after  Plato — a  living  Serpent  was 
solemnly  fetched  from  Greece  to  Italy,  and  received  with  divine 
honours  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber  by  the  Senate  and  People 
of  Rome  !  Of  course,  on  the  advent  of  the  sacred  reptile 
"the  plague  was  stayed"  ;  and  JEsculapius  received  in  Italy 
the  thanksgivings  which,  according  to  the  Book  of  Numbers, 
were  offered  on  a  strangely  similar  occasion  in  the  Arabian 
Desert  to  Jehovah.  From  this  time  a  Serpent,  portrayed 
in  a  conventional  attitude,  was  in  the  Roman  world  the 
recognized  type  of  a  sacred  place  ;  and  the  Epidaurian 
serpents,  as  Pausanias  tells,  held  their  place  among  the  gods 
of  Greece  till  long  after  the  age  of  Christ. 

Nor  did  the  twin-idolatry  of  Trees  fail  to  find  its  place 
in  the  hospitable  pantheon  of  Greece.  When  Minerva 
contended  with  Neptune  for  the  patronage  of  Athens  (an 
event  which  Phidias  did  not  disdain  to  commemorate  in  the 
magnificent  western  pediment  of  the  Parthenon,  now  in 
the  British  Museum)  she  created  the  Olive  Tree  to  match 
Neptune's  gift  of  the  Horse,  and  planted  this  her  Tree  of 
Knowledge  on  the  Acropolis,  committing  it  to  the  care  of  the 
Serpent-god,  Erichthonius.  The  Erechtheum,  whose  ruins 
still  form  the  loveliest  Ionic  temple  in  the  world,  was  built 
over  the  spot,  and  the  Olive  stood,  as  Fergusson  believes, 
in  the  beautiful  portion  of  the  Pandroseum  which  is  sup 
ported  by  Caryatids, — an  hypothesis  fairly  accounting  for 


A   FEE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  187 

the  hitherto  inexplicable  form  of  that  gem  of  architecture. 
Beneath,  in  a  cell  adjoining  the  well  of  Neptune,  lived 
the  Serpent,  whose  actual  reptilian  existence  seems  proved 
by  the  fact  mentioned  by  Herodotus  (viii.  41),  that  when 
the  Persians  approached  Athens,  the  Serpent  was  an 
nounced  to  have  refused  its  food  and  fled ;  whereupon  the 
people  at  length  quitted  their  city  in  despair,  as  warned  by 
their  tutelary  deity. 

The  Oak,  or  rather  grove  of  oaks,  at  Dodona,  was  always 
attributed  by  tradition  to  the  planting  of  Pelasgi,  and 
existed  till  the  time  of  Constantine  ;  a  period  of  at  least 
two  thousand  years.  The  oracle  which  spoke  therein  was 
said  to  come  from  the  sacred  pigeons  rustling  among  the 
leaves,  and  from  bells  with  which  the  branches  were  hung. 
No  temple  existed  there ;  the  grove  itself  was  the  sacred 
place.  Again,  the  laurel  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  was  as  sacred 
as  the  oak  of  Dodona.  Under  its  shade  the  Python  took 
refuge  ;  one  combination  more  of  Tree  and  Serpent. 

In  ancient  Italy  the  Etruscan  relics  preserve  no  memorial 
of  the  kind  we  are  seeking.  But  at  Lanuvium,  sixteen 
miles  from  Rome,  was  a  dark  grove  sacred  to  Juno ;  and 
near  it  the  abode  of  a  great  serpent,  the  oracle  of  female 
chastity.  In  later  ages  we  find  Persius  speaking  of  the 
custom  above  mentioned  of  painting  certain  conventional 
figures  of  serpents  on  walls,  to  indicate  the  sanctity  of  the 
spot ;  a  practice  of  which  there  are  several  examples  at 
Herculaneum  and  Pompeii.  Most  surprising  of  all,  however, 
are  the  legends  of  Romans  and  Greeks  born  of  serpents. 
Scipio  Africanus  is  said  to  have  believed  himself  the  son 
of  a  snake  ;  and  Augustus  allowed  it  to  be  understood 
that  his  mother  Atia  had  received  him  from  a  serpent. 
Alexander  the  Great  before  he  undertook  to  prove  himself 
the  son  of  Jupiter  Ammon  was  supposed  (apparently  by 
Philip  himself)  to  be  the  son  of  a  serpent  who  actually 


188  A  PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

appeared  to  him  in  a  dream  in  later  years  to  save  the.  life 
of  his  general  Ptolemy.  To  find  such  fables  gravely  told 
by  writers  like  Plutarch  and  Lucian,  and  even  mentioned 
by  Cicero  without  any  expression  of  contempt,  is  truly 
astonishing.  We  ask  ourselves,  Can  there  be  any  legends 
current  amongst  us  which  will  seem  equally  absurd  to 
posterity  ? 

Passing  from  Rome  to  her  barbarian  conquerors  we  find 
among  the  Teutonic  tribes  no  traces  of  Serpent  worship, 
but  many  of  the  worship  of  Trees.  The  last  relic  of  this 
old  creed  is  probably  the  Stock-am- Eisen,  the  Apprentice's 
tree,  still  standing  in  the  heart  of  Vienna.  In  ancient 
Sarmatia  and  modern  Poland  both  Trees  and  Serpents  were 
worshipped  by  the  peasantry  even  to  the  limits  of  the 
present  century. 

Scandinavia  offers  the  most  complete  puzzle  to  mytholo- 
gists,  and  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  folly  of  relying 
on  mere  philological  analogies  in  such  researches.  Were 
Woden,  or  Boden,  and  Buddha  the  same  person  ?  Woden 
came  from  the  East  to  Europe  just  when  active  missionaries 
were  spreading  Buddhism  on  all  sides  ;  and  the  fourth  day 
of  the  week  is  Wednesday  in  the  West,  and  Budhbar  in  the 
East.  But  can  we  leap  to  the  conclusion  that  the  religions 
were  therefore  identical  ?  Fergusson  says,  "  There  are  not, 
perhaps,  two  other  religions  in  the  world  so  diametrically 
opposed  to  one  another,  nor  two  persons  so  different  as  the 
gentle  Sakya  Muni,  who  left  a  kingdom  to  alleviate  the 
sufferings  of  mankind,  and  Odin,  '  the  terrible  and  severe 
God,  the  Father  of  slaughter/  ):  If  the  two  religions  came 
anywhere  in  contact,  it  was  at  their  base,  for  underlying 
both  was  a  strange  substratum  of  Tree  and  Serpent  wor 
ship.  The  Yggdrasil  Ash  Tree,  in  the  Norse  mythology, 
with  one  of  its  roots  over  the  Well  of  Knowledge,  and 
with  Nidhog  gnawing  its  stem,  suggests  obvious  analo- 


A   PREHISTORIC  RELIGION.  189 

gies,  not  only  with,  the  Tree  of  Knowledge  and  Serpent 
of  Eden,  but  with  the  Bo-Tree  of  Buddha.  Olaus  Magnus 
in  the  sixteenth  century  speaks  of  serpents  as  still  kept  as 
household  gods  in  Sweden :  a  circumstance  which,  when  we 
remember  the  insignificant  nature  of  the  northern  reptile, 
seems  to  point  to  some  Southern  or  Eastern  tradition  of  its 
importance. 

In  Gaul,  as  in  Germany,  Tree  worship  seems  to  have 
prevailed;  but  of  Serpent  worship  there  is  no  trace,  save 
one  childish  legend  reported  by  Pliny  as  from  the  Druids. 

As  to  Great  Britain,  Mr.  Fergusson's  views  will  probably 
be  more  contested  than  those  he  has  given  of  any  other 
country.  Perhaps  most  readers,  to  whom  the  notion  of  a 
connexion  between  the  Druids  and  Stonehenge  and  Serpent 
worship  have  been  more  or  less  vaguely  familiar,  will  be 
startled  to  learn  that  "  there  are  only  two  very  short  para 
graphs  in  any  classical  authors  which  mention  the  Druids 
in  connexion  with  Britain  ;  not  one  that  mentions  Serpent 
worship  ;  and  not  one  English  author  prior  to  the  thirteenth 
century  who  names  either  the  one  or  the  other."  Our 
knowledge  on  the  subject  is  almost  wholly  derived  from  the 
Welsh  Triads ;  and,  even  in  them,  the  word  Druid  occurs 
but  rarely.  The  relation  of  Stonehenge  and  Avebury  to 
either  Druidism  or  Serpent  Worship,  Mr.  Fergusson  treats 
as  wholly  imaginary.  The  bare  Wiltshire  downs  were,  he 
thinks,  the  very  last  places  likely  for  the  grove-loving  Celts 
to  choose  for  their  temples,  though  they  might  (especially 
if  battle-fields)  choose  them  for  the  site  of  tombs. 

On  the  east  coast  of  Scotland  are  many  megalithic  monu 
ments,  several  of  which  bear  sculptures  of  serpents,  while 
others,  apparently  of  almost  equal  antiquity,  bear  the 
Christian  cross.  To  all  appearance  these  serpent  monuments 
mark  the  furthest  wave  of  the  great  Woden-movement 
which  spread  from  the  Caucasus  to  Scandinavia. 


190  A  PRE-IIISTORIC  RELIGION. 

After  this  hasty  sweep  over  Africa,  America,  and  Europe, 
which  I  have  permitted  myself  to  make  in  the  reverse 
order  of  that  adopted  by  Mr.  Fergusson  ;  after  finding 
Serpent  and  Tree  Worship  alive  in  Dahomey,  and  leaving 
its  broad  and  unmistakable  traces  in  Central  America,  an 
cient  Greece,  Rome,  Scandinavia,  Germany,  Gaul  and  Britain ; 
we  turn  with  a  new  comprehension  of  the  universality  of 
these  marvellous  delusions  to  the  brief  hints  which  the 
Jewish  Scriptures  have  preserved  of  their  existence,  even 
among  the  people  who  had  Isaiah  for  their  prophet,  and 
the  author  of  the  Book  of  Job  for  their  great  poet. 

The  Garden  of  Eden,  bounded  on  one  side  by  the  Eu 
phrates,  was  doubtless  conceived  of  as  occupying  a  position 
in  Mesopotamia.  Here,  in  the  earliest  record  of  Semitic 
thought,  we  find  the  two  inseparable  relics,  the  Tree  and 
the  Serpent ;  a  Tree  of  Knowledge  and  a  Serpent  "  more 
subtle  than  any  beast  of  the  field," — doubtless  the  Hea  or 
Hoa,  the  Serpent  God,  the  third  of  the  Babylonish  triad  of 
gods.  Very  ingenious  is  Mr.  Fergusson's  idea  that  this 
story,  and  the  curse  of  the  serpent,  was  introduced  by  the 
monotheistic  author  of  the  fragment  of  Genesis  in  which 
it  is  found,  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  the  hatred  of  the 
early  Serpent  worship,  which  in  his  time  and  for  ages  after 
wards  was  doubtless  still  flourishing.  Jehovah  cursed  the 
serpent,  and  "  put  enmity  between  his  seed  (i.e.  his  wor 
shippers)  and  man  of  woman  born."  May  I  surmise  that 
here  also  we  find  the  traces  of  that  notion,  so  prevalent, 
according  to  Sir  J.  Lubbock,  in  the  border  land  of  pre 
historic  times;  that  the  later  race  alone  is  human,  the  pro 
geny  of  a  mortal  woman,  and  the  elder  primeval  race,  with  its 
ruder  creed  and  weapons,  merely  impish,  dwarf,  and  bestial  ? 

Next  to  the  Tree  of  Eden,  a  trace  of  the  same  wor 
ship  may  be  found  in  Abraham's  terebinth  at  Mamre; 
worshipped,  according  to  Eusebius,  down  to  the  time  of 


A  PRE-H1STORIC  RELIGION.  191 

Constantine,  and  still  the  same,  if  we  may  believe  tradi 
tion,  which  spreads  its  leafy  boughs  laden  with  acorns 
beside  the  vineyards  of  Eshkol. 

Again,  we  find  in  Exodus,  Jehovah  speaking  to  Moses  in 
the  Burning  Bush  (or  Tree)— a  Tree,  according  to  Josephus, 
hallowed  before  the  event.  At  the  same  moment,  Moses's 
Bod  was  turned  into  a  Serpent  ;  a  wonder  afterwards 
repeated  by  both  Moses  and  Aaron;  and  imitated  by  the 
Egyptian  magicians  then  and  ever  since,  by  means  of 
pressure  on  the  back  of  the  serpent's  neck  productive  of 
temporary  catalepsy. 

But  the  most  suggestive  of  all  the  stories  of  Serpent 
dulia  is  that  told  in  Numbers  xxi.  The  Israelites  having 
murmured  as  usual,  "  the  Lord  sent  fiery  serpents,  and  they 
bit  the  people."  On  their  repentance  Moses  is  directed  to 
"make  a  fiery  serpent  and  set  it  on  a  pole"  (the  caduceus 
of  the  Healing  God),  "  and  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  every 
one  that  is  bitten,  when  he  looketh  upon  it,  shall  live." 
The  worship  thus  inaugurated  is  no  more  mentioned  in  the 
Pentateuch ;  but  assuming  the  received  chronology  to  be 
anything  near  the  truth,  it  actually  survived  for  more  than 
seven  centuries,  and  in  the  days  of  Hezekiah  "the  children 
of  Israel  did  burn  incense"  to  the  self-same  brazen  Serpent, 
actually  preserved  in  the  very  Temple  (2  Kings  xviii.  4). 
The  reformer  king  at  the  same  time  "  cut  down  the  Groves, 
and  brake  in  pieces  the  Serpent,"  thus  combining  in  common 
ruin  the  two  ever-parallel  idolatries.  But  no  religion  was 
pure  enough  to  destroy  altogether  the  marvellous  infatu 
ation.  Even  after  the  great  Christian  Reformation,  the 
Serpent  worship  cropped  up  like  the  hydra  itself.  The 
Ophites  or  Serpentinian  Gnostics  preferred,  as  Tertullian 
tells  us,  the  Serpent  to  Christ,  "inasmuch  as  the  former 
brought  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  into  the  world!" 
(Tertullian,  De  Prescript.  Hereticorum,  cxlvii.) 


192  A  PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

We  now  pass  to  Serpent  Worship  in  ancient  Persia,  and 
here  the  theory  of  the  author  that  the  Aryan  races  were 
never,  and  the  Touranian  races  always,  serpent  worship 
pers,  meets  with  strong  confirmation.  In  the  theology  of 
Zoroaster,  Dahaka,  or  Zohak,  was  an  evil  being  created 
by  Ahrimanes.  In  Persian  mythology  he  is  a  king  who 
reigned  at  Babel  for  1000  years,  having  two  serpents 
growing  between  his  shoulders,  and  daily  devouring  men 
until  his  own  destruction  by  the  "Brilliant  Feridoun,"  the 
servant  of  Ormuzd.  Here  again,  the  religion  of  the  pre- 
Aryan,  as  in  Genesis  that  of  the  pre-Semitic  race,  is  repre 
sented  as  detestable  and  accursed. 

The  Tree  worship  of  ancient  Persia  and  India  is  even 
more  curious  than  the  passing  spurn  of  Zoroastrianism  at 
Serpent  worship.  Both  Zend  Avesta  and  Yedas  are  full 
of  mysterious  allusions  to  the  Horn,  or  Soma  tree,  and  its 
sacramental  juice.  In  modern  times  the  Brahmins  have 
taken  a  creeping  shrub,  the  Asckpias,  to  be  the  Soma ; 
and  its  sacred  juice  that  profane  German  Haug  has 
unhesitatingly  styled  "  a  nasty  drink."  But  there  is 
reason  to  believe  with  Windischmann,  that  the  original 
Homa  was  a  very  different  tree,  and  identical  with  the 
Tree  Gogard,  the  "Tree  which  enlightened  the  eyes." 
Suspicions  may  also  exist  that  it  was  the  Ampelus,  the 
Vine  of  Bacchus.  May  I  add  the  suggestion  (from  the 
audacity  of  which  Mr.  Fergusson  must  be  exonerated), 
that  the  Homa,  the  Soma,  the  Gogard,  the  Ampelus 
of  Bacchus,  and  the  Tooba  tree  of  Mahomet,  were  all  one 
with  the  Vine  of  Noah ;  and  that  all  the  awful  and  solemn 
mysteries  connected  therewith  may  be  summed  up  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  tongue  as— "  getting  drunk  "  ? 

Cashmere  was  a  very  kingdom  of  Serpents  and  their  wor 
shippers  or  Nagas,  as  the  Indians  call  them  ;  namely,  human 
beings  with  serpents  growing  between  their  shoulders,  or 


A   FEE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  193 

at  least  so  conventionally  depicted.  The  connexion  between 
the  early  Buddhists  and  these  Serpentinians  of  Cashmere, 
helps  our  author's  further  theories  considerably ;  but  space 
fails  me  to  detail  particulars. 

In  Cambodia,  in  the  further  India,  Serpent  worship  reached 
its  utmost  splendour.  The  great  temple  of  Nakhon-Yat, 
wholly  devoted  to  this  strange  cultus,  is  even  in  its  ruins 
one  of  the  noblest  buildings  in  the  world.  First  discovered 
in  1858  and  1860  by  M.  Mouhot,  they  have  since  been 
photographed  by  Mr.  J.  Thomson,  and  exhibit  architecture 
of  the  utmost  splendour,  and  of  a  style  curiously  resembling 
the  Roman  form  of  Doric.  Six  hundred  feet  square  at  the 
base,  the  building  rises  in  the  centre  to  the  height  of  180 
feet,  "  while  every  part  is  covered  with  carvings  in  stone, 
generally  beautiful  in  design  and  always  admirably  adapted 
to  their  situation."  Every  angle  of  the  roof,  every  cornice, 
every  entablature,  bears  the  seven-headed  serpent ;  and  in 
stead  of  the  Greek  cella  with  the  statue  of  the  genius  loci) 
there  are  courts  containing  tanks,  in  which  (we  are  com 
pelled  to  infer)  the  living  Serpents  dwelt  and  were  adored. 
The  date  of  this  marvellous  structure  must  be  somewhere 
about  the  tenth  century  of  our  era ;  at  all  events  before 
the  fourteenth,  when  the  Siamese  conquered  Cambodia, 
the  cities  of  the  Serpent  worshippers  were  deserted,  and 
Buddhism  was  established. 

In  China  the  traces  of  Serpent  worship  are  obscure ;  the 
most  notable  being  the  popularity  of  the  emblem  of  a  mon 
strous  heraldic  dragon  ;  and  a  legend  of  two  heaven-sent 
serpents  who  attended  the  first  ablutions  of  Confucius. 

Scattered  all  over  Oceanica  and  Australia  are  instances 
enough  to  countenance  the  hypothesis  that  it  was  by  way 
of  the  islands  the  cultus  penetrated  to  Central  America. 

All  the  Cingalese  Buddhist  histories  describe  Buddha  as 
himself  converting  the  Nagas  of  Ceylon ;  but  in  Mr.  Fergus- 

13 


194  A  PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

son's  opinion,  the  conversion  was  far  from  complete.  Tree 
worship  has  been  more  openly  adhered  to  in  the  island  than 
that  of  Serpents.  King  Asoka,  the  Constantine  of  Buddhism, 
B.C.  250,  sent  a  branch  of  the  Bo-tree  to  the  king  of  Anura- 
dhapura,  who  received  it  with  the  utmost  honours  and  planted 
it  in  the  centre  of  his  capital.  The  city  is  now  a  desert  and 
its  temples  in  ruins  ;  but  the  Bo-tree  still  flourishes,  and 
every  year  thousands  of  pilgrims  repair  to  it  to  offer  up 
prayers  which  are  "  more  likely  to  be  answered  if  uttered  in 
its  presence." 

Reaching  India  at  last,  the  sphere  of  his  principal  re 
searches,  Mr.  Fergusson  attempts  a  preliminary  sketch  of  the 
very  difficult  ethnology  and  religious  history  of  the  penin 
sula.  Into  this  maze  I  cannot  spare  space  to  follow  him. 
His  leading  idea  here,  as  throughout  the  book,  is  that 
Serpent  worship  is  always  the  cropping-up  of  the  super 
stition  of  an  underlying  Touranian  race,  and  that  to  neither 
of  the  great  Aryan  immigrations — called  the  Solar  and  the 
Lunar  races — was  it  due.  The  Aryan  Buddha,  however,  by 
falling  back  on  other  Touranian  ideas,  caused  its  great 
revival;  and  the  Serpent-emblazoned  Topes  of  Sanchi  and 
Amravati  are  the  existing  monuments  of  the  fact.  With 
the  disappearance  of  Buddhism  from  Hindostan  and  the  rise 
of  modern  Brahminism  under  the  leadership  of  Sankara 
Acharya  about  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century  A.D.,  the 
erection  of  such  buildings  ceased ;  but  not  on  that  account 
has  the  worship  of  either  living  or  sculptured  serpents  died 
out  of  India.  To  the  description  of  these  two  great  Topes, 
and  the  magnificent  collection  of  photographs  and  litho 
graphs  of  their  sculptures,  the  remainder  of  Mr.  Fergusson's 
book  is  devoted.1  As  the  descriptions  are,  of  course,  not 

1  A  beautiful  model  of  one  of  the  gateways  of  the  Sanchi  Tope  formed  one 
of  the  most  interesting  objects  in  the  Fine  Arts  Department  of  the  International 
Exhibition  of  1871,  in  South  Kensington. 


A   PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  195 

intelligible  without  the  plates,  I  can  only  offer  a  general 
account  of  these  very  remarkable  ruins. 

Before  doing  so,  however,  I  must  allow  myself  to  give 
utterance  to  an  expression  of  surprise  at  Mr.  Fergusson's 
doctrine,  repeated  here  from  his  Architecture,  that  the  Aryan 
race  were  never  builders,  because  "  they  always  had  too  firm 
a  conviction  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  consequently 
of  the  existence  of  a  future  state,  ever  to  care  much  for  a 
brick  or  stone  immortality  in  this  world ;  and  no  material  art 
satisfied  the  cravings  of  their  intellectual  powers."  (p.  78.) 
It  may  be  a  fact  that  the  Aryan  races  were  not  architects. 
I  cannot  presume  to  argue  in  the  face  of  Mr.  Fergusson's 
vast  erudition  on  the  subject ;  albeit  to  admit  the  Aryan 
origin  of  the  peoples  who  built  the  temples  of  Athens  and 
the  churches  of  Rome,  and  York,  and  Strasbourg,  and  yet 
maintain  that  the  genius  of  architecture  is  foreign  to  their 
blood,  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  startling  paradox.  But  whatever 
Mr.  Fergusson's  fact  may  be,  the  reason  he  assigns  for  it  is, 
of  course,  open  to  criticism,  and  against  this  reason  I  cannot 
but  vigorously  protest.  That  a  vivid  belief  in  a  future  life 
would  nullify  all  ambition  for  a  stone  immortality,  is  surely 
very  improbable,  in  the  first  place ;  and  in  the  second,  the 
example  of  the  Egyptians  seems  to  prove  precisely  the 
opposite  conclusion.  If  ever  there  were  a  race  which 
intensely  felt  the  consciousness  of  the  great  truth,  "that 
the  soul  of  a  man  never  dies,"  it  was  that  same  race  which  so 
vehemently  desired  a  stone  immortality,  that  it  loaded  the 
earth  with  Pyramids,  which  are  hardly  so  much  works  of 
architectural  art,  as  mere  dumb  expressions  of  that  longing. 
It  is  impossible  that  Mr.  Fergusson  can  have  overlooked  this 
fact.  I  cannot  conjecture  how  he  disregards  it. 

The  ruins  of  Sanchi  in  Central  India  between  the  towns  of 
Bhilsa  and  Bhopal,  and  those  of  Amravati  on  the  Kistna,  are 
of  an  age  immediately  preceding  and  following  the  Christian 


196  A   PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

era.  Those  of  Sanchi  are  the  most  ancient ;  the  principal 
Tope,  as  there  is  good  reason  to  believe,  having  been  erected 
by  King  Asoka,  about  B.C.  250.  Stone  building  was  then 
evidently  in  its  infancy  in  India,  and  only  beginning  to 
replace  wood,  whose  forms  of  construction  it  is  made  to 
imitate.  All  the  details,  and  especially  the  forms  of  the 
very  singular  surrounding  stone  rails  and  their  gateways, 
are,  as  Mr.  Fergusson  says,  "  very  good  carpentry,  but  very 
poor  masonry."  Three  forms  pervade  all  the  monuments  of 
both  Sanchi  and  Amravati : — 1.  Topes  or  Stupas,  mound-like 
buildings  erected  for  the  preservation  of  relics  ;  2.  Chaityas, 
which,  both  in  form  and  purpose,  resembled  early  Christian 
churches  ;  3.  Yiharas,  residences  of  priests  and  monks 
attached  to  the  Topes  and  Chaityas.  The  Topes  at  Sanchi 
form  part  of  a  great  group  of  such  monuments,  extending 
over  a  district  of  seventeen  miles,  and  numbering  forty  or 
fifty  tumuli.  The  great  Tope  consists  of  an  enormous  mound, 
built  in  the  following  manner.  First,  a  basement  121  feet 
in  diameter,  and  14  feet  high.  On  the  top  of  this  a  terrace 
or  procession  path  5  feet  6  inches  wide.  Within  this  rises 
the  dome,  a  truncated  hemisphere  39  feet  high,  originally 
coated  with  chunam.  On  the  top  of  the  dome,  is  a  level 
platform  measuring  34  feet  across.  Within  this  was  a 
square  Tee  or  relic  box,  of  sixteen  square  pillars  with  rails, 
and,  over  all,  a  circular  support  for  the  umbrella  which 
always  crowned  these  monuments.  But  the  most  remark 
able  feature  of  the  building  is  the  rail,  which  surrounds  it  at 
the  distance  of  9  feet  6  inches  from  the  base,  and  consists  of 
100  pillars  11  feet  high,  exclusive  of  the  gigantic  gateways. 
These  gateways  are  covered  with  the  richest  and  most 
fantastic  sculptures,  both  in  the  round,  and  in  bas-relief. 
About  one  half  of  their  sculptures  represent  the  worship  of 
Trees  or  of  Dagobas  (relic  shrines),  others  represent  scenes 
in  the  life  of  Buddha,  and  others  again  ordinary  events, 


A  PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  197 


feasting,  concerts,  and  so  on.  The  merit  of  these  sculptures, 
Mr.  Fergusson  considers  as  "  superior  to  that  of  Egypt,  but 
inferior  to  the  art  as  practised  in  Greece."  They  are 
"  extremely  different  to  the  usual  sculptures  brought  home 
from  India.  Neither  at  Sanchi  nor  at  Amravati  are  there 
any  of  those  many-armed  or  many-headed  divinities,  who 
form  the  staple  of  the  modern  Hindoo  Pantheon.  There  are 
none  of  those  monstrous  combinations  of  men  with  the  heads 
of  elephants,  or  lions,  or  boars.  All  the  men  and  women  are 
represented  as  acting  as  men  and  women  have  acted  in  all 
time."  The  sculptures  at  Sanchi  are  the  more  rude  and 
vigorous.  Those  at  Amravati  are  on  a  scale  of  excellence, 
"perhaps  nearer  to  the  contemporary  art  of  the  Eoman 
Empire  under  Constantino,  than  any  other  that  could  be 
named,  or  of  the  early  Italian  Renaissance." 

Two  races  may  be  readily  distinguished  as  depicted  in 
the  sculptures.  First,  the  Hindoos,  originally  pure  Aryans, 
though  of  mixed  blood  at  the  age  of  the  sculptures,  evidently 
the  dominant  race.  The  men  wear  the  dhoti  and  turban ; 
the  women  are  covered  with  jewels,  but  strangely  divested 
of  clothing.  This  last  is  a  feature  so  remarkable  that, 
being  also  found  elsewhere,  Mr.  Fergusson  concludes  that 
before  the  Mahometan  conquest  nudity  in  India  conveyed 
no  sense  of  indecency.  The  second  race  wore  kilts  and 
cloaks,  and  (most  marked  peculiarity)  are  represented 
with  beards,  which  the  Aryans  never  wear.  The  women 
wear  neat  and  decent  dresses  and  no  ornaments.  It  would 
appear  that  these  are  the  aborigines  of  the  country.1 

1  A  great  Oriental  scholar,  between  whose  judgment  and  that  of  Mr.  Fergusson 
I  cannot  presume  to  hold  the  balance,  maintains  that  our  author  is  wrong  in 
treating  any  of  the  sculptures  as  historical  records.  They  are,  he  conceives,  mere 
illustrations  of  the  fairy  tales  popular  in  the  age  to  which  they  belong.  The 
distinction  between  Fairy  Tales,  Mythology,  and  Eeligion,  in  early  epochs,  ap 
pears  by  no  means  easy  to  define.  Whether  the  works  in  question  may  be  taken 
to  belong  to  the  same  class  as  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  portraying  the  actual 
contemporary  Panathenaic  Processions ;  or  to  that  of  the  metopes  of  the  same 


198  A   PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

Some  obscurity  exists  as  to  the  precise  meaning  of  the 
Serpents  introduced  into  these  sculptures.  Are  the  Hindoos 
intended  to  honour  them  ?  Do  the  serpents  (nagas)  honour 
the  Hindoos  ?  But  no  doubt  at  all  exists  about  the  reverence 
which  men  are  everywhere  represented  as  paying  to  Trees. 
Plate  xxv.  for  example  represents  the  Bo-tree  of  Buddha 
growing  out  of  a  temple.  Devas  bear  offerings  to  it  above 
and  four  Hindoos  stand  before  it,  below,  with  closed  hands 
in  the  attitude  of  prayer.  "Taken  altogether,"  says  Mr. 
Fergusson,  "the  Tree  is  the  most  important  object  of  wor 
ship  "  in  the  Sanchi  Tope.  "It  is  difficult  to  convey  an 
idea  of  the  extreme  frequency  of  the  illustrations  of  it." 

The  Amravati  Topes  are  in  a  much  more  ruinous  state 
than  those  of  Sanchi.  Fortunately  Sir  Walter  Elliot  pro 
cured  a  quantity  of  sculptures  from  them,  and  sent  them 
to  England  in  1856.  These — discovered  by  Mr.  Fergusson 
in  1867  in  the  coach-house  of  Fife  House — are  a  perfect 
treasury  of  knowledge  of  ancient  Indian  religion  and  man 
ners,  as  the  beautiful  photographs  of  them  in  this  volume 
amply  testify.  The  great  Tope  at  Amravati  was  of  enormous 
size.  Its  dimensions  as  recorded  by  Colonel  Mackenzie  are 
195  feet  for  the  inside  diameter  of  the  outer  circle  and  165 
feet  for  that  of  the  inner.  On  the  first  of  the  measurements 
Mr.  Fergusson  appends  the  following  note :  "  By  a  curious 
coincidence  this  is  exactly  twice  the  diameter  of  the  outer 
circle  at  Stonehenge.  The  outer  rail  in  the  Indian  example 
is  14  feet  high ;  that  at  Stonehenge  is  as  nearly  as  csfti  now 
be  measured  15ft.  6in."  In  Mr.  Fergusson's  opinion  the 
two  buildings  were  erected  much  about  the  same  time  and 
for  the  same  purpose,  viz.,  that  of  cenotaphs  or  relic-shrines. 
Each  of  the  four  gateways  at  Amravati  projected  about  30 

temple  illustrating  the  fabulous  legend  of  the  wars  of  the  Centaurs  and  Lapithge ; 
or,  lastly,  to  that  of  the  colossal  group  of  the  pediment  representing  the  great 
mystery  of  Athenian  religion,  the  birth  of  Pallas  Athene, — I  do  not  venture  to 
offer  an  opinion. 


A   FEE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  199 

feet  beyond  the  outer  rail,  but  they  are  all  so  much  ruined 
that  the  dimensions  cannot  be  exactly  ascertained.  The 
sculptures  brought  away  proved  on  examination  to  be  of 
three  kinds :  1.  Large  and  coarse,  belonging  to  the  cen 
tral  building.  2.  Carvings  so  delicate  as  to  seem  rather 
to  belong  to  ivory  than  to  stone  belonging  to  the  inner  rail. 
3.  A  group  belonging  to  the  outer  rail.  The  quantity  of 
these  sculptures  was  amazing.  The  central  discs  of  the 
pillars  alone  contained  from  6000  to  7000  figures : 

"If  we  add  to  these  the  continuous  frieze  above,  and  the  sculptures 
above  and  below  the  discs  on  the  pillars,  there  probably  were  not  less 
than  from  120  to  140  figures  for  each  intercolumniation,  say  12,000 
to  14,000  in  all.  The  inner  rail  probably  contains  even  a  greater 
number  of  figures  than  this,  but  they  are  so  small  as  more  to  resemble 
ivory  carving,  but  except  perhaps  the  great  frieze  at  Nakhon  Vat  (in 
Cambodia),  there  is  not  even  in  India,  and  certainly  not  in  any  other 
part  of  the  world,  a  storied  page  of  sculpture  equal  in  extent  to  what 
this  must  have  been  when  complete.  If  not  quite,  it  must  in  all  prob 
ability  have  been  nearly  perfect  less  than  a  century  ago." 

The  subjects  of  these  sculptures  are  of  course  very  various 
— animals,  bulls,  elephants,  etc.,  very  well  depicted,  feasts, 
concerts  of  instruments,  scenes  from  the  life  of  Buddha, 
and  so  on.  Most  prominent,  as  well  as  most  interesting 
as  touching  on  our  subject,  are  the  groups  of  Tree  and 
Serpent  worshippers  everywhere  to  be  observed. 

At  Sanchi,  the  Serpent  worship  had  been  in  the  back 
ground,  and  the  Tree  worship  prominent.  At  Amravati,  in 
the  oldest  part,  the  Tree  flourishes  as  usual,  but  in  the  later 
portion  the  Serpent  appears  ten  or  twelve  times  as  the 
principal  object  of  worship ;  twice  he  shields  the  head  of 
Buddha,  and  forty  or  fifty  times  he  appears  spreading  his 
protecting  hood  of  heads  over  Rajahs  and  persons  of  im 
portance. 

This  may  be  reckoned  the  culmination  of  Buddhistic  Ser 
pent  worship  in  India.  Four  centuries  later  Brahminism 


200  A  PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION. 

revived,  and  Buddhism  was  banished  to  the  Further  India, 
Ceylon,  China,  and  Thibet.  But  was  there  then  an  end 
of  this  ever-reviving  hydra  of  idolatry  ?  Not  at  all !  The 
Serpent  still  plays  an  important  part  in  that  half  of  Hindu 
worship  which  is  addressed  to  Vishnu,  and  appears  con 
stantly  in  his  images,  extending  its  hood  of  heads  over 
him,  or  twisted  round  his  throne.  In  a  letter  which  Mr. 
Fergusson  has  published  in  his  Appendix,  dated  January, 
1869,  Dr.  Balfour  says,  "  Snake  worship  is  general  through 
out  peninsular  India,  both  of  the  sculptured  form  and  of 
the  living  creature."  The  vitality  of  the  idolatry  is  as 
remarkable  as  the  vitality  of  the  idol.  The  Serpent  and 
his  worship  are  always  "  scotched  but  not  killed."  l 

Let  me  now  attempt  to  sum  up  some  of  the  results  towards 
which  these  marshalled  facts  of  Mr.  Fergusson  most  clearly 
point.  In  the  first  place,  we  find  that  a  certain  form  of 
worship  has  once  extended  over  nearly  the  whole  known 
world.  We  find  that  it  lingered  long,  even  amid  Greek 
and  Roman  civilization ;  and  subsisted  side  by  side  with  the 
Monotheism  of  the  Jews  so  late  as  the  days  of  Hezekiah. 
We  find  that  it  cropped  up  through  Buddhism  and 
Brahminism  as  it  had  done  through  the  Norse  and  Grecian 
mythologies,  and  that  it  formed  a  large  part  of  the  religion 
of  ancient  America.  Finally,  we  find  that  it  still  exists 
in  all  its  horrid  glory  among  the  sanguinary  savages  of 
Dahomey;  and  dwells  yet  unconquered  among  our  own 
subjects  of  Hindostan.  Here  is  assuredly  food  enough  for 
reflection.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  this  is  a  religion 
without  a  Book  or  an  organized  Church ;  a  religion  which 
never  had  a  Prophet  or  an  Apostle,  and  which  offers, 
consequently,  absolutely  no  ground  on  which  to  exercise 

1  See  for  both  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship  a  very  remarkable  article,  "The 
Religion  of  an  Indian  Province."  Fortnightly  Review,  February,  1872. 


A   PRE-HISTORIC  RELIGION.  201 

historical  criticism.  It  is  (as  we  said  at  starting)  a  con 
tribution  to  the  History  of  Opinion  and  Sentiment;  but 
no  contribution  worth  naming  to  the  ordinary  History 
of  facts  and  persons.  The  more  we  consider  it  the  more 
mysterious  it  appears.  That  a  creature  like  the  Serpent, 
naturally  dreadful,  should  come  to  be  universally  beloved, 
that  the  owner  of  the  poison-fang  should  be  constantly 
identified  with  the  Restorer  of  Health;  this  is  of  itself  a 
paradox.  Again,  the  ever- recurring  connexion  between  the 
Tree  and  the  Serpent,  the  beautiful  and  beneficent  veget 
able  and  the  noxious  reptile,  is  well-nigh  incomprehensible. 
Future  thinkers  pondering  these  facts  may  see  light  through 
them,  and  be  enabled  to  gain  new  and  valuable  insight 
thereby  into  human  nature's  strange  recesses.  For  the 
present,  we  can  but  perceive  that  a  fresh  demonstration 
has  been  given  of  the  Moral  Unity  of  our  race;  and  of 
the  progressive  character  of  Religion  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  stage  all  over  the  world.  Those  old  Aryans  whose 
sculptured  forms  we  behold  upon  the  ruined  mound  of 
Sanchi  with  their  clasped  hands  praying  to  the  Tree  of 
Life,  were  but  the  fathers  after  the  flesh  and  after  the 
spirit  of  us  who  have  indeed  gained  many  truths  in  advance 
of  them,  but  who  still  too  often 

Lift  lame  hands  of  faith,  and  grope 

And  gather  dust  and  chaff,  and  call 

To  what  we  feel  is  Lord  of  all, 
And  faintly  trust  the  larger  hope. 


ESSAY  Fill. 


THE  RELIGIONS   OF  THE  WORLD.1 

A  FIRST  glance  at  Bunsen's  Biography  and  its  illustrations 
suggests  the  reflection  that  to  the  subject  thereof,  the  lot  of 
humanity  certainly  "fell  in  pleasant  places."  A  man  who  has 
always  looked  at  life  out  of  the  windows  of  such  abodes  as 
Palazzo  Caffarelli  and  Yilla  Piccolomini,  Carlton  Gardens  and 
Hurstmonceaux,  the  Hiibel  at  Berne  and  Charlottenberg 
on  the  Neckar,  must  needs  be  hard  to  please  if  he  find  it  not 
a  pleasant  prospect.  Assuredly  not  among  such  exceptionally 
dark-souled  ones  was  Karl  Christian  Bunsen.  Only  to  look 
at  his  beaming  countenance  on  the  title-page  with  its  broad 
brow  and  smiling  lips  and  large  blue  eyes  d  fleur  de  tete, 
suffices  to  make  us  recognize  him  as  a  perfect  type  of  the 
sanguine  temperament,  a  born  disciple  of  that  school  of 
philosophy  which  never  fails  to  find 

Sermons  in  stones  and  good  in  everything. 

Bunsen  was  a  gifted,  energetic,  successful  man,  healthy 
in  body,  superabundantly  healthy  (were  such  a  thing 
possible)  in  mind  and  heart,  and  peculiarly  fortunate  in  the 
chief  relations  of  life.  He  was  happy;  and  if  piety,  earnest- 

1  A  Memoir  of  Baron  Bunsen,  by  Baroness  Bunsen.  London :  Longmans, 
1868.  2  vols.  8vo. 

God  in  History,  by  C.  C.  J.  Baron  Bunsen.  Translated  from  the  German  by 
Susanna  Winkworth.  London:  Longmans,  1868. 


204  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

ness,  and  warmth  of  human  kindness  merit  happiness,  he 
deserved  his  pleasant  lot.  It  is  good  to  come  close  to 
such  a  life  now  and  then,  to  be  frotte  cle  bonte  et  de 
bonheur,  and  to  warm  ourselves  for  a  few  moments  at  such 
a  hearth  of  kindly  affections  and  fervid  enthusiasms.  We 
shall  think  none  the  less  but  rather  the  more  of  his  last 
great  book,  which  it  is  the  main  purpose  of  this  paper  to 
review,  if  we  pause  for  a  few  moments  over  these  tomes  of 
loving  recollections.  Not  for  us  be  the  criticism  which  pre 
judges  that  because  a  man  was  unusually  sound  in  heart  and 
head,  unusually  full  of  faith  in  God  and  in  the  Good  which 
is  to  be  "the  final  goal  of  ill,"  therefore  his  judgments  ought 
to  be  suspected,  and  his  conclusions  set  down  to  the  score  of 
unreasoning  optimism.  If  we  find  what  we  deem  errors  in 
Bunsen's  book,  we  shall  not  lay  them  at  the  door  of  his 
happy  temperament,  but  account  for  them  (as  we  most  justly 
may)  as  the  result  of  the  hurried  labour  of  a  life  rapidly 
drawing  to  its  term.  Is  there  cause  to  marvel  if  the  reaper 
on  whom  the  night  is  closing  fast,  eagerly  panting  to  fulfil 
his  task,  should  fill  his  bosom,  not  only  with  much  ripe  corn, 
but  also  with  a  few  idle  flowers  and  weeds  ? 

Bunsen  was  born  in  1791  at  Corbach  in  Waldeck ;  his 
father  a  soldier,  his  grandfather  an  advocate.  Having  com 
pleted  his  studies  at  Gottingen,  he  travelled  to  Paris,  and 
thence  migrated  to  Florence  and  Rome,  where  his  early 
friend  Brandis  was  secretary  to  the  Prussian  Legation,  then 
headed  by  Niebiihr.  Bunsen's  talents  were  almost  imme 
diately  recognized  by  the  great  critic,  and  ere  long,  through 
a  series  of  well-merited  promotions,  he  passed  from  the  rank 
of  an  attache  to  that  of  a  secretary  and  finally  himself 
became  Minister ;  a  position  he  held  with  honour  for  many 
years.  A  visit  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  then  Crown  Prince, 
to  Rome  originated  a  friendship  almost  romantic,  which  the 
sovereign  afterwards  testified  by  the  highest  possible  honours 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  205 

offered  to  Bunsen  on  the  occasion  of  a  journey  to  Berlin  in 
1827.  Meanwhile  Bunsen  had  married  an  English  lady  of 
birth  and  fortune  (Miss  Waddington),  whose  pen  now  records 
in  widowhood  the  unbroken  happiness  of  their  union.  Their 
residence  in  the  beautiful  Palazzo  Caffarelli  in  Rome  with  its 
splendid  view  over  the  Forum,  the  Coliseum,  and  the  long 
stretches  of  the  Appian  Way,  was  soon  brightened  by  the 
presence  of  a  numerous  family  and  by  the  frequent  visits  of 
that  choicest  tribe  of  European  Bedouins  who  find  their 
way  each  year  to  the  City — Eternal,  at  all  events,  in  its 
attractiveness. 

Difficulties,  arising  out  of  the  question  of  civil  marriages, 
having  occurred  between  Prussia  and  the  Papal  court, 
Bunsen's  mission  terminated  in  1838,  and  he  visited  Eng 
land,  to  find  all  her  doors  open  to  him,  and  soon  to  form  for 
the  country  of  his  wife  an  attachment  only  second  to  that 
which  he  bore  to  that  of  his  fathers.  On  the  next  change 
at  the  embassy,  the  wishes  of  the  English  court  aided  the 
king's  desire  to  pass  over .  Bunsen's  lack  of  the  usual  rank 
for  so  high  a  mission.  He  represented  Prussia  thenceforth  in 
London  for  a  long  series  of  years,  beloved  and  honoured  as, 
perhaps,  no  other  foreigner  has  ever  been  amongst  us.  To  the 
social  world,  he  was  the  amiable  and  courteous  gentleman, 
over-flowing  with  a  kindliness  all  the  more  delightful,  inas 
much  as  it  surpassed  by  several  degrees  the  warmth  of  manner 
which  would  have  been  expected,  or  perhaps  admired,  in  an 
English  statesman.  To  his  diplomatic  brethren,  he  was  an 
able  and  honourable  confrere.  To  the  orthodox  Protestant 
camp  he  was  the  champion  who  had  withstood  the  Pope  on 
the  question  of  the  concordat  with  Prussia,  and  had  nego 
tiated  the  establishment  of  the  Anglo-Prussian  Bishopric 
of  Jerusalem.  Lastly,  to  the  Liberal  party  in  the  English 
Church,  the  Broad  Church  of  Arnold,  Maurice,  and  Hare, 
he  was  the  beloved  friend  and  associate  who  united  the 


206  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

learning  of  a  recluse  scholar  with  the  practical  power  of 
a  man  of  the  world,  and  a  freedom  of  critical  judgment 
equalled  only  by  the  enthusiasm  of  his  Christian  piety. 

At  last,  his  public  career  brought  to  an  honourable  close, 
Bunsen  retired  to  spend  his  last  years  in  study  at  Heidelberg 
and  at  Bonn,  with  occasional  visits  to  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean.  In  the  society  of  his  wife,  family,  and 
friends  (among  whom  the  gifted  translatress  of  his  chief 
works,  Miss  Winkworth,  was  among  the  most  welcome), 
this  good  and  happy  man  passed  his  elder  life,  neither 
deeming  that  few  nor  evil  had  been  the  days  of  his  pil 
grimage.  Just  ere  completing  his  three  score  years  and 
ten,  after  a  decline  marked  by  little  suffering,  he  died  sur 
rounded  by  his  children,  and  with  his  last  strength  reiterat 
ing  the  expression  of  his  fervent  faith  in  God,  and  Christ, 
and  immortality. 

Of  Bunsen's  chief  legacies  to  the  world,  his  Description  of 
Rome,  his  Hippolytus  and  his  Times,  his  Egypt's  Place  in 
Universal  History,  his  Signs  of  the  Times,  his  Church  of  the 
Future,  and  his  God  in  History,  I  can  only  here  speak  of 
the  last,  which  the  affectionate  labours  of  his  friend  Miss 
"Winkworth  have  now  given  to  the  English  public  in  a  very 
perfect  translation.  To  this  work,  then,  I  devote  the  re 
mainder  of  my  space. 

When  Bunsen  was  a  young  man  of  twenty- six,  he  wrote 
in  his  journal  a  prayer,  of  which  the  substance  lies  in  these 
words : 

What  in  childhood  I  yearned  after,  what  throughout  the  years  of 
youth  grew  clearer  before  my  soul,  I  will  now  venture  to  examine. 
The  revelation  of  Thee  in  man's  energies  and  efforts,  Thy  firm  path 
through  the  stream  of  ages,  I  long  to  trace  as  far  as  may  be  permitted 
to  me  even  in  this  body  of  earth.  The  song  of  praise  to  Thee  from 
the  whole  of  humanity  in  times  far  and  near,  the  pains  and  lamenta 
tions  of  earth  and  their  consolation  in  Thee,  I  wish  to  take  in  clear 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  207 

and  unhindered.  Preserve  me  in  strength  and  truth  of  spirit  to  the 
end  of  my  earthly  existence  if  Thou  seest  good,  and  should  I  not  finish 
what  I  shall  have  begun,  let  me  find  peace  in  the  conviction  that 
nothing  shall  perish  which  is  done  in  Thee  and  with  Thee  ;  and  that 
what  I  have  imperfectly,  however  imperfectly  conceived  and  indis 
tinctly  expressed,  I  shall  yet  hereafter  behold  in  completeness,  while 
here  some  other  man  shall  perfect  what  I  have  endeavoured  to  do,1 

It  would  truly  seem  as  if  the  holy  desire  of  his  youth  had 
remained  the  aim  of  his  life,  and  that  before  he  left  the 
world  he  was  permitted  in  great  measure  to  fulfil  it,  and  to 
leave  behind  him  the  record  of  the  "Song  of  Humanity," 
such  as  his  ear  had  caught  it  echoing  across  the  wide  plains 
of  history.  Of  the  four  last  years  of  his  life,  three  were  spent 
in  the  composition  of  this  book.  If  in  our  examination  of 
it,  along  with  much  that  is  of  great  and  durable  value,  we 
find  what  seem  in  our  eyes  blemishes  and  shortcomings,  at 
least  we  may  have  faith  that  as  the  former  part  of  his 
youthful  prayer  has  been  accomplished,  so  has  also  the 
latter ;  and  that  "  what  on  earth  he  imperfectly  conceived 
and  indistinctly  expressed,  he  now  beholds  in  completeness," 
looking  over  all  from  those  higher  ranges  of  thought,  those 
clearer  heights  of  contemplation  where  the  Immortals  dwell. 

God  in  History  has  a  magnificent  idea  for  its  theme.  It 
aims  to  survey  the  whole  field  of  human  religious  conscious 
ness  for  the  purpose  of  proving  the  unity  of  the  Divine  plan 
in  the  moral  order  of  the  world.  In  reading  it  we  seem  to  see 
the  writer  wearied  with  the  cares  of  statecraft,  quitting  in  his 
honoured  age  the  camp  of  contending  parties,  and  climbing 
up  in  solitary  study  to  a  Pisgah  height,  whence  he  could 
look  down,  not  indeed  on  the  Promised  Land  of  the  Future, 
but  back  over  the  long  desert  of  the  Past,  through  which 
the  cloudy  Pillar  of  Providence  has  led  our  race  by  many  a 
devious  road.  Then,  as  if  in  haste  lest  his  days  on  earth 
should  be  too  short  for  the  work,  with  the  eagerness  of  one 

1  Life,  vol.  i.  p.  120. 


208  TEE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

who  felt  the  importance  of  that  which  he  had  to  tell,  and 
with  somewhat  also  of  the  authority  of  one  who  had  beheld 
a  vision  and  only  announced  what  he  had  seen  and  heard,  he 
dictated  this  book,  through  long  successive  hours,  like 
another  Milton,  to  his  daughters.  A  book  produced  under 
such  circumstances  has  a  peculiar  and  exceptional  value.  It 
is  not  the  value  of  a  Critical  History  of  Religion :  that 
greatest  of  histories  must  wait  yet  many  a  day  for  a  pen 
able  to  trace  even  its  outlines.  But  in  a  true  and  important 
sense  Bunsen's  work  has  a  merit  beyond  that  of  even  a 
perfect  cyclopsedia  of  theologic  history  :  it  is  in  itself  a 
Lesson  of  Theology.  Let  me  explain  my  meaning,  as  near 
as  may  be,  in  his  own  phrases. 

The  question  may  be  treated  as  an  open  one :  is  there,  or 
is  there  not,  a  moral  unity  in  the  history  of  humanity  ? 
Has  there  been  a  development  of  the  higher  elements  of  our 
nature  under  any  law  of  progress  ?  Bunsen  maintains  there 
is  such  a  moral  unity,  and  that  there  has  been  such  a  de 
velopment  ;  and  writes  his  book  to  demonstrate  the  thesis. 
In  doing  this  he  assumes  a  position  towards  Christian 
and  heathen  religions  which  in  some  respects  is  peculiar 
to  himself.  On  the  one  hand,  he  allots  to  Christ  the  place 
of  "  the  uniting  bond  of  two  worlds  ;  "  "  no  product 
of  the  ancient  world,  yet  its  consummation ;  no  mere 
herald  of  the  new  world,  but  its  abiding  Archetype,  the 
perennial  well-spring  of  life  to  humanity  through  the 
Spirit."  The  Bible  is,  he  thinks,  the  "  Book  of  Humanity." 
Christ  is  set  "between  the  two  halves"  of  history,  and  the 
Hebrew  religious  consciousness  as  traced  in  the  Bible  is 
made  by  him  the  keynote  and  standard  of  all  that  follows. 
On  the  other  hand,  Bunsen  is  far  indeed  from  denying 
that  it  was  the  same  divine  inspiration  which  spake  through 
the  poets  and  philosophers  of  Greece,  and  the  prophets  of 
Eastern  heathendom,  as  in  the  seers  and  apostles  of  Palestine. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  209 


The  second,  third,  and  fourth  books  of  God  in  History  are 
devoted  to  a  most  candid  and  sympathizing  study  of  the 
religious  development  of  the  Gentile  races  of  Asia  and 
Europe ;  and  had  the  work  no  other  merit,  it  would  deserve 
our  gratitude  for  the  noble  extracts  which  it  contains  from 
the  best  literature  of  the  ancient  pagan  world,  and  the 
striking  observations  of  the  author  upon  them.  Nor  let  it 
be  forgotten,  that  fifteen  years  ago,  when  Bunsen's  task  was 
undertaken,  such  true  liberalism  was  far  less  common  than 
now.  Mer>  still  thought,  then,  that  they  went  very  far  on 
the  road  of  toleration  if  they  admitted  that  human  reason, 
"  unassisted  reason,"  (that  singular  invention  of  Protestant 
piety),  had  taught  to  heathens  the  existence  of  God  and  the 
ruder  elements  of  morality.  The  idea  that  God  inspired 
heathens  had  as  yet  hardly  been  whispered  in  the  churches, 
nor  the  doctrine  that  in  any  sense  He  "led"  Greeks  and 
Hindoos  as  well  as  "  Israel  "  like  sheep.  The  whole  history 
of  opinion  in  this  matter,  in  truth,  is  most  curious,  and 
worthy  of  a  moment's  recall,  if  we  would  understand  how 
large  was  the  heart  of  Bunsen,  which,  already  brimming 
over  with  Christian  enthusiasm,  had  room  also  for  warm 
recognition  of  the  Divine,  wherever  he  found  it  outside 
Christianity. 

In  old  classic  days  the  polytheistic  nations  were  always 
ready  to  admit  that  other  races  besides  themselves  were 
Divine  favourites.  The  Greeks  looked  with  respect  on  the 
Thracian  Xamolxis,  the  Assyrian  Bel,  and  the  Egytian  Isis 
and  Osiris.  The  Romans  were  only  too  enthusiastic  in 
welcoming  to  their  Pantheon  the  gods  of  conquered  nations ; 
Mithras  of  Persia  and  Serapis  of  Egypt ;  and  when  they 
thought  they  had  identified  their  own  gods  with  the  local 
deities  of  other  lands — Jupiter  with  the  Druids'  Hesus,  or 
Mercury  with  the  Egyptian  Thoth — no  sort  of  jealousy 
seems  to  have  disturbed  them.  The  Gods  were  good  to  all. 

H 


210  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

Higher  minds  among  them  reached  to  the  faith  in  One  equal 
and  omnipresent  Benevolence.  Lucan  makes  Cato  ask  while 
passing  by,  unconsulted,  the  oracle  of  Ammon : 

Canst  thou  conceive  the  vast  Eternal  Mind 
To  rock  and  cave  and  Libyan  waste  confined  ? 
Is  there  a  place  which  God  would  call  His  own 
Before  a  virtuous  mind,  His  spirit's  noblest  throne  ? 
Why  seek  we  further  ?     Lo  !  above,  around, 
Where'er  thou  wanderest,  there  may  God  be  found, 
And  prayer  from  every  land  is  by  His  blessing  crowned. l 

But  it  has  been  the  opinion  of  modern  Christendom  that 
between  the  fortunate  souls  born  on  the  hither  side  of  the 
pale,  and  the  hapless  spirits  outside  it,  a  great  gulf  is  already 
fixed.  The  Divine  Light  has  been  constantly  described  by 
our  divines  as  if  it  fell  upon  the  earth,  not  through  the  open 
blue  expanse,  with  nothing  hid  from  the  heat  thereof,  but 
through  some  chink  or  cranny  of  a  subterranean  cave,  light 
ing  up  the  small  round  spot  of  Europe  and  Palestine,  and 
leaving  all  the  rest  of  the  planet  in  Egyptian  night.  God 
has  been  habitually  magnified  from  our  pulpits,  and  infant 
lips  taught  to  praise  Him,  not  because  his  mercies  are  over 
all  his  works,  but  precisely  on  the  contrary,  because  we 
enjoy  a  monopoly  of  the  best  of  them,  and  because  each 
babe  among  us  may  boast : 

I  was  not  born,  as  thousands  are, 

Where  God  was  never  known, 
And  taught  to  pray  a  useless  prayer, 

To  blocks  of  wood  and  stone. 

But  better  thoughts  of  the  Divine  Father  have  come  to 
us  at  last.  A  century  ago  men  misdoubted  Pope's  Christ 
ianity,  because  he  prayed  to  the  "  Father  of  All,  in  every 
age  and  every  clime  adored."  But  in  our  day,  such  an 
invocation  would  merely  imply  that  the  speaker  had  es- 

1  Pharsalia,  b.  9. 


THE  RELIGIONS   OF  THE    WORLD.  211 

caped  beyond  the  doors  of  the  very  narrowest  conventicle 
of  obsolete  orthodoxy.  Thousands  of  Englishmen  have  dwelt 
in  heathen  and  Moslem  lands ;  England's  empire  includes 
a  hundred  millions  of  Brahminists  and  Buddhists ;  and 
English  scholars,  with  their  French  and  German  allies, 
have  opened  to  us  the  marvellous  tomes  of  Eastern  litera 
ture,  till  we  have  been  driven  to  feel,  as  never  before,  that 
these  "  heathens  "  were  indeed  "  men  of  like  passions  with 
ourselves";  men  who  joyed  and  sorrowed,  and  struggled 
and  aspired,  and  prayed  and  wrestled  with  the  dread  mys 
teries  of  life  and  death  and  sin  and  suffering,  even  as  we 
have  done.  Then  we  have  seemed  to  hear  a  voice  from 
those  tens  of  millions  of  our  brother-men ;  a  cry  like  that 
of  Esau  of  old,  a  remonstrance  with  God:  Hast  thou  but 
one  blessing,  0  my  Father  ?  And  our  hearts  have  answered, 
"  Xot  so !  For  them  also  the  Father,  from  the  depths  of 
forgotten  time,  ere  yet  the  earliest  Vedic  hymn  invoked 
His  light — for  them  also  He  has  had  a  blessing." 

And  as  the  modern  natural  philosopher  with  his  spectrum 
proves  to  us  that  in  sun  and  planet  and  star  there  exist 
the  same  elementary  substances  we  have  known  upon  our 
world,  so  does  the  new  theologian,  like  Bunsen,  from  the 
refracted  lights  of  truth  and  love  shining  from  the  poetry 
and  the  prayers  of  men  of  far-off  lands  and  distant  centuries, 
demonstrate  to  us  beyond  all  doubt  or  cavil,  that  in  their 
souls  existed  the  self-same  elements  as  in  our  own.  We 
recognize  at  last  that  we  have  no  more  monopoly  of  God's 
love  than  of  the  sunlight ;  of  His  spirit  than  of  the  winds 
of  heaven. 

The  work  which  Bunsen  undertook,  I  think,  he  has 
in  a  great  measure  accomplished.  He  has  shown  that 
there  is  a  moral  unity  in  history;  that  there  exists  a 
Continuity  of  Forces  in  the  spiritual  world ;  that  the  same 


212  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

Divine  light  has  been  more  or  less  shining,  the  same  Divine 
work  more  or  less  rapidly  going  forward,  in  all  lands  and 
centuries.  He  has  shown  that  "  through  the  ages  one 
increasing  purpose  runs,"  and  that  history,  fairly  consulted, 
justifies  the  oracle  in  our  souls  which  bade  us  believe 

One  God  who  ever  lives  and  loves, 

One  God,  one  Law,  one  Element, 

And  one  far-off  Divine  event, 
Towards  which  the  whole  creation  moves. 

This  is  the  work  Bunsen  has  done.  His  book  is  one  long 
cumulative  argument  to  the  reality  of  the  human  conscious 
ness  of  Divine  things ;  an  argument  so  vast  and  multifarious 
that  even  should  many  of  its  minor  propositions  provoke 
criticism  and  fail  to  stand  the  test  of  candid  examination, 
there  will  yet  remain  overwhelming  weight  to  enforce  its 
grand  conclusion. 

The  book  is  this ;  and  it  is  also  one  of  the  most  kindling 
and  living  works  in  recent  literature,  illuminating  with 
gleams  of  poetical  insight  many  an  obscure  valley  in  the 
landscape  of  history,  bridging  across  many  a  chasm,  and 
lighting  up  like  a  setting  sun  the  flaming  summits  of  human 
glory  and  genius.  It  is  a  book  to  inspire  the  coldest  nature 
with  somewhat  of  the  "enthusiasm  of  humanity." 

Such  are  (in  my  humble  estimation)  the  merits  of  God 
in  History.  Justice  compels  me  to  add  what  I  deem  its 
chief  defects.  It  fails  where  it  was  almost  impossible  it 
should  not  fail.  The  scheme  was  too  vast  to  be  brought 
within  the  limits  of  one  book,  or  even  of  one  author's  life. 
Probably  the  present  age  is  that  of  all  others  in  which 
it  is  most  completely  impracticable  for  one  man,  however 
gifted  and  laborious,  to  master  all  the  materials  for  such 
a  work.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  when  Raleigh 
wrote  his  History  of  the  World;  or  one  hundred  years 
ago,  when  the  seven  folios  of  Universal  History  pretty  well 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  213 

exhausted  the  known,  and  (as  it  was  thought)  the  know- 
able  concerning  the  ancient  world,  it  was  comparatively 
practicable  for  an  industrious  student  in  a  lifetime  to  gather 
up  the  facts  for  his  philosophy  of  history.  But  those  old 
materials  are  but  as  a  single  earners  load  compared  with 
the  mounds  of  long  buried  knowledge  which  must  now 
be  ransacked — the  monumental  records  of  Egypt ;  Assyria 
risen  from  the  ashes  which  consumed  Sardanapalus  and 
Belshazzar ;  the  dim  vestiges  by  lake  and  shore  of  the 
childhood  of  the  western  world  ascending  back  to  the  times 
when  the  mammoth  and  the  rhinoceros  roamed  the  forests 
of  Europe  ;  chief  above  all  the  stupendous  stores  of  Oriental 
thought,  the  Vedas  and  their  commentaries,  the  Zend  Avesta, 
the  Chinese  sacred  books,  and  that  measureless  bulk  of 
Buddhist  literature  of  which  one  section  alone  (the  Tanjiir) 
fills  225  folios.  To  build  all  this  into  a  complete  system,  first 
exercising  the  rigorous  criticism  required  to  divide  the  trust 
worthy  from  the  doubtful,  and  this  again  from  the  utterly 
fallacious,  would  be  the  work,  not  of  one  scholar,  but  of  a 
generation  of  scholars.  Our  fire  is  darkened  for  the  moment 
by  the  very  mass  of  new  materials  heaped  upon  it.  It  is  no 
disrespect  to  Bunsen  to  say  that,  while  he  has  displayed 
truly  enormous  learning  in  these  volumes,  I  think  the  criti 
cal  part  of  his  work  has  been  but  imperfectly  accomplished. 
I  do  not  suppose  that  he,  or  those  who  most  loved  him, 
would  claim  for  him  the  almost  miraculous  power  attributed 
to  him  by  one  of  his  reviewers  : 

"  All  languages,  both  dead  and  living,  were  as  familiar  to  him  as  his 
own  ;  and  all  history,  from  the  mystic  annals  of  the  Shepherd  Kings 
of  Egypt  to  the  diplomatic  transactions  of  his  own  day,  lay  spread  out 
like  a  map  before  him."  l 

But  without  such  powers  his  scheme  was  well-nigh  imprac 
ticable.     To  that  majority  of  readers  who   are   neither   so 

1  Edinburgh  Review,  April,  1868,  p.  469. 


214  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

ignorant  as  to  be  unaware  of  existing  controversies  nor 
so  learned  as  to  be  able  to  decide  them  for  themselves,  there 
is  much  that  is  tantalizing  in  Bunsen's  frequent  practice 
of  making  dogmatic  assertions  on  doubtful  matters  without 
giving  us  even  a  clue  to  his  reasons  for  accepting  one  theory 
and  rejecting  another.  We  inevitably  ask  ourselves,  Does 
not  Lepsius,  or  Champollion,  or  Haug,  or  Burnouf  (some 
scholar  who  has  devoted  his  entire  life  to  this  one  depart 
ment  of  history),  give  us  a  different  chronology  or  ethnology, 
or  a  different  exegesis  of  this  passage,  or  a  different  value  of 
that  manuscript  ?  As  Bunsen  rarely  cites  his  authorities, 
we  are  left  too  often  with  suspended  judgment,  till  a  sense 
of  distrust,  perhaps  greater  than  the  occasion  needs,  creeps 
on  our  minds.  In  a  word,  in  these  days  of  criticism  we  can 
accept  no  history  as  satisfactory  which  does  not  lay  bare  its 
critical  basis.  Before  the  pyramid  can  be  built,  the  stone 
causeway  must  be  firmly  laid. 

In  particular,  I  protest  against  Bunsen's  neglect  of 
criticism,  or  at  least  of  explaining  his  principles  of  criticism, 
in  his  dealings  with  Jewish  history.  He  approached  this 
part  of  his  task  in  the  most  liberal  spirit,  and  was  the  last  of 
all  men  to  place  himself  in  the  attitude  of  those  who  cut  the 
knot  of  all  difficulties  by  an  appeal  to  authority.  In  as 
serting,  then,  one  fact  to  be  true  and  discarding  another 
recorded  in  the  same  book  as  false,  he  was  surely  bound  to 
give  us  his  reasons  for  such  a  course.  But  this  is  what  he 
fails  to  do  altogether.  For  example,  he  quotes  at  great 
length,  and  with  some  curious  German  subtleties  of  ex 
planation,  the  strange  story  (Exod.  xxxiii.)  of  Moses  being 
permitted  to  see  the  "back  parts"  of  Jehovah.  To  this  he 
prefixes  the  observation  that  the  phrase  of  having  "  seen 
God"  is  never  used  elsewhere  in  Scripture  except  with 
reference  to  Elijah ;  and  that  the  conception  of  an  actual 
sight  of  the  back  of  a  god-man  was  "as  foreign  to  the  Bible 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  WORLD.  215 

as  repugnant  to  reason  and  good  taste,"  the  "purely  spiritual 
interpretation  of  the  Divine  name"  proving  it  so  (vol.  i. 
pp.  88-90).  But  on  what  authority,  I  ask,  can  Bunsen 
reject  the  detailed  account  in  the  34th  chapter  of  the  same 
Book  of  Exodus,  wherein  it  is  described  how  the  seventy 
elders  "saw  the  God  of  Israel";  and  again,  "saw  God,  and 
did  eat  and  drink  "  ;  and  yet  again,  how  Ezekiel  minutely 
describes,  as  Swelenborg  might  have  done,  "  the  likeness  of 
the  Man  upon  the  throne"  of  the  colour  of  amber,  and  with 
the  likeness  of  fire,  from  his  loins  upwards  and  downwards  ? 
(Ezek.  i.  26,  and  viii.)  Are  we  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
Exodus  xxxiii.  is  history,  and  Exodus  xxiv.  and  Ezekiel  i. 
and  viii.  fables  ?  In  another  place  we  are  told,  with  a  little 
more  display  of  criticism,  that  the  story  of  Abram  (Gen.  xv.) 
is  no  doubt  mythical ;  but  that  the  story  of  Abraham  is  true ; 
and  that  the  document,  Genesis  xiv.,  "  added  by  an  editor  of 
the  eighth  century  B.C.,  alone  would  suffice  to  prove  that 
Abraham  had  a  real  historical  existence,  and  was  therefore  (!) 
the  great-grandfather  of  Joseph "  (i.  p.  83).  After  this, 
we  are  not  surprised  to  hear  that  Moses  is  "an  unquestion 
ably  historical  personage,  both  as  regards  the  account  of  his 
origin  and  the  events  of  his  life."  Both  the  origin  and 
events  of  Moses'  life  have,  I  think,  been  "questioned"  pretty 
freely  of  late !  Again,  as  another  example  of  dogmatism,  I 
must  cite  Bunsen's  assertion  (p.  101)  that  "nothing  can  be 
more  groundless"  than  the  notion  that  the  Jews  derived  their 
ideas  of  Satan,  etc.,  from  the  Chaldees ;  and  his  unbounded 
contempt  for  the  supposition  that  the  Jews  would  have 
accepted  such  doctrines  from  the  heathen.  But  Maimonides 
himself  avows  they  did  so,  and  the  Mischna  says  the  same.1 

Finally,  to  give  entire  utterance  to  my  feelings,  I  •  must 
confess  that  although  the  style  of  writing  in  God  in  History 

1  "  Dixit  Rabbi  Simeon  Ben  Lakis,  'Nomina  angel orum  ascenderunt  in  domum 
Israelis  ex  Babylone.'  " — Rosch  Haschanah  (Tract  of  the  Mischna). 


216  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE    WORLD. 

is  by  no  means  specially  bad  among  German  histories,  and 
although  Miss  "Winkworth  has  shown  herself  as  usual  one 
of  the  very  few  who  really  possess  the  art  of  translation,  yet 
I  find  the  inevitable  difficulties  of  dealing  with  such  thoughts 
as  constitute  the  substance  of  the  book  not  a  little  enhanced 
by  the  mode  of  their  expression.  At  the  best,  it  must  be 
owned,  every  German  Tree  of  Knowledge  bristles  with  a 
frightful  array  of  thorns  ! 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  attempt  a  very  brief  sketch  of  the 
contents  of  these  remarkable  volumes.  The  two  now  trans 
lated1  bring  the  subject  up  to  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  are 
divided  into  four  books.  The  first  book  expounds  the 
purpose  of  the  whole  and  discusses  the  theories  of  the  moral 
order  of  the  world.  The  second  book  treats  of  the  religious 
Consciousness  of  the  Hebrews.  The  third  is  devoted  to  that 
of  the  Aryan  race  in  Eastern  Asia  (the  Zoroastrian,  Yedic, 
Brahmin  and  Buddhist  faiths),  but  includes  preliminary 
chapters  on  the  religion  of  the  non-Aryan  races,  the 
Egyptians,  Turanians  and  Chinese.  The  fourth  book  dis 
cusses  the  Aryans  of  Europe,  the  Greeks,  Romans,  and 
Teutons. 

After  a  very  remarkable  and  freely  handled,  but,  in  my 
judgment,  unsatisfactory  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  re 
ligious  consciousness  of  the  Hebrews,  Bunsen  proceeds  to 
treat  of  that  creed  which  the  Jews  consider  as  the  second 
great  heretical  offshoot  of  their  faith, — Islam.  When  the  old 
heathenisms  of  Arabia  and  Phoenicia  had  sunk  under  the 
influence  of  tyranny  and  of  the  sensuality  which  always 
follows  tyranny,  to  the  lowest  corruption,  and  when  Byzan 
tine  Christendom,  with  its  formalism  and  miserable  hair- 

1  A  third  has  been  published  since  this  Eeview  was  written.  It  is  concerned 
with  the  "  Religious  Consciousness  of  the  Christian  Aryans,"  and  a  Summary  of 

Results. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  217 

splitting  theologic  disputes,  had  failed  utterly  to  convert  the 
races  of  the  south,  then,  says  Bunsen,  Mahomet  stepped 
forth,  "  his  whole  soul  glowing  with  the  consciousness  of 
God's  revelation  of  himself  in  the  heart,  and  uttering  the 
prophetic  words  while  he  shattered  the  idols  of  Mecca : 

The  light  of  Truth  is  come  ; 
Vain  lies  are  quenched. 

That  sense  of  the  Unity  of  God  and  of  the  bond  existing 
between  him  and  the  individual  human  mind  which  Mahomet 
found  in  his  own  soul  and  recognized  in  Judaism  and 
Christianity,  is  the  basis  of  that  universal  empire  of  Islam 
which  appeared  to  him  to  be  the  realization  of  God's  king 
dom  upon  earth."  But  "  he  who  takes  the  sword  shall 
perish  by  the  sword."  Islam  stiffened  and  hardened  into 
formalism  ;  the  wrathful  spirit  of  vengeance  and  the  degra 
dation  of  marriage  destroyed  its  vigour.  The  "  wings  of 
man's  upward  flight  were  paralyzed." 

There  is  doubtless  justice  in  this  brief  sketch  of  the  story 
of  Mahomet's  religion,  yet  like  nearly  all  others  that  I  have 
seen  (save  a  few  of  monstrous  over-estimate),  the  justice  seems 
but  scantily  meted  out.  No  one  disputes  the  immeasurable 
superiority  of  Christianity,  such  as  ice  have  it,  to  Islam.  But 
inasmuch  as  Christianity  itself  has  failed  to  make  the  Greek, 
the  Levantine,  the  Neapolitan,  other  than  the  spiritually 
barren  people  we  find  them,  it  may  not  unfairly  be  argued 
that  had  Islam  fallen  on  the  richer  ground  of  the  North,  it 
would  have  borne  better  fruit  than  it  has  done,  planted  in 
Egyptian  sands.  We  can  easily  see  the  defect  of  Mahomet's 
creed,  and  the  indescribable  spiritual  poverty  of  the  Koran 
as  compared  with  other  Eastern  sacred  books,  not  to  speak  of 
the  Gospels.  But  had  we  lived  in  the  ninth  or  tenth  century 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  English  Protestant  sympathies, 
such  as  they  commonly  exist  amongst  us,  would  not  have 
turned  far  more  to  the  reverent  and  tender  piety  and  manly 


218  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

morality  of  the  Saracens  and  Sicilian  Arabs,  than  to  the 
ascetic  formalism,  the  idolatrous  usages,  and  well-nigh  poly 
theistic  belief,  of  the  monks  and  saints  of  Christendom. 

A  striking  remark,  however,  is  made  by  Bunsen,  ere  he 
dismisses  the  subject  of  Mahometanism,  to  the  purport  that 
on  coming  in  contact  with  the  Iranian  race  in  Persia  the 
combination  gave  birth  to  Sufiism  ;  a  philosophy  deeply 
tinged  with  a  pantheism  altogether  foreign  to  the  sharply- 
cut  monotheism  of  the  Semites. 

The  third  book  of  God  in  History  is  devoted  to  a  sketch 
of  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  Aryans  of  Eastern 
Asia  prior  to  Christianity.  Educated  readers  are  aware  that 
these  Aryans  of  Eastern  Asia  are  divided  into  the  three  great 
religions  of  Brahminism,  Buddhism,  and  Zoroastrianism. 
Brahminism  is  usually  understood  by  modern  scholars  to  be 
the  later  development  and  corruption  of  the  ancient  Yedic 
faith.  Baron  Bunsen,  however,  insists  that  the  distinction 
is  rather  a  geographical  than  a  chronological  one,  and  that 
the  region  of  the  Indus  still  retains  the  nature- worship  of 
Yedism,  while  Southern  India  and  the  banks  of  the  Ganges 
have  long  fallen  into  Brahminism,  "  the  offspring  partly 
of  the  egotism  of  the  priestly  and  regal  castes,  and  partly 
of  the  enervating  influences  of  the  sensuality  encouraged 
by  the  climate."  Before  engaging,  however,  in  the 
analysis  of  the  great  creeds  of  the  Aryans,  Bunsen  un 
dertakes  a  sketch  of  what  he  calls,  in  German  phrase, 
"  The  vestibule  of  the  Aryan  religious  consciousness ; " 
in  plain  English  the  religions  which  bordered  on  the  Aryan 
countries,  namely,  those  of  Egypt,  China,  and  the  tribes 
of  Tartary.  Here,  again,  we  are  met  by  that  dogmatism 
whose  use  by  Bunsen  I  have  already  lamented.  I  cannot 
think  that  any  scholar  has  a  right  in  the  present  stage  of 
critical  and  philological  research  to  make  the  dogmatic  asser- 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  219 

tion,  that  "  Zoroaster  entered  on  his  career  about  B.C.  3000  " 
(p.  206)  ;  that  "  with  the  character  of  Abraham  we  step  at 
once  into  the  full  day-light  of  the  more  recent  history  of  the 
human  mind "  (p.  221),  and  that  "  in  Egypt  alone  has  a 
branch  of  the  West  Asiatic  stock,  viz.,  the  historical  Semites, 
taken  root  in  very  early  times  and  put  forth  an  immortal 

growth  of  mixed  Asiatic  and  African  origin The 

Egyptians  are  the  Hamites  of  the  Bible,  and  they  alone." 
(p.  223.)  The  tone  of  true  scholarship  regarding  points  so 
disputed  and  so  disputable,  is  surely  very  different  from  this. 
Fortunately,  the  observations  which  follow  on  Egyptian  re 
ligion  do  not  much  depend  for  value  on  either  chronology 
or  ethnology,  but  are  drawn  chiefly  from  the  monuments 
whose  relative  age  is  tolerably  certain. 

"The  centre,"  says  Bunsen,  "of  the  consciousness  which 
the  Egyptians  possessed  of  God's  agency  in  our  history,  is 
the  Osiris-worship,  the  oldest  and  most  sacred  portion  of 
their  religion.  Osiris  is  the  Lord,  the  judge  of  men  after 
death."  Bunsen  does  not  add  what  strikes  me  as  the  most 
interesting  point,  that  Osiris  was  the  essential  personification 
of  Divine  goodness.  The  familiar  porcelain  images  of  him 
found  in  every  tomb,  and  the  amulets  representing  his  all- 
seeing  beneficent  eye,  are,  to  my  thinking,  very  touching 
relics  of  human  love  and  trust. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  belief  in  Osiris  stands  the 
Egyptian  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  of  which  Bunsen 
beautifully  says : 

It  involves  the  recognition  that  there  is  a  solution  of  the  enigma 
of  existence,  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  term  of  a  single  life  on 
earth,  and  yet  which  we  are  impelled  to  seek  after  in  order  to  explain 
this  life.  All  guilt  must  be  expiated  ;  but  the  final  issue,  though 
reached  only  after  the  lapse  of  unnumbered  ages,  will  be  the  triumph 
of  the  Good,  the  general  reconciliation,  and  a  life  in  God  will  be  the 
eternal  heritage  of  the  soul. 

Grotesque  as  may  seem  to  us  the  form  such  a  faith  has 


220  THE  RELIGIONS   OF  THE   WORLD. 

taken  in  the  notion  of  the  transmigration  of  souls  into  animal 
forms,  it  may  be  questioned  whether,  on  the  whole,  Christen 
dom  has  gained  much  by  substituting  the  terrors  of  an 
eternity  of  torture  in  a  fiery  cave,  for  a  term  of  expiation  in 
the  body  of  a  beast.  Who  can  even  say  that  we  are  right  in 
reading  the  hieroglyph  of  the  soul  of  a  sensualist  turned 
into  the  shape  of  a  swine  (to  be  seen  on  the  splendid  Soane 
sarcophagus,  and  on  many  other  monuments),  as  anything 
beside  a  hieroglyph  or  mere  emblem  of  a  retribution  which 
may  have  been  understood  in  a  purely  spiritual  sense  ? 
If  we  wished  to  express  the  truth  that  by  indulging  in 
bestial  vice  man  becomes  bestial,  how  better  could  we  ex 
press  it  in  a  picture  than  by  drawing  a  man  turned  into  a 
disgusting  brute  ? 

The  religious  history  of  Egypt  is  full  both  of  encourage 
ment  and  of  warning.  The  earnestness,  nay,  rather  the  vehe 
mence  of  the  national  faith  in  Immortality,  several  thousand 
years  before  Christianity  is  supposed  to  have  afforded  the 
first  certainty  thereof,  is  one  of  the  most  important  facts 
of  history.  The  presence  of  such  faith  in  three  civilizations 
divided  so  widely  as  those  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Brahmins, 
and  the  Druids,  is  the  strongest  testimony  conceivable  to  the 
universality  of  the  intuition  written  on  the  heart  of  man  by 
that  Hand  which  writes  no  falsehoods.  Further,  the  ethical 
form  so  clearly  assumed  by  this  belief  among  the  Egyptians, 
is  also  a  testimony  to  the  depth  of  the  human  consciousness 
of  moral  good  and  ill-desert.  But  again,  on  the  other  hand, 
while  the  religion  of  Egypt  teaches  us  lessons  so  encouraging 
(on  which  I  observe  with  some  surprise  that  our  author  has 
not  insisted),  it  also  bears  fearful  testimony  to  the  possibility 
of  petrifying  a  creed,  till  it  becomes  a  stone  closing  the  door 
of  a  nation's  sepulchre.  With  such  noble  beliefs  as  those  in 
Osiris  and  in  immortal  life,  with  the  enormous  power  which 
must  have  been  needed  to  build  the  temples  and  pyramids 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  221 

of  Egypt,  the  established  religion  of  the  land  yet  sanctioned 
such  miserable  idolatries  as  the  worship  of  animals  ;  and 
while  its  "  Prayer  Book  of  the  Dead  "  held  up  a  noble  code 
of  morals  for  long  succeeding  generations,  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  it  supported  and  consolidated  a  tyranny,  lay 
and  ecclesiastic,  of  unsurpassed  severity.  The  pyramids  are 
said  to  have  been  erected  by  the  despotic  kings,  for  the 
purpose  of  safely  preserving  their  own  corpses  from  the  just 
indignation  of  their  subjects,  by  whom  the  sentence  of  the 
official  Judges  of  the  Dead  might  be  reversed,  and  the 
mummies  so  far  destroyed  as  (according  to  the  Egyptian 
creed)  to  prevent  their  sharing  the  resurrection.  If  this  be 
so,  the  greatest  monuments  of  oppression  which  burden  the 
earth,  have  owed  their  existence  to  the  double  influence  of  a 
religious  dogma,  and  to  the  fear  of  the  tyrant  for  the  very 
victims  of  his  tyranny."  l 

It  has  been  held  by  some  Egyptologers,  of  whose  theory 
Bunsen  makes  no  mention,  that  the  numerous  deities  of  the 
Egyptian  pantheon  were  only  deified  attributes  of  the  One 
God ;  and  that  while  the  ignorant  populace  were  left  to 
believe  that  they  were  separate  beings,  the  priesthood  and 
educated  classes  perfectly  well  understood  that  A.mun,  the 
King,  and  Neph,  the  Divine  Spirit,  and  Phthah,  the  Creative 
Power,  and  Kliem,  the  Reproductive  Power,  and  Thoth,  the 
Divine  Intellect,  and  Osiris,  the  Goodness  of  God,  were  all 
one  and  the  same  Being  ;  the  powers  of  nature,  the  Sun, 
Day  and  Night,  Matter,  the  maternal  principle,  and  also 
Moral  Ideas,  like  Truth  and  Justice,  having  also  male  and 
female  personifications.  The  tutelary  triads  of  the  various 
Nomes  of  Egypt  seem  to  lend  some  countenance  to  this  theory, 
in  so  far  that  we  can  explain  them  easily  as  selected  attri- 

1  The  care  taken  to  make  the  approach  to  the  sepulchral  chambers  as  difficult 
and  obscure  as  possible  of  course  countenances  this  theory.  Yet  a  secret  known 
to  the  thousands  who  built  the  pyramids  must  have  been  a  very  open  secret 
indeed. 


222  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE    WORLD. 

butes,  united  at  will  as  objects  of  special  worship,  and  under 
stood  to  form  in  each  case  a  Unity ;  whereas,  on  the  hypothesis 
of  their  being  separate  independent  personalities  such  arbi 
trary  conjunctions  are  inexplicable.1  If,  in  the  opinion  of  com 
petent  judges,  the  theory  above  mentioned  should  hereafter  be 
accepted,  should  we  not  obtain  a  singular  glimpse  into  the 
mystery  of  the  connexion  between  Mosaism  and  the  Egyptian 
creed?  May  it  not  be  believed  that  Moses,  "learned  in 
all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,"  and  fired  at  once  with 
loyalty  to  the  God  whose  unity  he  had  been  taught,  and 
with  indignation  for  the  oppression  of  the  masses  of  his 
countrymen,  resolved  to  break  both  the  chains  of  priestly 
and  political  tyranny,  and  by  boldly  preaching  to  the  popu 
lace  the  secret  of  the  hierarchy,  to  found  a  commonwealth 
on  the  sublime  lesson,  "  Hear,  0  Israel,  the  Lord  your 
God  is  one  Lord"?  Might  not  this  have  been  the  "Thus 
saith  the  Lord,"  which  he  heard  in  his  heart  in  his  desert 
musings,  and  by  whose  brave  announcement  he  became  one 
of  the  arch-prophets  of  the  world  ? 

Passing  from  Egypt,  Bunsen  bestows  a  short  chapter  on 
the  religious  consciousness  of  the  Turanian  race  ;  that  is,  of 
those  vast  tribes  which  occupy  Central  and  Northern  Asia, 
and  include,  according  to  modern  ethnology,  the  Tartars, 
Finns,  Turks,  and  Magyars.  The  prevailing  characteristic 
of  this  race,  according  to  Bunsen,  is  the  propensity  to 
magic  or  Shamanism.  The  meaning  of  this  phrase  needs 
explanation. 

Religion  in  its  noblest  form  belongs  to  the  noblest  parts 
of  our  nature.  It  is  ethical,  as  the  outcome  and  crown  of 
our  moral  nature.  It  is  intellectual,  as  the  highest  result 

1  Sir  G.  Wilkinson  (Egypt,  2nd  series)  describes  and  copies  a  stone  on  -which 
is  inscribed,  "  One  Bait,  one  Athor,  and  one  Akori.  Hail,  Father  of  the  World. 
Hail,  triformous  God."  On  the  obverse  are  two  seated  Egyptian  figures  with 
something  like  a  dove  above  them. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  223 

of  our  reason.  It  is  affectional,  as  the  last  great  aim  and 
perfecting  of  love.  But  beside  these  noble  inlets  of  religion 
to  the  soul,  there  are — as  the  Revivalists  have  taught  us 
even  in  our  own  land  too  well — hideous  possibilities  of  at 
taching  religious  ideas  and  sentiments  in  most  unhallowed 
connexion  with  lower  and  more  material  parts  of  our  com 
plex  frame,  with  the  mere  nervous  system  and  such  brain 
excitement  as  may  be  created  by  sounds,  intoxicating 
fumes  or  drinks,  or,  yet  more  effectually,  by  that  concen 
tration  of  the  mind  on  one  idea  which  produces  hypnotism 
and  hysteria.  He  who  has  seen  the  dancing  dervishes 
performing  their  frantic  rites,  rotating  (as  the  writer  has 
beheld  one  of  them)  for  twenty  consecutive  minutes  without 
pause,  till  he  falls  pale  and  giddy  to  the  ground,  while  his 
companions  bow  and  shout  in  chorus,  with  wild  eyes  and 
dishevelled  hair,  like  hungry  wild  beasts  in  a  cage ; — he  only 
who  has  seen  this  deplorable  sight,  or  that  of  the  Jumpers  of 
Wales,  or  Peculiar  People  of  England,  leaping  and  screaming 
"  Glory  I"  can  realize  the  degradation  to  which  worship  can 
fall  when  the  excitement,  which  ought  to  descend  from  above, 
is  obtained  from  stimulants  from  below.  The  Turanian  race, 
according  to  Bunsen,  have  for  their  peculiar  character  a  pro 
pensity  to  the  use  of  all  such  spiritual  trickeries.  Perhaps 
the  case  might  be  more  hopefully  described  by  saying  that 
in  the  simple  pastoral  and  secluded  life  common  to  most  of 
these  tribes,  the  vividness  of  religious  faith  has  the  tendency, 
common  among  mountaineers,  to  reverie  and  to  visionary 
absorption.  In  the  ignorance  of  a  Tartar  tent,  a  resort  to 
magic  arts  to  produce  ecstatic  raptures  would  seem  easily 
explicable.  The  main  point  of  interest  is  the  strength  of 
belief  in  an  invisible  world,  and  the  yearning  for  more 
intimate  connexion  with  it,  thus  manifested  in  races  whose 
lives  might  have  seemed  a  mere  process  of  browsing  and 
ruminating,  like  those  of  their  own  flocks  and  herds. 


224  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

Chinese  religion  has  long  been  the  despair  of  theologians. 
A  child  begins  by  loving  and  obeying  its  human  parents, 
and  proceeds  in  healthy  growth  of  heart  and  soul  to  the 
love  of  the  Father  of  AIL  But  the  Chinese,  like  stunted 
children,  or  human  beings  destined  to  eternal  infancy,  glued 
in  the  bud  in  piteous  failure  of  natural  blossoming,  have 
stopped  at  the  point  of  filial  love  and  piety.  Their  morality 
is  summed  up  in  obedience  to  their  parents  while  living  :l 
their  religion,  in  the  worship  of  them  when  dead. 

Yet  the  Chinese  have  not  been  without  a  few  great  souls 
who  have  seen  a  glimmering,  through  the  gloom,  of  rays 
of  pure  light.  Last  and  greatest,  but  least  familiarly  known 
to  us  in  Europe,  was  Tshu-hi,  whose  works,  written  in  the 
thirteenth  century  of  our  era,  have  recently  been  translated. 
From  among  them,  Bunsen  has  quoted  these  marvellous  pass 
ages  : 

There  is  an  Essence  indeterminate,  which  existed  before  heaven 
and  earth.  Oh,  how  silent  is  it !  It  alone  subsists  without  changes  ;  it 
is  everywhere.  Thou  mayst  call  it  the  Mother  of  the  Universe.  I 
know  not  how  to  name  it.  I  call  it  Tao  (the  Way).  I  call  it  the 
Great,  the  Vanishing,  the  Distant,  and  yet  again  the  Approaching. 
Man  copies  the  Earth,  Earth  Heaven,  Heaven  Tao,  and  Tao  its  own 
nature,  .  .  .  Tao  loves  and  nourishes  all  beings,  and  does  not  con 
sider  himself  as  their  Lord  ;  he  is  always  without  desire,  wherefore  he 
may  be  called  Little.  All  beings  owe  subjection  to  him,  and  he  does 
not  consider  himself  as  their  Lord,  wherefore  he  may  be  called  Great. 

Is  not  this  last  mysterious  doctrine  of  the  self- abnegation 
of  God  akin  to  the  noble  thought  that  God's  whole  life  of 
ineffable  beatitude  is  a  Giving-forth,  a  bestowal  of  good, 
without  one  personal  desire ;  an  absolute  Love  in  which 
selfishness  has  no  place ;  and  that  all  the  god-like  in  man 
is  thus  to  live  outside  of  himself  in  love,  and  all  the  devil- 

1  Mencius  (Meng-Zo),  author  of  the  4th  canonical  book  of  the  Chinese,  very 
neatly  resolves  all  duty  into  filial  piety,  by  laying  it  down  tbat  children  show 
want  of  duty  to  their  parents  by  the  five  capital  sins  of  Sloth,  Gambling,  Selfish 
ness,  Sensuality,  and  Quarrelling. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  225 

like  to  live  in  himself  in  selfishness?     Eternal  life  is  the 
life  of  love.     Eternal  death  (were  it  possible  for  God's  child) 
would  he  the  final  extinction  of  love,  in  absolute  selfishness. 
And  again  Tshu-hi  says  : 

No  one  has  lent  to  Tao  his  dignity,  nor  to  Virtue  its  nobleness  ; 
these  qualities  they  possess  eternally  in  themselves.  The  "Way  pro 
duces  beings,  sustains  and  preserves  them.  He  brings  them  forth  and 
does  not  make  them  his  own  ;  he  governs  them  and  suffers  them  to 
be  free.  That  is  the  depth  of  Virtue. 

Bunsen' s  hopes  expressed  at  the  close  of  this  chapter  that 
the  rebellion  of  the  Tae-pings  was  a  real  great  Christian 
reformation,  have,  alas,  proved  delusive,  and  only  show  the 
warmth  of  enthusiasm  with  which  he  greeted  all  that  bore 
semblance  of  progress  in  the  world. 

After  this  brief  survey  of  Egypt,  Turan,  and  China, 
Bunsen  proceeds  to  consider  the  main  stream  of  human 
thought ;  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  great  Aryan 
race,  of  which  Indians,  Persians,  Greeks,  Romans,  Teutons, 
and  Celts  are  the  branches.  First  among  these,  he  con 
siders  the  Zoroastrian  Bactrians,  and  gives  to  Zoroaster, 
with  absolute  decision,  an  antiquity  "certainly  not  later 
than  towards  B.C.  2500" — a  date  which  no  other  scholar 
would,  I  believe,  be  inclined  to  state  equally  dogmatically. 
The  great  work  of  Zoroaster  in  giving  to  the  Yedic  nature- 
worship  a  distinctly  ethical  character,  Bunsen  thoroughly 
believes,  and  considers  the  famous  Inaugural  Speech  of 
Zoroaster  (Gatha  Ahunavaiti,  Yasna  30,  already  quoted,  ante, 
p.  153)  as  the  record,  of  it : 

The  remaining  Gathas,  whether  they  proceed  from  Zoroaster  himself, 
or  only  bear  the  mint  mark  of  his  mind,  all  exhibit  similar  character 
istics.  "We  do  not  discover  Zoroaster  to  be  a  man  exercising  magical 
powers  or  exalting  himself  above  humanity.  On  the  contrary  he  is  a 
seer  who  announces  the  Divine  will  as  unmistakably  authenticated  by 
the  voice  within  him. 

15 


226  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

Zoroastrianism,  according  to  Bunsen,  spread  from  Bactria 
to  Media,  and  from  Media  to  Persia,  where  its  peculiar 
insistance  on  the  virtue  of  Truth  (Ahriman  being  always 
identified  as  the  Lying  Spirit)  gave  to  the  whole  Persian 
people  the  character  for  veracity,  so  much  marvelled  at  by 
the  mendacious  Greeks.  The  withering  tyranny  of  the 
successors  of  Cyrus  and  the  admixture  of  the  Chaldee  philo 
sophy  in  Babylon  were  the  causes,  as  Bunsen  supposes, 
of  such  corruption  as  Zoroastrianism  underwent.  "  Under 
such  a  despotism,"  he  says,  "  how  is  it  possible  for  a  nation 
really  to  believe  that  the  good,  the  wise,  the  true,  does 
ultimately  triumph  upon  earth  ? "  This  is  a  frequently 
recurring  idea  throughout  the  pages  of  God  in  History, 
that  political  freedom,  or  at  the  least,  a  government 
free  from  gross  injustice,  is  indispensable  to  the  mainte 
nance  of  wide- spread  faith  in  the  eternal  justice  above, 
Nevertheless,  the  creed  of  Zoroaster  is  to  this  hour  a 
nobly  moral  faith,  and  one  by  no  means  intellectually 
despicable. 

From  the  Iranian  branch  of  the  great  Aryan  family,  by 
whom  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  was  adopted,  our  author 
turns  to  the  emigrants  who  before  Zoroaster's  age  had 
wandered  to  the  banks  of  the  Indus,  and  there  formed  the 
most  ancient  detachment  (so  to  speak)  of  the  race,  the 
Indian  Aryans.  Here  was  the  land  of  the  Yedas,  the  oldest 
of  human  books,  in  whose  Sanskrit  words  we  still  trace  the 
brotherhood  which  unites  us  Anglo-Saxons  with  that  re 
motest  household  of  our  common  Aryan  race.  Well  may 
Bunsen  say  : 

The  sacred  books  of  the  Indian  Aryans  touch  us  much  more  nearly 
in  many  respects  than  the  records  of  the  primeval  epoch  of  the 
Hebrews,  for  in  the  former  we  see  and  feel  the  brotherhood  of  race  ; 
but  on  the  other  hand  they  are  incomparably  more  a  sealed  book  to 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 


us  than  the  sacred  scriptures  of  the  Jews.  We  stand  in  presence  -of 
a  veiled  life  ;  in  a  similar  position  to  that  which  we  should  occupy 
with  regard  to  the  unfolding  of  the  Hebrew  mind  from  the  age-  of 
Abraham  to  that  of  Jeremiah,  if  we  possessed  nothing  but  the  Book: 
of  Psalms.1 

Having  discussed  the  topic  of  Yedic  literature  elsewhere,- 
I  shall  here  pass  over  the  further  observations  of  Bunseai 
regarding  it. 

After  a  portion  of  the  Aryan  race  had  migrated^  from:/ 
the  Indus  to  the  Ganges,  the  Yedic  religion,  according;  to 
Bunsen,  transformed  itself  into  Brahminism,  "ratller  the- 
contrary  than  the  continuation  of  the  Yedic  religious-  con 
sciousness."  Here  the  old  nature-gods  Yaruna  (Ouranos,. 
the  sky),  Agni  (Ignis,  fire),  and  the  rest,  sunk  into-  insig 
nificance  before  metaphysical  conceptions  of  a  different  order. 
The  Trimurti  of  Brahma,  Yishnu,  and  Seeva  (Creator,  Re 
storer,  and  Destroyer)  —  about  whom,  as  Bunsen  says,  "so 
many  fantastical,  not  to  say  nonsensical,  systems-  have  been. 
built  up"  —  now  first  appeared,  and  received  in  time  the 
highest  rank  among  the  deities.  The  poets  and  singers. 
who  had  celebrated  the  Yedic  sacrifices  became-  an  heredi 
tary  caste  of  priests  ;  the  whole  cruel  and  monstrous  system 
of  Brahininism  followed  ;  and,  meanwhile,  the  keen  Aryan 
intellect  occupied  itself  in  the  construction  of  such  mental 
air-castles  as  the  Sankhya  and  Yedanta  philosophies.  Thus, 
while  the  Iranian  branch  of  the  race,  guided  by  the  strong 
spirit  of  Zoroaster,  seized,  once  for  all,  on  the  ethical  side 
of  religion,  and  developed  a  faith  which,  after  three  millen 
niums,  is  still  the  rational  and  moral  creed  of  the  Parsees, 
the  Indian  branch,  following  the  intellectual  rather  than  the 
ethical  track,  lost  itself  in  a  double  ruin.  On  one  side  was 
a  sacerdotal  tyranny  and  a  miserable  idolatry.  On  the  other 
were  two  systems  of  philosophy,  the  one  trembling  between 

1  Page  298. 


228  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD. 

pantheism  and  atheism,  the  other  a  nihilism,  which  left  its 
disciples  for  consolation  such  thoughts  as  these : 

A  drop  that  trembles  on  the  lotus-leaf, 

Such  is  this  life,  so  soon  dispelled,  so  brief; 

The  eight  great  mountains,  and  the  seven  seas, 

The  sun,  the  gods  who  sit  and  rule  o'er  these, 

Thou,  I,  the  universe,  must  pass  away  : 

Time  conquers  all ;  why  care  for  what  must  pass  away  ? 

Of  course,  it  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  Brahminism, 
during  its  long  growth  of  three  millenniums,  has  produced 
no  better  fruit  than  these  apples  of  Sodom.  The  great 
Brahmin  poems  of  the  Mahabharata  and  the  Ramayana, 
above  all  the  code  of  Menu,  which  has  been  the  Leviticus 
and  the  Deuteronomy  of  the  Hindoo  nation  for  so  many 
ages,  all  testify  to  a  religious  and  still  more  clearly  to  a 
moral  consciousness,  never  lost  in  the  sands  of  polytheism, 
nor  absorbed  in  the  formalism  and  asceticism  of  the  priestly 
system. 

I  cannot  quit  this  portion  of  my  subject  without  express 
ing  my  regret  that  Bunsen  should  have  died  before  the 
great  reformation  of  the  Brahmo  Somaj  assumed  noticeable 
proportions  in  India.  With  how  much  pleasure  would  he, 
who  was  hopeful  even  of  the  results  of  the  fanatical  Tae-ping 
insurrection,  have  heralded  the  rise  of  a  truly  pure  Theism, 
whose  watchwords  are  the  absolute  unity  and  spirituality 
of  God,  the  abolition  of  caste,  and  the  elevation  and  instruc 
tion  of  woman  !  The  leligious  consciousness  of  the  Indian 
Aryans  has  indeed  vindicated  itself  at  last  ;  and  when 
Rammohun  Roy  published  his  book  of  extracts  from  the 
Yedas  as  the  text-book  of  his  infant  church,  he  reunited 
the  threads  of  three  thousand  years  of  spiritual  history. 
The  Yedic  hymn  has  passed  naturally  into  the  Brahmo's 
prayer,  as  the  worship  of  the  fathers  into  that  of  the 
children. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE    WORLD.  229 

What  is  Buddhism  ?  The  researches  of  a  dozen  great 
scholars  have  yet  left  us  very  little  able  to  decide  the 
question.  Bunsen  says  frankly  : 

Our  own  conception  of  Buddha  is  diametrically  opposed  to  that  of 
Burnouf  and  all  his  successors  (with  the  exception  of  Mohl,  Obry,  and 
Dancker)  in  so  far  that  according  to  them  the  founder  of  the  most 
widely  diffused  creed  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  a  creed  which  has  intro 
duced  or  revived  civilization  amongst  all  these  millions,  was  a  teacher 
of  atheism  and  materialism.  For  so  we  must  denominate  a  system 
which  should  teach  that  there  is  absolutely  nothing  but  non-existence, 
therefore  in  no  sense  a  God  ;  that  annihilation  is  the  highest  happiness 
the  soul  can  strive  after,  and  that  it  is  the  highest  glory  of  the  great 
saint  to  have  taught  the  way  thereunto.  If  this  were  so,  then  Buddha 
would  at  least  lie  beyond  the  scope  of  our  present  survey.  For  there  is 
no  more  utter  denial  of  a  Divine  order  of  the  world  than  the  asssumption 
that  existence  is  nothing  but  a  curse,  (vol.  i.  p.  345). l 

The  fourth  book  of  God  in  History  is  devoted  to  a  study 
of  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  Aryan  race  in  Europe, 
namely,  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  the  Teutons.  The 
elaborate  sketches  of  Greek  religious  life,  including  the 
earlier  nature-worship,  and  that  more  ethical  type  which 
ever  succeeds  it ;  the  Greek  epos  and  drama  ;  Greek  archi 
tecture  2  and  sculpture  ;  fill  some  of  the  best  chapters  in  the 
work,  and  are  among  the  finest  in  recent  criticism.  Drawing 
to  his  conclusion,  after  setting  forth  how  much  of  the  truly 
moral,  the  truly  religious,  abode  ever  in  the  Greek  conscious 
ness,  he  says : 

The  Pantheon  of  the  Greeks  consisted  exclusively  of  divinities  of  the 
mind,  of  Ideals  of  Humanity,  and  had  its  unity  in  Zeus,  a  conception 
which,  through  Homer  and  the  other  Hellenic  poets,  exerted  a  guiding 
influence,  of  which  even  the  masses  were  sensible.  For  Zeus  was  not 
a  national  god,  but  was  designated  even  so  early  as  the  age  of  Homer, 

1  The  correctness  of  this  view  of  Buddhism  is  discussed  iu  the  next  Essay. 

2  Is  it  a  slip  of  the  pen  by  which,  p.  262,  vol.  ix.,  he  speaks  of  Phidias  as 
architect  as  well  as  sculptor  of  the  Parthenon  ?     Is  there  any  doubt  of  the  work 
of  Ictinus  ? 


230  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  WORLD. 

the  "Father  of  gods  and  men."  It  now  no  longer  occurs  to  any  one  to 
deny  the  mischief  of  that  splitting-up  of  the  consciousness  of  God, 
which  was  caused  by  a  plurality  of  gods,  but  we  must  not  forget  that 
this  polytheism  had  grown  up  out  of  the,  commingling  of  the  tribes. 
As  little  will  any  one  who  has  a  voice  in  the  European  commonwealth 
of  mind  be  disposed  to  deny  the  weakening  of  the  ethical  religious 
consciousness  that  resulted  from  the  overweening  concentration  of  the 
mind  upon  knowledge,  or  from  the  idolatry  of  beauty,  involving  as  it 
did,  a  severance  of  the  beautiful  and  the  true  from  the  good.  But  those 
alone  have  a  right  to  cast  their  stone  at  the  Greeks  who  know  how  to 
appreciate  the  divinity  residing  in  beauty,  and  who  do  not  refuse  to 
see  the  godlike  in  knowledge.  ...  It  is  very  customary  to  place  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  Hellenism,  in  an  absence  of  all  earnest 
worship  of  God  and  of  religious  life  in  general.  ,We  are  prepared  to 
maintain,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  whole  life  of  classical  antiquity, 
especially  that  of  the  Hellenes,  shows  itself  far  more  inter-penetrated 
with  prayer  and  religious  feeling  than  does  that  of  the  modern  Christian 
world.1 

My  readers  will  probably  be  a  little  startled  at  the  last 
challenge,  but  the  whole  chapter  deserves  careful  consider 
ation  ere  we  fall  back  on  our  accustomed  commonplaces  about 
Greek  irreligion.  Among  other  remarks,  and  as  an  instance 
of  the  curious  side  lights  with  which  the  book  abounds, 
I  may  quote  the  observation  in  the  preceding  volume,  that 
while  with  the  Hebrews  the  "soul"  was  synonymous  with 
"  self,"  with  the  Greeks  the  body  was  the  "  self,"  and  the 
soul  a  separate  entity.  The  Hebrew  patriarch  could  talk 
even  of  savoury  meat  as  a  thing  his  "  soul "  loved.  The 
Greek  poet  (Iliad  i.)  spoke  of  the  wrath  of  Achilles — 

Which  many  thousand  souls  of  the  sons  of  the  heroes 
Sent  down  to  hell  ;  but  stretched  themselves  on  the  earth 
A  prey  to  the  ravening  dogs. 

Bunsen  might  have  added,  that  such  an  identification 
of  "soul"  and  "self"  has  never  yet  taken  place  amongst 
ourselves.  After  so  many  centuries  of  Christianity  we  yet 

1  Vol.  ii.  p.  347. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  231 

habitually  say,  when  a  ship  has  foundered  with  her  crew, 
that  "  every  soul  on  board  perished " ;  albeit,  according  to 
our  professed  belief,  and  even  the  belief  of  our  Yiking  fore 
fathers,  the  souls  of  the  drowned  were  the  only  things 
which  did  not  "perish"  in  the  wreck. 

The  Romans,  in  the  opinion  of  Bunsen,  as  of  other 
scholars,  had  for  the  leading  ideas  of  their  national  life  the 
notion  of  Law,  and  of  their  own  rightful  sway  over  all 
nations.  Sacrifices  and  prayer  were  to  them  the  business  of 
the  small  order  of  priests ;  forms  highly  to  be  respected  and 
in  no  wise  to  be  trangressed  by  a  worthy  citizen,  but  yet 
having  nothing  to  do  with  a  man's  heart  or  inner  life. 
Yirgil  summed  up  the  Roman  ideal  when  he  wrote  : 

Others,  belike  with  happier  grace, 

From  bronze  or  stone  shall  call  the  face, 

Plead  doubtful  causes,  map  the  skies, 

And  tell  when  planets  set  or  rise  ; 

But  ROMAN  !  thou,  do  thou  control 

The  nations  far  and  wide  ; 

Be  this  thy  genius — to  impose 

The  rule  of  peace  on  vanquished  foes, 

Show  pity  to  the  humblest  soul, 

And  crush  the  sons  of  pride. — jffineid,  vi. 

The  unity  of  civilized  nations  in  one  empire,  the  supremacy 
of  Justice  and  of  that  Jurisprudence  which  Bunsen  calls  the 
Prose  of  Justice  ;  such  was  the  great  Roman  Thought 
bequeathed  to  the  world. 

Finally  we  reach  the  Teuton  and  Gothic  race,  the  furthest 
offshoot  of  the  Aryan  family,  the  very  antitypes  and  yet  the 
brothers  in  blood  and  language  of  the  Aryans  who,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Ganges,  transformed  into  Brahminism  the  old 
Yedic  faith  whose  relics  are  imbedded  in  the  wild  mythology 
of  Scandinavia.  Fidelity,  conjugal  love,  loyalty,  courage, 


232  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE    WORLD. 

reverence  for  the  nobler  attributes  of  women,  belief  in 
eternal  justice,  in  expiation  and  restoration ;  these  were  the 
characteristics  which,  following  Tacitus,  and  wringing  out 
the  spirit  of  Eddas  and  Sagas,  may  be  attributed  to  the 
great  northern  race  even  from  heathen  times.  Have  we  here 
the  secret  why  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  Teuton — 
less  intellectually  subtle  than  the  Brahmin,  less  beautiful  in 
,its  forms  than  the  Greek — is  yet  the  one  which  has  carried 
farthest  in  advance  the  torch  of  Divine  light  in  the  progress 
of  mankind  ?  Is  not,  after  all,  loyalty,  the  free  Allegiance 
of  the  soul  to  its  rightful  LORD,  the  very  highest  type  of 
religion  ?  Awe,  reverence,  intellectual  contemplation,  sym 
pathy  with  the  beautiful,  submission  to  irresistible  decrees, 
stern  adherence  to  external  law — all  these  sides  of  religious 
consciousness,  the  inheritance  of  Egyptian,  Persian,  Hindoo, 
Greek,  Moslem,  and  Roman,  are  good  and  true  in  their 
degree.  But  the  highest  Consciousness  of  all  is  not  these, 
but  the  inward  moral  Allegiance  of  Love. 

Marcus  Aurelius  began  his  Meditations  by  thankfully 
attributing  his  acquirements  and  advantages  each  to  his 
parents  or  his  tutors  ;  his  placid  temper  to  his  grandsire 
Yerus,  his  piety  to  his  mother  Lucilla,  his  love  of  justice  to 
Severus.  And  thus,  perhaps,  may  mankind  hereafter  trace 
back  each  gift  to  one  of  its  ancestry  of  nations,  or  to  one  of 
its  great  teachers.  To  the  cradle  of  the  future  Lord  of  the 
world,  the  Kings  both  of  the  East  and  of  the  West  will 
bring  their  gold,  their  frankincense,  and  myrrh.  From  the 
Jew  he  will  inherit  his  Faith,  from  the  Roman  his  Law, 
from  the  Greek  his  Art.  Nay,  many  another  heirloom  will 
descend  to  him,  its  origin  perchance  forgotten  in  the  night 
of  time  ;  many  a  thought  and  many  a  sentiment  from  far-off 
ancestors  in  the  old  Aryan  Home,  and  Semite  brothers  under 
Chaldsean  skies,  and  Norsemen  from  their  icy  seas  storming 
forth  to  conquer  the  world.  In  the  great  family  of  nations 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE   WORLD.  233 

perchance,  when  we  come  to  know  it  better,  we  shall  find 
there  has  been  no  insignificant  or  ungifted  one ;  nay,  that 
as  in  the  fairy  lore  of  our  Teuton  fathers,  it  is  often  the 
humblest,  the  dwarf,  the  disinherited,  who  has  been  chief  of 
all  and  the  saviour  of  his  brethren.  When  Cherillus,  de 
scribing  the  muster-roll  of  the  vast  army  of  Xerxes,  named 
as  last  and  meanest,  "  a  people  who  dwelt  in  the  Solymean 
mountains,  with  sooty  heads  and  faces  like  horse- heads  smoke- 
dried,"1  how  little  he  could  foresee  that  from  that  despicable 
race  and  those  barren  Solymean  hills  should  come  a  Conqueror 
to  whose  Army  of  Martyrs  the  mighty  host  of  Xerxes  should 
be  an  insignificant  troop  !  "  "What  perishes/'  says  Bunsen, 
"  in  the  great  struggle  which  throbs  through  all  history  is 
the  limitation  of  the  individual  and  the  limitation  of  the 
nation."  The  positive  survives,  the  negation  ceases.  The 
tide  of  religious  consciousness  perpetually  rises,  not  indeed 
by  one  continuous  stream  of  equal  advance,  but  in  successive 
waves,  each  of  which  having  contributed  to  the  flow,  subsides 
again  and  is  lost.  We  need  not  despair,  although  again  and 
again  we  read  of  one  faith  after  another — "As  time  went 
on,  it  lost  its  early  strength  and  became  blended  with 
errors."  The  procession  of  the  ages  by  which  our  race 
approaches  the  altar  of  Divine  wisdom  is  like  no  Phidian 
dream  of  stately  forms  of  light-bearers  and  flower-bearers 
marching  calmly  in  the  long  line  of  Time.  Rather  is  it  like 
the  passage  of  some  royal  summons  in  feudal  days  of  old, 
when  each  messenger  bore  it  on  as  fast  and  far  as  life  and 
strength  allowed,  then  gave  it  to  another's  hands,  and  him 
self  laid  down  to  die.  Are  not  the  days  of  a  nation 
numbered,  is  not  its  true  life  over,  when  it  learns  no  new 
truth  and  turns  the  truth  it  has  once  learned  to  error  ? 

1  Josephus,  Contra  Apion.  i.  22. 


ESSAY  IX. 


THE    RELIGIONS   OF  THE   EAST.1 

IN  the  preface  to  this  book  the  author  makes  the  following 
observation : 

There  is  to  my  mind  no  subject  more  absorbing  than  the  tracing  the 
origin  and  first  growth  of  human  thought  ;  not  theoretically  or  in 
accordance  with  the  Hegelian  laws  of  thought,  or  the  Comtian  epochs, 
but  historically  and  like  an  Indian  trapper,  spying  for  every  footprint, 
every  layer,  every  broken  blade  that  might  tell  and  testify  of  the  former 
presence  of  man  in  his  early  wanderings  and  searchings  after  light  and 
truth. 

Few  readers,  I  apprehend,  possessed  of  the  genuine  his 
toric  spirit,  will  hesitate  to  agree  cordially  with  this  senti 
ment,  and  to  rank  the  religious  development  of  nations  in 
which  such  "  searchings  after  light  and  truth "  result,  as 
the  most  noteworthy  element  of  their  civilization.  Nor  is 
the  interest  of  the  subject  exhausted  when  we  have  made  it 
a  foremost  branch  of  historical  inquiry.  The  science  of 
Comparative  Theology,  to  be  built  up  at  last  of  the  materials 
furnished  by  such  researches  will,  we  are  assured,  prove  as 
valuable  in  elucidating  the  dark  problems  of  the  human 
mind  as  the  science  of  Comparative  Physiology  has  been  in 
throwing  light  on  those  of  the  body.  And  as  out  of  the 
study  of  the  lower  animals  the  physiologist  ascends  step  by 
step  from  simpler  to  more  complex  forms  of  life,  and  traces 

1  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop.     By  Max  Miiller.     Two  vols.,  8vo.     1868. 


236  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

his  way  from  organs  rudimentary  in  beast  and  insect  up  to 
the  human  hand  and  brain  ;  so  the  theologian  may  hereafter 
trace  through  the  humbler  forms  of  fetichism  and  poly 
theism,  and  the  imperfections  of  Yedic  and  Judaic  religions, 
the  prophecy  and  embryo  of  that  more  perfect  faith,  in 
whose  symmetric  development  all  the  incomplete  and  rudi 
mentary  types  of  the  past  will  become  explicable.  Professor 
Miiller's  delightful  volumes  treat  of  many  subjects  beside 
those  immediately  connected  with  theology,  his  own  special 
science  of  Language  having  of  course  a  prominent  place. 
The  interest  of  the  work  centres,  however,  so  much  in  the 
dissertations  on  the  various  sacred  books  and  on  mythology 
in  general,  that  I  shall  be  doing  it  little  injustice  in  confining 
my  review  to  the  subjects  so  suggested.  The  philology  of 
the  learned  Professor  is  entirely  beyond  my  criticism,  and 
the  minor  topics  dealt  with  in  his  second  volume  would 
occupy  too  much  space  if  even  very  briefly  noticed. 

The  value  of  comparative  theology  becomes  constantly 
more  apparent  as  we  descend  from  a  mere  superficial  view 
of  the  various  religions  of  the  world,  to  a  deeper  analysis 
of  the  nature  of  human  faith  and  worship.  Religious  ideas 
(it  is  often  forgotten)  are  not  simple,  but  complex.  Each 
has  two  factors ;  first,  the  feelings  of  dependence,  allegiance, 
love,  to  some  dimly  discerned  Power  above,  which  we  sum 
up  under  the  name  of  the  "  Religious  Sentiment " ;  second, 
the  intellectual  work  which  happens  to  have  been  done  at 
any  given  time  or  place,  in  transmuting  these  Sentiments 
into  Thoughts ;  or,  in  other  words,  in  constructing  a  theology. 
No  religious  Ideas  could  exist  were  there  no  religious  Senti 
ments  behind  them,  and  no  religious  ideas  do  practically 
exist  till  a  certain  process  of  crystallization  has  been  applied 
to  such  sentiments. 

The  first  factor  is  constant  so  far  as  that  what  ever  has  been 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  237 

the  sentiment  of  one  age  is  not  lost,  but  developed  and  en 
nobled  in  subsequent  generations.  As  the  Moral  Sense  first 
dimly  dawns  in  the  mind  of  the  savage,  and  then  grows  into 
a  definite,  though  imperfect,  sense  of  Justice ;  and  later  on 
slowly  extends,  step  by  step,  to  the  sense  of  Truth,  Purity, 
and  Love ;  so  the  Religious  Sentiment,  which  is  in  a  measure 
the  reflex  of  the  Moral  Sense,  developes  slowly  also. 

The  second  factor  of  religious  ideas  is,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  vafiable  and  incessantly  changing  with  every 
advance  of  knowledge  and  every  process  of  reflection.  It  is 
itself  compounded  of  two  variable  elements  ;  namely,  first, 
the  original  thought  of  the  individual,  which  may  be  almost 
nil,  or  may  be  vast  enough  to  create  a  whole  new  creed ; 
secondly,  of  the  traditional  thought  which  he  has  derived 
from  teachers  and  books,  and  this,  again,  of  course  may  be 
great  or  small — a  mental  ancestry  stretching  through  a 
princely  line  of  saints  and  sages,  or  the  low  brief  pedigree 
of  a  barbarian's  legends.  Here  the  study  of  comparative 
theology  is  of  incalculable  value,  enabling  the  student  to 
inherit,  not  only  the  traditions  of  his  direct  line  of  teachers, 
but  of  all  past  generations.  The  different  Ideas  into  which 
the  same  Sentiment  has  been  translated  in  varied  lands  and 
ages  are  to  the  last  degree  instructive,  and  corrective  of  our 
haste  and  dogmatism  ;  nor  can  a  man  fairly  estimate  the 
worth  of  any  familiar  notion  till  he  has  seen  and  weighed 
its  antagonist  idea.  Nay,  not  only  in  an  intellectual,  but 
a  moral  sense,  the  knowledge  of  such  various  creeds  is 
valuable.  Religion  never  comes  to  us  in  greater  majesty 
than  when  "  a  cloud  of  witnesses "  proclaims  its  truth. 
Never  do  moral  lessons  touch  us  more  nearly,  never  do  ex 
pressions  of  trust  in  God,  or  hope  of  immortality,  carry  with 
them  such  fresh  strength  as  when  they  are  borne  to  us  from 
far-off  ages  and  distant  lands,  and  we  know  they  have  come 
from  the  lips  of  men  who  never  spoke  our  speech  nor  learned 


238  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 


our  lessons,  and  whose  whole  lives  were  passed  under  con 
ditions  utterly  foreign  to  all  our  traditions.  To  hold  by  the 
full  cord  of  all  the  faith  of  all  the  ages,  is  assuredly  far  more 
secure  than  to  cling  by  a  single  thread,  even  if  that  thread 
be  the  golden  strand  of  Christianity. 

Each  man's  religion,  observes  Professor  Muller,  is  to  him 
unique.  It  is  his  native  language,  the  mother- tongue  of  his 
soul ;  none  other  may  bear  any  comparison  with  it  so  far  as 
he  is  concerned.  We  might  carry  the  simile  further,  and 
say  that,  like  the  old  pedants  who  held  that  the  languages 
of  barbarians  were  not  proper  languages  at  all,  but  had  only 
the  sense  of  the  lowings  and  bleatings  of  kine  and  sheep,  so 
bigots  even  now  talk  as  if  the  vast  religions  of  the  ancient 
world  and  of  the  East  were  not  worthy  to  be  called  religions, 
and  had  in  them  no  meaning  and  no  sanctity.  The  thesis 
of  half  the  later  apologists  of  Christianity  (down  to  the 
author  of  Christ  and  other  Masters,  well  reviewed  in  these 
volumes1)  might  be  described  somewhat  in  thiswise:  "Given, 
a  multitude  of  creeds  having  innumerable  parallels,  in  doc 
trine,  myth,  rite  and  precept,  with  our  own.  Prove  that 
everything  in  them  is  absurd  and  wicked,  and  everything  in 
our  own  faith  credible  and  holy." 

It  was  not  so  in  earlier  times.  The  Apostles  and  Fathers 
were  ready  to  acknowledge  the  "  light  which  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world,"  wherever  they  beheld 
a  scintillation  of  it,  whether  in  poems  like  that  of  Aratus, 
or  in  that  philosophy  "  by  which,"  as  Clemens  A'lexandrinus 
said,  "the  Almighty  is  glorified  among  the  Greeks."  St. 
Chrysostom's  argument  (Homil.  12)  for  the  divine  inspi 
ration  of  conscience  as  the  source  from  whence  heathen 
legislators  drew  their  laws,  reads  like  a  piece  of  modern 
free-thinking : 

For  it  cannot  be  said  they  held  communication  with  Moses,  or  that 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  50. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  239 

they  heard  the  prophets.  How  could  they  when  they  were  Gentiles  ? 
It  is  evident  it  was  from  the  very  law  which  God  placed  in  man  when 
he  formed  him. 

But  as  the  Church  lost  its  primitive  vigour  of  faith,  which 
sufficed  to  itself  without  requiring  the  denial  of  all  divine 
element  in  other  creeds,  the  narrower,  poorer  faith  of  later 
ages  needed  to  put  forth  a  different  claim :  Christianity  was 
declared  to  be  not  only  the  best,  but  the  only  religion ; 
all  others  were'  devil-worship  and  delusion.  No  modern 
Paul  would  have  preached  from  the  text  of  the  altar  of  the 
Unknown  God.  He  would  have  called  it  an  altar  of  Satan. 
One  faith  only  could  be  admitted  to  be  unmingled  truth, 
and  for  its  sake,  and  expressly  to  distinguish  it  from  all 
others,  it  was  affirmed  that  the  long  cycle  of  Biblical 
miracles  had  been  wrought.  All  other  creeds  were  mere 
jumbles  of  unredeemable  error,  and  their  pretended  wonders 
mere  delusions  and  impostures.  Penetrated  with  notions 
like  these,  our  missionaries  went  forth  to  attack  the  giant 
religions  of  the  East  with  the  courage  of  David  against 
the  Philistine.  But  their  Bibles,  flung  fearlessly  at  those 
massive  fronts,  have  somehow  hitherto  failed  to  slay  the 
enemy,  or  even  to  stun  him ;  and  we  must  wait  for  his 
overthrow  till  a  different  order  of  attack  be  inaugurated. 

In  just  the  opposite  spirit  from  this  narrow  and  bigoted 
one  does  Professor  Miiller  address  himself  to  the  task  of 
examining  the  religions  of  the  heathen  world.  Had  his 
book  no  other  merit,  the  preface  alone,  in  which  the  true 
method  of  such  inquiry  is  vindicated,  possesses  a  value  we 
shall  not  readily  over-estimate.  "  Every  religion/'  he  says, 
"even  the  most  imperfect  and  degraded,  has  something 
that  ought  to  be  sacred  to  us,  for  there  is  in  all  religions 
a  secret  yearning  after  the  true  though  unknown  God." 
Truly  this  is  the  spirit,  not  only  of  a  philosopher,  but  of 
a  pious  man.  Strange  is  it,  as  all  who  have  travelled 


240  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

beyond  the  precincts  of  Christendom  can  tell,  to  note  with 
what  scorn,  surpassing  mere  irreverence,  Christians  com 
monly  enter  the  mosques  and  temples  of  other  creeds,  and 
standing  among  crowds  of  prostrate  worshippers  move  and 
speak,  as  if  purposely  to  display  their  contempt.  Nay,  in 
Christendom  itself  to  watch  a  Protestant  in  a  Romish  church, 
or  an  Anglican  in  a  Dissenting  chapel,  is  often  to  see  em 
bodied  in  looks  and  manner  the  feelings  not  of  sympathy 
or  community  in  the  eternal  human  sentiments  of  religious 
love  and  hope,  not  even  of  pity  for  supposed  fatal  and  soul- 
destroying  error ;  but  of  inhuman  ridicule  and  disgust.  Not 
one  man  in  a  thousand  enters  the  temple  of  a  creed  in  which 
he  does  not  believe,  with  any  reverence  or  even  any  interest 
beyond  vulgar  curiosity.  But  that  man  sees  what  others 
wholly  miss ;  even  the  essential  meaning  of  the  cultus.  Just 
so  will  those  few  who,  like  Miiller,  enter  the  vast  fane  of 
Yedic  or  Zoroastrian  faith,  not  rudely  or  contemptuously, 
but  with  respectful  sympathy,  find  therein  a  purpose  which 
for  ever  escapes  the  mere  profane  inquirer. 

The  sources  of  knowledge  concerning  existing  heathen 
religions  are  of  very  various  value.  The  obvious  results  of 
a  creed  on  the  character  and  manners  of  the  nation  which 
adopts  it  have  always  afforded  a  favourite  "  short  method 
with  the  Pagans,"  whereby  it  was  easy  to  demonstrate  that 
all  such  creeds  could  contain  nothing  good  since  so  little 
good  came  from  them.  But  to  argue  back  from  the  practice 
to  the  theory  of  any  religion  would,  I  fear,  prove  an 
unsatisfactory  mode  of  procedure,  even  if  applied  to  our 
own.  The  "  intelligent  foreigner,"  after  perusing  our  police 
reports,  examining  the  processes  of  our  traffic,  or  merely 
perambulating  the  streets  of  London  or  Paris,  before  or 
after  dark,  would  hardly  construct  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  as  the  source  to  which  all  he  beheld  plainly  pointed 
as  authority.  Professor  Miiller  himself  mentions  the  despair 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  241 

of  a  poor  Hindoo  convert,  who  somehow  managed  to  reach 
England  still  possessed  of  the  simple  faith,  that  Evangelical 
piety  filled  all  our  hearts  and  Evangelical  morality  guided 
the  greater  part  of  our  actions.  To  expect  that  far  less  pure 
and  noble  creeds  should  exercise  more  perfect  influence,  and 
that  Confucian  wisdom  should  reign  in  Pekin,  Brahmin 
devotion  at  Benares,  and  Zoroastrian  morality  among  the 
Parsees  at  Bombay,  is  paying,  to  say  the  least,  a  bad  com 
pliment  to  Christianity. 

A  second  source  of  knowledge  of  heathen  creeds  is  derived 
from  the  oral  teaching  of  living  priests ;  the  doctrines  they 
promulgate  concerning  God  and  other  beings  of  the  invisible 
world ;  their  cosmogony,  ethics  and  ceremonial  laws,  and 
their  lessons  concerning  a  future  state.  This  oral  teaching  is 
of  course  a  most  important  element  in  forming  our  estimate 
of  each  creed,  and  has  hitherto  been  almost  our  "sole  guide 
to  the  great  religions  of  the  East.  It  is,  however,  obviously 
liable  to  lead  us  into  many  mistakes.  In  the  first  place 
we  derive  from  it  at  best  only  an  idea  of  the  religion  in 
its  present  shape,  which  often  (as  in  the  case  of  Brahminism) 
is  one  of  great  degeneracy.  Secondly,  such  teachings  as 
Eastern  priesthoods  now  afford  shade  off  always  into  my 
thologies,  more  or  less  puerile,  and  bearing  to  religion  no 
more  relation  than  the  Legends  of  the  Saints  do  to  Christ 
ianity.  To  say  what  is  the  creed  itself  and  what  is  mere 
hagiology  and  fable  is  impossible,  unless  we  go  beyond  the 
living  priests  to  some  higher  authority.  Again,  each  great 
creed  has  undergone  enormous  modifications.  Even  what 
must  be  termed  its  theology  has  changed  in  the  course  of 
ages,  and  differs,  altogether,  in  different  parts  of  the  wide 
empire  over  which  it  stretches.  The  Trimurti,  for  instance, 
of  Brahma,  Yishnu,  and  Seeva,  with  all  their  myths  of 
avatars,  and  the  pantheon  of  subordinate  gods,  is  a  com 
paratively  modern  phase  of  Brahminism.  Among  the  ele- 

16 


242  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 


mental  deities  of  the  Yedas  these  things  are  not  to  be  found. 
Buddhism  is  almost  a  different  creed  in  China,  in  Thibet 
and  in  Ceylon,  and  what  the  priesthood  of  one  country 
teaches  as  its  doctrines,  that  of  the  others  denies  or  modifies. 
Lastly,  all  mythologies  vary,  not  only  in  different  places 
but  at  different  times;  being  in  a  constant  state  of  flux 
and  change ;  sometimes  of  alternate  solidification  into  fable, 
and  rarefaction  into  metaphor.  We  continually  think  of 
heathen  religions  as  if  each  had  its  compact  Body  of  divinity 
or  its  Thirty-Nine  Articles  ;  and,  moreover,  as  if  it  possessed 
(what  our  churches  have  never  achieved)  a  priesthood  teach 
ing  precisely  the  same  doctrines  at  all  times  and  everywhere, 
neither  more  spiritual  nor  more  carnal,  more  philosophic 
nor  more  stupid  the  one  than  the  other.  As  things  actually 
are,  we  may  fairly  rate  the  judgment  of  an  Eastern  creed 
derivable  from  its  living  priests  at  the  value  which  would 
pertain  to  a  summary  of  Christianity  obtained  by  going 
about  Europe  asking  questions  of  an  Anglican  bishop,  an 
Italian  capuchin,  a  Scotch  presbyter,  and  a  Greek  papas ; 
and  digesting  their  answers,  as  best  we  might,  into  a  system 
of  theology,  omitting  whatever  might  seem  merely  sen 
sible  and  common-place,  and  carefully  noting  everything 
grotesque  and  surprising  which  came  in  our  way. 

Take  it  as  we  may,  the  creation  of  the  theology  and 
mythology  of  each  religion  is  a  process  more  remarkable 
and  more  interesting  the  more  we  endeavour  to  get  near 
to  it  and  realize  how  it  can  have  been  accomplished.  I 
know  of  few  better  attempts  to  deal  with  its  mystery  than 
in  the  essay  on  Semitic  Monotheism  in  these  volumes : 

The  primitive  intuition  of  God,  and  the  ineradicable  feeling  of 
dependence  on  God,  could  only  have  been  the  result  of  a  primitive 
revelation  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word.  Man,  who  owed  his  ex 
istence  to  God  and  whose  being  centred  and  rested  in  God,  saw  and 
felt  God  as  the  only  sense  of  his  own  and  of  all  other  existence.  By 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  243 

the  very  act  of  creation  God  had  revealed  himself.  This  primitive 
intuition  of  God,  however,  was  in  itself  neither  monotheistic  nor  poly 
theistic,  though  it  might  become  either.  It  is  too  often  forgotten  by 
those  who  believe  that  a  polytheistic  worship  was  the  most  natural 
unfolding  of  religious  life,  that  polytheism  must  everywhere  have  been 
preceded  by  a  more  or  less  conscious  theism.  In  no  language  does  the 
plural  exist  before  the  singular.  No  human  mind  could  have  conceived 
the  idea  of  Gods  without  having  previously  conceived  the  idea  of  a 
God.  The  primitive  intuition  of  Godhead  is  neither  monotheistic  nor 
polytheistic,  and  it  finds  its  expression  in  the  simplest  and  yet  the 
most  important  article  of  faith — that  God  is  God.  This  must  have 
been  the  faith  of  the  ancestors  of  mankind  before  any  division  of  race, 
.  .  .  but  it  was  not  yet  secured  against  the  illusions  of  a  double  vision. 
Its  expression  would  have  been  "there  is  a  God,"  but  not  yet  "there 
is  but  one  God." 

In  all  heathen  nations,  and  even  partially  among  the 
Jews,  the  various  aspects  of  nature,  and  names  given  to 
different  attributes  of  God,  led  to  the  multiplication  of 
deities,  and  thence  by  rapid  degrees  to  the  formation  of 
myths  and  legends,  and  endless  genealogies."  How  all 
those  arose,  which  we  find  were  actually  believed,  it  is  hard 
indeed  to  imagine.  A  certain  large  number  may  be  set 
down  at  once  as  not  so  much  Myths  as  Metaphors ;  the 
inevitable  shape  into  which  expression  of  natural  phenomena 
fell  when  language  was  yet  all  alive  with  imagery,  and 
possessed  no  abstract  nouns,  no  auxiliary  verbs ;  no  terms, 
in  short,  which  did  not  draw  a  picture  instead  of  narrating 
a  fact.  "  Words,"  says  Miiller,  "  were  then  heavy  and  un 
wieldy.  They  said  more  than  they  ought  to  say."  Thus, 
what  is  poetry  now  was  common  prose  then,  or  rather  there 
was  no  distinction  between  prose  and  poetrj^  and  men  said 
that  "Night  was  the  mother  of  sleep  and  dreams,"  just  as 
simply  as  we  say,  "  Sleep  and  dreams  come  at  night  time." 
Innumerable  other  myths  are  traced  by  modern  scholars  (I 
confess,  as  it  seems  to  my  ignorance,  with  tedious  iteration 
and  much  coercion  of  fancy)  to  descriptions  of  solar  phe- 


244  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

nomena.  Every  hero,  according  to  these  critics,  is  the  Sun, 
every  heroine  the  Moon ;  and  every  event  is  affirmed  to 
represent  the  Sun  rising  or  the  Sun  setting,  the  Sun  among 
clouds  or  the  Sun  at  dawn,  the  Sun  at  the  solstice  or  the 
Sun  at  the  equinox,  the  Sun  entering  the  Bull  or  the  Sun 
quitting  the  ram — till  the  unlearned  mind  marvels  whether 
the  ancient  heathens  were  born  and  died,  married,  reigned, 
fought,  or  had  any  real  existence  other  than  as  types  of 
the  Sun ;  or  whether  they  attended  at  all  to  their  own  affairs 
and  not  exclusively  to  those  of  the  Solar  System.  But 
when  we  have  done  our  best  to  understand  all  these  myths, 
whether  mere  metaphors  or  elaborate  allegories,  we  are  still 
perplexed  to  conceive  the  mental  conditions  of  what  Professor 
M tiller  calls  the  mythopceic  age,  in  which  they  originated, 
and  of  the  next,  when  they  passed  into  the  minds  of  sub 
sequent  generations  as  accredited  facts.  One  thing  alone 
is  clear,  that  the  mass  of  such  myths  have  little  or  nothing 
in  common  with  the  religion  of  the  race  among  whom  they 
were  current ;  and  that  we  may  as  well  study  the  Protes 
tantism  of  Elizabeth's  reign  in  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream 
as  the  real  faith  of  a  Roman  of  the  Augustan  age  in  Ovid's 
Metamorphoses. 

The  one  satisfactory  source  of  knowledge  concerning  all 
religions,  is  neither  the  moral  state  of  the  people  who  hold 
them,  nor  their  current  myths,  but  their  Sacred  Literature. 
This  alone  supplies  us  at  first  hand  with  the  fountain  from 
which  all  that  is  really  characteristic  and  important  in  each 
creed  has  been  derived.  Here  we  get  at  the  thoughts  about 
God  and  duty  and  immortality  of  real  men  whose  spiritual  ex 
perience  (to  use  Rowland  Williams'  great  phrase)  generated 
the  religious  atmosphere  in  which  their  disciples  ever  since 
have  breathed.  Here  we  are  face  to  face  with  the  prophets 
of  old,  no  longer  transfigured  and  seen  through  a  halo  of 
adoring  fable,  but  as  they  were  in  the  flesh,  writing  as  best 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  245 

they  could,  the  burning  thoughts  of  their  souls.  Here  then, 
if  anywhere,  lies  the  mine  of  wealth  out  of  which  we  must 
dig  our  knowledge  of  the  great  creeds  of  the  world. 

But  in  such  literature  there  are  always  varied  stages. 
The  earliest  books  (invariably  accounted  most  sacred)  indicate 
the  first  vague  shape  which  the  creed  assumed.  The  books 
of  the  second  period,  and  of  lesser  sanctity,  present  the 
creed  in  more  definite  form,  and  are  also,  nearly  always,  of 
a  more  distinctly  ethical  character.  Lastly,  after  every 
Bible  there  comes  a  Talmud,  the  commentaries  and  cere 
monial  regulations  by  which  the  earlier  prophetic  utterances 
and  the  secondary  ethical  precepts  are  in  time  overlaid. 
Usually  it  happens  that  during  the  long  interval  between 
the  beginning  and  end  of  such  a  cycle  of  literature  in  any 
country,  the  creed  itself  has  undergone  essential  modifi 
cations,  whether,  as  in  Judaism,  by  rising  into  a  higher 
spirituality,  and  incorporating  the  doctrine  of  immortality  ; 
or,  as  in  Brahminism,  by  declension  into  the  worship  of 
material  idols. 

Before  endeavouring  to  recapitulate  Professor  Muller's 
conclusions  regarding  some  of  these  great  works,  a  few 
reflections  on  the  extraordinary  nature  of  Sacred  Books  may 
well  be  bestowed. 

Looking  back  from  the  rich  garden  of  literature  which 
human  genius  and  industry  (and  we  may  add  human  vanity 
and  folly)  have  created  for  us,  "the  heirs  of  all  the  ages," 
it  is  almost  touching  to  learn  how  the  first  few  books  of  the 
world,  the  wild  flowers  which  sprang  up  spontaneously  in  all 
their  glory  and  freshness  in  that  yet  unbroken  soil,  were 
cherished  and  well-nigh  adored.  A  book,  strange  is  it  to 
remember,  was  once,  per  se,  a  sacred  thing.  And  as  a 
young  writer  even  now  looks  on  his  first  printed  work 
with  a  curious  sort  of  parental  sense,  beholding  the  child 
of  his  mind  standing  before  him,  the  mysterious  logos  em- 


246  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 


bodied  in  tangible  shape,  no  longer  a  part  of  himself,  but 
having  as  it  were  independent  life,  so,  in  those  far-off  ages, 
mankind  looked  on  the  first  books  with  awe  and  wonder  as 
Incarnate  Thoughts.  Beneath  a  synagogue  in  Jerusalem 
there  is  a  vault  where,  even  yet,  old  worn-out  books  and 
manuscripts  are  piously  buried,  a  memorial  of  the  time 
when  every  written  law  was  believed  to  have  had,  not  only 
a  human  scribe,  but  an  inspiring  deity  to  direct  the  legis 
lator,  and  every  poem  was  understood  to  have  had  a  Muse, 
by  whose  aid  so  wondrous  an  achievement  was  brought  about. 
By  degrees  the  best  of  the  old,  and  the  oldest  of  the  best 
books,  through  all  the  pious  Eastern  lands,  became  hallowed 
and  set  apart,  to  be  confounded  no  more  with  merely 
mortal  works.  They  were  canonized  as  saintly  Christian 
men  were  afterwards  canonized,  first  by  the  common  voice, 
then  perhaps,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Buddhist  scriptures,  by 
decrees  of  councils,  and,  at  last,  by  universal  consent  and 
tradition.  Is  this  very  marvellous  ?  Have  we  any  difficulty 
in  conceiving  how  it  happened  ?  Nay,  but  was  it  not  rather 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  ?  Who  can  estimate 
the  mysterious  enchantment  which  belongs  to  the  words  of 
a  great  book,  when  generations  have  passed  away  uttering 
them  in  every  hour  of  joy  and  agony,  and  finding  expres 
sion  in  them  for  all  their  hope  and  all  their  penitence? 
The  cathedral  roof,  which  has  bent  over  the  prayers  of  a 
thousand  years,  seems  redolent  of  their  incense  ;  the  altar 
where  our  fathers  have  knelt  becomes  for  us  a  shrine.  So 
it  is  with  books  also,  with  the  very  words  and  phrases  which 
have  been  as  silver  trumpets  through  which  men's  voices 
have  gone  upward  to  heaven  for  millenniums.  Does  any  one 
believe  that  the  outbursts  of  faith  and  grief  in  the  Psalms 
or  the  old  prayers  of  Basil  and  Chrysostom,  are  just  the 
same  now,  no  richer  or  fuller  of  meaning  than  when  they 
were  first  written  ?  Had  they  been  buried  then  in  that 


THE    RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  247 

Syrian  vault  and  exhumed  for  some  antiquary  to  decipher 
to-day,  would  they  be  for  us  what  they  now  are  when  for 
ages  human  hearts  have  embalmed  them  ?  Not  so.  Words 
whose  sound  has  gone  out  into  all  lands,  awakening,  con 
soling,  purifying  the  souls  of  men  age  after  age,  cannot  be 
for  us  like  other  words.  They  come  to  us  breathing  memories 
of  childhood  and  of  our  mother's  prayers,  and  through  them 
we  seem  to  hear  a  murmur  as  of  the  voices  of  all  the  holy 
dead.  Such  sanctity  as  this  depends  little  upon  theories  of 
"  inspiration/'  or  arguments  concerning  the  authority  of  a 
canon  or  the  authenticity  of  a  codex  ;  but  nothing  is  more 
natural  than  that  a  devout  mind  should  attribute  directly 
to  God's  dictation  what  seems  at  once  so  sacred  and  so 
beautiful. 

It  is  not  hard  to  recognize  these  truths  applied  to  our  own 
scriptures  and  liturgies.  Can  we  not  discern  also  that,  in 
a  great  measure,  the  same  principle  must  hold  good  for 
nations  whose  sacred  books  have  far  less  beauty  and  meaning 
for  us,  and  far  less  absolutely,  by  any  standard  we  can  admit 
for  a  moment ;  but  which  may  very  possibly  have  a  certain 
habitual  fitness  and  home  sentiment,  for  the  nations  to  whom 
they  belong,  which  even  greater  books  may  lack  ?  Doubt 
less,  Arab  and  Indian  melodies  are  immeasurably  inferior 
to  German  and  Italian  airs,  yet  we  should  not  marvel,  but 
take  it  as  a  trait  of  human  nature,  if  an  Arab  or  Indian 
listened  delighted  to  the  monotonous  jangle  of  his  native 
instruments,  and  shed  tears  over  tunes  which  rather  inclined 
us  to  laughter.  The  fact  that  a  Brahmin  can  find  in  the 
Yedas,  or  an  Arab  in  the  Koran,  much  more  than  we  can 
find  in  either  of  beauty  and  sublimity,  should  cause  us  no  sur 
prise.  The  wonder  is  rather,  how  we  western  Europeans,  we 
of  Aryan  race,  feel  such  intense  sympathy  with  the  literature 
of  a  Semitic  people,  and  are  far  more  at  home  in  Genesis 
than  in  the  Iliad,  in  the  speculations  of  Job  than  in  those  of 


248  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

Plato.  The  explanation  is  to  be  found,  perhaps,  first  in  the 
marvellous  greatness  of  the  Hebrew  literature ;  and  in  its 
intensely  human  character  which  ever  recalls  to  each  of  us 
the  freshness  of  youth,  and  gives  it  a  claim  to  be  the  liter 
ature  not  of  one  people  but  of  humanity.  Secondly,  we 
English  and  Germans,  who  of  European  nations  most  prize 
the  Bible,  have  been  for  a  thousand  years  fed  upon  it,  till 
Jewish  and  Syrian  ideas  come  to  us  far  more  naturally  than 
those  of  our  own  Odin-worshipping  ancestors.  To  them,  in 
deed,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
(could  they  have  read  them)  would  have  seemed  half  so  fine 
as  Beowulf  or  the  elder  Nibelungen-Lied.  But  on  the  strong 
wild  stems  of  Norse  and  Teuton  races  the  graft  of  Judaic 
thought  has  flourished  vigorously,  and  we,  the  fruit  thereof, 
show  more  mental  likeness,  perchance,  to  the  graft  than  to 
our  original  stem. 

It  is  easy  to  turn  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  heathens  into 
ridicule,  by  quoting  from  them  monstrous  myths,  childish 
precepts,  and  especially  that  almost  universal  perversion  of 
morals  whereby  ceremonies  are  exalted  to  the  level  of  the 
most  imperative  duties.  As  the  Institutes  of  Menu  speak  of 
"  killing  the  inhabitants  of  three  worlds  and  eating  with 
unwashed  hands "  as  of  crimes  of  parallel  magnitude,  so 
nearly  every  ancient  law-book  places  things  mala  in  se  and 
things  mala  prohibita  (such  as  gathering  sticks  on  the  Sab 
bath)  in  most  unfit  equality.  The  error  obviously  arises 
from  the  notion  that  ceremonial  observances  are  duties 
directly  owed  to  God,  and  therefore  of  infinite  obligation, 
while  other  duties,  it  is  imagined,  are  only  indirectly  divine, 
and  are  owed  to  man,  and  therefore  of  minor  sanctity. 
Though  if  there  be  one  point  more  clear  than  another  in  the 
teaching  of  Christ,  it  is  his  denunciation  of  such  pharisaism, 
and  of  the  giving  of  tithes  of  mint,  anise,  and  cummin,  to 
the  neglect  of  justice  and  truth,  yet  from  his  age  to  ours 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  249 

Christendom  has  never  shaken  itself  wholly  free  thereof. 
Ifc  is  idle  then  to  point  to  these  puerile  precepts,  and  the 
endless  commentaries  upon  them,  as  proving  the  worthless- 
ness  of  heathen  books. 

Modern  philology  and  ethnology  have  grouped  the 
languages  and  nations  of  Europe  and  Asia  in  wholly  dif 
ferent  classification  from  the  purely  geographical  order 
formerly  used ;  and  this  new  classification  Professor  Muller 
conceives  to  be  applicable  no  less  to  the  religions  than  the 
tongues  of  the  various  races.  The  order  he  adopts  may  be 
briefly  thus  described : 

1.  The  Aryan  or  Indo-European  race,  branching  into  the 
northern  Indian,  Persian,  Greek,  Roman,  Sclavonic,  Teuton, 
and  Celtic  races,   with    all  their   languages :   Sanscrit   (the 
elder  sister),  Zend,  Persian,   Greek,  Latin,   German,  Celtic, 
French,  English,  etc. 

2.  The    Semitic   race,    branching    into    Assyrians,    Jews, 
Phoenicians,  Carthaginians,  Arabs,  etc. ;  with  their  languages, 
of  which  Hebrew  and  Arabic  are  the  most  important. 

3.  The  Turanian  race,  comprising  Mongols,  Turks,  Malays, 
Siamese,  and  many  of  the  Indian  nations,  with  their  re 
spective  languages. 

4.  The  Chinese,  with  their  unique  monosyllabic  language. 
After  these,   between  whom  all  history,  all  religion,  all 

literature,  and  all  art  are  well-nigh  divided,  there  are  the 
African,  American,  and  Polynesian  races  (variously  arranged 
by  ethnologists),  with  whose  languages  and  religions  we 
have  here  no  concern.  The  ethnology  of  the  great  Egyptian 
race  in  the  world's  pedigree  seems  to  be  still  a  matter  of 
doubt.  Their  language  is  said  by  scholars  to  have  some 
singular  affinities  with  that  of  the  Hottentots. 

By  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  races  has  the  progress  of  the 
world  been  carried  on,  and  in  them  our  interest,  both  here- 


250  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

ditary  and  historical,  necessarily  centres.  Now,  a  very  sin 
gular  parallel,  which  so  far  as  I  am  aware  has  not  been 
hitherto  remarked,  may  be  traced  between  the  religious 
history  of  these  two  great  tribes.  I  venture  to  suggest  it 
as  one  of  the  most  curious  parallels  in  history. 

In  both  Aryan  and  Semitic  races  there  have  existed  several 
minor  creeds  which,  in  process  of  ages,  have  disappeared.  In 
the  Aryan  race,  for  example,  there  have  been  the  religions 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  Odin-worship  and  Druidism.  In  the 
Semitic  race  there  have  been  the  Assyrian,  Phoenician  and 
sundry  other  idolatries.  But  in  each  race  there  has  also  been 
one  great  religion  which,  beginning  at  the  very  dawn  of 
history,  has  lasted  to  the  present  hour,  namely,  Vedic-Brah- 
minism  among  the  Aryans,  arid  Judaism  in  the  Semitic  race. 
And  each  of  these  great  religions  has  had  two  vast  offshoots, 
or  schisms,  which,  also,  still  survive ;  namely,  Zoroastrianism 
and  Buddhism  from  Brahminism ;  and  Christianity  and  Islam 
from  Judaism.  Further.  All  six  of  these  religions  are 
possessed  of  a  Sacred  Literature,  to  which  divine  authority 
is  attributed  by  their  adherents ;  namely,  among  the  Aryans : 

The  Yedas  of  the  Brahmans ; 

The  Zend-Avesta  of  the  Zoroastrians  ; 

The  Tripitaka  of  the  Buddhists  ; 

and  among  the  Semitic  race : 

The  Old  Testament  of  the  Jews ; 

The  New  Testament  of  the  Christians ; 

The  Koran  of  the  Moslems. 

Beside  these  Aryan  and  Semitic  Scriptures,  there  only 
exist  in  the  world  two  other  ancient  sacred  books  of  any 
value,  namely  the  Kings  of  the  Confucian  Chinese,  and  the 
Taote-king  of  the  Taoists  of  China ;  the  Grunth  of  the 
Sikhs  being  a  comparatively  modern  work. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  251 

Lastly,  as  if  to  perfect  the  parallel,  recent  calculations 
tend  to  show  that  at  the  present  hour,  after  four  thousand 
years  of  development,  the  great  religions  of  the  Semitic  and 
Aryan  races  are  almost  on  an  equality  in  point  of  numbers ; 
Brahminism  and  Buddhism,  with  the  small  remnant  of 
Zoroastrians,  counting  together  (according  to  an  authority 
accepted  by  Professor  Miiller)  about  44  per  cent,  of  the 
human  race ;  and  Judaism,  Islam,  and  Christianity  num 
bering  nearly  45  per  cent,  on  the  same  calculation. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  heighten  the  effect  of  so  amazing 
a  coincidence  by  any  reflections.  One  fact,  however,  must 
not  be  forgotten.  Among  all  these  creeds,  Christianity  alone 
is  extending  itself;  all  the  rest,  without  exception,  are  dying 
out.  Whether  the  extension  of  Christianity  have  any  con 
siderable  motive  force  beside  the  superior  energies,  the 
conquests  and  colonLzings  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  and 
whether  a  collapse  of  the  British  Empire  would  leave  the 
progress  of  Christianity  undisturbed,  we  need  not  inquire. 
The  prior  question  would  need  to  be  settled  before  any  con 
clusion  could  be  drawn  from  such  premisses :  What  share 
has  Christianity,  and  especially  free  and  moral  Protestant 
Christianity,  had  in  making  the  Englishman  what  he  is, 
and  giving  to  Queen  Victoria  those  realms  on  which  the  sun 
never  sets  ? 

I  propose  briefly  to  follow  Professor  Miiller,  not  into  all 
the  varied  woods  and  groves  of  literature  wherein  he  has 
cut  his  "  Chips,"  but  through  his  more  weighty  discussions 
on  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.  Of  these,  those  of  the 
Aryan  race  have  chiefly  occupied  him,  leaving  room  for  one 
essay  only  on  the  Confucian  books,  and  one  on  Semitic 
Monotheism.  To  begin,  then,  with  the  oldest  and  most 
interesting  of  all. 

"In  the  Aryan  wTorld,"  says  Professor  Miiller,  "the  Veda 
is  certainly  the  oldest  book."  And  it  is  emphatically  a  book, 


252  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

not  a  mere  monument  or  record  of  conquests  and  successive 
dynasties.  Here  lies  its  immense  interest,  for  "  poets  are 
better  than  kings,  and  guesses  at  truth  are  more  valuable 
than  unmeaning  titles  of  Egyptian  or  Babylonian  despots." 
The  word  Veda  means  "knowledge,"  being,  in  fact,  the 
same  word  as  "  wit "  or  "  wise."  There  are  four  books 
known  as  Vedas,  and  commonly  represented  in  the  four 
hands  of  Brahma  the  Creator,  namely,  the  Rig  Yeda,  the 
Yagur  Yeda,  the  Sama  Yeda,  and  Atharva  Yeda.  But  the 
three  last,  says  Professor  Miiller,  no  more  deserve  the  name 
of  Yedas  than  the  Talmud  deserves  the  name  of  Bible.  The 
Yagur  Yeda  is,  in  fact,  a  prayer-book ;  the  Sama  Yeda,  a 
hymn-book ;  and  the  Atharva  Yeda,  a  sort  of  rubric ;  each 
for  the  use  of  a  different  order  of  priests  at  the  sacrifices. 
The  Rig  Yeda,  containing  the  most  ancient  hymn  of  praise, 
is  the  Yeda  par  excellence.  It  consists  of  two  parts, 
the  oldest  hymns  or  Mantras,  called  Sanhita,  and  a  number 
of  prose  comments  called  Brahmanas  and  Sutras.  The  Rig 
Yeda  Sanhita  consists  of  ten  books  containing  1028  hymns  ; 
and  600  years  before  Christ  the  scholars  of  India  had 
counted  these  1028  hymns,  and  found  they  contained 
10,402  verses,  and  432,000  syllables)  a  number  approximately 
verified  in  existing  MSS.  The  date  of  these  hymns  must 
be  somewhere  between  1200  and  1500  B.C.,  albeit  no  MS. 
exists  of  much  more  than  five  centuries  old.  This  high 
antiquity,  demonstrated  by  various  arguments,  is  corrobo 
rated  by  a  curious  observation.  In  modern  literature  one 
epoch,  nay  one  single  author,  often  uses  the  most  varied 
styles  of  composition,  poetry,  history,  criticism,  science. 
But  in  ancient  times,  says  Miiller,  "  the  individual  is  much 
less  prominent,  and  the  poet's  character  disappears  in  the 
general  character  of  the  layer  of  literature  to  which  he 
belongs,  It  is  the  discovery  of  such  large  strata  of  liter 
ature  following  each  other  in  regular  succession,  which 


THE  RELIGIONS   OF  THE  EAST.  253 

inspires  the  critical  historian  with  confidence  in  the  truly 
historical  character  of  the  successive  literary  productions  of 
ancient  India/'  where  "  an  age  of  poets  was  followed  by 
an  age  of  collectors  and  imitators ;  then  by  an  age  of  theo 
logical  prose  writers,  and  finally  by  an  age  of  writers  of 
scientific  manuals." 

Of  the  sanctity  of  the  Rig  Yeda,  in  the  opinion  of  Brah 
mins,  nothing  too  much  can  possibly  be  said.  "  The  Yeda 
is  sruti,  or  Hearing;  all  other  books,  even  the  great  code 
of  Menu,  is  smriti,  or  Recollection."  "The  views  enter 
tained  of  revelation,  by  the  orthodox  theologians  of  India," 
says  Miiller,  "are  far  more  minute  and  elaborate  than 
those  of  the  most  extreme  advocates  of  verbal  inspiration 
in  Europe."  The  whole  Yeda  is  the  work  of  deity,  and 
even  the  men  who  received  it  were  raised  above  common 
fallible  mortality.  The  human  element  is  utterly  denied 
a  place.  "The  Yeda  existed  before  all  time  in  the  mind 
of  God."  As  the  institutes  of  Menu  say,  "To  deities  and 
to  men,  the  Scripture  is  an  eye  of  light ;  nor  could  the 
Yeda  Shastras  have  been  made  by  human  faculties,  nor  can 
they  be  measured  by  human  reason  unassisted  by  revealed 
glosses  and  commentaries.  Such  codes  of  laws  as  are  not 
founded  on  the  Yeda  produce  no  good  fruit  after  death. 
All  systems  which  are  repugnant  to  the  Yeda  must  have 
been  composed  by  mortals  and  shall  soon  perish.  Their 
modern  date  proves  them  vain  and  false."1  The  real  writers 
of  the  Yeda  however,  like  those  of  other  books,  for  which 
similar  claims  have  been  advanced,  make  no  pretension  to 
write  by  divine  dictation,  but  implore  the  Deity  to  inspire 
them.  One  of  them  cries,  "0  Indra !  Whatever  I  now 
may  utter,  longing  for  thee,  do  thou  accept  it.  Make  me 
possessed  of  God  !  "  (Rig  Yeda,  vi.  47,  10.)  Another 
' '  utters  for  the  first  time  the  Gayatri,  which  now  for  more 
1  Institutes  of  Menu,  c.  12,  v.  94,  95. 


254  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

than  three  thousand  years  has  been  the  daily  prayer  of 
every  Brahman,  and  is  still  repeated  every  morning  by 
millions  of  pious  worshippers."  "Let  us  meditate  on  the 
adorable  light  of  the  Divine  Creator !  May  He  rouse  our 
minds !  " 

Very  various  degrees  of  merit  are  displayed  by  the 
different  poems  of  the  Yedas.  Some  of  them  are  tedious 
and  childish.  The  gods  are  invoked,  with  endless  repeti 
tions,  to  protect  their  worshippers,  and  to  grant  them  all  sorts 
of  terrestrial  blessings.  Yet  interesting  in  many  ways  are 
even  these  more  puerile  hymns.  They  reveal  that  mental 
condition  in  the  writers,  of  which  we  have  already  spoken 
as  a  theism  which  is  not  yet  properly  either  monotheism 
or  polytheism.  Each  god,  when  worshipped,  is  successively 
thought  of  as  the  God,  and  invested  with  supreme  attributes  ; 
and  here  and  there  may  be  traced  a  dim  recognition  that 
the  Many  are  but  One;  as  it  is  said  (Rig  Yeda,  i.  164,  46), 

"They  call  Him  Indra,  Mitra,  Yaruna,  Agni That 

which  is  One,  the  wise  call  in  divers  manners."  Some  of 
these  gods,  like  Agni  (Fire),  seem  to  be  merely  elementary  ; 
others,  like  Yaruna,  are  already  defined  personages ;  but  in 
no  case  is  there  any  trace  of  their  worship  having  taken 
the  form  of  idolatry.  The  worship  of  idols  in  India  is  a 
degradation  of  the  Yedic  worship  of  ideal  gods. 

The  Trimurti  of  Brahma,  Seeva,  and  Yishnu,  as  already 
stated,  is  altogether  the  product  of  a  later  age.  In  the 
Atharva  Yeda  occurs  the  first  mention  of  "  BRAHMAN  "  (used 
originally  in  the  neuter,  and  eventually  changed  into  a 
masculine  noun),  translated  by  Professor  Miiller  to  signify 
"Force"  or  "Will,"  and  said  to  be  the  "First-born,  the 
Self- existing,  the  best  of  the  Gods,  by  whom  heaven  and 
earth  were  established."  Yery  marvellously,  surely,  does  this 
name  for  God,  signifying  ambiguously  both  Will  and  Force, 
correspond  to  the  latest  theories  which  the  modern  doctrine 


THE  RELIGIONS   OF  THE  EAST.  255 

of  correlated  forces  has  suggested  to  men  of  science,  even 
within  the  last  few  years,  in  England.  If  it  become  the 
accepted  belief  amongst  us  that  the  forces  of  nature  hold 
to  God's  will  the  direct  relation  which  man's  nervous  force 
does  to  his  will,  or  in  other  words,  that  the  dynamic  power 
of  the  universe  is  the  vital  force  of  God,  we  shall  hardly 
find  in  relation  to  such  a  doctrine  a  better  name  for  the 
great  MOVER  of  all  things  than  "  Brahman." 

Here  and  there  through  the  Yeda  break  out  expressions 
of  wonder  respecting  the  physical  mysteries  of  the  universe, 
betraying  already  the  deep  thoughtfulness  and  speculative 
tendencies  of  that  Aryan  intellect  of  which  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  Kant  and  Hegel,  were  inheritors.  Listen  to 
the  following  from  the  Rig  Yeda  (x.  81-4)  :  "  What  was 
the  forest,  what  was  the  tree,  out  of  which  they  shaped 
heaven  and  earth  ?  Wise  men  ask  this  :  on  what  He  stood 
when  He  held  the  worlds  ?"  Or  to  the  still  more  remark 
able  129th  hymn  of  the  10th  book,  of  which  Professor 
Miiller  has  given  a  full  translation  ending  in  the  lines  of 
which  he  may  well  observe;  "At  this  period  no  poet  in 
any  other  nation  could  have  conceived  them." 

Who  knows  from  whence  this  great  creation  sprung  ? 
He  from  whom  all  this  great  creation  came, 
Whether  His  will  created  or  was  mute  ? 
The  Most  High  Seer  that  is  in  highest  heaven, 
He  knows  it — or  perchance  even  He  knows  not  ! 

A  matter  of  still  greater  interest  is  the  moral  life  which  may 
be  traced  through  these  oldest  of  human  compositions.  The 
Brahmin  mind,  from  the  first,  was  of  a  highly  intellectual 
cast,  while  in  the  Iranian  race  the  moral  element  visibly 
predominated.  Yet  it  is  evident  that,  in  the  age  of  the 
Yedas,  religion  and  morality  were  already  linked  with  that 
closeness  which  we  discover  in  the  Hebrew  writings,  and 
so  often  miss  in  those  of  the  Greeks.  Many  a  Christian 


256  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

reader  might  take  unawares  for  one  of  the  Psalms  of  Israel 
some  of  the  hymns  quoted  by  Professor  Miiller,  merely 
changing  the  name  Yaruna  (Ouranos,  Heaven)  for  Jehovah. 
Witness  the  following  (Rig  Veda,  vii.  89) : 

Let  me  not  yet,  0  Varuna,  enter  into  the  house  of  clay.     Have  mercy, 

Almighty,  have  mercy  ! 
Through  want  of  strength  have  I  done  wrong.     Have  mercy,  Almighty, 

have  mercy  ! 
Whenever  we  men,  0  Varuna,  commit  an  offence  before  the  heavenly 

host,  whenever  we   break  the  law  through  thoughtlessness,  have 

mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy  ! 

How  wonderful  is  it  here  to  find  the  LAW — that  great 

Unwritten  law  divine, 

Immutable,  eternal,  not  like  those  of  yesterday, 
But  made  ere  time  began — 

of  which  Sophocles  wrote,  here  spoken  of  already  in  the 
first  dawn  of  the  world,  perchance  ere  yet  Moses  was  born, 
as  "the  Law " — the  law  of  God,  for  whose  neglect  man  prays 
to  be  forgiven ! 

And  again  (Rig  Yeda,  vii.  86)  : 

Wide  and  mighty  are  the  works  of  Him  who  stemmed  asunder  the  wide 
firmaments  and  lifted  on  high  the  bright  and  glorious  heaven.  He 
stretched  out  apart  the  starry  sky  and  the  earth.  .  .  . 

How  can  I  approach  unto  Varuna  ?  Will  he  accept  my  offering  without 
displeasure  ?  .  .  .  Absolve  us  from  the  sins  of  our  fathers,  and  from 
those  which  we  have  committed  with  our  own  bodies.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  our  own  doing,  0  Varuna  !  It  was  temptation,  an  intoxi 
cating  draught,  passion  and  thoughtlessness,  Even  sleep  brings 
unrighteousness. 

The  Lord  God  enlighteneth  the  foolish.  .  .  0  Lord  Varuna,  may  this 
song  go  to  thine  heart. 

The  likeness  of  the  following  (Atharva  Yeda,  iv.   6)   to 
Psalm  139  is  remarkable : 

The  great  Lord  of  the  worlds  sees  as  if  he  were  near.     If  a  man 
stands,  or  walks,  or  hides,  if  he  lies  down  or  rises  up,  King  Varuna 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  257 

knows  it.  He  is  there  as  the  third.  He  who  should  flee  far  beyond 
the  sky,  even  he  would  not  be  rid  of  Varuna.  .  .  King  Varuna  sees  all 
that  is  between  heaven  and  earth.  He  has  counted  the  twinklings 
of  the  eyes  of  men. 

In  conclusion,  Professor  Miiller  tells  us  there  is  no  trace 
of  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis  in  the  Yeda,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  many  references  to  personal  immortality  as  an 
accepted  fact.  A  few  vague  threats  of  a  "pit/7  and  of  the 
"  dogs  of  Yama "  (death),  hint  at  punishment  for  the 
wicked,  and  the  good  man  expects  a  felicity  thus  conceived 
of  (Rig  Yeda,  ix.  113,  7)  : 

Where  there  is  eternal  light,  in  the  world  where  the  sun  is  placed,  in 

that  immortal  imperishable  world,  .  .  . 
Where  life  is  free,  in  the  third  heaven  of  heavens,  where  the  worlds  are 

radiant,  where  there  is  happiness  and  delight,  where  joy  and  pleasure 

reside,  where  the  desires  of  our  desire  are  attained, — there  make  me 

immortal ! 

Next  in  age  and  importance  to  the  Yedas  in  the  Aryan 
world  are  the  Zoroastrian  sacred  books ;  the  scriptures  of  the 
Parsees,  commonly  comprised  under  the  name  of  the  Zend- 
Avesta.  Of  these  books  an  account  was  given  by  the  present 
writer  (compiled  from  the  translations  of  Haug,  Spiegel, 
"Westergaard,  etc.)  in  Fraser's  Magazine  three  years  ago.1 
So  far  as  he  has  traversed  the  same  ground,  Professor  Miiller, 
I  am  happy  to  find,  seems  to  sanction  all  the  statements  of 
that  paper.  To  those  who  have  not  read  the  article  in  ques 
tion,  it  may  be  briefly  told  that  the  conclusions  of  recent 
Zend  scholarship  are  these  : — In  the  beginning  of  history 
the  Aryan  race,  a  small  tribe,  perhaps  only  a  family,  having 
one  language  and  one  faith,  dwelt  in  a  certain  spot  called 
Aryana  Yaeyo,  (the  old  Aryan  Home)  believed  to  have  been 
on  the  banks  of  the  Araxes,  near  where  the  city  of  Atropatene 
afterwards  stood.  It  was  at  all  events  a  region  far  north  of 

1  Eeprinted  in  Studies  Ethical  and  Social.     1  vol.,  8vo.     Williams  &  Norgate. 

17 


258  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

India,  where  winter  reigned  for  ten  months  of  the  year.1 
After  the  lapse  of  years  or  centuries — who  can  tell  how  many  ? 
— the  race  parted  into  two  great  branches :  the  Iranians,  who 
were  agriculturists,  labouring  in  Bactria  ;  and  the  Brahmins, 
penetrating  into  India,  where  their  nomad  habits  ended. 
This  eventful  severance  was  not  effected  without  some  bitter 
strife  and  religious  dissension.  Nay,  it  was  perhaps  primarily 
rather  a  religious  schism  than  a  national  disruption.  In  the 
rich  fossil-beds  of  Language,  where  science  is  daily  in 
structing  us  more  and  more  to  seek  for  relics  of  the  earlier 
world  which  no  false  dealings  with  history  can  have  dis 
torted,  there  appears  unmistakable  evidence  that  the  Zoro- 
astrian  and  Yedic  creeds  bore  to  each  other  the  inimical 
attitude  of  reformed  and  unreformed  churches,  of  a  great 
Catholicity  and  a  great  Protestantism.  It  was  something 
more  than  the  rancour  wherewith,  in  modern  times, 

Some  have  learned  to  curse  the  shrine 
Where  others  kneel  to  heaven, 

for  gods  and  devils  were  actually  made  to  exchange  places. 
The  Deva  in  Brahminism  are  gods.  In  the  Zend-Avesta 
they  are  demons.  The  Asura  are  the  evil  spirits  of  the  later 
Brahminism ;  and  Ahura-Mazda  is  Zoroaster's  name  for  the 
Supreme  God  himself.  Indra,  god  of  the  sky,  chief  god 
of  one  Yedic  period,  is  the  second  of  the  devils  in  the  Zend- 
Avesta.  And  so  on  through  a  bewildering  dance  of  heaven's 
and  hell's  inhabitants.  The  rites  of  the  two  creeds  also  show 
intimate  connexion,  and  are  visibly  only  variations  of  the 
same  original  cultus,  but  here  again  are  traces  of  the  same 
fierce  strife.  The  sacred  Soma,  which  in  the  Brahminical 
religion  holds  a  place  analogous  to  the  sacramental  Host 
cf  Catholicism,  is  spoken  of  in  one  of  the  most  ancient 
fragments  of  the  Zend-Avesta  with  extremest  horror  and 

2  First  Fargard  of  the  Vendidad. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  259 

contempt.     "  Who  will  pollute,"  it  asks,  "  that  intoxicating 
liquor  which  makes  proud  the  priests  of  the  idols  ?  "   (Yasna 
47.)     Here  then  took  place  the  earliest  schism  of  the  world ; 
a  schism  unhealed  after  three  thousand  years.     Asia  at  that 
hour  fell  morally  asunder.     The  Brahmin  race  went  on, — to 
pass  through  intellectual  processes  of   amazing  depth  and 
complexity,  and  to  arrive  at  last  at  the  miserable  result  of 
modern   Hindooism.     The   Iranian   race,   on    the   contrary, 
made  a  vigorous  and  healthful  Morality  the  heart  of  their 
religion,  and  after  having  largely  influenced  western  thought 
through  Jews  and  Greeks,  have  left  to  this  hour  in  the  rem 
nant  of  Parsees  no  unworthy  representatives  of  Zoroaster's 
disciples,  uncorrupted  by  either  polytheism  or  idolatry,  the 
impure  rites  or  the  cruel  laws  of  the  nation  ainid  which 
they  dwell.     "  A  Par  see,"  says  Professor  Miiller,  "  believes 
in  one  God,  to  whom  he  addresses  his  prayers."     According 
to  his  catechism  he  is  taught  that :  "  This  God  has  neither 
face  nor  form,  colour  nor  shape,   nor  fixed   place.     He   is 
Himself  alone,  and  of  such  glory  that  we  cannot  praise  or 
describe  Him,  nor  our  minds  comprehend  Him."    "  Whoever 
believes  in  any  other  god  but  this  is  an  infidel."     Believing 
in  the  punishment  of  vice  and  the  reward  of  virtue,   the 
'  Parsee  trusts  for  pardon  in  the  mercy   of  God.     "  If  any 
one  commit  sin,"    (says  the    Zarthosti    Catechism),    "  under 
the  belief  that  he  shall  be  saved  by  somebody ;  both  the 
deceiver  as  well  as  the  deceived  shall  be  damned  to  the  day 
of  Rasta  Khez  "  (the  final  restoration- day  of  all  men  and  all 
spirits).     "  Your  Saviour  is  your  deeds  and   God  Himself. 
He  is  the  Pardoner  and  the  Giver."    (Miiller,  vol.  i.  p.  176.) 

Midway  through  the  millennium  which  separated  the  ages 
of  Zoroaster  and  Christ,  there  was  born  in  India  the  second 
great  teacher  who  rent  Brahminism  in  twain,  and  founded 
the  religion  which  even  now  counts  450,000,000  disciples. 


260  THE  RELIGIONS   OF  THE  EAST. 

Buddha  (the  Enlightened)  was  the  Auguste  Corate  of  the 
East.  He  taught  a  noble  morality, — without  a  God  to  com 
mand,  or  a  heaven  to  reward  it.  He  cut  away  the  roots  of 
all  authority  ; — and  immediately  himself  became  a  supreme 
and  unquestionable  authority,  so  that  a  few  years  after  his 
death  his  followers  held,  "That  which  Buddha  said,  that 
alone  was  well  said."  He  proposed x  the  idea  of  Humanity 
at  large  as  the  object  of  benevolence — and  formed  a  scheme 
of  politics  subversive  of  the  whole  order  of  society.  He 
taught  his  disciples  to  spend  several  hours  a  day  in  the 
repetition  of  prayers — and  forbade  them  to  suppose  that  any 
being  in  the  universe  paid  them  the  slightest  attention. 
Finally,  he  instructed  mankind  that  after  this  life  there  is 
nothing  to  be  hoped  for — and  that  the  highest  virtue  leads 
soonest  to  the  state  wherein  virtue  is  at  an  end  for  ever. 

Such  are  the  original  and  still  orthodox  doctrines  of 
Buddhism  according  to  Professor  Miiller,  M.  de  Saint- 
Hilaire,  and  Eugene  Burnouf.  Some  doubt  exists  whether 
the  book  containing  the  metaphysics  of  Buddhism  be  really 
the  record  of  his  teachings  or  the  original  speculations  of 
his  pupil  Kasyapa ;  but,  however  this  point  may  be  settled, 
ancient  and  modern  Buddhist  literature  bears  too  many 
testimonies  to  the  atheism  of  the  system,  and  too  often 
defines  the  future  Nirvana  as  empty  nothingness,  to  permit 
us  to  deny  that  philosophic  Buddhism  is  a  religion  without 
a  God  and  without  a  heaven.2 

A  religion  like  this  is  an  amazing  portent  in  the  history 
of  human  development.  But  does  its  appearance  prove  that 
the  Religious  Sentiment  in  man  is  a  weak  and  variable 
impulse,  the  result  of  early  impressions  and  to  be  swept 

1  Professor  Miiller  says  he  originated   this  idea   of  Humanity.     The  above 
parallel  between  Buddha  and  Comte,  however,  is  no  way  sanctioned  by  Professor 
Miiller. 

2  See  a  very  interesting  little  work,  The  Modern  Buddhist,  by  a  Siamese  Minis 
ter  of  State.     Translated  by  Henry  Alabaster.     One  vol.  12mo.     1870. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  261 

away  by  the  first  strong  hand  which  touches  it  ?  Has  man 
indeed  no  sense  of  immortality  which  makes  him  start  and 
shudder  at  the  endless  destruction  of  Nirvana  ? 

Nay,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  very  opposite  lesson  is 
taught  by  the  story  of  Buddhism.  The  truth  that  was  in 
the  teaching  of  Buddha,  even  a  beautiful,  unselfish  morality, 
the  millions  of  the  further  East  seized  upon  and  spread 
from  land  to  land  with  a  missionary  zeal  never  displayed 
before  or  since,  save  by  the  disciples  of  him  who  preached 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  But  the  dead,  cold,  hopeless 
theology  linked  with  that  living  morality  of  Buddhism, 
those  nations  never  truly  accepted  ;  and,  ere  long,  he  who 
had  taught  atheism  was  himself  worshipped  as  an  incarnate 
God  (a  god  before  he  descended  to  earth,  a  god  hearing 
prayers  since  he  has  ascended  to  heaven),  and  his  Nirvana 
of  nothingness  and  destruction  has  turned  into  a  paradise 
where  the  blessed  "hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any 
more,"  for  all  holy  desires  have  there  their  fruition.  When 
Buddhism  became  the  creed  of  millions,  the  Religious 
Sentiment  of  those  millions  remodelled  their  creed,  and 
transformed  an  atheistic  philosophy  into  a  devout  and  hope 
ful  religion.1 

1  On  the  subject  of  the  above-assumed  Atheism  of  Buddhism  I  am  indebted  to 
a  friend  for  the  following  observations  : — "  It  is  no  wise  my  wish  to  deny  that 
large  schools  of  the  Buddhists  in  Ceylon,  Thibet,  China,  and  Siam,  have  in  all 
ages  been,  and  now  are,  Athiests.  Only  let  it  be  remembered  that  from  the  first 
have  existed  other  schools  of  Buddhists  who  were,  and  are,  Theists.  Be  it  also 
distinctly  remembered  that  in  each  of  these  schools  Worship  has  been  inculcated, — 
the  worship  of  Pragna  (Nature),  of  the  Buddhas  (the  Great  Company  of  Saints), 
of  Dharma  (or  the  Law  of  Life),  and,  finally,  the  worship  of  Adi  Buddha.  .  .  . 
Of  this  Adi  Buddha,  take  the  following  account  from  the  '  Aiswarika  System,' — 
the  doctrine  of  '  Iswara,'  or  God,  as  opposed  to  the  '  Swabhava,'  or  Xature- 
System  : — '  Know  that  when  in  the  beginning  all  was  perfect  void  and  the  five 
elements  were  not,  then  Adi  Buddha,  the  Stainless,  was  revealed  in  the  form  of 
fire  or  light.  He  who  is  the  form  of  all  things  became  manifest.  He  is  the 
Self-existent  Great  Buddha.  He  is  the  cause  of  all  existences  in  the  Three 
•Worlds,  and  the  cause  of  their  well  being  also.  From  his  profound  meditation 
the  universe  was  produced.  He  is  the  Iswara,  the  sum  of  perfections,  the 
Infinite,  void  of  members  and  passions.  All  things  are  types  of  him,  and  yet  he 


262  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

A  most  instructive  picture  of  a  religious  Buddhist,  when 
Buddhism  was  in  its  prime  a  thousand  years  ago,  is  given 
in  these  volumes  in  the  sketch  of  the  life  of  Hiouen  Thsang, 
a  Chinese  whose  warm  devotion  prompted  him  to  travel 
to  India  to  obtain  the  sacred  books  and  visit  the  shrine  of 
his  faith.  His  journal,  still  existing,  has  been  translated 
by  M.  Stanislas  Julien,  and  reveals  a  character  brave, 
pious,  and  humane,  like  a  knight  errant  of  chivalry.  He 
lived  praying  perpetually  to  Buddha,  endeavouring,  like  a 
Christian  pilgrim,  to  behold  visions  and  identify  the  scenes 
of  Buddha's  life.  Finally  he  died  with  the  prayer  on  his 
lips :  "  that  in  every  future  birth  he  might  fulfil  his  duties 
towards  Buddha,  and  arrive  at  last  at  the  highest  and  most 
perfect  intelligence."1  Miiller  says  :  "  Of  selfishness  we  find 
no  trace  in  him.  His  whole  life  belonged  to  the  faith  in 
which  he  was  born,  and  the  object  of  his  labours  was  not 
so  much  to  perfect  himself  as  to  benefit  others."  Such  then 
is  the  religion  of  a  good  Buddhist.  It  does  not  much 
militate  assuredly  against  the  belief  that  man's  Religious 

was  no  type.  Adi  Buddha  is  without  beginning.  He  is  the  essence  of  wisdom 
(or  Absolute  Truth).  He  knows  all  the  past.  He  is  without  a  second.  He  is 
omnipresent.  As  in  a  mirror  we  mortals  see  our  forms  reflected,  so  Adi  Buddha 
is  known  in  Creation.  Adi  Buddha  has  delight  in  making  happy  every  sentient 
being.  He  tenderly  loves  those  who  serve  him.  He  is  the  assuager  of  pain  and 
grief.  He  is  the  giver  of  the  ten  virtues ;  the  Creator  of  all  the  Buddhas,  the 
Lord  of  the  Universe.'  How  far  do  these  passages,  translated  by  B.  H.  Hodgson 
(to  whom  Eugene  Burnouf  owns  his  obligations),  from  the  original  Sanskrit 
works,  disclose  the  primary  form  of  Buddhism  ?  The  reply  is,  that  these  works 
are  from  Nepaul,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  birthplace  of  Buddhism,  where  we  might 
expect  to  find  the  purest  and  oldest  traditions.  The  original  Sanskrit  works  must 
surely  be  at  least  as  trustworthy  as  the  Cingalese,  Thibetan,  and  Chinese  transla 
tions  ?  .  .  .  From  these  Nepaul  works,  then,  it  would  appear  that  Sakya  Muni 
Gautama  was  a  heroic  reformer  who  sought  to  redeem  his  people  from  their 
servitude  to  the  Brahmanic  hierarchy,  metaphysics,  and  caste  system,  by  teaching, 
and  in  his  life  illustrating,  the  True  '  Way  of  Deliverance '  from  '  The  Circle 
of  Change.'  He  was  an  Atheist  and  an  annihilationist  in  much  the  same  sense 
as  J.  G.  Fichte  was  when  he  taught  that  the  Way  towards  the  Blessed  Life  was 
by  forsaking  the  transitory  and  perishable,  and  being  one  with  the  Eternal." 

1  Chips,  vol.  i.  p.  276. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  263 

Sentiment  is  essentially  the  same,  whether  in  the  breast 
of  an  old  Chinese,  who  probably  never  heard  of  Europe 
or  Europe's  faith,  or  in  that  of  an  Englishman  of  to-day; 
whether  developed  into  the  ecstatic  piety  of  a  Tauler,  or 
with  infantile  weakness  beginning  (as  men  are  said  to 
have  done  in  the  American-Indian  history  quoted  in  these 
volumes)  "not  yet  to  worship  the  gods,  but  only  to  turn 
their  face  up  to  heaven"1 

The  sacred  canon  of  Buddhism  was  settled  at  the  first 
synod,  the  Nicaean  Council,  of  the  new  religion.  The 
whole  collection  is  called  the  Tripitoka,  a  word  signifying 
Three  Baskets.  The  first  basket  contains  the  Sutras  or 
discoveries  of  Buddha,  compiled  by  his  pupil  Ananda.  The 
second,  the  Vinaya,  contains  the  code  of  morality,  noted 
down  by  another  pupil,  Upali.  The  third,  the  Abhidharma, 
contains  the  Buddhist  system  of  metaphysics,  arranged  by  a 
third  pupil,  Kasyapa.  Again  there  is  a  sacred  canon  of 
the  Thibetan  Buddhists,  consisting  of  two  immense  collec 
tions  called  the  Kanjur  and  Tanjur.  The  first  consists  of  108 
folio  volumes,  comprising  1083  distinct  works,  and  has  been 
bartered  for  7000  oxen.  The  Tanjur  consists  of  225  folios. 
Both  have  been  printed  by  the  Buddhists  at  Lhassa  and 
at  Pekiii.  The  whole  sacred  literature  of  the  Buddhists, 
including  the  Lotus  de  la  bonne  Lot,  translated  by  M.  Eugene 
Burnouf,  the  Lalita  Vistara,  or  biography  of  Buddha,  and 
the  Dhamma  Padam,  or  "  Footsteps  of  the  Law,"  is  of  such 
magnitude  that  though  of  late  years  innumerable  MSS. 
have  been  discovered  and  many  scholars  engaged  in  their 
examination,  a  complete  view  of  the  subject  is  yet  unattain 
able.  Professor  Miiller  has  not  (I  regret  to  say)  given 
us  in  these  volumes  any  extracts  from  the  Buddhist  canon 
similar  to  those  he  has  taken  from  the  Yedas.  A  few  pas- 

1  Popul  Vuh — a  supposed  relic  of  the  legendary  history  of  Guatemala.     Chips, 
vol.  i.  p.  337. 


264  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

sages  from  the  Dhamma  Padam  may  give  the  reader  an  idea 
of  the  character  of  these  books  : 

Conquer  anger  by  mildness,  evil  by  good,  falsehood  by  truth.  .  .  Be 
not  desirous  of  discovering  the  faults  of  others,  but  zealously  guard 
against  your  own.  .  .  Abstain  from  foolish  conversation  and  from 
betraying  the  secrets  of  others.  Abstain  from  coveting,  from  all  evil 
wishes  to  others,  from  all  unjust  suspicion.  To  be  free  from  sin,  be 
contented,  be  grateful,  subject  to  reproof,  having  a  mind  unshaken  by 
prosperity  and  adversity.  He  is  a  more  noble  warrior  who  subdues  him 
self  than  he  who  in  battle  conquers  thousands.  .  .  As  the  mighty  rock 
Maha-meru-parvati  remains  unshaken  by  the  storm,  so  is  the  wise 
unmoved  by  praise  or  disapprobation.  All  the  religion  of  Buddha  is 
contained  in  these  three  precepts  :  purify  thy  mind ;  abstain  from  vice  ; 
practise  virtue.  To  the  virtuous  all  is  pure.  Therefore  think  not  that 
going  unclothed,  fasting  or  lying  on  the  ground,  can  make  the  impure 
pure,  for  the  mind  will  still  remain  the  same. 

Another  precept  commands  every  Buddhist  before  he 
sleeps  to  wish  well  to  all  mankind.  Should  there  be  a  per 
son  towards  whom  he  finds  he  cannot  perform  such  an  act 
of  mental  benevolence,  he  is  further  counselled  to  resolve 
on  doing  that  person  some  kindness,  when,  it  is  added,  he 
will  find  no  further  difficulty  in  wishing  him  well. 

All  virtues,  says  Professor  Miiller,  in  the  Buddhist  re 
ligion  are  said  to  spring  from  maiM,  and  this  maitri  can 
only  be  translated  (Eugene  Burnouf  affirms)  by  the  word 
"charity/1  "  It  does  not  express  friendship,"  he  says,  "  but 
that  universal  feeling  which  inspires  us  with  good-will  to 
all  men,  and  constant  willingness  to  help  them." 

Such  are  the  precepts  of  Buddhism  ;  precepts  which  many 
who  have  dwelt  in  Buddhist  countries  affirm  to  have  a  real 
practical  influence  on  the  lives  of  the  millions  by  whom  they 
are  revered  as  divine  revelation.  Let  us  rejoice  that  so  it 
should  be,  and  that  almost  the  largest  of  existing  creeds — 
assuredly  the  largest  of  all,  if  we  count  the  numbers  of  past 
generations — is  not  a  mere  mass  of  idle  fable  and  corrupt 


THE  RELIGIONS   OF  THE  EAST.  265 

rites,  and  that  God  has  by  no  means  "  left  himself  without 
a  witness  "  among  these  thronging  myriads  of  His  children. 
It  is  a  strange  reflection  that  among  the  departed  whom 
we  look  to  meet  hereafter  in  the  Land  of  Souls,  the  followers 
of  Buddha  must  outnumber  all  the  rest  of  that  Company 
of  Heaven  to  which  we  shall  be  admitted  by 

The  shadow  cloaked  from  head  to  foot, 
Who  keeps  the  keys  of  all  the  creeds. 

Before  quitting  these  interesting  volumes,  I  must  beg  to 
question  one  remark  of  the  author.  His  fact  is  no  doubt 
correct,  but  the  inference  he  draws  from  it  seems  to  me 
seriously  erroneous.  The  modern  doctrine  of  the  slow  de 
velopment  of  humanity  through  tens  of  thousands  of  years 
from  lower  types  of  animal  life,  is  affirmed  by  Professor 
Miiller  to  be  exploded  by  the  discovery  of  philologists,  that 
language,  so  far  as  it  can  be  traced  back,  is  always  human 
and  rational,  and  always  in  a  state  of  development.  "  The 
idea,"  he  says  (vol.  ii.  p.  8),  "of  a  humanity  emerging 
slowly  from  the  depths  of  an  animal  brutality  can  never  be 
maintained  again."  And  why  ?  Because  "  the  earliest  work 
of  art  wrought  by  the  hnman  mind,  more  ancient  than  any 
literary  document,  and  prior  to  the  first  whisperings  of  tra 
dition — the  human  language — forms  an  uninterrupted  chain 
from  the  first  dawn  of  history  down  to  our  own  times." 
First,  the  Professor  asserts,  there  was  a  period  (to  which  he 
gives  the  name*  of  Rhematic)  when  a  language  was  spoken 
containing  the  germs  of  Turanian,  Semitic,  and  Aryan 
speech.  Then,  in  successive  periods,  these  three  divided 
and  subdivided  into  all  the  languages  of  Europe  and  Asia : 
a  Confusion  of  Tongues  occupying  some  five  thousand  years, 
and  going  on  at  the  present  time. 

But  this  slow  evolution,  and  multiplication  of  species  ot 
language,  is,  if  I  mistake  not,  precisely  analogous  to  that 


266  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST. 

very  development  of  animal  species  which  the  geologist 
traces  in  the  successive  strata  of  the  earth's  crust,  and  on 
which  he  founds  his  theory  of  progressive  life.  He,  also, 
finds  at  the  earlier  periods,  simpler  forms ;  but  forms  even 
then  beautiful  and  appropriate  ;  and  as  he  advances,  he  finds 
these  forms  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  multiply  in  number 
and  increase  in  complexity  of  organization.  The  very  ground 
of  his  argument  is,  that  such  appears  to  have  been  the  order 
of  succession,  and  not  the  reverse  process.  That  the  first 
discovered  relics  of  language  are  not  senseless,  but  rational, 
and  grammatically  organized,  is  no  more  against  the  theory 
of  human  development  than  that  the  earliest  known  fossils 
are  not  chaotic  lumps,  but  remains  of  organisms  obviously 
well  adapted  to  the  conditions  under  which  they  once  had 
life.  In  neither  case  have  we  reached  the  bottom  of  the 
strata.  There  may  well  have  been  a  long  succession  of  ages 
(on  Darwin's  hypothesis  there  was  an  immensely  extended 
succession  of  ages)  between  the  first  existence  of  man  and 
Professor  Miiller's  Hhematic  period  of  languages,  or  before 
any  period  of  which,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  we  can 
recover  a  trace.  According  to  Professor  Miiller's  own  ac 
count,  in  another  essay,1  the  first  development  of  monotheism 
took  place  "  when  together  with  the  awakening  of  ideas,  the 
first  attempts  only  were  being  made  at  expressing  the  sim 
plest  conceptions,  by  means  of  a  language  most  simple,  most 
sensuous,  and  most  unwieldy  " — a  Saurian  or  Megatherium 
sort  of  language,  in  short,  compared  to  agile  Greek  and 
stalwart  English.  We  cannot  possibly  get  below  this  to 
the  very  earliest  formations  or  azoic  rocks  of  language  (if 
such  there  ever  were),  for  the  period  to  which  they  should 
belong  could  leave  no  relics  behind,  save  such  as  we  believe 
we  have  actually  found,  namely,  bones  and  stone  weapons. 
Surely  the  fair  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  facts  is 
1  On  Semitic  Monotheism. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  EAST.  267 

precisely  the  converse  of  that  which  the  Professor  has  stated, 
namely,  that  in  human  Language,  as  in  all  other  fields  of 
inquiry,  the  evidence  in  favour  of  a  slow  progress  from 
simple  to  complex,  from  the  lower  forms  of  life  to  the  higher, 
is  altogether  complete  and  overwhelming  ? 

Three  modes  of  creation  alone  are  imaginable  : 

A  Retrograde  Creation,  ever  falling  back,  like  the  works 
of  human  hands,  from  cosmos  to  chaos — the  Creation  of  a 
Toy. 

A  Stagnant  Creation,  finished  from  the  first  and  unchange 
able — the  Creation  of  a  Stone. 

A  Progressive  Creation,  ever  unfolding  in  beauty  and  joy 
— the  Creation  of  a  Flower. 

Of  these  three,  God  has  chosen  that  His  world  should  be 
of  the  third  order.  Who  is  it  that  will  say,  He  has  not 
chosen  well  ? 


ESSAY  X. 

THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.- 

THE  peculiar  pleasure  taken  by  Americans,  like  Washington 
Irving  and  Hawthorne,  in  exploring  the  nooks  and  corners  of 
England  and  re- attaching  the  threads  of  tradition  which  con 
nect  their  new  country  with  the  old  home  in  Europe,  might 
not  inaptly  be  paralleled  for  us  Englishmen,  by  the  interest 
of  researches  concerning  the  progenitors  of  our  whole  Aryan 
stock  in  Persia  and  India.  "While  antiquarians  of  the  earlier 
school  have  been  disputing  what  proportions  of  our  language, 
laws,  religion,  and  social  customs  are  derived  respectively  from 
Saxons,  Normans,  Danes,  Romans,  and  Celts,  the  students  of 
Zend  and  Sanscrit  literature  have  been  occupied  in  revealing 
to  us  an  ancestry,  behind  all  the  ancestries  of  which  we  had 
hitherto  taken  count ;  a  primeval  Home  whence  have  come 
even  the  names  of  our  closest  relationships,  and  the  fables  and 
fairy-tales  of  our  nurseries.  Who  would  have  dreamed  here 
tofore  that  when  an  English  parent  spoke  of  his  "  daughter," 
he  recalled,  in  that  familiar  word,  the  days,  millenniums 
past,  when  the  young  maiden  of  the  old  Bactrian  dwelling 
was  " she-who-milks-the-coivs"  even  as  our  legal  term  "spinster" 
reverts  to  the  comparatively  recent  time  when  it  was  her  task 
to  "  spin  "  ?  Who  that  told  a  child  the  heart-breaking  tale 

1  Ancient  and  Mediceval  India.  By  Mrs.  Manning.  Allen  &  Co.,  London, 
1869.  2  vols.  8vo.,  pp.  435  and  380. 


270        THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

of  Llewellyn's  Dog,  supposed  that  he  was  repeating  a  legend 
familiar  to  men  of  our  blood  who  dwelt  under  the  shadow  of 
the  Himalayas  when  busy  England  was  a  forest  ? 

As  yet  the  bearings  of  the  great  discoveries  of  Orientalists 
have  been  little  apprehended.  The  innumerable  points  at 
which  they  must  eventually  impinge  on  our  opinions  yet 
wait  to  be  marked.  Even  their  most  obvious  theological 
consequences  have  been  but  casually  noticed  in  any  work 
of  importance.  But  the  time  has  nearly  arrived  when  such 
a  mass  of  new  truths  cannot  lie  inactive  in  the  minds  of  the 
cultivated  classes,  but  must  begin  to  leaven  all  our  views  on 
etymology,  history,  philology,  art,  literature,  and  comparative 
theology.  The  share  which  the  revived  study  of  Greek  at 
the  Renaissance  had  in  directing  the  movements  of  that  great 
age,  must  in  a  certain  partial  degree  have  its  parallel  in  the 
results  of  the  modern  acquisition  of  Sanskrit  in  our  own. 
As  one  realm  of  Heathendom  was  rehabilitated  then,  and 
the  devils  with  which  mediseval  imagination  had  peopled 
it  vanished  in  the  sunrise,  so  now  another  and  yet  wider 
field  is  conquered  back  from  the  kingdom  of  darkness  to 
partake  of  our  sympathies  and  widen  our  comprehension 
of  human  nature  itself.  A  new  world  is  given  to  the 
scholars  of  the  day,  and  it  will  be  hard  if  it  does  not  in 
many  ways  "redress  the  balance"  of  the  old. 

A  singular  contrast  may  be  traced  between  the  new  science 
of  Indo- Persian  antiquity  and  that  which  a  little  preceded 
it,  of  Egyptology.  In  opening  up  Egypt  to  us,  Belzoni, 
Champollion,  Wilkinson,  and  Lepsius  gave  us  the  material 
portion  of  a  nation's  life.  In  expounding  the  Yedas  and 
the  Zend-Avesta,  Jones  and  Wilson  and  Max  Miiller  and 
Haug  and  Burnouf  have  admitted  us  to  the  inner  and 
spiritual  part.  The  buildings  and  sculptures,  the  dress, 
utensils,  toys,  nay,  the  very  bodies  of  the  departed  Egyptian 
race,  all  these  the  sands  of  the  Nile  have  given  back.  But 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       271 

except  the  enigmatical,  half- comprehensible  "Book  of  the 
Dead/'  and  a  few  fragments  from  papyri,  all  the  scholars 
who  have  used  Champollion's  key  to  hieroglyphics  have  failed 
to  present  us  with  anything  to  be  called  even  a  specimen 
of  Egyptian  literature.  Not  merely  is  there  no  Iliad,  no 
Eamayana  of  Africa,  but  not  a  single  counterpart  to  a  Pin 
daric  Ode,  or  Yedic  Hymn.  Thus  we  know  the  Egyptians, 
even  while  their  embalmed  forms  stand  beside  us  in  our 
studies,  only  as  it  were  at  second  hand.  We  see  what 
they  did,  and  we  infer  what  they  were.  But  their  hearts 
have  never  spoken  to  ours  save  in  the  touching  cry  of 
bereaved  affection  from  a  coffin-lid ;  or  in  the  awful  symbols 
on  some  grand  sarcophagus,  pointing  like  a  dumb  Job  to 
death  and  judgment,  and  the  faith  that,  over  them  both, 
Osiris  the  Redeemer  liveth. 

In  India  all  this  is  reversed.  We  have  recovered  the 
inner  life  of  the  nation,  but  not  the  outward.  Here,  in 
the  real  Juventus  Mundi — that  youth  which  had  already 
waned,  ere  Homer  sang  or  David  prayed — here  dwelt  the 
poet-prophets  of  the  Yedas,  in  whose  hymns  we  may  read 
to-day  of  hopes  and  fears  and  doubts  and  speculations  which 
once  filled  the  hearts  and  stirred  the  brains,  whose  dust  has 
been  scattered  for  ages  to  the  four  winds.  Here  we  have  no 
mummies  with  their  parody  of  immortality ;  no  tombs  stored 
with  food  and  furniture  and  trinkets ;  no  mural  pictures 
showing  us  every  detail  of  the  battles  and  the  agriculture 
and  the  trades  of  the  dead  nation.  But  though  we  have 
not  one  tangible  object  belonging  to  them,  we  have  learned 
the  very  words  of  the  men  who  wandered  by  the  banks  of 
Indus  three  thousand  years  ago,  and  possessing  those  words 
we  are  truly  nearer  to  them  as  intelligent  beings  than  we 
can  ever  hope  to  be  to  Egyptian  or  Ninevite. 

India  then,  that  same  India  over  which  our  flag  is  flying 
from  the  Himalayas  to  Cape  Comorin,  is  the  field  for  literary 


272       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

research  which  offers  the  richest  treasures  yet  to  be  explored. 
The  Morning  Land  still  keeps  its  dew,  and  it  may  yet  be 
gathered  fresh  and  sweet  before  the  army  of  critics  and 
commentators  have  marched  over  it  and  left  us  but  dust. 

A  better  devised  book  than  the  one  I  now  purpose  to 
notice  it  would  not  be  easy  to  name.  It  aims  to  bring  to 
gether  within  the  compass  of  two  goodly  volumes  a  general 
bird's-eye  view  of  all  that  has  been  yet  disinterred  of  Indian 
literature,  with  the  revelations  thereby  afforded  of  life  in 
the  Peninsula  from  the  earliest  Yedic  ages  onwards.  The 
incomparable  industry  of  the  authoress  in  collecting  and 
sifting  the  materials  for  so  great  a  work,  is  fully  equalled 
by  the  judgment  shown  in  their  selection.  There  is  for  the 
reader  no  wading  through  tedious  or  half-comprehensible 
passages,  such  as  abound  in  the  original  Eastern  books. 
The  interesting  and  remarkable  points  in  each  old  poem  or 
story  have  been  picked  out,  and  the  passages  from,  remote 
works  bearing  on  the  same  point  collated ;  insomuch  that 
the  reader  can  enjoy  in  a  few  hours  the  fruits  which  it 
would  have  cost  him  a  dozen  years  of  study  to  gather  for 
himself.  As  to  the  original  matter  carrying  on  the  thread 
of  the  work,  I  can  only  regret  that  the  wrriter  did  not  give 
us  much  more  of  it ;  for  the  observations  are  always  in 
structive,  and  often  most  suggestive  and  original.  Great 
taste  has  also  been  shown  in  the  selection  of  translations 
from  various  scholars,  Wilson,  Max  Miiller,  Goldstiicker, 
Muir,  and  others ;  sometimes  affording  us  fragments  of  really 
harmonious  poetry,  and  again,  when  accuracy  of  interpre 
tation  is  more  to  the  purpose,  giving  us  quaint  little  bits 
of  obvious  literalism.  In  a  word  the  book  affords  for  Indian 
literature  precisely  the  sort  of  museum  which  Dr.  Gray 
desires  the  public  collections  to  supply  for  Natural  History. 
Instead  of  crowded  ranges  of  objects  good  bad  and  in 
different  over  which  the  eye  wanders  idly  and  the  mind 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       273 

wearies,  we  have  a  reasonable  quantity  of  specimens  care 
fully  selected  as  the  most  characteristic  and  remarkable,  some 
of  them  in  the  fullest  glory  which  the  taxidermist-translator 
can  preserve ;  and  others,  perhaps  still  more  instructively, 
prepared  as  skeletons.  The  review  of  a  book  which  is  itself 
a  vast  Review  must  of  necessity  be  the  briefest  epitome. 
My  object  will  be  to  afford  some  general  idea  of  the  sort 
of  treasures  to  be  found  in  this  cabinet  of  "curiosities  of 
literature/' 

Twelve  centuries  before  the  Christian  era  is  the  latest 
date  to  which  competent  scholars  assign  the  final  compilation 
of  the  Rig- Veda  Hymns  in  the  shape  wherein  they  now 
stand.  During  all  the  intervening  ages  the  absolutely  divine 
honours  paid  to  the  book  throughout  India — honours  even 
exceeding  those  which  Jews,  Moslems  or  Puritan  Christians 
have  paid  to  their  scriptures — have  probably  secured  for 
us  the  well-nigh  unchanged  transmission  of  each  venerable 
verse.  Of  course  the  age  of  the  Rishis,  or  sacred  poets,  who 
were  the  authors  of  the  hymns,  must  ascend  considerably 
higher  in  point  of  antiquity  than  the  recension  of  their 
poems.  To  draw  from  their  fragmentary  allusions  a  picture 
of  life  as  it  then  existed,  is  a  task  of  great  interest. 

In  the  first  place,  it  seems  the  Yedic  Aryans  had  long 
migrated  from  the  northern  cradle  of  their  race,  and  were 
settled  in  the  part  of  India  which  lies  between  the  Indus 
and  the  Saraswati.  M.  de  Saint-Martin  has  identified  most 
of  the  seven  rivers  mentioned  in  the  Yedas  as  those  of  the 
Punjaub.  Their  enemies  the  Dasyus  (literally  "  Robbers/' 
a  dark  race,  and  probably  the  aborigines  of  the  country, 
still  infested  their  borders.  They  were  given  to  agriculture, 
and  used  ploughs  and  carts  drawn  by  oxen.  They  had  roads, 
and  caravanserais  at  distances  along  the  roads.  Metals  were 
in  common  use,  and  gold  coins  called  Nishkas  were  cir- 

18 


274       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

culated.  Gambling  was  a  prevailing  vice  ;  several  hymns 
alluding  to  it  and  deploring  its  results  with  those  of  intoxi 
cation.  Women  were  not  shut  up  in  Zenanas,  but  appeared 
in  public  drawn  in  chariots,  and  are  spoken  of  with  tender 
affection.  There  is  no  evidence  of  the  existence  of  castes 
at  this  earliest  period,  but  they  appear  in  the  time  of  the 
Yajur-Yeda.  Trade  was  already  flourishing.  In  the  Rig- 
Yeda  it  is  said  that  "  Merchants  desirous  of  gain  crowd  the 
great  waters  with  their  ships/'  Kings,  and  wealthy  men, 
were  splendid  in  their  habits,  and  the  natural  treasures  of 
India  were  all  discovered  and  used.  Gold  and  gems  were 
plentiful.  Swift  horses  were  highly  estimated ;  the  most 
precious  of  all  sacrifices  to  the  gods  being  the  Aswamedha, 
or  sacrifice  of  a  horse.  Elephants  were  tamed  and  greatly 
cherished ;  the  God  Indra  being  described  in  the  Rig- Veda 
as  invoked  for  their  protection. 

The  religion  of  these  Aryans  of  the  Yedic  times  is  a  subject 
far  too  large  and  complicated  to  be  here  properly  treated. 
Some  of  the  passages  of  the  sacred  hymns  throwing  light 
upon  it  have  been  quoted  in  this  volume  in  the  preceding 
Essays.  Our  present  author  has  drawn  together  a  number 
of  extracts  from  various  translations,  enabling  the  reader 
to  form  considerable  acquaintance  with  the  curious  variety 
of  incipient  theologies  and  nascent  philosophies  which  are 
bound  up  together  even  in  the  first  and  oldest  Yeda.  The 
prevailing  principle  seems  to  be,  that  while  the  Nature- 
gods,  the  Sky,  Heaven,  Fire,  the  Sun,  the  Dawn,  etc.,  are 
all  separately  adored,  the  particular  god  who  is  invoked 
in  any  hymn  is,  for  the  time  being,  nearly  always  identi 
fied  as  supreme  and  universal.  One  god  has  many  names, 
and  sometimes  bears  the  name  of  another  god ;  metaphysical 
ideas  are  deified ;  and,  in  a  very  prominent  manner,  Agni 
(or  common  domestic  fire)  is  treated  as  the  earthly  re 
presentative  of  the  Sun.  Noble  psalms  of  praise,  and 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       275 

touching  entreaties  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  are  made 
to  these  beings  when  contemplated  as  supreme ;  but  the 
whole  system  is  evidently  as  yet  inchoate  and  in  a  fluid 
state.  We  cannot  but  surmise  that,  if  at  that  period  a 
Zoroaster  or  Moses  or  Buddha  had  been  born  in  the  Pun- 
jaub,  he  would  have  seized  on  the  yet  vague  aspirations  of 
his  countrymen,  and  moulded  them  into  a  defined  creed.  But 
Brahminism  was  then,  and  has  ever  since  been,  a  religion 
(perhaps  the  only  religion  in  the  world),  not  tracing  its 
origin  to  one  mediatorial  prophet-soul.  Everywhere  else  in 
East  and  West  we  find  faith  clinging  to  some  one  great 
name,  some  man  or  demi-god  to  whom  weaker  mortals  look 
and  cry,  "  Thy  God  shall  be  our  God :  what  thou  hast  seen, 
that  can  we  take  on  thy  assurance ; "  some  Moses  who  has 
seen  Jehovah  on  the  mount  of  vision,  and  the  reflected  glory 
of  whose  face  suffices  to  convince  the  herd.  Brahminism 
has  had  a  host  of  major  and  minor  prophets,  during  its  five 
and  thirty  centuries  of  sway,  from  the  old  Rishis  who  wrote 
the  Rig- Veda  to  their  followers  who  added  the  Upanishads 
and  Dharma  Sastras,  and  the  modern  Brahmins  who  write 
nothing  at  all.  But  it  has  had  no  Zoroaster,  no  Moses,  no 
Mahomet. 

The  modifications  which  the  early  Yedic  faith  underwent 
in  the  course  of  ages  offers  a  study  no  less  difficult  than  its 
original  form  ;  or  rather  formlessness.  Not  a  trace  of  the 
Trimurti  of  Brahma,  Seeva,  and  Vishnu,  which  now  occupies 
the  summit  of  the  Hindoo  pantheon,  can  be  found  for  ages 
after  the  Vedic  period,  and  the  whole  gross  and  hideous 
mythology  of  later  times  was  then  unborn. 

Taking  these  slight  clues  in  hand  the  reader  cannot  fail  to 
be  interested  in  the  passages  selected  by  Mrs.  Manning,  as 
displaying  the  moral  and  philosophic  feelings  and  thoughts 
of  the  authors  of  the  most  ancient  Vedas.  These  authors, 
it  appears,  were  seven,  or  (on  better  authority,  according  to 


276       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

Max  M  tiller)  eight  poets,  called  Rislm.  The  families  of  these 
poets  were  in  after-times  all  registered,  and  became  the  de 
positaries  of  the  eight  Mandalas  or  books,  into  which  the 
collection  of  hymns  was  divided.  The  most  interesting  of 
these  Rishis  were  two,  to  whose  lives  and  doings  constant 
reference  in  after-times  was  made,  namely  Yasishta  and 
Yiswamitra.  Strange  to  say,  here  almost  in  the  earliest 
glimpse  of  human  religion  we  find  the  representatives  of 
the  Priest  and  of  the  Prophet.  Yasishta  is  the  author  of  the 
most  touching  hymns  in  the  Yedas ;  or  as  the  Hindoos 
would  express  it  he  is  the  Seer  to  whom  they  were  divinely 
communicated.  "  They  are,"  says  Mrs.  Manning,  "  simple 
genuine  utterances,  confessing  sin,  and  yearning  after  an 
unknown  God."  Yiswamitra,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a 
powerful  soldier,  the  originator  of  the  great  religious  cere 
monies  and  the  composer  of  psalms  of  the  cursing  order  : 
"  May  the  vile  wretch  who  hates  us  fall !  May  his  breath 
of  life  depart  !  As  the  tree  suffers  from  the  axe,  as  the 
flower  is  cut  off,  as  the  cauldron,  leaking,  scatters  foam,  so 
may  mine  enemy  perish  !  "  L 

So  important  were  these  two  Rishis  that  their  names 
became  typical  in  Hindoo  story,  and  re-appear  as  living  per 
sonages  long  ages  after  the  date  of  the  Yedas.  In  the  Rama- 
yana  each  of  them  plays  an  important  and  characteristic 
part,  much  as  the  names  of  Isaiah  and  Daniel  were  revived 
in  writings  supposed  to  carry  on  their  ideas  and  sentiments. 

In  reviewing  Mrs.  Manning's  quotations,  the  difficulty 
must  not  be  forgotten  of  obtaining  anything  like  a  veritable 
translation  of  a  single  sentence  of  an  ancient  book.  Two 
errors  constantly  beset  all  efforts  to  attain  such  an  end. 
One  is  the  production  of  a  mere  cloud  of  words,  each  having 
perhaps  some  pretension  to  be  the  best  known  rendering 
of  the  original,  but  forming  altogether  in  their  syntax 

1  Muir,  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  i.  p.  372. 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       277 

something  extremely  like  nonsense.  Such  translations  the 
English  reader  very  properly  declines  to  accept  as  the  preg 
nant  sentences  which  have  held  their  place  as  inspired 
oracles  among  civilized  nations  for  thousands  of  years.  The 
other  error  is  the  rendering  of  the  ancient  book,  not  only  into 
the  words,  but  into  the  thoughts  of  modern  Europe,  so  that  we 
possess  in  the  supposed  translation,  not  what  an  Eastern  poet 
said  thirty  centuries  ago,  but  what  an  Englishman  would 
say  for  him  if  set  down  with  the  heads  of  his  subject 
dictated.  This  last  error  was  more  common  among  the 
older  generation  of  scholars  than  the  present,  and  few  things 
are  more  mortifying  to  the  humble  student  who  has  built 
up  his  theories  of  ancient  religion  and  morality  on  the  sup 
posed  fidelity  of  their  translations  than  to  find  the  ground 
taken  from  under  him  by  a  new  translator  who  assures  him 
that  the  text  in  question  is  a  mere  Christian  paraphrase  of 
the  original,  and  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  Sanskrit  or  Zend 
to  warrant  his  deductions.  For  an  example  of  this  sort  of 
thing  we  have  110  need  to  go  beyond  the  famous  Gayatri,  or 
holiest  text  of  the  Yedas,  in  the  third  Mandala  of  the  Big- 
Veda,  a  verse  specially  interesting,  as  it  has  been  repeated 
by  millions  of  pious  Hindoos  every  morning  for  at  least 
three  thousand  years.  It  was  translated  by  Sir  William 
Jones  thus :  "  Let  us  adore  the  supremacy  of  that  Divine 
Sun,  the  Godhead,  who  illuminates  all,  who  recreates  all, 
from  whom  all  proceed,  to  whom  all  must  return ;  whom  we 
invoke  to  direct  our  understandings  aright  in  our  progress 
towards  His  holy  seat." l  Our  present  authoress,  follow 
ing  (doubtless  correctly)  the  greater  accuracy  of  Professor 
Wilson,2  gives  us  this  magnificent  prayer  reduced  to  the 
following  distressing  dimensions  :  "  We  meditate  on  that 
desirable  light  of  the  divine  Savitri  (the  Sun- God),  who 
influences  our  pious  rites  "  ! 

1   Works,  vol.  xiii.  p.  367.  2   Works,  vol.  xiii.  p.  3C7. 


278       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

The  secret  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  priesthood  in 
India,  till  it  culminated  in  the  monstrous  usurpation  of  the 
Brahmins  of  recent  ages,  is  a  problem  full  of  interest, 
and  not  devoid  of  instruction  even  for  us  in  England 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  Nothing  can  be  more  anti- 
historical  than  the  notion  of  Yoltaire  and  his  compeers 
that  the  various  priesthoods  of  Heathendom,  the  bonzes, 
talapoins,  and  Druids,  whom  he  so  delighted  to  ridicule  and 
abuse,  were  thoroughly  wide-awake  sceptics,  wholly  free 
from  the  superstitions  of  their  flocks  and  playing  upon  them 
with  conscious  hypocrisy.  Common  sense  shows  us  that 
even  the  foremost  men  of  each  age  and  country  have  their 
minds  so  imbued  and  dyed  with  the  belief  and  sentiments 
among  which  they  have  been  brought  up  that  it  is  at  most 
only  a  question  of  a  few  shades  lighter  or  darker  between 
them  and  their  contemporaries  and  compatriots.  The  exer 
cise  of  the  priestly  office  tends  probably  in  a  greater  degree 
than  that  of  any  other  profession  to  impress  the  character, 
and  create  a  new  type  for  itself.  But  the  priestly  mind  so 
moulded,  is  the  reverse  of  a  sceptical  one.  It  was  because 
the  French  abbes  were  so  little  like  priests,  and  so  much 
like  men  of  the  world,  that  they  shrugged  their  shoulders 
at  the  Mass.  Human  nature,  ecclesiastical  or  otherwise, 
leads  men  to  magnify,  not  to  disparage,  their  own  func 
tions.  "  Nothing  like  leather/'  cries  the  shoemaker ;  and 
it  would  be  marvellous  indeed  if  the  individual  who  is 
recognized  by  others  as  exercising  the  highest  of  all  pos 
sible  offices,  even  that  of  an  Ambassador  of  Heaven,  should 
make  light  of  his  mission.  St.  Paul  thought  it  was 
actually  a  logical  argument  to  prove  immortality,  that 
"  if  the  dead  rise  not,  then  are  we  of  all  men  the  most 
miserable."  Every  minister  of  religion  must  similarly  feel 
driven  to  believe  that  the  faith  to  which  his  whole  life 
is  devoted  is  true,  or  else  he  is  of  all  men  most  silly ; — 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       279 

instead  of  (as  lie  constantly  affirms)  all  men  the  only  one 
truly  wise. 

The  Brahmins  were  then  undoubtedly  men  who  believed 
in  themselves,  their  gods,  and  their  office.  But  such  genuine 
faith  by  no  means  excluded  an  equally  clear  confidence  in 
the  utility  of  judicious  appeals  to  the  hopes  and  fears  of  their 
disciples,  entailing  the  usual  amount  of  impudent  assertion 
of  special  Divine  favour,  and  superstitious  reliance  on  magi 
cal  ceremonies.  Here  in  the  very  dawn  of  the  world  we 
find  the  two  leading  features  of  priestcraft  fully  marked 
already.  The  priest  places  himself  as  the  indispensable 
mediator  between  the  layman  and  the  Deity  ;  and  his  power 
to  influence  the  gods  is  exercised  through  the  medium 
of  sacramental  rites,  to  which  he  affirms  that  he  alone  can 
give  efficacy. 

Among  the  earliest  functions  of  the  Indian  priestly  tribe 
was  that  of  Purohita  or  house-priest  attached  to  a  princely 
household.  An  old  Aryan,  like  an  old  Israelite,  thought 
that  good  fortune  would  surely  befall  him  if  he  could 
but  have  "  a  Levite  to  be  his  priest " ;  and  the  Hindoo 
Levite  was  in  no  way  slow  to  impress  on  him  the  truth 
of  such  a  conviction.  Accordingly  the  Rishi  Yamadeva 
says  (p.  70) : 

The  king  before  whom  there  walks  a  priest  lives  well  established  in 
his  own  house  ;  to  him  the  earth  yields  for  ever,  and  before  him  the 
people  bow  of  their  own  accord.  Unopposed  he  conquers  treasures. 
The  gods  protect  him. 

Threats  against  recalcitrants  who  would  not  pay  priestly 
dues  were  of  corresponding  strength.  In  the  Rig- Veda,  x. 
160,  a  wealthy  man  who  offers  no  libation  is  "  grasped  in  the 
fist  by  Indra  and  slain."  Complaints  of  "  niggards  "  and 
"  men  who  give  nothing  "  are  as  common  as  in  the  addresses 
of  Irish  parish  priests  from  their  altars.  If  a  wicked  king 
eat  a  Brahmin's  cow  he  is  assured  he  will  find  the  beef 


280       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

poisonous.  "  The  priest's  tongue  is  a  bow-string,  his  voice 
is  a  barb,  and  his  wind-pipe  is  an  arrow-point  smeared  with 
fire."  In  the  Atharva-Yeda  (v.  18),  it  is  declared  that, 
"  Whenever  a  king  fancying  himself  mighty  seeks  to  devour 
a  Brahmin,  his  kingdom  is  broken  up.  Ruin  overflows  it  as 
water  swamps  a  leaky  boat."  Highly  edifying  tales  of  kings 
who  gave  their  priests  fabulous  bribes  of  thousands  of  girls 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  elephants,  and  were  divinely  re 
warded  accordingly,  are  likewise  plentiful.  The  last  chapter 
of  the  Aitareya  Brahmana  tells  us  that,  "  The  gods  do  not 
eat  the  food  of  a  king  who  keeps  no  house-priest.  Even 
when  not  intending  to  make  a  sacrifice,  a  king  should  ap 
point  a  house-priest."  JSTor  is  it  only  in  purse  that  the  king 
has  to  pay  for  the  spiritual  advantages,  but  also  in  person. 
One  part  of  the  ceremony  of  appointing  a  house-priest  re 
quires  that  the  king  wash  the  holy  man's  feet :  doubtless 
a  wholesome  exercise  of  humility  wherewith  to  commence 
future  relations. 

But  the  Brahmins  evidentty  placed  their  grand  reliance, 
beyond  what  threats  and  promises  could  afford  them,  on  the 
influence  to  be  obtained  through  the  use  of  an  elaborate 
and  splendid  cultus.  The  principle  in  human  nature  which 
leads  us  to  feel  attachment  for  whatever  costs  us  much, 
has  been  doubtless  understood  by  the  founders  of  all  religions. 
How  much  of  the  Jews'  devotion  to  their  faith  has  been  due, 
not  only  to  its  purity  and  grandeur,  but  also  to  the  sharpness 
of  the  impression  ploughed  into  their  minds  during  thirty 
centuries  by  the  perpetual  repetition  of  the  Mosaic  feasts 
and  ceremonies,  it  would  be  impossible  to  say.  As  one 
of  the  ablest  living  Jews,  Philipssohn,  has  remarked,  these 
rites  built  up  the  nation  into  a  citadel,  wherein  the  truth 
of  the  Divine  Unity  was  lodged,  to  be  preserved  for  ever 
as  in  the  fortress  of  the  human  race. 

And  to  the  natural  influence  of  ceremonies  on  the  minds 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       281 

of  the  men  who  share  in  their  performance,  the  Brahmins 
added  the  wildest  belief  in  their  efficacy  as  celestial  machinery 
capable  of  compelling  the  Deity.  Few  weaknesses  of  human 
nature  afford  a  more  curious  study  than  this,  the  all  but 
ubiquitous  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  magic  ceremonies,  as 
contradistinguished  from  spiritual  prayer.  That  a  man, 
himself  capable  of  being  moved  by  the  entreaty  of  his 
children,  should  believe  that  his  Creator  may  be  touched 
by  his  own  imploring  cry  is  natural  and  obvious.  But 
that  the  same  man,  who  would  only  be  vexed  by  the 
performance  before  him  of  unmeaning  and  wearisome  cere 
monial  antics,  should  suppose  that  a  higher  being  than 
himself  takes  especial  delight  in  them,  and  becomes  through 
their  means  favourable  to  the  antic-maker's  wishes,  this  is 
truly  paradoxical.  Yet  the  belief  seems  almost  ineradicable ! 
In  vain  for  three  thousand  years  have  the  world's  greatest 
prophets  denounced  it.  Isaiah  and  Micah  might  as  well 
have  held  their  peace  for  all  the  attention  which  Europe 
or  Asia  have  paid  to  their  arguments.  At  this  very  hour, 
a  not  inconsiderable  section  of  the  national  church  of  this 
Protestant  country  labours  with  might  and  main  to  revive 
the  faith  in  the  magical  efficacy  of  one  class  of  such  ob 
servances  ;  and  to  send  us  back  from  beautiful  symbols  of 
self-abnegation  and  self-consecration  to  the  heathenism  of 
u  feeding  on  a  sacrifice,"  precisely  as  if  no  one  had  ever 
asked,  "  Of  what  avail  your  sacrifices  ?  Cease  to  do  evil. 
Learn  to  do  well." 

In  no  religion  does  the  notion  of  formal  sacrifice  seem 
to  have  reached  a  greater  height  of  absurdity  than  in 
Brahminism.  Southey's  ''Curse  of  Kehama"  has  rendered 
some  notion  of  it  familiar  to  us.  "He  who  knows  the  proper 
application  of  sacrifice,"  says  Haug,  "  is  in  fact  considered 
as  the  real  master  of  the  world,  for  any  desire  he  can  enter 
tain  may  be  thus  gratified.  The  Yajna  (sacrifice)  taken  as 


282       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

a  whole  is  looked  on  as  a  machine  every  piece  of  which 
must  tally  with  another ;  or  as  a  staircase  by  which  one  may 
ascend  to  heaven.  It  exists  from  eternity.  The  creation 
of  the  world  is  the  fruit  of  sacrifice."  This  wonder-working 
sacrifice  is,  alas !  all  the  time,  not  a  grand  act  of  devotion 
or  self-immolation,  but  simply  the  accurate  performance  of 
a  complicated  ritual  observance  involving  in  one  case  the 
slaughter  of  a  horse,  and  in  another  the  preparation  and 
drinking  of  the  juice  of  a  particular  herb.  In  the  fifth 
chapter  of  her  book,  Mrs.  Manning  has  given  us  very  curious 
details  of  the  forms  belonging  to  the  most  interesting  of 
these  rites,  the  Soma-sacrifice,  accompanied  by  a  plan  of 
the  hall  or  inclosure  prepared  for  its  celebration.  Her  in 
formation  is  derived  from  Dr.  Haug,  who  actually  induced 
a  Srotriya  Brahmin,  properly  qualified  by  "Apostolic 
succession,"  to  rehearse  the  whole  ceremony  for  his  edifi 
cation  in  a  secluded  corner  of  his  own  premises — of  course 
not  without  a  suitable  "consideration,"  though  we  presume 
a  lesser  one  than  in  the  good  old  time  when,  we  are  told, 
the  honoraire  of  the  Hotri,  or  celebrant,  was  a  fee  of  one 
hundred  and  twelve  cows.  Nothing  was  ever  devised  more 
intricate  than  these  rites  with  their  innumerable  little 
fires  and  seats  and  posts,  and  processions  up  and  down  and 
round  about.  The  shortest  period  expended  in  their  per 
formance  is  five  days,  and  we  are  informed  that  they  may 
last  a  thousand  years.  The  most  curious  point  about  the 
whole  ceremony  however  is  one  which  I  wish  that  Mrs. 
Manning  had  brought  out  with  greater  distinctness.  It  is 
that  it  includes  both  a  Baptism  and  a  Eucharist ;  a  rite 
intended  to  signify  Regeneration,  and  a  rite  consisting  in 
"  feeding  on  a  sacrifice "  ;  and  drinking  a  liquid  which  is 
itself  frequently  described  as  a  god,  and  which  receives 
adoration. 

The  baptismal  part  of  the  ceremony,  Mrs.  Manning  says, 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       283 

was  apparently  suggested  by  "  a  feeling  nearly  akin  to  belief 
in  original  sin  "  : — 

The  gods,  and  especially  Vishnu  and  Agni  (fire),  are  invoked  to  come 
to  the  offering  with  the  Diksha.  Diksh&,  we  are  told,  means  "a  new 
birth."  Agni  as  fire,  and  Vishnu  as  the  sun,  are  invoked  to  cleanse 
the  sacrificer.  The  worshipper  is  then  covered  up  in  a  cloth,  on  the 
outside  of  which  is  placed  the  skin  of  a  black  antelope  ;  and  after  a 
certain  time  has  elapsed  and  specified  prayers  have  been  recited,  the 
New  Birth  is  considered  to  have  been  accomplished,  and  the  regener 
ated  man  descends  to  bathe. 

As  tbe  proper  nourisbment  of  a  new-born  cbild  is  milk, 
the  regenerated  sacrificer  is,  after  baptism,  made  to  drink 
milk  by  the  aid  of  a  special  spoon.  After  many  more 
tedious  operations,  he  is  prepared  for  the  great  ceremony 
of  the  fifth  day,  when  the  Soma  is  consecrated  by  the  seven 
assistant  priests,  and  drunk  by  them  and  the  sacrificer  at 
morning,  midday  and  evening.  Our  authoress  has  given 
us  a  drawing  of  the  plant  from  which  the  Soma  juice  is 
crushed,  and  we  are  informed  in  a  note,  that  it  is  the  As- 
clepias  Adda  of  Roxburgh,  now  more  commonly  called  the 
Sarcostema  Yiminalis,  or  Sarcostema  Brevistigma.  It  has 
hardly  perceptible  leaves,  small  sweet  white  flowers,  and 
yields  a  pure  milky  juice  of  an  acid  flavour  in  great  abundance. 
It  grows  on  the  hills  of  the  Punjaub  and  the  Coromandel 
coast ;  but  to  make  it  sacrificially  efficacious,  it  must,  like 
the  mandrake,  be  "  plucked  by  night,"  by  moonlight,  and 
torn  up  by  the  roots,  not  cut  down.  When  so  gathered 
it  must  be  carried  on  a  cart  drawn  by  two  he-goats.  The 
Soma  thus  obtained  is  much  more  in  the  Brahmin  theology 
than  a  mere  object  of  sacrifice  or  symbol.  All  other  things 
connected  with  sacrifice,  the  horn,  the  post,  the  kettle, 
and  even  the  ladle,  are  all  praised  in  extravagant  terms 
as  sacred ;  but  the  Soma  alone  "  becomes  an  independent 
deity.  The  beverage  is  divine ;  it  purifies,  it  is  a  water  of 


284       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

life,  it  gives  health  and  immortality."     Muir  has  translated 
a  hymn  concerning  it  from  the  Big-Yeda,  viii.  88  : — 

"We've  quaffed  the  Soma  bright, 

And  are  immortal  grown  ; 
We've  entered  into  light, 

And  all  the  gods  have  known. 
What  mortal  now  can  harm, 

Or  foeman  vex  us  more  ? 
Through  thee  beyond  alarm, 

Immortal  God  !  we  soar. 

I  have  discussed  in  a  preceding  essay  the  obscure  question 
of  the  nature  of  the  original  sacred  plant  for  which  the 
Brahmins  seem  to  have  substituted  the  Asclepias.  The  juice 
of  the  latter  does  not  appear  to  be  intoxicating,  as  the  true 
Soma  must  undoubtedly  have  been. 

The  third  means  by  which  the  Brahmins  assured  their 
power  was  also  not  without  significance.  They  did  not 
approve  of  "  secular  education."  Like  M.  Dupanloup,  they 
desired  that  the  young  should  be  brought  up  very  literally 
"aux  genoux  de  Teglise."  "  Godless  Colleges"  were  un 
heard  of  in  Ancient  India.  The  laborious  care  with  which 
all  students  were  affiliated  to  "  spiritual  fathers,"  and  in 
structed  by  them  in  the  duty  of  ordering  themselves  lowly 
and  reverently  to  pastors  and  masters,  is  extremely  clear. 
There  never  was,  and  never  could  be,  a  "  Young  India,"  till 
English  rule  had  left  space  for  the  growth  of  so  portentous 
a  plant.  Every  youthful  Brahmin  was  required  to  live 
twelve  years  with  his  Brahmin  tutor,  called  his  Guroo, 
and  was  permitted  to  spend  forty-eight  years,  if  he  pleased, 
as  a  student.  The  lessons  consisted  mainly  in  the  ac 
quirement  of  the  holy  verses  orally  and  by  heart.  There 
were  also  "  Parishads "  or  universities  for  older  students ; 
institutions  whose  fame  still  lingers  in  the  north-west  of 
India. 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       285 

I  now  proceed  to  offer,  following  our  authoress's  guidance, 
a  brief  synopsis  of  Sanskrit  literature. 

At  the  head  of  all,  and  always  assigned  by  far  the  highest 
honours,  are  the  Four  Yedas. 

1.  The   Rig- Veda,    the   most   ancient   and    sacred   of   all 
Sanskrit  books.     It  consists  of  all  the  oldest  hymns. 

2.  The  Sama-  Veda.     This  book  consists  of  hymns,  nearly 
all  of  which  are  also  to  be  found  in  the  Big- Yeda,  but  are 
here  arranged  in  order  to  be  chaunted  by  the  priests. 

3.  The  Yafur-  Veda  consists  of  various  rituals  and  liturgies. 
The  whole  of  this  Yeda  is  considerably  more  recent  than  the 
two  former.     As  already  remarked,  the  institution  of  caste 
first  appears  in  it.     The  Yajur-Yeda  is  itself  of  two  distinct 
epochs — the  older  portion  is  called  the  Black,  and  the  latter 
the  White  Yajur-Yeda.     As  the  sacrificial  Yeda  (as  its  name 
imports),  it  obtains  great  respect,  and  is  spoken  of  by  some 
of  the  commentators  as  superior  to  all  the  other  Yedas ;  just 
as  the  Book  of  Leviticus  might  have  been  perhaps  regarded 
by  a  Babbin  as  more  important  than  the  Psalrns. 

4.  The  Atharva-  Veda,  consisting  of  both  hymns  and  prose 
pieces,  belonging  to  a  later  age  and  marked  by  a  peculiarly 
servile  and  cringing  spirit. 

Added  to  the  Sanhita  or  hymns  which  it  contains,  each 
Yeda  has  a  portion  called  its  Brahrnana. 

The  Aitareya  Brahmana,  belonging  to  the  Big- Yeda,  con 
sists  of  eight  books  of  prayers,  proper  for  the  Soma  sacrifice ; 
and  narrations  connected  with  it  and  other  sacrifices. 

The  Sama-Yeda  has  eight  Brahmanas  attached  to  it ;  but 
their  contents  are  not  fully  known.  They  appear  to  refer  to 
various  incantations. 

The  Satapatha  Brahmana  belongs  to  the  "White  or  later 
Yajur-Yeda.  It  describes  sundry  pastoral  festivals  and  cere 
monies,  especially  those  of  the  full  moon.  The  most  im 
portant  portion,  however,  consists  of  strange  speculations  on 


286        THE  RELIGION  AND   LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

the  origin  of  things.  Some  of  these  are  wild  in  the  extreme. 
"  Prajapati,"  for  instance,  the  source  of  all  created  things,  is 
himself  described  as  the  seven  Rishis  in  one  person ;  while 
other  notions  about  sin,  death,  and  immortality,  are  to  us 
quite  inexplicable.  In  this  Brahmana  we  find  many  allusions 
to  Manu,  the  originator  of  all  worship  ;  the  ancestor  of  the 
Aryan  Hindoos ;  the  original  MAN,  from  whom  the  Sanskrit* 
and  our  own  word  for  a  human  being,  is  derived.  The 
German  Mannus,  the  ancestor  of  the  Teutons,  can  hardly  fail 
to  be  identified  with  this  mythological  patriarch  of  the  whole 
Aryan  family. 

Again,  be}rond  the  four  Yedas  and  their  Brahmanas,  the 
next  order  of  compositions  are  mystic  writings  called  Aran- 
yakas  and  TTpanishads,  supposed  to  be  supplementary  to  the 
former  scriptures.  One  of  these,  the  Brihad  Amnydkay  con 
tains  a  passage  so  curious  that  I  cannot  pass  it  over.  It  is 
in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  a  Brahmin  and  his  wife. 
The  wife  asks  : — 

"  What  my  lord  knoweth  of  immortality  may  he  tell  me  ? " 
Yajnavalkya  replied  :  "  Thou,  who  art  truly  dear  to  me,  thou  speakest 
dear  words.  Sit  down.  I  will  explain  it  to  thee.  ...  A  husband  is 
loved,  not  because  we  love  the  husband,  but  because  we  love  in  him  the 
Divine  Spirit.  A  wife  is  loved,  not  because  we  love  her,  but  because 
we  love  in  her  the  Divine  Spirit.  ...  It  is  with  us  when  we  enter  the 
Divine  Spirit,  as  if  a  lump  of  salt  was  thrown  into  the  sea.  It  cannot 
be  taken  out  again.  The  water  becomes  salt,  but  the  salt  disappears. 
When  we  have  passed  away,  there  is  no  longer  any  name.  This  I  tell 
thee,  my  wife." 

Maitriyi  said  :  "  My  lord,  thou  hast  bewildered  me,  saying  that  there 
is  no  longer  any  name,  when  we  have  passed  away." 

The  philosophic  husband  replies  to  this  feminine  "  longing 
after  immortality"  by  observing  that  what  he  has  told  her  is 
"sufficient  to  the  highest  knowledge/'  and  that  as  the  Divine 
Self  is  all  in  all,  there  cannot  be  any  other  immortality  for 
man  than  that  of  the  lump  of  salt.  "  Having  said  this, 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.        287 

Yajnavalkya  left  his  wife  for  ever  and  went  into  the  solitude 
of  the  forests."  A  very  logical  conclusion  !  Other  people 
beside  the  poor  puzzled  wife  (our  authoress  observes)  were 
dissatisfied  as  time  went  on  with  the  salt  theory  of  existence, 
and  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  was  projected  out  of  their 
aspirations,  till  it  became  at  last  a  portion  of  the  national 
creed,  in  whose  earlier  form  it  had  no  place.  "  A  living 
dog,"  said  the  Jew,  "  is  better  than  a  dead  lion."  "  It  is 
better  to  live  an  individual  existence,"  said  the  heart  of 
Hindoo  humanity,  "  even  as  a  snake  or  a  rat,  than  to  be 
absorbed  and  lost  in  Deity  like  the  lump  of  salt  in  the 
sea." 

Beside  the  Aranyakas,  and  of  the  same  character  with 
them,  are  the  Upanishads,  which  are  the  portion  of  Sanskrit 
literature  chiefly  studied  by  modern  Hindoos,  and  possessed 
of  the  greatest  philosophical  interest.  The  word  Upanishad 
is  supposed  to  mean  "  secret,"  and  the  books  bearing  that 
name  are  treatises  attempting  to  solve  the  great  secrets  of  the 
universe  ;  the  nature  of  God,  and  of  the  soul,  and  the  history 
of  creation.  They  are  somewhat  numerous,  and  were  com 
posed  by  various  independent  thinkers  at  different  times. 
The  writers'  names  are  never  mentioned.  "  They  appear," 
says  Mrs.  Manning,  "  to  have  been  possessed  by  an  ardent 
spirit  of  aspiration  of  which  Sanskrit  religious  literature  is 
the  result  and  the  exponent." 

Many  of  the  Upanishads  have  been  translated  into  English, 
and  contain  some  of  the  best  known  expressions  of  Hindoo 
piety.  In  one  of  them,  the  Tahimkam  Upanishad,  the  fol 
lowing  fine  thoughts  concerning  the  nature  of  God  are  to  be 
found : — 

Know  that  that  which  does  not  see  by  the  eye,  but  by  which  the  eyes 
see — is  Brahma. 

Know  that  that  which  does  not  hear  by  the  ear,  but  by  which  the 
ears  hear — is  Brahma. 


288        THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

Know  that  that  which  does  not  breathe  by  breath,  but  that  by  which 
breath  is  breathed — is  Brahma. 

....  By  him  who  thinks  that  Brahma  is  not  comprehended,  by 
him  He  is  comprehended. 

He  who  thinks  that  Brahma  is  comprehended,  he  does  not  know  Him. 

Another  Upanisliad  has  the  acute  observation :  "  He  who 
has  reverence  acquires  faith.  The  reverent  alone  possesses 
faith.  He  who  can  control  his  passions  possesses  reverence." 

After  giving  us  a  sketch  of  the  Vedas,  the  Aranyakas,  and 
Upanishads,  of  which  the  above  is  an  epitome,  Mrs.  Manning 
proceeds  with  great  clearness  and  ability  to  draw  the  outlines 
of  the  Hindoo  systems  of  philosophy.  Into  the  rarefied  air  of 
these  acute  speculations  we  need  not  ascend  very  far.  The 
underlying  conception  of  all  was  the  existence  of  a  Supreme 
Soul  (variously  called  Brahma,  Brihaspati,  Viswakarman, 
Atman,  Parabrahm,  and  Iswara),  and  that  He  is  the  only 
reality,  all  else  being  perishable  and  delusive.  More  or  less 
personality  is  attributed  to  this  Supreme  Soul  in  different 
systems.  The  metempsychosis,  which  was  unknown  to  the 
Hishis  of  the  Yedas,  here  occupies  a  prominent  place  in 
all  speculations,  and  the  means  of  escape  from  perpetual 
transformation  by  absorption  in  the  Supreme  Soul  is  the 
practical  aim  of  every  philosophy. 

There  are  six  recognized  systems,  or  Darsanas,  of  Hindoo 
philosophy.  The  first  is  the  Sankhya  system,  taught  by 
Ivapila.  Its  principal  doctrine  is,  that  rest  from  transmi 
gration  is  to  be  obtained  by  true  knowledge,  and  that 
true  knowledge  consists  in  regarding  man  and  the  world 
as  altogether  worthless  and  perishable.  Kapila  added  little 
or  nothing  about  the  eternal  Reality  behind  these  transitory 
things,  and  this  (not  unimportant!)  portion  of  the  scheme 
was  completed  by  Patanjali,  forming  the  second  or  Yoga 
system  of  philosophy.  Patanjali's  four  chapters  are  ap 
pended  in  the  best  manuscripts  to  the  Sutras  (or  leaves)  of 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       289 

Kapila;   and   form   together   the   work   called  Sankhyapra- 
vachana. 

The  third  philosophic  system  is  the  Nyayi  of  Gotama,  which 
again  was  supplemented  by  the  Vaiseshika  or  fourth  system 
of  Kanada.  These  two  Darsanas  both  occupy  themselves 
with  elaborate  investigations  into  the  mental  constitution  of 
man  and  the  laws  of  logic,  as  means  for  the  attainment  of 
true  knowledge.  Lastly,  the  fifth  and  sixth  systems  are 
called  the  Purva  Mimansa  and  the  Uttara  Mimansa]  the 
first  originated  by  Jaimini,  and  the  second  by  the  eminent 
sage  Yyasa,  whose  name  we  find  Indian  Brahmos  of  the 
present  day  associating  with  the  Western  prophets  and 
teachers,  for  whom  they  desire  to  express  the  greatest  re 
spect.  It  is  this  last  system,  the  Uttara  Mimansa  of  Yyasa, 
to  which  the  title  of  Vedanta,  familiar  to  English  ears,  is 
applied ;  the  word  meaning  "  the  ultimate  aim  of  the  Yedas." 
All  the  other  systems  of  philosophy  recognize  the  Yedas  as 
sacred,  but  the  two  Mimansas  treat  them  as  absolute  revel 
ation,  and  are  in  fact  commentaries  and  interpretations  of 
their  earlier  and  later  portions.  "The  Yedanta,"  says  our 
authoress,  "  simply  teaches  that  the  universe  emanates  in 
successive  developments  from  Brahma  or  Paramatman,  the 
Supreme  Soul ;  that  man's  soul  is  identical  in  origin  with 
the  Supreme  Soul ;  and  that  liberation  from  transmigration 
will  be  obtained  so  soon  as  man  knows  his  soul  to  be  one  with 
the  Supreme  Soul."  The  Yedanta  system  represents  the 
religion  of  Hindoo  philosophy,  or  rather  the  religion  of 
philosophers.  "  To  suppose  that  men  who  accepted  the 
Sankhya  or  Nyaya  systems  would  therefore  take  no  interest 
in  the  Yedanta  would  be  somewhat  like  supposing  that  if 
a  man  studied  Aristotle  he  would  necessarily  despise  the 
Psalms."  The  great  Hindoo  theologian  Sankara  Acharya, 
of  whose  poem,  the  Atma-Bodha,  Mrs.  Manning  proceeds 
to  give  an  account,  was  an  enthusiastic  Yedantist.  As  a 

19 


290       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

glimpse  of  the  ocean  of  uncertain  chronology  on  which  we 
are  sailing,  we  may  remark  that  the  age  of  this  teacher  is 
placed  by  tradition  at  about  200  B.C.,  and  that  H.  H.  Wilson 
brings  him  down  to  the  eighth  or  ninth  century  A.D. 

Before  quitting  the  subject  of  Hindoo  religious  philo 
sophy,  our  authoress  is  obliged  to  interpolate  a  notice  of  a 
most  remarkable  work — the  Bhagamd  Gita — whose  assigned 
place  is  an  episode  of  the  great  epic  poem,  the  Maha- 
bharata;  but  whose  purport  is  wholly  religious  and  philo 
sophical.  The  effect  of  the  interpolation  of  such  a  treatise 
into  the  middle  of  the  heroic  tale  is,  to  our  western 
feeling,  not  a  little  grotesque  ;  and  much  as  if  a  chapter 
of  Thomas  Aquinas  had  got  itself  wedged  into  the  "Nibe- 
lungen  Lied,"  or  the  opening  of  Hooker's  "Ecclesiastical 
Polity"  were  to  be  found  in  the  middle  of  the  "Faerie 
Queen."  The  story  of  the  Mahabharata  has  conducted 
us  to  the  eve  of  a  tremendous  battle.  Two  armies  are 
drawn  up  in  array,  the  trumpet  sounds  for  the  charge, 
and  the  combatants  rush  half-way  to  meet  each  other.  At 
this  appropriate  moment  Arjuna,  the  hero,  bids  Krishna,  his 
divine  charioteer,  stop  and  discuss  with  him  the  mysteries 
of  the  universe,  through  eighteen  chapters,  terminating  in 
a  grand  solution  of  the — to  us — all  too  familiar  controversy 
of  Faith  versus  Works ! 

Absurd  as  is  this  mise  en  scene,  the  poem  in  question 
contains  some  of  the  noblest  thoughts  to  be  found  in  any 
language.  It  has  long  been  known  by  means  of  Wilkins' 
translation  to  that  rather  small  section  of  "  general  readers  " 
who  peruse  Eastern  books.  There  are  to  be  found  in  it  such 
passages  as  the  following : 

A  man  attains  perfection  by  being  satisfied  with  his  own  office,  and 
worshipping  Him  from  whom  all  things  have  their  origin.  Better 
to  perform  one's  own  duty,  though  it  be  devoid  of  excellence,  than 
to  do  well  the  duty  of  another.  Krishna  says  :  "  This  is  a  kingly 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       291 

science  and  a  kingly  mystery.  All  this  universe  has  been  created  by 
me.  All  things  exist  in  me.  I  am  the  father,  mother,  sustainer  of 
this  universe.  Even  those  who  worship  other  gods  worship  me.  .  .  . 
I  am  the  same  to  all  beings.  Even  those  who  are  born  in  sin,  even 
women  and  Sudras  take  the  highest  path  if  they  come  to  me. 

The  eleventh  chapter  contains  a  very  remarkable  scene, 
in  which  Krishna,  at  Arjuna's  entreaty,  shows  himself  in 
his  proper  form : 

Gifted  with  many  mouths  arid  eyes,  with  many  wonderful  appear 
ances,  with  many  divine  ornaments,  holding  many  celestial  weapons, 
wearing  celestial  wreaths  and  robes,  anointed  with  celestial  perfumes, 
the  all-miraculous  infinite  Deity  with  his  face  turned  in  all  directions  ! 
If  the  light  of  a  thousand  suns  were  to  break  forth  in  the  sky  at  the 
same  time,  it  would  be  similar  to  the  brilliance  of  that  mighty  One. 

Those  amongst  us  who  feel  disposed  to  despise  such  a 
vision  as  evidence  of  heathenish  conceptions  of  Deity  may 
perhaps  do  well  to  remember  that  the  Hebrews,  even  while 
they  asserted  that  "no  man  could  see  God  and  live,"  yet 
believed  that  the  Seventy  Elders  on  the  Mount  had  "  seen 
the  God  of  Israel,"  "  as  it  were  a  jasper  and  a  sardine 
stone,"  and  with  "  the  appearance  of  fire." 

The  main  drift  of  the  whole  Bhagavad  Gita  is  to  show 
that  the  philosophy  which  taught  that  liberation  comes 
from  knowledge,  must  yet  be  supplemented  by  obedience 
and  virtue. 

Passing  from  both  Yedas  and  philosophical  Darsanas,  we 
arrive  at  the  Puranas,  which  belong  to  a  still  later  age — 
probably  about  the  ninth  century  A.D.  They  were  eighteen 
in  number,  and  are,  says  Wilson,  among  the  most  popular 
works  in  the  Sanskrit  language.  Feasts  are  regulated  by 
them,  and  texts  quoted  from  them  have  validity  in  civil  as 
well  as  religious  law.  Yishnu,  often  identified  with  Brahma, 
is  here  the  ruling  god  ;  and  the  means  of  propitiating  him, 
or  becoming  united  with  him,  occupy  a  large  portion  of  the 
contents  of  the  Puranas. 


292       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

Next  below  the  Puranas  come  the  Tantras,  which  appear 
to  concern  themselves  with  mystical  and  debasing  rites. 
While  the  Puranas  are  used  by  the  educated  classes,  the 
Tantras  are  "  patronized  by  the  less  respectable  members 
of  Hindoo  society." 

A  very  important  class  of  books  now  comes  into  view,  the 
Dliarma  Sastras  or  law-books  of  India.  The  first  and  chief 
of  these  is  the  celebrated  Institutes  of  Menu,  translated  by 
Sir  William  Jones,  and  formerly  assigned  by  Orientalists  an 
antiquity  of  B.C.  1200,  but  now  brought  down  to  a  much 
more  recent  date.  The  name  of  the  book,  says  Mrs.  Manning, 
is  itself  a  kind  of  pious  fraud,  for  the  "  laws  "  are  merely  the 
laws  or  customs  of  a  school  or  association  of  Hindoos  called 
the  Manavas,  who  lived  on  the  banks  of  the  Saraswati,  and 
were  an  energetic  and  prosperous  people.  Their  system 
seems  to  have  worked  so  well  that  it  was  adopted  by  other 
communities,  and  then  the  organizers  announced  it  as  a  code 
given  to  men  by  their  divine  progenitor  Manu,  or  Menu. 
They  added  also  passages  which  assert  the  quasi  divine  claims 
of  Brahmins,  but  a  great  deal  of  this  portion  of  the  Code 
seems  to  have  existed  only  in  theory,  and  never  to  have  had 
practical  validity.  In  Sanskrit  plays  and  poems,  where  the 
real  state  of  things  is  betrayed,  weak  and  indigent  Brahmins 
are  not  infrequent ;  and  Sudras  are  found  to  have  political 
rights.  The  whole  of  the  authoress's  synopsis  of  this  most 
curious  work  amply  deserves  study.  Space  can  only  be 
spared  here  to  remark  on  one  of  its  topics ;  the  regulations 
of  domestic  life. 

The  condition  of  women  in  India  seems  to  have  constantly 
deteriorated  since  the  Yedic  ages.  At  the  time  of  the 
Institutes  of  Menu  it  had  reached  a  stage  of  absolute  subjec 
tion,  but  had  yet  something  worse  to  fall  to,  the  abjection  of 
the  modern  practice  of  incarceration  for  life,  and  death  by 
suttee.  "Day  and  night,"  say  the  Institutes  (chap.  ix. 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       293 

vv.  2,  3,  etc.),  "  must  women  be  held  by  their  protectors  in 
a  state  of  dependence.  Their  fathers  protect  them  in  child 
hood,  their  husbands  in  youth,  their  sons  in  age.  A  woman 
is  never  fit  for  independence.  .  .  .  Women  have  no  business 
with  the  texts  of  the  Yedas.  Having  therefore  no  evidence 
of  law  and  no  knowledge  of  expiating  tests,  sinful  women 
must  be  as  foul  as  falsehood  itself.  .  .  .  She  who  keeps  in 
subjection  to  her  lord  her  heart,  her  speech  and  her  body 
shall  attain  his  mansion  in  heaven.  .  .  Even  if  a  husband 
be  devoid  of  good  qualities  or  enamoured  of  another  woman, 
yet  must  he  be  constantly  revered  as  a  god  by  a  virtuous 
wife."  The  Code  does  not  hint  at  the  practice  of  widow- 
burning  ;  but  by  making  the  position  of  single  women 
and  widows  absolutely  unbearable,  the  ground  was  laid 
for  the  two  great  crimes  of  later  ages  against  women, 
viz.,  infanticide  and  suttee.  The  stupendous  selfishness  of 
men,  who  were  not  content  with  reducing  a  woman,  body 
and  soul,  to  the  adoring  and  unreasoning  dependence  of 
a  dog  during  the  life  of  her  husband,  but  required  her, 
after  his  death,  to  "  emaciate  her  body,  live  on  flowers, 
and  perform  harsh  duties,  till  death/'  led  to  these  not  un 
natural  results.  They  were  the  most  merciful  mothers  who 
put  their  female  children  out  of  a  world  which  offered  them 
no  mercy  j  and  perhaps  not  the  most  unmerciful  Brahmins 
who  urged  the  widows  to  terminate  their  miseries  011  the 
funeral  pile.  The  way  in  which,  while  all  this  was  going 
on,  the  great  poets  of  the  Ramayana  and  Mahabharata7  and 
the  dramatists  of  later  days,  continued  to  idealize  women, 
and  represent  them  as  perfect  angels  of  heroism  and  de 
votion,  would  be  astonishing  did  we  not  remember  that  the 
same  thing  happened  in  Greece  ;  and  that  Sophocles  drew 
Antigone,  and  Euripides,  Alcestis,  when  the  real  "woman 
of  the  period "  was  either  shut  up  in  her  gynakonitw,  or 
came  out  of  it  only  as  one  of  the  hetcerce.  The  man,  as 


294       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

a  poet,  liked  to  imagine  woman  free  and  noble.  The 
man,  as  a  husband  and  citizen,  was  perfectly  content  to 
keep  her  a  prisoner  for  life  and  to  leave  her  to  be 
burned  to  death  with  his  corpse  as  her  final  reward  and 
glorification. 

At  the  present  day  in  India  it  is  an  ordinary  thing  for 
a  lady  to  be  born  in  the  upstairs  zenana,  and  never  once  to 
have  trodden  the  earth,  even  of  the  most  confined  garden, 
before  she  is  borne  to  her  grave-  What  misery  existence 
must  be  among  a  knot  of  women  thus  immured  together 
with  nothing  but  their  loves  and  hatreds  and  jealousies  to 
brood  upon,  is  awful  and  piteous  to  think  of.  Every  house 
in  India,  belonging  to  the  higher  classes,  must  be  a  convent 
peopled  with  Starrs  and  Saurins.  That  the  whole  population, 
male  and  female,  should  be  physically  and  morally  weak 
when  their  mothers  have  undergone  for  centuries  such  a 
regime,  is  inevitable.  The  Hindoos  have  spoiled  the  lives 
of  their  wives  and  daughters,  and  Nemesis  has  spoiled 
theirs,  and  made  them  the  easy  prey  of  their  Saxon  con 
querors,  whose  ancestors  were  naked  savages  when  they 
were  a  splendid  and  cultured  race,  but  whose  women,  even 
in  those  old  days  of  Tacitus,  were  "  thought  to  have  in  them 
somewhat  of  the  Divinity."  The  marvel  is  not  that  Hindoos 
are  what  we  find  them,  but  that  any  race  can  have  survived 
so  long  such  a  monstrous  infraction  of  natural  laws.  Most 
marvellous  of  all  is  it,  that  Hindoo  women  with  the  "set 
of  their  brains,"  as  we  should  think,  turned  to  idiotcy 
through  centuries  of  caged-up  mothers,  yet  display,  when 
rare  occasions  offer,  no  mean  share  of  some  of  the  higher 
forms  of  human  intelligence.  At  this  moment  the  Brahmos 
are  congratulating  themselves  on  the  appearance  of  a  Ben 
galee  poetess  who  composes  beautiful  hymns  suitable  for 
theistic  worship ;  and  Mr.  Mill  has  borne  testimony  to  his 
official  experience  in  India  of  the  extraordinary  aptitude 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       295 

for  government  of  such  Hindoo  princesses  as  have  ruled  as 
regents  for  their  sons.  "  If,"  he  says,  "  a  Hindoo  princi 
pality  is  strongly,  vigilantly,  and  economically  governed, 
if  order  is  preserved  without  oppression,  if  cultivation  is 
extending  and  the  people  prosperous,  in  three  cases  out  of 
four  that  principality  is  under  a  woman's  rule.  This  fact — 
to  me,"  he  adds,  "  an  entirely  unexpected  one — I  have 
collected  from  a  long  official  knowledge  of  Hindoo  govern 
ments." 

After  the  Institutes  of  Menu  come  the  Codes  of  Yajna- 
valkya  and  Pamsara.  To  all  these  are  attributed  the  rank 
of  Smriti  or  Divine  Revelation.  But  (as  has  happened  else 
where)  infallible  books  were  found  ere  long  to  need  infallible 
interpretations ;  and  commentaries  and  digests  of  these  in 
spired  codes  soon  multiplied,  and  became  almost  as  important 
as  the  codes  themselves.  Mrs.  Manning  gives  some  account 
of  these,  and  then  proceeds  to  write  some  singularly  inter 
esting  chapters  on  Hindoo  Medicine,  Astronomy,  Grammar, 
and  Architecture.  With  regret  I  must  leave  this  part 
of  her  work  aside  as  incapable  of  compression,  and  turn  to 
her  second  volume,  which  is  devoted  to  what  may  be  called 
the  secular  literature  of  India,  with  a  supplementary  chapter 
on  Commerce  and  Manufacture. 

The  traveller  who  has  familiarized  himself  with  the  streets 
of  beautiful  Florence  and  proceeds  from  thence  to  Pisa,  is 
apt  to  feel  somewhat  confused  as  to  identity  of  place.  There 
is  the  same  Arno,  and  a  very  similar  Lung-Arno  with  rows 
of  palaces.  But  the  one  city  is  lonely  and  strange  and  the 
other  bright  and  full  of  vigorous  life ;  and  between  the  two 
he  feels  as  we  do  in  a  dream  when  we  imagine  we  see  a 
place  or  person  and  yet  find  them  altogether  other  than 
we  know  them  to  be.  Yery  similar  sensations  must  surely 
have  been  experienced  by  the  European  scholars  who  dis- 


296        THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

covered  the  great  Hindoo  poems,  and,  like  the  Ancient 
Mariner,  were  the  first 

that  ever  burst 
Into  that  silent  sea. 

Here  were  all  the  forms  of  art  to  which  they  had  been 
accustomed,  and  of  which  Greece  was  deemed  the  very 
creatrix.  Here  were  long  grand  Epics,  and  here  were 
noble  dramas,  and  lyrics,  and  tales,  and  even  fables,  from 
which  those  of  .ZEsop  seemed  borrowed.  It  was  another  and 
a  complete  cycle  of  literature ;  yet,  in  each  case,  the  resem 
blance  was  incomplete,  the  forms  less  perfect,  the  legends 
more  wild  and  seemingly  often  unmeaning ;  the  unities 
more  neglected.  That  one  great  miracle-age  of  Grecian  art 
had  not  indeed  repeated  itself  in  India.  Kalidasa  could 
not  take  rank  beside  Sophocles  any  more  than  the  Rishis 
of  the  Yedas  could  rank  beside  the  Psalmists  of  Israel.  But 
yet  there  was  power,  beauty,  originality  in  the  Sanskrit 
poems,  such  as  almost  constituted  an  equal  wonder,  falling, 
as  they  did  spontaneously,  into  such  closely  corresponding 
forms. 

The  reader  who  will  give  the  volume  before  us  a  perusal 
cannot,  we  think,  fail  to  be  amazed  at  the  richness  of  imagi 
nation  and  the  delicacy  of  natural  sentiment  displayed  in 
the  Hindoo  poems.  Unfortunately,  the  limited  space  of  a 
review  necessarily  forbids  even  an  attempt  to  convey  those 
qualities,  and  the  most  which  can  be  done  here  is  to  give 
a  bare  resume  of  the  character  of  the  work  whose  choice 
flowers  Mrs.  Manning  has  gathered  into  a  splendid  bouquet. 

The  two  poems  which  bear  to  Hindoo  literature  the  re 
lation  which  the  Odyssey  and  the  Iliad  do  to  that  of  Greece, 
and  which  have  been  almost  equally  prized  by  the  nation 
to  which  they  belong,  are  the  Ramayana  and  the  Maha- 
Iharata.  The  age  of  both  is  presumed  to  be  considerably 
anterior  to  the  Christian  era ;  and  at  all  events  to  be  earlier 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.        297 

than  that  of  the  great  Codes  of  Hindoo  law.  The  Eamayana 
is  a  complete  poem,  composed  by  the  poet  Yalmiki.  The 
Mahabharata  is  a  vast  piece  composed  at  different  times  and 
by  different  authors,  some  before  and  some  after  the  age  of 
the  Ramayana.  The  story  narrated  in  the  Ramayana,  is 
that  of  the  hero  Rama,  now  worshipped  in  India  as  a  god, 
and  represented  as  one  of  the  incarnations  of  Yishnu.  He 
is  described  as  the  son  of  the  King  of  Ayodya  (the  modern 
Oude),  and  is  born,  like  most  other  heroes  of  fable,  semi- 
miraculously.  The  adventures  of  Rama  and  his  faithful 
wife  Sita,  are  some  of  them  touching,  some  absurd ;  the  chief 
being  the  carrying  off  of  Sita  by  Ravana,  the  demon-King 
of  Lanka,  or  Ceylon.  To  recover  her,  Rama  enters  into  an 
alliance  with  the  king  of  the  monkeys  and  invades  Ceylon. 
A  bridge  is  formed  of  rocks  (of  course  still  in  situ)  over 
which  Rama  and  his  quadrumanous  friends  make  their  way 
and  recover  the  dame,  whose  story  has  combined  the  mishaps 
of  Proserpine  with  the  destiny  of  Helen.  Many  parts  of 
this  poem,  even  in  translation,  are  full  of  grace  ;  and  the 
tenderness  of  parental  and  filial  affection  has  hardly  ever 
been  more  beautifully  described. 

The  Mahabharata  is  still  larger  than  the  Ramayana,  con 
taining  in  its  present  form  100,000  stanzas.  Its  authorship 
is  attributed  to  Yyasa,  but,  as  mentioned  above,  it  is  un 
doubtedly  the  work  of  many  hands.  The  quarrels  of  two 
great  allied  families  form  the  staple  of  the  story ;  its  name 
signifying  "the  great  history  of  the  descendants  of  Bharata." 
The  heroes  are  the  five  brothers,  Pandavas ;  and  the  heroine 
is  Drapaudi,  a  woman  who  is  strangely  represented  as  the 
wife  of  all  five.  This  trait  of  manners  is  the  more  re 
markable  as  modern  Brahminical  law  is  entirely  opposed  to 
polyandry,  and  the  Indian  commentators  are  exceedingly 
troubled  at  the  incident  in  their  great  national  epic.  The 
custom,  however,  still  exists  among  the  Buddhists  of  Thibet, 


298       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

and  the  tribe  of  Nairs  in  Southern  India ;  and  its  appearance 
in  the  Mahabharata  proves  the  age  of  that  great  poem  to 
have  been  prior  to  that  of  the  Institutes  of  Menu  and  the 
other  codes  of  Hindoo  law. 

After  a  series  of  wars  whose  narrative  is  interrupted  by 
many  episodes  (in  one  of  which  is  the  legend  of  a  deluge), 
the  Mahabharata  closes  in  a  peculiarly  striking  manner. 
The  brothers  Pandavas  remain  masters  of  the  field,  and 
kings  of  their  native  country,  all  the  rival  race  being  slain. 
But  "  leanness  enters  into  their  souls,"  and  they  set  off, 
accompanied  by  Drapaudi  and  their  dog,  to  walk  to  Mount 
Meru,  where  Indra's  heaven  rises  among  the  summits  of  the 
Himalayas.  They  walk  on  in  single  file,  till  after  long  years 
Drapaudi  sinks  down  and  dies;  and  then  each  brother  in 
succession  falls,  till  the  eldest  remains  alone ;  the  mysterious 
dog  still  following  him.  Indra  now  appears  and  offers  to 
bear  the  hero  in  his  chariot  to  heaven.  He  asks  that  his 
brothers  and  his  wife  may  be  taken  there  also.  Indra  tells 
him  they  have  already  reached  heaven  through  the  portals 
of  the  grave,  and  that  he  alone  has  been  privileged  to  enter 
it  wearing  his  fleshly  form.  Then  Yudhishthira  asks  that  his 
dog  may  accompany  him.  But  Indra  scornfully  observes, 
"My  heaven  hath  no  place  for  dogs;"  whereupon  the  hero 
says  that  "  to  abandon  the  faithful  and  devoted  is  an  endless 
crime." 

Yon  poor  creature,  in  fear  and  distress,  hath  trusted  in  my 

power  to  save  it ; 
Not  therefore  for  e'en  life  itself  will  I  break  my  plighted  word. 

Fortunately  the  dog  turns  out  to  be  Yama,  the  god  of 
Death,  who  has  ever  followed  his  steps  hitherto  (an  alle 
gory  in  the  vein  of  Bunyan),  and  marvellously  sets  the 
hero  free  to  accept  Indra's  invitation.  But  not  even  here 
do  his  trials  end.  He  enters  heaven,  and  seeks  instantly 
for  his  wife  and  his  brothers;  but  he  is  told  they  are  in 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       299 

hell !  "  Then  to  hell  will  I  go  also,"  cries  the  hero, — like 
Mr.  Mill, — and  thither  he  actually  descends.  But  hell  to 
the  righteous  is  only  Maya  (delusion).  He  and  his  beloved 
ones  are  in  paradise  for  ever. 

There  is  something  to  my  thinking  so  perfectly  Teutonic 
in  all  this,  that  I  can  hardly  express  my  surprise  at  finding 
it  in  an  Eastern  book.  The  distinct  ideas  of  heaven  and 
hell,  the  nature  of  the  trials  offered  to  the  hero,  and  his 
sense  of  duty  to  his  dog,  would  all  seem  natural  in  a  German 
story;  but  how  strange  a  testimony  do  they  bring  to  the 
essential  unity  of  the  Aryan  mind,  occurring,  as  they  do, 
in  a  Sanskrit  poem,  to  which  we  can  attribute  no  later  age 
than  the  Christian  era  ! 

The  story  of  Harna  and  Sita  is  again  treated  in  a  third 
and  minor  poem  of  later  date  called  the  Raghuvansa,  attri 
buted  to  Kalidasa,  the  great  dramatic  poet ;  and  besides  this 
there  are  many  other  Kavyas  or  epics  of  less  and  lesser  im 
portance.  The  subjects  of  most  of  them  appear  constantly 
to  hover  round  one  or  other  episode  of  the  Eamayana  or 
Mahabharata. 

The  Hindoo  Drama  was  opened  to  Europeans  nearly  a 
century  ago  by  Sir  William  Jones's  translation  of  its  master 
piece,  "  SakuntcUa"  of  which  Goethe  expressed  the  highest 
admiration.  In  1827  Professor  Wilson  published  "Select 
Specimens  of  the  Theatre  of  the  Hindoos,"  whose  first  play, 
the  celebrated  "  Toy- Cart,"  affords  some  indications  whereby 
to  estimate  the  date  of  the  golden  age  of  the  Indian  drama. 
Buddhism  still  exists  among  the  characters  of  the  piece,  but 
has  lost  its  ascendancy,  and  Siva  is  the  chief  object  of  wor 
ship.  These  and  other  signs  are  believed  to  point  to  the 
fourth  century  of  our  era  for  the  date  of  the  dramas  in  ques 
tion  ;  while  Kalidasa,  the  greatest  of  the  succeeding  Sanskrit 
dramatic  poets,  is  held  to  have  flourished  about  A.D.  500. 


300       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

Hindoo  dramas  are  neither  tragedies  nor  comedies.  The 
grave  and  gay  mingle  in  turn,  but  none  of  them  end  in 
death,  either  on  the  stage  or  behind  the  scenes ;  and  Eastern 
decorum  shows  itself  in  the  prohibition  of  eating,  kissing, 
or  sleeping  before  the  public.  They  are,  in  short,  very  much 
what  they  call  themselves,  "  poems  which  can  be  seen." 
Stage  scenery  there  seems  to  be  none.  The  acts  of  the 
drama  might  not  be  less  than  five  nor  more  than  ten.  In 
tervals  too  long  to  be  imagined  in  the  acts  were  understood 
to  take  place  between  them.  Men  and  gods  were  made  to 
speak  Sanskrit  ;  women  and  slaves  spoke  Prakrit,  a  lan 
guage  bearing  to  Sanskrit  the  relation  of  Italian  to  Latin. 
Married  women  having  passed  the  age  of  beauty  being  in 
Hindoo  imagination  mere  cumberers  of  the  ground,  cul 
tivated  hetcerce  appeared  in  India  as  in  Greece,  and  the 
"  Toy- Cart  "  presents  us  with  its  Aspasia.  There  are  certain 
conventional  characters  on  the  Hindoo  as  on  the  classic  and 
romantic  stage;  among  them  the  Vita  or  parasite  and  the 
Vidushaka  or  buffoon.  The  number  of  existing  Hindoo 
dramas  is  now  small ;  whether  many  have  perished  or  few 
were  ever  composed  is  unknown.  The  "  Toy-Cart  "  is 
by  an  unknown  author.  Three  dramas  are  attributed  to 
Kalidasa,  and  three  more  to  another  admired  poet,  Bhava- 
bhuti.  "  Sakuntala  "  appears  to  be  recognized  as  the  most 
beautiful ;  but  in  it,  as  in  all  the  rest,  the  use  of  supernatural 
machinery  is  so  exorbitant  that  it  is  hard  for  the  slow 
British  imagination  to  keep  sufncient  pace  with  its  trans 
itions  to  permit  of  much  interest  in  its  plot.  Southey 
seems  to  have  wonderfully  realized  this  element  of  wild 
Hindoo  fancy  when  he  composed  the  "  Curse  of  Kehama." 
Miracles,  however,  like  the  "  Curse,"  or  even  the  gigantic 
conception  of  Kehama  multiplying  himself  into  eight 
Kehamas  and  driving  "  self- multiplied  " 

At  once  down  all  the  roads  of  Padalon, 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       301 

may  be  conceived ;  and  the  apparition  in  a  fiery  chariot  which 
carries  off  Sakuntala  admitted  as  legitimate  stage  practice. 
But  when  we  are  called  on  further  to  believe  that  the  desper 
ately  enamoured  king  Dushyanta,  almost  immediately  after 
his  marriage,  miraculously  forgets  Sakuntala  altogether, 
and  snubs  her  when  she  presents  herself  at  court,  our  sym 
pathy  in  the  subsequent  adventures  of  the  heroine  becomes 
languid,  if  not  extinct. 

Several  centuries  later  than  the  age  of  Kalidasa  was 
written  another  Indian  drama  of  an  entirely  different  de 
scription.  Its  author  was  a  poet  named  Krishna  Misra, 
supposed  to  have  lived  in  the  twelfth  century  A.D.,  and 
the  object  of  this  work  was  the  establishment  of  Yedanta 
doctrine.  It  is  in  fact  a  religious  allegory,  like  the  Holy 
War  or  Pilgrim's  Progress ;  its  name  signifies  "  The 
Rising  of  the  Moon  of  Awakened  Intellect,"  and  the 
dramatis  persona?  are  Delusion,  the  king,  with  his  subjects 
Love,  Anger,  Avarice,  etc.,  and  his  allies  Hypocrisy,  Self- 
importance  and  Materialism,  and  on  the  opposite  side  Reason 
with  an  army  of  Virtues.  The  struggle  between  the  rival 
forces  is  sharp,  but  finally  Tranquility  enables  Reason  to 
harmonize  with  Revelation  (consummation  sought  in  other 
places  besides  India  !),  and  thereupon  the  Moon  of  Awakened 
Intellect  arises  and  shines.  Our  authoress  has  given  a  full 
and  most  curious  account  of  this  very  remarkable  piece,  to 
which  we  recommend  every  admirer  of  glorious  old  Bunyan 
to  refer.  There  is  real  wit  in  the  Hindoo  poet  as  in  the 
Puritan  tinker.  Hypocrisy  is  represented  as  a  Brahmin, 
and  receives  a  message  from  his  king  as  follows  : — 

Beloved  Hypocrisy  !  King  Reason  and  his  advisers  have  determined 
to  revive  Awakened  Intellect,  and  are  for  this  purpose  sending  Tran 
quility  into  holy  places.  This  threatens  destruction  to  all  our  kind,  and 
it  behoves  you  to  be  specially  active  and  zealous.  You  are  aware  that 
no  holy  place  on  earth  is  equal  to  the  city  of  Benares.  Go  then  to 


302       THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

Benares,  and  exert  yourself  to  frustrate  the  devotions  of  the  pious 
people  there  assembled. 

To  this  address  Hypocrisy  replies  that  he  has  done  what  is 
wanted  at  Benares  so  effectively  already,  that  those  who  by 
day  attend  the  holy  rites  are  by  night  the  greatest  of  sinners. 

Besides  its  Epics  and  its  Dramas,  Sanskrit  literature  boasts 
also  of  its  Lyric  poetry.  One  poem  of  this  class  called  the 
"  Messenger  Church,"  attributed  to  Kalidasa,  is  greatly 
praised  by  Mrs.  Manning.  Another,  also  by  Kalidasa,  "  The 
Seasons/'  is  spoken  of  in  rapturous  terms  by  Sir  William 
Jones,  and  by  its  English  and  German  translators. ' 

A  more  remarkable  class  of  books,  however,  than  the  last 
is  that  of  Hindoo  Fables.  India  is  indeed  the  proper  home 
of  the  Fable.  Between  A.D.  531  and  599,  the  great  col 
lection  called  the  Panchatantra  was  translated  into  Pehlevi 
at  the  command  of  Nushirvan,  King  of  Persia,  under  the 
name  of  Fables  of  Bidpai  or  Pilpay ;  and  it  is  chiefly  to 
these  that  the  common  tales  of  our  nurseries  are  traceable. 
What  may  have  been  the  real  age  of  the  Panchatantra  (or 
Five  Sections)  is  uncertain ;  it  preceded  at  all  events  the 
collection  of  the  Hitopadesa  (Good  Advice).  Both  sets  of 
fables  are  much  alike,  and  arranged  in  a  similar  framework ; 
namely,  the  instruction  of  a  Brahmin  to  the  sons  of  a  king, 
who  are  entrusted  to  him  for  six  months'  education  in  niti 
(politics).  The  lessons  so  bestowed,  it  must  be  owned,  are 
somewhat  Macchiavellian,  and  may  be  summarized,  Mrs. 
Manning  says,  in  the  following  simple  doctrine  :  "  Rogues, 
if  cunning,  succeed.  Simpletons,  though  good  and  learned, 
fail.  Good  morals  are  allowed,  however,  to  be  good  in  them 
selves,  and  are  to  be  preferred  where  no  failure  is  risked." 

Lastly,  there  exists  in  India  a  mass  of  fictions  of  the  class 
of  the  Arabian  Nights,  the  most  popular  being  "  The  Ocean 
of  the  Streams  of  Narrative,"  "Twenty-five  Stories  told  by  a 
Yetala,"  "Thirty-two  Tales  told  by  Images,"  and  "Seventy- 


THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA.       303 

two  Tales  of  a  Parrot."  So  concludes  the  vast  cycle  of 
Sanskrit  literature,  having  contributed  to  the  library  of 
mankind  nearly  every  known  form  of  composition,  saving 
only  a  History.  Neither  ancient  nor  mediaeval  India,  so  far 
as  we  know,  ever  had  an  Historian  or  even  an  Annalist ;  and 
in  the  enormous  mass  of  their  relics  we  are  left  to  pick  out 
as  best  we  may  from  internal  evidence  the  chronology  even 
of  their  greatest  works.  We  know  almost  everything  about 
their  minds,  their  opinions,  their  laws,  even  their  lightest 
fancies.  We  can  reconstruct  their  whole  existence  probably 
with  greater  accuracy  than  we  can  picture  the  lives  of  our 
own  ancestors  in  our  own  land  a  thousand  years  ago.  But 
the  sequence  of  events,  the  wars  and  conquests,  the  dynasties 
and  revolutions  which  ordinarily  fill  for  us  the  pages  of  the 
past  are,  in  the  case  of  India,  almost  a  total  blank. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  story  of  the  Hindoo  mind 
as  revealed  in  Sanskrit  literature,  cannot  be  contemplated 
even  in  such  a  hasty  review  as  the  present,  without  a  sense 
of  sadness  and  regret.  That  early  dawn  of  religion  which 
breaks  in  the  Yedas,  instead  of  shining  to  the  perfect 
day  of  rational  faith,  was  followed  only  by  fitful  gleams 
of  sunshine  and  cloud,  and  sank  at  last,  as  the  ages  went 
by,  into  the  thick  darkness  of  unredeemed  idolatry.  The 
one  great  reformation  which  alone  ever  broke  the  continuity 
of  Brahmin  ecclesiastical  history,  the  rise  and  supremacy  of 
Buddhism  for  a  thousand  years,  passed  away  from  India 
like  a  breeze  over  a  field  of  corn ;  and  no  record  save  a 
few  old  ruined  topes  remain  to  tell  thereof.  If  we  could 
conceive  of  Protestantism  flourishing  for  yet  twenty  gener 
ations  in  England,  and  then  being  utterly  swept  off  and 
forgotten,  and  Catholicism  reinstated  over  the  land,  with 
only  the  mouldering  dome  of  St.  Paul's  left  to  recall  to  the 
antiquary  the  schism  of  the  past,  then  we  should  have  an 


304        THE  RELIGION  AND  LITERATURE  OF  INDIA. 

analogue  of  the  marvellous  story  of  the  two  great  rival 
creeds  of  the  East. 

But  is  there  no  lesson  for  us — even  if  we  cannot  stretch 
imagination  to  such  a  catastrophe — in  the  example  of  India's 
religious  history  ?  What  were  the  causes  which  led  to  the 
deterioration  of  that  vast  Established  Church,  which  in  the 
days  of  the  Bhagavad  Grita  had  teachers  with  the  spirit  of 
prophets  and  the  piety  of  saints  ?  The  answer  seems  unmis 
takable.  Religion  fell  wholly  out  of  secular  hands  into 
that  of  a  priesthood,  of  the  most  powerful  priesthood  in  the 
world ;  and  what  did  it  do  with  it  ?  It  accomplished  pre 
cisely  the  end  for  which  all  priesthoods  are  for  ever  striving. 
It  turned  religion  into  a  matter  of  rites  and  sacraments.  Then 
symbols  became  idols,  and  formal  observances  were  exalted 
above  moral  virtues ;  and  the  India  of  to-day,  with  its  three 
million  gods,  its  hideous  idols,  and  its  gross  and  cruel  rites, 
displays  the  outcome  of  the  three  millenniums  of  priestly 
rule. 

It  is  indeed  time  that  a  new  reformation  should  arise  in 
India,  capable  of  taking  deeper  root  in  human  nature  than 
Buddhism,  with  its  sleeping  deity  and  Nirvana  paradise, 
was  ever  qualified  to  do.  I  rejoice  to  believe  that  we 
see  the  beginning  of  such  a  reformation  in  the  noble  work 
of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  and  the  Brahmos  of  India. 


ESSAY  XL 


UNCONSCIOUS    CEREBRATION. 

A  PSYCHOLOGICAL   STUDY. 

THE  old  Hebrew  necromancers  were  said  to  obtain  oracles 
by  means  of  Teraphim.  A  Teraph  was  the  decapitated  head 
of  a  child,  placed  on  a  pillar  and  compelled  by  magic  to 
reply  to  the  questions  of  the  sorcerer.  Let  us  suppose,  for 
the  sake  of  illustration,  that  the  legends  of  such  enchant 
ments  rest  on  some  groundwork  of  fact ;  and  that  it  might 
be  possible,  by  galvanism  or  similar  agency,  to  make  a 
human  corpse  speak,  as  a  dead  sheep  may  be  made  to  bleat. 
Further,  let  us  suppose  that  the  Teraph  only  responded  to 
inquiries  regarding  facts  known  to  the  owner  of  the  head 
while  living,  and  therefore  (it  may  be  imagined)  impressed 
in  some  manner  upon  the  brain  to  be  operated  on. 

In  such  a  Teraph  we  should,  I  conceive,  possess  a  fair 
representation  of  the  mental  part  of  human  nature,  as  it 
is  understood  by  a  school  of  thinkers,  considerable  in  all 
ages,  but  especially  so  at  present.  "  The  brain  itself,"  ac 
cording  to  this  doctrine,  "  the  white  and  grey  matter,  such 
as  we  see  and  touch  it,  irrespective  of  any  imaginary  entity 
beside,  performs  the  functions  of  Thought  and  Memory.  To 
go  beyond  this  all-sufficient  brain,  and  assume  that  our  con 
scious  selves  are  distinct  from  it,  and  somewhat  else  beside 

20 


306  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

the  sum-total  of  its  action,  is  to  indulge  an  hypothesis  un 
supported  by  a  tittle  of  scientific  evidence.  Needless  to  add, 
the  still  further  assumption,  that  the  conscious  self  may 
possibly  survive  the  dissolution  of  the  brain,  is  absolutely 
unwarrantable." 

It  is  my  very  ambitious  hope  to  show,  in  the  following 
pages,  that,  should  physiology  establish  the  fact  that  the 
brain  performs  all  the  functions  which  we  have  been  wont 
to  attribute  to  "Mind,"  that  great  discovery  will  stand 
alone,  and  will  not  determine,  as  supposed,  the  further 
steps  of  the  argument;  namely,  that  our  conscious  selves 
are  nothing  more  than  the  sum  of  the  action  of  our 
brains  during  life,  and  that  there  is  no  room  to  hope  that 
they  may  survive  their  dissolution. 

I  hope  to  show,  not  only  that  these  conclusions  do  not 
necessarily  flow  from  the  premisses,  but  that,  accepting  the 
premisses,  we  may  logically  arrive  at  opposite  conclusions.  I 
hope  to  deduce,  from  the  study  of  one  class  of  cerebral  phe 
nomena,  a  presumption  of  the  separability  of  the  conscious 
Self  from  the  thinking  brain ;  and  thus,  while  admitting 
that  "  Thought  may  be  a  function  of  Matter,"  demonstrate 
that  the  Self  in  each  of  us  is  not  identifiable  with  that 
which,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  we  call  "  Matter."  The 
immeasurable  difference  between  such  a  remembering,  lip- 
moving  Teraph  as  we  have  supposed  and  a  conscious  Man 
indicates,  as  I  conceive,  the  gulf  leaped  over  by  those  who 
conclude  that,  if  the  brain  can  be  proved  to  think,  the  case 
is  closed  against  believers  in  the  spirituality  and  immortality 
of  our  race. 

In  brief,  it  is  my  aim  to  draw  from  such  an  easy  and 
every-day  psychological  study  as  may  be  verified  by  every 
reader  for  himself,  an  argument  for  belief  in  the  entire 
separability  of  the  conscious  self  from  its  thinking  organ, 
the  physical  brain.  Whether  we  choose  still  to  call  the 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  307 

one  "  Spirit "  and  the  other  "  Matter,"  or  to  confess  that 
the  definitions  which  our  fathers  gave  to  those  terms  have 
ceased  to  be  valid  in  the  light  of  modern  science — that 
"Matter  "  means  only  "a  form  of  Force,"  and  that  " Spirit " 
is  merely  "an  unmeaning  term  for  an  unknown  thing" — 
this  verbal  controversy  will  not  in  any  way  affect  the  drift 
of  our  argument.  What  we  need  to  know  is  this :  Can  we 
face  the  real  or  supposed  tendency  of  science  to  prove  that 
"  Thought  is  a  Function  of  Matter,"  and  yet  logically  retain 
faith  in  personal  Immortality  ?  I  maintain  that  we  may 
accept  that  doctrine  and  draw  from  it  an  indirect  pre 
sumption  of  immortality,  afforded  by  the  proof  that  the 
conscious  self  is  not  identifiable  with  that  Matter  which  per 
forms  the  function  of  Thought,  and  of  whose  dissolution 
alone  we  have  cognizance. 

My  first  task  must  be  to  describe  the  psychological  facts 
from  which  our  conclusions  are  to  be  drawn,  and  which  seem 
in  themselves  sufficiently  curious  and  interesting  to  deserve 
more  study  on  their  own  account  than  they  have  yet  received. 
Secondly,  I  shall  simply  quote  Dr.  Carpenter's  physiological 
explanation  of  these  facts.  Lastly,  I  shall,  as  shortly  as 
possible,  endeavour  to  deduce  from  them  that  which  appears 
to  me  to  be  their  logical  inference. 

The  phenomena  with  which  we  are  concerned  have  been 
often  referred  to  by  metaphysicians, — Leibnitz  and  Sir  ~W. 
Hamilton  amongst  others, — under  the  names  of  "Latent 
Thought,"  and  "  Preconscious  Activity  of  the  Soul."  Dr. 
Carpenter,  who  has  discovered  the  physiological  explanation 
of  them,  and  reduced  them  to  harmony  with  other  pheno 
mena  of  the  nervous  system,  has  given  to  them  the  title  of 
"  Unconscious  Cerebration  "  ;  and  to  this  name,  as  following 
in  his  steps,  I  shall  in  these  pages  adhere.  It  will  probably 
serve  our  purpose  best,  in  a  popular  paper  like  the  present, 
to  begin,  not  with  any  large  generalizations  of  the  subject, 


308  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

but  with  a  few  familiar  and  unmistakable  instances  of  men 
tal  work  performed  unconsciously. 

For  example  ;  it  is  an  every-day  occurrence  to  most  of 
us  to  forget  a  particular  word,  or  a  line  of  poetry,  and  to 
remember  it  some  minutes  or  hours  later,  when  we  have 
ceased  consciously  to  seek  for  it.  We  try,  perhaps  anxiously, 
at  first  to  recover  it,  well  aware  that  it  lies  somewhere  hidden 
in  our  memory,  but  unable  to  seize  it.  As  the  saying  is,  we 
"  ransack  our  brains  for  it,"  but  failing  to  find  it,  we  at  last 
turn  our  attention  to  other  matters.  By  and  by,  when,  so 
far  as  consciousness  goes,  our  whole  minds  are  absorbed  in 
a  different  topic,  we  exclaim,  <(  Eureka  !  The  word,  or  verse, 
is — So  and  so/'  So  familiar  is  this  phenomenon  that  we 
are  accustomed  in  similar  straits  to  say,  "  Never  mind ;  I 
shall  remember  the  missing  word  by  and  by,  when  I  am 
not  thinking  of  it ;  "  and  we  deliberately  turn  away,  not 
intending  finally  to  abandon  the  pursuit,  but  precisely  as 
if  we  were  possessed  of  an  obedient  secretary  or  librarian, 
whom  we  could  order  to  hunt  up  a  missing  document,  or 
turn  out  a  word  in  a  dictionary,  while  we  amused  ourselves 
with  something  else.  The  more  this  very  common  pheno 
menon  is  studied,  the  more  I  think  the  observer  of  his  own 
mental  processes  will  be  obliged  to  concede,  that,  so  far  as 
his  own  conscious  Self  is  concerned,  the  research  is  made 
absolutely  without  him.  He  has  neither  pain  nor  pleasure, 
nor  sense  of  labour  in  the  task,  any  more  than  if  it  were 
performed  by  another  person ;  and  his  conscious  Self  is  all 
the  time  suffering,  enjoying,  or  labouring  on  totally  different 
ground. 

Another  and  more  important  phase  of  unconscious  cere 
bration,  is  that  wherein  we  find  our  mental  work  of  any 
kind,  a  calculation,  an  essay,  a  tale,  a  composition  of  music, 
painting,  or  sculpture,  arrange  itself  in  order  during  an 
interval  either  of  sleep  or  wakefulness,  during  which  we  had 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  309 

not  consciously  thought  of  it  at  all.  Probably  no  one  has  ever 
written  on  a  subject  a  little  complicated,  or  otherwise  en 
deavoured  to  think  out  a  matter  any  way  obscure,  without 
perceiving  next  day  that  the  thing  has  somehow  taken  a  new 
form  in  his  mind  since  he  laid  down  his  pen  or  his  pencil 
after  his  first  effort.  It  is  as  if  a  "  Fairy  Order  "  had  come 
in  the  night  and  unravelled  the  tangled  skeins  of  thought 
and  laid  them  all  neatly  out  on  his  table.  I  have  said  that 
this  work  is  done  for  us  either  asleep  or  awake,  but  it  seems 
to  be  accomplished  most  perfectly  in  the  former  state,  when 
our  unconsciousness  of  it  is  most  complete.  I  am  not  now 
referring  to  the  facts  of  somnambulism,  of  which  I  must 
speak  hereafter,  but  of  the  regular  "  setting  to  rights " 
which  happens  normally  to  the  healthiest  brains,  and  with 
as  much  regularity  as,  in  a  well-appointed  household,  the 
chairs  and  tables  are  put  in  their  places  before  the  family 
come  down  to  breakfast. 

Again  there  is  the  ordinary  but  most  mysterious  faculty 
possessed  by  most  persons,  of  setting  over-night  a  mental 
alarum- clock,  and  awaking,  at  will,  at  any  unaccustomed 
hour  out  of  dreamless  sleep.  Were  we  up  and  about  our 
usual  business  all  night  without  seeing  or  hearing  a  time 
piece,  or  looking  out  at  the  stars  or  the  dawn,  few  of  us 
could  guess  within  two  or  three  hours  of  the  time.  Or 
again,  if  we  were  asleep  and  dreaming  with  no  intention 
of  rising  at  a  particular  time,  the  lapse  of  hours  would  be 
unknown  to  us.  The  count  of  time  in  dreams  is  altogether 
different  from  that  of  our  waking  life,  and  we  dream  in  a  few 
seconds  what  seem  to  be  the  events  of  years.  Nevertheless, 
under  the  conditions  mentioned,  of  a  sleep  prefaced  by  a 
resolution  to  waken  at  a  specified  hour,  we  arrive  at  a  know 
ledge  of  time  unattainable  to  us  either  when  awake  or  when 
sleeping  without  such  prior  resolution. 

Such  are  some  of  the  more  striking  instances  of  uncon- 


310  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 


scious  cerebration.  But  the  same  power  is  obviously  at  work 
during  at  least  half  our  lives  in  a  way  which  attracts  no 
attention  only  because  it  is  so  common.  If  we  divide  our 
actions  into  classes  with  reference  to  the  "Will,  we  discover 
that  they  are  of  three  kinds — the  Involuntary  (such  as  the 
beating  of  the  heart,  digestion,  etc.),  the  Yoluntary,  and 
the  Volitional.  The  difference  between  the  two  latter  classes 
of  actions  is,  that  Voluntary  motions  are  made  by  permission 
of  the  Will  and  can  be  immediately  stopped  by  its  exertion, 
but  do  not  require  its  conscious  activity.  Volitional  motions, 
on  the  contrary,  require  the  direct  exertion  of  Will. 

Now  of  these  three  classes  of  action  it  would  appear  that 
all  Yoluntary  acts,  as  we  have  defined  them,  are  accom 
plished  by  Unconscious  Cerebration.  Let  us  analyze  the  act 
of  Walking,  for  example.  We  intend  to  go  here  or  there ; 
and  in  such  matters  "  he  who  wills  the  end  wills  the  means." 
But  we  do  not  deliberately  think,  "Now  I  shall  move  my 
right  foot,  now  I  shall  put  my  left  on  such  a  spot."  Some 
unseen  guardian  of  our  muscles  manages  all  such  details, 
and  we  go  on  our  way,  serenely  unconscious  (unless  we 
chance  to  have  the  gout,  or  an  ill-fitting  boot)  that  we  have 
any  legs  at  all  to  be  directed  in  the  way  they  should  go. 
If  we  chance  to  be  tolerably  familiar  with  the  road,  we  take 
each  turning  instinctively,  thinking  all  the  time  of  some 
thing  else,  and  carefully  avoid  puddles  or  collisions  with 
fellow-passengers,  without  bestowing  a  thought  on  the  sub 
ject.  Similarly,  as  soon  as  we  have  acquired  other  arts 
beside  walking, — reading,  sewing,  writing,  playing  on  an 
instrument, — we  soon  learn  to  carry  on  the  mechanical  part 
of  our  tasks  with  no  conscious  exertion.  We  read  aloud, 
taking  in.  the  appearance  and  proper  sound  of  each  word 
and  the  punctuation  of  each  sentence,  and  all  the  time  we 
are  not  thinking  of  these  matters,  but  of  the  argument  of 
the  author;  or  picturing  the  scene  he  describes;  or,  possibly, 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  311 

following  a  wholly  different  train  of  thought.  Similarly  in 
writing  with  "  the  pen  of  a  ready  writer  "  it  would  almost 
seem  as  if  the  pen  itself  took  the  business  of  forming  the 
letters  and  dipping  itself  in  the  ink  at  proper  intervals,  so 
engrossed  are  we  in  the  thoughts  which  we  are  trying  to 
express.  We  unconsciously  cerebrate  that  it  will  not  answer 
to  begin  two  consecutive  sentences  in  the  same  way ;  that  we 
must  introduce  a  query  here  or  an  ejaculation  there,  and  close 
our  paragraphs  with  a  sonorous  word  and  not  with  a  pre 
position.  All  this  we  do  not  do  of  malice  prepense,  but 
because  the  well-tutored  sprite  whose  business  it  is  to  look 
after  our  p's  and  q's,  settles  it  for  us  as  a  clerk  does  the 
formal  part  of  a  merchant's  correspondence. 

Music-playing,  however,  is  of  all  others  the  most  extra 
ordinary  manifestation  of  the  powers  of  unconscious  cere 
bration.  Here  we  seem  not  to  have  one  slave  but  a  dozen. 
Two  different  lines  of  hieroglyphics  have  to  be  read  at  once, 
and  the  right  hand  is  to  be  guided  to  attend  to  one  of  them? 
the  left  to  another.  All  the  ten  fingers  have  their  work 
assigned  as  quickly  as  they  can  move.  The  mind  (or  some 
thing  which  does  duty  as  mind)  interprets  scores  of  A  sharps 
and  B  flats  and  C  naturals,  into  black  ivory  keys  and  white 
ones,  crotchets  and  quavers  and  demi-semi- quavers,  rests, 
and  all  the  other  mysteries  of  music.  The  feet  are  not  idle, 
but  have  something  to  do  with  the  pedals;  and,  if  the 
instrument  be  a  double-actioned  harp,  they  have  a  task  of 
pushings  and  pullings  more  difficult  than  that  of  the  hands. 
And  all  this  time  the  performer,  the  conscious  performer,  is 
in  a  seventh  heaven  of  artistic  rapture  at  the  results  of  all 
this  tremendous  business;  or  perchance  lost  in  a  flirtation 
with  the  individual  who  turns  the  leaves  of  the  music-book, 
and  is  justly  persuaded  she  is  giving  him  the  whole  of  her 
soul. 

Hitherto  we  have  noticed  the  brain  engaged  in  its  more 


312  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

servile  tasks  of  hunting  up  lost  words,  waking  us  at  the 
proper  hour,  and  carrying  on  the  mechanical  part  of  all  our 
acts.  But  our  Familiar  is  a  great  deal  more  than  a  walking 
dictionary,  a  housemaid,  a  valet  de  place,  or  a  barrel-organ 
man.  He  is  a  novelist  who  can  spin  more  romances  than 
Dumas,  a  dramatist  who  composes  more  plays  than'  ever  did 
Lope  de  Vega,  a  painter  who  excels  equally  well  in  figures, 
landscapes,  cattle,  sea-pieces,  smiling  bits  of  genre  and  the 
most  terrific  conceptions  of  horror  and  torture.  Of  course, 
like  other  artists,  he  can  only  reproduce,  develope,  combine 
what  he  has  actually  experienced,  or  read,  or  heard  of.  But 
the  enormous  versatility  and  inexhaustible  profusion  with 
which  he  furnishes  us  with  fresh  pictures  for  our  galleries, 
and  new  stories  every  night  from  his  lending  library,  would 
be  deemed  the  greatest  of  miracles,  were  it  not  the  com 
monest  of  facts.  A  dull  clod  of  a  man,  without  an  ounce 
of  fancy  in  his  conscious  hours,  lies  down  like  a  log  at 
night,  and  lo !  he  has  got  before  him  the  village  green 
where  he  played  as  a  boy,  and  the  apple-tree  blossoms  in 
his  father's  orchard,  and  his  long-dead  and  half-forgotten 
mother  smiles  at  him,  and  he  hears  her  call  him  "  her  own 
little  lad,"  and  'then  he  has  a  vague  sense  that  this  is 
strange,  and  a  whole  marvellous  story  is  revealed  to  him  of 
how  his  mother  has  been  only  supposed  to  be  dead,  but  has 
been  living  in  a  distant  country,  and  he  feels  happy  and 
comforted.  And  then  he  wakes  and  wonders  how  he  came 
to  have  such  a  dream  !  Is  he  not  right  to  wonder  ?  What 
is  it — who  is  it  that  wove  the  tapestry  of  such  thoughts  on 
the  walls  of  his  dark  soul  ?  Addison  says,  "  There  is  not 
a  more  painful  act  of  the  mind  than  that  of  invention.  Yet 
in  dreams  it  works  with  that  care  and  activity  that  we  are 
not  sensible  when  the  faculty  is  employed."  L  Such  are  the 
nightly  miracles  of  Unconscious  Cerebration. 

1  Spectator,  487. 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  313 

The  laws  which  govern  dreams  are  more  than  half  un 
explained,  but  the  most  obvious  of  them  singularly  illustrate 
the  nature  of  the  processes  of  the  unconscious  brain-work 
which  causes  them.  Much  of  the  labour  of  our  minds,  both 
conscious  and  unconscious,  consists  in  transmuting  Senti 
ments  into  Ideas.  Possessing  a  certain  feeling,  we  ren 
der  it  into  some  intellectual  shape  more  or  less  suitable. 
Loving  a  person  we  endow  him  with  all  lovable  qualities ; 
hating  him,  we  attribute  to  him  all  hateful  ones.  Out  of 
the  Sentiment  of  the  Justice  of  God  men  first  created  the 
Ideas  of  a  great  Final  Assize  and  a  Day  of  Judgment.  Out 
of  the  Sentiments  of  His  originating  power  they  constructed 
a  Six  Days  Cosmogony.  In  the  case  of  Insanity,  when  the 
power  of  judgment  is  lost,  the  disordered  Sentiment  almost 
invariably  precedes  the  distracted  Thought,  and  may  be 
traced  back  to  it  beyond  mistake;  as  for  example  in  the 
common  delusion  of  maniacs  that  they  have  been  injured 
or  plotted  against  by  those  persons  for  whom  they  happen 
to  feel  a  morbid  dislike.  As  our  conscious  brains  are 
for  ever  at  work  of  the  kind,  "  giving  to  airy  nothing " 
(or  at  least  to  what  is  merely  subjective  feeling)  "a  local 
habitation  and  a  name,"  so  our  unconscious  brains,  after  their 
wont,  proceed  on  the  same  track  during  sleep.  Our  senti 
ments  of  love,  hate,  fear,  anxiety,  are  each  one  of  them  the 
fertile  source  of  whole  series  of  illustrative  dreams.  Our 
bodily  sensations  of  heat,  cold,  hunger,  and  suffocation, 
supply  another  series  often  full  of  the  quaintest  sugges 
tions, — such  as  those  of  the  poor  gentleman  who  slept  over 
a  cheesemonger's  shop,  and  dreamt  he  was  shut  up  in  a 
cheese  to  be  eaten  by  rats ;  and  that  of  the  lady  whose  hot 
bottle  scorched  her  feet,  and  who  imagined  she  was  walking 
into  Vesuvius.  In  all  such  dreams  we  find  our  brains  with 
infinite  play  of  fancy  merely  adding  illustrations,  like  those 
of  M.  Dore,  to  the  page  of  life  which  we  have  turned  the 


314  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

day  before,    or   to   that   which   lies   upon  our   beds   as   we 
sleep. 

Again,  the  small  share  occupied  by  the  Moral  Law  in 
the  dream  world  is  a  significant  fact.  So  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  learn,  it  is  the  rarest  thing  possible  for  any 
check  of  conscience  to  be  felt  in  a  dream,  even  by  persons 
whose  waking  hours  are  profoundly  imbued  with  moral  feel 
ing.  We  commit  in  dreams  acts  for  which  we  should  weep 
tears  of  blood  were  they  real,  and  yet  never  feel  the  slightest 
remorse.  On  the  most  trifling  provocation  we  cram  an 
offending  urchin  into  a  lion's  cage  (if  we  happen  to  have 
recently  visited  the  Zoological  Gardens),  or  we  set  fire  to 
a  house  merely  to  warm  ourselves  with  the  blaze,  and  all 
the  time  feel  no  pang  of  compunction.  The  familiar  check 
of  waking  hours,  "I  must  not  do  it,  because  it  would  be 
unjust  or  unkind,"  never  once  seems  to  arrest  us  in  the 
satisfaction  of  any  whim  which  may  blow  about  our  way 
ward  fancies  in  sleep.  Nay,  I  think  that  if  ever  we  do 
feel  a  sentiment  like  Repentance  in  dreams,  it  is  not  the 
legitimate  sequel  to  the  crime  we  have  previously  imagined, 
but  a  wave  of  feeling  rolled  on  from  the  real  sentiment 
experienced  in  former  hours  of  consciousness.  Our  dream - 
!  selves,  like  the  Undines  of  German  folk-lore,  have  no  Souls, 
no  Responsibility  and  no  Hereafter.  Of  course  this  obser 
vation  does  not  touch  the  fact  that  a  person  who  in  his 
conscious  life  has  committed  a  great  crime  may  be  haunted 
with  its  hideous  shadow  in  his  sleep,  and  that  Lady  Macbeth 
may  in  vain  try  and  wash  the  stain  from  her  "  little  hand." 
It  is  the  imaginary  acts  of  sleeping  fancy  which  are  devoid 
of  moral  character.  Now  this  immoral  character  of  uncon 
scious  cerebration  precisely  tallies  with  the  Kantian  doctrine, 
that  the  moral  will  is  the  true  Homo  Noumenon,  the  Self  of 
man.  The  conscious  Self  being  dormant  in  dreams,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  true  phenomena  of  Conscience  cannot  be 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  315 

developed  in  them.  Plutarch  says  that  Zeno  ordered  his 
followers  to  regard  dreams  as  a  test  of  virtue,  and  to  note 
it  as  a  dangerous  sign  if  they  did  not  recoil,  even  in  their 
sleep,  from  vice ;  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne  talks  solemnly 
of  "  Sinful  Dreams,"  which,  as  their  biographies  abundantly 
show,  have  proved  terrible  stumbling-blocks  to  the  saints. 
But  the  doctrine  of  Unconscious  Cerebration  explains  clearly 
enough  how,  in  the  absence  of  the  controlling  Will,  the 
animal  elements  of  our  nature  assert  themselves — generally 
in  the  ratio  of  their  unnatural  suppression  at  other  times — 
and  abstinence  is  made  up  for  by  hungry  Fancy  spreading 
a  glutton's  feast.  The  want  of  sense  of  sin  in  such  dreams  , 
is,  I  think,  the  most  natural  and  most  healthful  symptom  \ 
about  them. 

But  if  moral  Repentance  rarely  or  never  follow  the  im 
aginary  transgressions  of  dreams,  another  sense,  the  Saxon 
sense  of  Dissatisfaction  in  unfinished  work,  is  not  only  often 
present,  but  sometimes  exceedingly  harassing.  The  late 
eminent  physician,  Professor  John  Thompson,  of  Edinburgh, 
quitted  his  father's  cottage  in  early  manhood,  leaving  half 
woven  a  web  of  cloth  on  which  he  had  been  engaged  as  a 
weaver's  apprentice.  Half  a  century  afterwards,  the  then 
prosperous  and  celebrated  gentleman  still  found  his  slum 
bers  disturbed  by  the  apparition  of  his  old  loom  and  the 
sense  of  the  imperative  duty  of  finishing  the  never-completed 
web.  The  tale  is  like  a  parable  of  what  all  this  life's  neg 
lected  duties  may  be  to  us,  perchance  in  an  absolved  and 
glorified  Hereafter,  wherein,  nevertheless,  that  web  which 
we  have  left  undone  will  have  passed  from  our  hands  for 
ever.  Of  course,  as  it  is  the  proper  task  of  the  unconscious 
brain  to  direct  voluntary  labours  started  by  the  will,  it  is 
easily  explicable  why  it  should  be  tormented  by  the  sense 
of  their  incompletion. 

But   leaving    the    vast    half- studied    subject   of    dreams, 


316  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

which  belongs  rather,  to  the  class  of  involuntary  than  of 
unconscious  cerebration,  we  must  turn  to  consider  the 
surprising  phenomena  of  true  Unconscious  Cerebration,  de 
veloped  under  conditions  of  abnormal  excitement.  Among 
these  I  class  those  mysterious  Voices,  issuing  we  know  not 
whence,  in  which  some  strong  fear,  doubt,  or  hope  finds 
utterance.  The  part  played  by  these  Voices  in  the  history 
both  of  religion  and  of  fanaticism  it  is  needless  to  describe. 
So  far  as  I  can  judge,  they  are  of  two  kinds.  One  is  a  sort 
of  lightning-burst  suddenly  giving  intensely  vivid  expression 
to  a  whole  set  of  feelings  or  ideas  which  have  been  lying 
latent  in  the  brain,  and  which  are  in  opposition  to  the  feel 
ings  and  ideas  of  our  conscious  selves  at  the  moment.  Thus 
the  man  ready  to  commit  a  crime  hears  a  voice  appealing 
to  him  to  stop ;  while  the  man  praying  ardently  for  faith 
hears  another  voice  say,  "  There  is  no  God."  Of  course 
the  good  suggestion  is  credited  to  heaven,  and  the  other 
to  the  powers  of  the  Pit,  but  the  source  of  both  is,  I  appre 
hend,  the  same,  namely,  Unconscious  Cerebration.  The 
second  class  of  Voices  are  the  result,  not  of  unconscious 
Reasoning  but  of  unconscious  Memory.  Under  some  special 
excitement,  and  perhaps  inexplicably  remote  association  of 
ideas,  some  words  which  once  made  a  violent  impression  on 
us  are  remembered  from  the  inner  depths.  Chance  may 
make  these  either  awfully  solemn,  or  as  ludicrous  as  that 
of  a  gentleman,  shipwrecked  off  South  America,  who,  as 
he  was  sinking  and  almost  drowning,  distinctly  heard  his 
mother's  voice  say,  "  Tom !  did  you  take  Jane's  cake  ? " 
The  portentous  inquiry  had  been  addressed  to  him  forty 
years  previously,  and  (as  might  have  been  expected)  had 
been  wholly  forgotten.  In  fever,  in  a  similar  way,  ideas 
and  words  long  consigned  to  oblivion  are  constantly  repro 
duced;  nay,  what  is  most  curious  of  all,  long  trains  of 
phrases  which  the  individual  has  indeed  heard,  but  which 


UNCONSCIOUS   CEREBRATION.  317 

could  hardly  have  become  a  possession  of  the  memory  in 
its  natural  state,  are  then  brought  out  in  entire  unconscious 
ness.  My  readers  will  recall  the  of  ten- quoted  and  well- 
authenticated  story  of  the  peasant  girl  in  the  Hotel  Dieu 
in  Paris,  who  in  her  delirium  frequently  "  spouted  "  Hebrew. 
After  much  inquiry  it  was  found  she  had  been  cook  to  a 
learned  priest  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  -reading  aloud 
his  Hebrew  books  in  the  room  adjoining  her  kitchen.  A 
similar  anecdote  is  told  of  another  servant  girl  who  in  ab 
normal  sleep  imitated  some  beautiful  violin  playing  which 
she  had  heard  many  years  previously. 

From  Sounds  to  Sights  the  transition  is  obvious.  An 
Apparition  is  to  the  optical  sense  what  such  a  Yoice  as 
I  have  spoken  of  above  is  to  the  hearing.  At  a  certain 
point  of  intensity  the  latent  idea  in  the  unconscious  brain 
reveals  itself  and  produces  an  impression  on  the  sensory; 
sometimes  affecting  one  sense,  sometimes  another,  sometimes 
perhaps  two  senses  at  a  time. 

Hibbert's  well-known  explanation  of  the  philosophy  of 
apparitions  is  this.  "We  are,  he  says,  in  our  waking  hours, 
fully  aware  that  what  we  really  see  and  hear  are  actual 
sights  and  sounds ;  and  what  we  only  conjure  up  by  fancy 
are  delusions.  In  our  sleeping  hours  this  sense  is  not  only 
lost,  but  the  opposite  conviction  fully  possesses  us ;  namely, 
that  what  we  conjure  up  by  fancy  in  our  dreams  is  true, 
while  the  real  sights  and  sounds  around  us  are  unperceived. 
These  two  states  are  exchanged  for  each  other  at  least  twice 
in  every  twenty-four  hours  of  our  lives,  and  generally  much 
oftener ;  in  fact  every  time  we  doze  or  take  a  nap.  Very 
often  such  slumbers  begin  and  end  before  we  have  become 
aware  of  them ;  or  have  lost  consciousness  of  the  room  and 
its  furniture  surrounding  us.  If  at  such  times  a  peculiarly 
vivid  dream  takes  the  form  of  an  apparition  of  a  dead  friend, 
there  is  nothing  to  rectify  the  delusion  that  what  we  have 


318  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

fancied  is  real,  nay  even  a  background  of  positive  truth  is 
apparently  supplied  by  the  bedstead,  curtains,  etc.,  etc.,  of 
whose  presence  we  have  not  lost  consciousness  for  more  than 
the  fraction  of  time  needful  for  a  dream. 

It  would,  I  think,  be  easy  to  apply  this  reasoning  with 
great  advantage,  taking  into  view  the  phenomena  of  Uncon 
scious  Cerebration.  The  intersection  of  the  states  wherein 
consciousness  yields  to  unconsciousness,  and  vice  versa,  is 
obviously  always  difficult  of  sharp  appreciation,  and  leaves 
wide  margin  for  self-deception ;  and  a  ghost  is  of  all  creations 
of  fancy  the  one  which  bears  most  unmistakable  internal 
evidence  of  being  home-made.  The  poor  unconscious  brain 
goes  on  upon  the  track  of  the  lost  friend,  on  which  the 
conscious  soul,  ere  it  fell  asleep,  had  started  it.  But  with 
all  its  wealth  of  fancy  it  never  succeeds  in  picturing  a  new 
ghost,  a  fresh  idea  of  the  departed,  whom  yet  by  every 
principle  of  reason  we  know  is  not  (whatever  else  he  or 
she  may  have  become)  a  white-faced  figure  in  coat  and 
trowsers,  or  in  a  silk  dress  and  gold  ornaments.  All  the 
familiar  arguments  proving  the  purely  subjective  nature 
of  apparitions  of  the  dead,  or  of  supernatural  beings,  point 
exactly  to  Unconscious  Cerebration  as  the  teeming  source 
wherein  they  have  been  engendered.  In  some  instances, 
as  in  the  famous  ones  quoted  by  Abercrombie,  the  brain 
was  sufficiently  distempered  to  call  up  such  phantoms  even 
while  the  conscious  self  was  in  full  activity.  "Mrs.  A." 
saw  all  her  visions  calmly,  and  knew  that  they  were  visions ; 
thus  bringing  the  conscious  and  unconscious  workings  of  her 
.  brain  into  an  awful  sort  of  face-to-face  recognition ;  like  the 
sight  of  a  Doppcl- ganger.  But  such  experience  is  the  ex 
ceptional  one.  The  ordinary  case  is,  that  the  unconscious 
cerebration  supplies  the  apparition ;  and  the  conscious  self 
accepts  it  de  bonne  foi,  having  no  means  of  distinguishing  it 
from  the  impressions  derived  from  the  real  objects  of  sense. 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  319 

The  famous  story  in  my  own  family,  of  the  Beresford 
ghost,  is,  I  think,  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  re 
lation  of  unconscious  cerebration  to  dreams  of  apparitions. 
Lady  Beresford,  as  I  conjecture,  in  her  sleep  hit  her  wrist 
violently  against  some  part  of  her  bedstead  so  as  to  hurt  it 
severely.  According  to  the  law  of  dreams,  already  referred 
to,  her  unconscious  brain  set  about  accounting  for  the  pain, 
transmitting  the  Sensation  into  an  Idea.  An  instant's  sen 
sation  (as  Mr.  Babbage,  Sir  Benjamin  Brodie,  and  Lord 
Brougham  have  all  illustrated)  is  enough  to  call  up  a  long 
vision.  Lady  Beresford  fancied  accordingly  that  her  dead 
cousin,  Lord  Tyrone,  had  come  to  fulfil  his  promise  of  re 
visiting  her  from  the  tomb.  He  twisted  her  curtains  and 
left  a  mark  on  her  wardrobe  (probably  an  old  stain  she  had 
remarked  on  the  wood),  and  then  touched  her  wrist  with 
his  terrible  finger.  The  dreamer  awoke  with  a  black  and 
blue  wrist ;  and  the  story  took  its  place  in  the  annals  of 
ghost- craft  for  ever. . 

Somnambulism  is  an  unmistakable  form  of  unconscious 
cerebration.  Here,  while  consciousness  is  wholly  dormant, 
the  brain  performs  occasionally  the  most  brilliant  operations. 
Coleridge's  poem  of  Kubla  Khan,  composed  in  opiate  sleep, 
is  an  instance  of  its  achievements  in  the  realm  of  pure  im 
agination.  Many  cases  are  recorded  of  students  rising  at 
night,  seeking  their  desks,  and  there  writing  down  whole 
columns  of  algebraic  calculations ;  solutions  of  geometric 
problems,  and  opinions  on  difficult  cases  of  law.  Cabanis  says 
that  Condillac  brought  continually  to  a  conclusion  at  night 
in  his  sleep  the  reasonings  of  the  day.  In  all  such  cases  the 
work  done  asleep  seems  better  than  that  done  in  waking 
hours ;  nay  there  is  no  lack  of  anecdotes  which  would  point 
to  the  possibility  of  persons  in  an  unconscious  state  accom 
plishing  things  beyond  their  ordinary  powers  altogether. 
The  muscular  strength  of  men  in  somnambulism  and  de- 


320  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

lirium,  their  power  of  balancing  themselves  on  roofs,  and 
of  finding  their  way  in  the  dark,  are  physical  advantages 
reserved  for  such  conditions.  Abnormal  acuteness  of  hear 
ing  is  also  a  well-known  accompaniment  of  them,  and  in 
this  relation  we  must,  I  conclude,  understand  the  marvellous 
story  vouched  for  by  the  late  Sir  Edward  Codrington. 
The  captain  in  command  of  a  man-of-war  was  one  night 
sleeping  in  his  cabin,  with  a  sentinel  as  usual  posted  at 
his  door.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  the  captain  rang 
his  bell,  called  suddenly  to  the  sentinel,  and  sharply  de 
sired  him  to  tell  the  lieutenant  of  the  watch  to  alter  the 
ship's  course  by  so  many  points.  Next  morning  the  officer, 
on  greeting  the  captain,  observed  that  it  was  most  fortunate 
he  had  been  aware  of  their  position  and  had  given  such  an 
order,  as  there  had  been  a  mistake  in  the  reckoning,  and  the 
ship  was  in  shoal  water,  on  the  point  of  striking  a  reef. 
"  I  !  "  said  the  astonished  captain,  "  I  gave  no  order ;  I 
slept  soundly  all  night."  The  sentinel  was  summoned,  and 
of  course  testified  that  the  experienced  commander  had  in 
some  unknown  way  learned  the  peril  of  his  ship,  and  saved 
it,  even  while  in  a  state  of  absolute  unconsciousness. 

Whatever  residue  of  truth  may  be  found  hereafter  in  the 
crucible  wherein  spirit-rapping,  planchette,  mesmerism,  and 
hypnotism  shall  have  been  tried ;  whatever  revelation  of  for 
gotten  facts  or  successful  hits  at  secrets,  will,  I  believe,  be 
found  to  be  unquestionably  due  to  the  action  of  Unconscious 
Cerebration.  The  person  reduced  to  a  state  of  coma  is  liable 
to  receive  suggestions  from  without,  and  these  suggestions  and 
queries  are  answered  by  his  unconscious  brain  out  of  whatever 
stores  of  memory  it  may  retain.  What  a  man  never  knew, 
that  no  magic  has  ever  yet  enabled  him  to  tell ;  but  what  he 
has  once  known,  and  in  his  conscious  hours  has  forgotten, 
that,  on  the  contrary,  is  often  recalled  by  the  suggestive 
queries  of  the  operator  when  he  is  in  a  state  of  hypnotism. 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  321 

A  natural  dream  sometimes  does  as  much,  as  witness  all  the 
discoveries  of  hidden  treasures,  corpses,  etc.,  made  through 
dreams ;  and  generally  with  the  aid  of  the  obvious  machinery 
of  a  ghost.  General  Sleeman  mentions  that,  being  in  pur 
suit  of  Thugs  up  the  country,  his  wife  one  morning  urgently 
entreated  him  to  move  their  tents  from  the  spot — a  lovely 
opening  in  the  jungle — where  they  had  been  pitched  the  pre 
vious  evening.  She  said  she  had  been  haunted  all  night  by 
the  sight  of  dead  men.  Information  received  during  the  day 
induced  the  General  to  order  an  examination  of  the  ground 
whereon  they  had  camped  ;  and  beneath  Mrs.  Sleeman's  tent 
were  found  fourteen  corpses,  victims  of  the  Thugs.  It  is 
easily  conceivable  that  the  foul  odour  of  death  suggested  to 
the  lady,  in  the  unconscious  cerebration  of  her  dream,  her 
horrible  vision.  Had  she  been  in  a  state  of  mesmeric  trance, 
the  same  occurrence  would  have  formed  a  splendid  instance 
of  supernatural  revelation. 

Drunkenness  is  a  condition  in  which  the  conscious  self  is 
more  or  less  completely  obfuscated,  but  in  which  unconscious 
cerebration  goes  on  for  a  long  time.  The  proverbial  im 
punity  with  which  drunken  men  fall  without  hurting  them 
selves  can  only  be  attributed  to  the  fact  that  the  conscious 
will  does  not  interfere  with  the  unconscious  instinct  of  falling 
on  the  parts  of  the  body  least  liable  to  injury.  The  same 
impunity  is  enjoyed  by  persons  not  intoxicated,  who  at  the 
moment  of  an  accident  do  not  exert  any  volition  in  deter 
mining  which  way  they  shall  strike  the  ground.  All  the 
ludicrous  stories  of  the  absence  of  mind  of  tipsy  men  may 
obviously  be  explained  by  supposing  that  their  unconscious 
cerebration  is  blindly  fumbling  to  perform  tasks  needing 
conscious  direction.  And  be  it  remembered  that  the  proverb 
"  in  vino  ceritas  "  is  here  in  exact  harmony  with  our  theory. 
The  drunken  man  unconsciously  blurts  out  the  truth,  his 
muddled  brain  being  unequal  to  the  task  of  inventing  a 

21 


322  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

plausible  falsehood.  The  delicious  fun  of  Sheridan,  found 
tipsy  under  a  tree  and  telling  the  policeman  that  he  was 
"  Wil-Wil-Wilberforce,"  reveals  at  once  that  the  wag,  if  a 
little  exalted,  was  by  no  means  really  drunk.  Such  a  joke 
could  hardly  have  occurred  to  an  unconscious  brain,  even  one 
so  well  accustomed  to  the  production  of  humour.  Like 
dreams,  intoxication  never  brings  new  elements  of  nature  into 
play,  but  only  abnormally  excites  latent  ones.  It  is  only  a 
Porson  who  when  drunk  solemnly  curses  the  "  aggravating 
properties  of  inanimate  matter,"  or,  when  he  cannot  fit  his 

latch-key,  is  heard  muttering,  "  D n  the  nature  of  things  I " 

A  noble  miser  of  the  last  century  revealed  his  true  character, 
and  also  the  state  of  his  purse,  whenever  he  was  fuddled,  by 
murmuring  softly  to  himself,  "  I'm  very  rich  !  I'm  very 
rich  !  "  In  sober  moments  he  complained  continually  of  his 
limited  means.  In  the  same  way  it  is  the  brutal  labourer 
who  in  his  besotted  state  thrashes  his  horse  and  kicks  his 
wife.  A  drunken  woman,  011  the  contrary,  unless  an  habitual 
virago,  rarely  strikes  anybody.  The  accustomed  vehicle  for 
her  emotions — her  tongue — is  the  organ  of  whose  services 
her  unconscious  cerebration  avails  itself. 

Finally,  the  condition  of  perfect  anaesthesia  appears  to  be 
one  in  which  unconscious  cerebration  is  perfectly  exemplified. 
The  conscious  Self  is  then  so  absolutely  dormant  that  it  is 
not  only  unaware  of  the  most  frightful  laceration  of  the 
nerves,  but  has  no  conception  of  the  interval  of  time  in 
which  an  operation  takes  place ;  usually  awakening  to  in 
quire,  "  When  do  the  surgeons  intend  to  begin  ? "  Mean 
while  unconscious  cerebration  has  been  busy  composing  a 
pretty  little  picture  of  green  fields  and  skipping  lambs,  or 
something  equally  remote  from  the  terrible  reality. 

There  are  many  other  obscure  mental  phenomena  wjdch 
I  believe  might  be  explained  by  the  theory  of  unconscious 
cerebration,  even  if  the  grand  mystery  of  insanity  does  not 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  323 

receive  (as  I  apprehend  it  must  do)  some  elucidation  from 
it.  Presentiments  and  dreams  of  the  individual's  own  death 
may  certainly  be  explicable  as  the  dumb  revelations  of  the 
diseased  frame  to  its  own  nervous  centre.  The  strange  and 
painful,  but  very  common,  sense  of  having  seen  and  heard  at 
some  previous  time  what  is  passing  at  the  moment,  appears  to 
arise  from  some  abnormal  irritation  of  the  memory  (if  I  may 
so  express  it),  evidently  connected  with  the  unconscious  action 
of  the  brain.  Still  more  "  uncanny  "  and  mysterious  is  the 
impression  (to  me  almost  amounting  to  torture)  that  we  have 
never  for  years  quitted  the  spot  to  which  in  truth  we  have 
only  that  instant  returned  after  a  long  interval.  Under  this 
hateful  spell  we  say  to  ourselves  that  we  have  been  weeks, 
months,  ages,  studying  the  ornaments  of  the  cornice  opposite 
our  seat  in  church,  or  following  the  outline  of  the  gnarled 
old  trees,  black  against  the  evening  sky.  This  delusion,  I 
think,  only  arises  when  we  have  undergone  strong  mental 
tension  at  the  haunted  spot.  While  our  conscious  selves 
have  been  absorbed  in  speculative  thought  or  strong  emotion, 
our  unconscious  cerebration  has  photographed  the  scene  on 
our  optic  nerves  pour  passer  le  temps  ! 

The  limitations  of  unconscious  cerebration  are  as  noticeable 
as  its  marvellous  powers  and  achievements.  It  is  obvious  at 
first  sight,  that,  though  in  the  unconscious  state  mental  work 
is  sometimes  better  done  than  in  the  conscious  (e.g.  the  finding 
missing  names  awake,  or  performing  abstruse  calculations  in 
somnambulism),  yet  that  the  unconscious  work  is  never  more 
than  the  continuation  of  something  which  has  been  begun  in 
the  conscious  condition.  We  recall  the  name  which  we  have 
known  and  forgotten,  but  we  do  not  discover  what  we  never 
knew.  The  man  who  does  not  understand  algebra  never 
performs  algebraic  calculations  in  his  sleep.  No  problem  in 
Euclid  has  been  solved  in  dreams  except  by  students  who 


324  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

have  studied  Euclid  awake.  The  mere  voluntary  and  uncon 
scious  movements  of  our  legs  in  walking,  and  our  hands  in 
writing  and  playing  music,  were  at  first  in  infancy,  or  when 
we  began  to  learn  each  art,  actions  purely  volitional,  which 
often  required  a  strong  effort  of  the  conscious  will  for  their 
accomplishment. 

Again,  the  failures  of  unconscious  cerebration  are  as  easily 
traced  as  its  limitations.  The  most  familiar  of  them  may  be 
observed  in  the  phenomena  which  we  call  Absence  of  Mind, 
and  which  seems  to  consist  in  a  disturbance  of  the  proper 
balance  between  conscious  and  unconscious  cerebration, 
leaving  the  latter  to  perform  tasks  of  which  it  is  incapable. 
An  absent  man  walks,  as  we  say,  in  a  dream.  All  men 
indeed,  as  before  remarked,  "perform  the  mechanical  act  of 
walking  merely  voluntarily  and  not  volitionally,  but  their 
consciousness  is  not  so  far  off  but  that  it  can  be  recalled  at  a 
moment's  notice.  The  porter  at  the  door  of  the  senses  can 
summons  the  master  of  the  house  the  instant  he  is  wanted 
about  business.  But  the  absent  man  does  not  answer  such 
calls.  A  friend  addresses  him,  and  his  unconscious  brain 
instead  of  his  conscious  self  answers  the  question  a  tort  et  d 
tmvers.  He  boils  his  watch  for  breakfast  and  puts  his  egg 
in  his  pocket  ;  his  unconscious  brain  merely  concerning 
itself  that  something  is  to  be  boiled  and  something  else  put 
in  the  pocket.  He  searches  up  and  down  for  the  spectacles 
which  are  on  his  nose;  he  forgets  to  eat  his  dinner  and 
wonders  why  he  feels  hungry.  His  social  existence  is 
poisoned  by  his  unconquerable  propensity  to  say  the  wrong 
thing  to  the  wrong  person.  Meeting  Mrs.  Bombazine  in 
deep  widow's  weeds,  he  cheerfully  inquires,  "  Well,  and  what 
is  Mr.  Bombazine  doing  now?"  albeit  he  has  received  formal 
notice  that  Mr.  Bombazine  departed  a  month  ago  to  that 
world  of  whose  doings  no  information  is  received.  He  tells 
Mr.  Parvenu,  whose  father  is  strongly  suspected  of  having 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  325 

been  a  shoemaker,  that  "  for  his  part  he  does  not  like  new- 
made  men  at  the  head  of  affairs,  and  holds  to  the  good  old 
motto,  '  jN"e  sutor  ultra  crepidam ; ' ''''  and  this  brilliant  ob 
servation  he  delivers  with  a  pleasant  laugh,  giving  it  all 
possible  point  and  pungency.  If  he  have  an  acquaintance 
whose  brother  was  hanged  or  drowned,  or  scraped  to  death  ^( 
with  oyster- shells,  then  to  a  moral  certainty  the  subjects  of 
capital  punishment,  the  perils  of  the  deep,  and  the  proper  ; 
season  for  eating  oysters,  will  be  the  topics  selected  by  him 
for  conversation  during  the  awkward  ten  minutes  before 
dinner.  Of  course  the  injured  friend  believes  he  is  inten 
tionally  insulted  ;  but  he  is  quite  mistaken.  The  absent 
man  had  merely  a  vague  recollection  of  his  trouble,  which 
unfortunately  proved  a  stumbling-block  against  which  his  un 
conscious  cerebration  was  certain  to  bring  him  into  collision. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  unconscious  brain,  like  an  enfant 
terrible,  is  extremely  veracious.  The  "Palace  of  Truth" 
is  nothing  but  a  house  full  of  absent-minded  people  who 
unconsciously  say  what  they  think  of  each  other,  when  they 
consciously  intend  to  be  extremely  flattering.  But  it  also 
sometimes  happens  that  falsehood  has  so  far  become  second 
nature  that  a  man's  very  interjections,  unconscious  answers, 
and  soliloquies  may  all  be  lies.  Nothing  can  be  more  remote" 
from  nature  than  the  dramas  and  novels  wherein  astute 
scoundrels,  in  the  privacy  of  an  evening  walk  beside  a 
hedge,  unveil  their  secret  plots  in  an  address  to  Fate  or 
the  Moon ;  or  fall  into  a  well-timed  brain  fever,  and  babble 
out  exactly  the  truth  which  the  reader  needs  to  be  told. 
Your  real  villain  never  tells  truth  even  to  himself,  much 
less  to  Fate  or  the  Moon ;  and  ifc  is  to  be  doubted  whether, 
even  in  delirium,  his  unconscious  cerebration  would  not  run 
in  the  accustomed  ruts  of  fable  rather  than  along  the  un 
wonted  paths  of  veracity. 

Another  failure  of  unconscious  cerebration  is  seen  in  the 


326  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

continuance  of  habitual  actions  when  the  motive  for  them 
has  ceased.  A  change  in  attire,  altering  the  position  of 
our  pockets,  never  fails  to  cause  us  a  dozen  fruitless  strug 
gles  to  find  our  handkerchief,  or  replace  our  purse.  In 
returning  to  an  old  abode  we  are  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to 
blunder  into  our  former  sleeping-roorn,  and  to  be  much 
startled  to  find  in  it  another  occupant.  It  happened  to  me 
once,  after  an  interval  of  eight  years,  to  find  myself  again 
in  the  chamber,  at  the  table,  and  seated  on  the  chair  where 
my  little  studies  had  gone  on  for  half  a  lifetime.  I  had 
business  to  occupy  my  thoughts,  and  was  soon  (so  far  as 
consciousness  went)  buried  in  my  task  of  writing.  But  all 
the  time  while  I  wrote  my  feet  moved  restlessly  in  a  most 
unaccustomed  way  under  the  table.  "What  is  the  matter 
with  me?"  I  paused  at  last  to  ask  myself,  and  then  re 
membered  that  when  I  had  written  at  this  table  in  long 
past  days,  I  had  had  a  stool  under  it.  It  was  that  particular 
stool  my  unconscious  cerebration  was  seeking.  During  all 
the  interval  I  had  perhaps  not  once  used  a  similar  support, 
but  the  moment  I  sat  in  the  same  spot,  the  trifling  habit 
vindicated  itself  afresh ;  the  brain  acted  on  its  old  impression. 
Of  course  it  is  as  easy  as  it  is  common  to  dismiss  all  such 
fantastic  tricks  with  the  single  word  "Habit."  But  the 
word  "  Habit/'  like  the  word  "  Law,"  has  no  positive  sense 
as  if  it  were  itself  an  originating  cause.  It  implies  a  per 
sistent  mode  of  action,  but  affords  no  clue  to  the  force  which 
initiates  and  maintains  that  action.  All  that  we  can  say, 
in  the  case  of  the  phenomena  of  unconscious  cerebration,  is, 
that  when  volitional  actions  have  been  often  repeated,  they 
sink  into  the  class  of  voluntary  ones,  and  are  performed  uncon 
sciously.  We  may  define  the  moment  when  a  Habit  is  estab 
lished  as  that  wherein  the  Yolitional  act  becomes  Voluntary. 

It  will  be  observed  by  the  reader  that  all  the  phenomena 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  327 

of  Unconscious  Cerebration  now  indicated  belong  to  different 
orders  as  related  to  the  Conscious  Self.  In  one  order  (e.g., 
that  of  Delirium,  Somnambulism,  and  Anaesthesia)  the  Con 
scious  Self  has  no  appreciable  concern  whatever.  The  action 
of  the  brain  has  not  been  originated  or  controlled  by  the 
will ;  there  is  no  sense  of  it  either  painful  or  pleasurable, 
while  it  proceeds ;  and  no  memory  of  it  when  it  is  over. 

In  the  second  order  (e.g.,  that  of  rediscovered  words,  and 
waking  at  a  given  hour),  the  Conscious  Self  has  so  far  a 
concern,  that  it  originally  set  the  task  to  the  brain.  This 
done,  it  remains  in  entire  ignorance  of  how  the  brain  per 
forms  it,  nor  does  Memory  afterwards  retain  the  faintest 
trace  of  the  labours,  however  arduous,  of  word-seeking  and 
time-marking. 

Lastly,  in  the  third  class,  more  strictly  to  be  defined  as 
that  of  Involuntary  Cerebration,  (e.g.,  that  of  natural  dreams ), 
the  share  taken  by  the  Conscious  Self  is  the  reverse  of  that 
which  it  assumes  in  the  case  of  word-seeking  and  time- 
marking.  In  dreams  we  do  not,  and  cannot  with  our  utmost 
effort,  direct  our  unconscious  brains  into  the  trains  of  thought 
and  fancy  wherein  we  desire  them  to  go.  Obedient  as  they 
are  in  the  former  case,  where  work  was  to  be  done,  here,  in 
the  land  of  fancy,  they  seem  to  mock  our  futile  attempts  to 
guide  them.  Nevertheless,  strange  to  say,  the  Conscious 
Self — which  knew  nothing  of  what  was  going  on  while  its 
leg  was  being  amputated  under  chloroform,  and  nothing  of 
what  its  brain  was  doing,  while  finding  out  what  o'clock 
it  was  with  closed  eyes  in  the  dark — is  here  cognizant  of  all 
the  proceedings,  and  able  in  great  measure  to  recall  them 
afterwards.  We  receive  intense  pain  or  pleasure  from  our 
dreams,  though  we  have  actually  less  to  do  in  concocting 
them  than  in  dozens  of  mental  processes  which  go  on  wholly 
unperceived  in  our  brains.1 

1  Eeid  boasted  he  had  learned  to  control  his  dreams,  and  there  is  a  story  of  a 


328  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

Thus  it  would  seem  that  neither  Memory  nor  Volition 
have  any  constant  relation  to  unconscious  cerebration.  We 
sometimes  remember,  and  sometimes  wholly  forget  its  action ; 
and  sometimes  it  fulfils  our  wishes,  and  sometimes  wholly 
disregards  them.  The  one  constant  fact  is,  that  while  the 
actions  are  being  performed,  the  Conscious  Self  is  either  wholly 
uncognizant  of  them  or  unable  to  control  them.  It  is  either 
in  a  state  of  high  activity  about  other  and  irrelevant  matters  • 
or  it  is  entirely  passive.  In  every  case  the  line  between 
the  Conscious  Self,  and  the  unconsciously  working  brain  is 
clearly  defined. 

Having  now  faintly  traced  the  outline  of  the  psycho 
logical  facts  illustrative  of  unconscious  cerebration,  it  is 
time  to  turn  to  the  brilliant  physiological  explanation 
of  them  afforded  by  Dr.  Carpenter.  We  have  seen  what 
our  brains  can  do  without  our  consciousness.  The  way 
they  do  it  is  on  this  wise  (I  quote,  slightly  abridged, 
from  Dr.  Carpenter). 

All  parts  of  the  Nervous  system  appear  to  possess  certain 
powers  of  automatic  action.  The  Spinal  cord  has  for  primary 
functions  the  performance  of  the  motions  of  respiration  and 
swallowing.  The  automatic  action  of  the  Sensory  ganglia 
seems  to  be  connected  with  movements  of  protection — 
such  as  the  closing  the  eyes  to  a  flash  of  light — and  their 
secondary  use  enables  a  man  to  shrink  from  dangers  of  col 
lisions,  etc.,  before  he  has  time  for  conscious  escape.  Finally, 
we  arrive  at  the  automatic  action  of  the  Cerebrum;  and 
here  Dr.  Carpenter  reminds  us  that,  instead  of  being 
(as  formerly  supposed)  the  centre  of  the  whole  system,  in 
direct  connexion  with  the  organs  of  sense  and  the  mus- 

man  who  always  guided  his  own  fancy  in  sleep.     Such  dreams,  however,  would 
hardly  deserve  the  name. 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  329 

cular    apparatus,    the   Cerebrum    is,    according   to    modern 
physiology,— 

"  A  superadded  organ,  the  development  of  which  seems  to  bear  a 
pretty  constant  relation  to  the  degree  in  which  intelligence  supersedes 
instinct  as  a  spring  of  action.  The  ganglionic  matter  which  is  spread 
out  upon  the  surface  of  the  hemispheres,  and  in  which  their  potentiality 
resides,  is  connected  with  the  Sensory  Tract  at  their  base  (which  is  the 
real  centre  of  conveyance  for  the  sensory  nerves  of  the  whole  body)  by 
commissural  fibres,  long  since  termed  by  Reid,  with  sagacious  foresight, 
'  nerves  of  the  internal  senses,'  and  its  anatomical  relation  to  the  sen- 
sorium  is  thus  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  the  Retina,  which  is  a 
ganglionic  expansion  connected  with  the  Sensorium  by  the  optic  nerve. 
Hence  it  may  be  fairly  surmised — 1.  That  as  we  only  become  conscious 
of  visual  impressions  on  the  retina  when  their  influence  has  been 
transmitted  to  the  central  sensorium,  so  we  only  become  conscious  of 
ideational  changes  in  the  cerebral  hemispheres  when  their  influence  has 
been  transmitted  to  the  same  centre  ;  2.  That  as  visual  changes  may 
take  place  in  the  retina  of  which  we  are  unconscious,  either  through 
temporary  inactivity  of  the  Sensorium  (as  in  sleep),  or  through  the 
entire  occupation  of  the  attention  in  some  other  direction,  so  may 
ideational  changes  take  place  in  the  Cerebrum,  of  which  we  may  be 
unconscious  for  want  of  receptivity  on  the  part  of  the  Sensorium,  but  of 
which  the  results  may  present  themselves  to  the  consciousness  as  ideas 
elaborated  by  an  automatic  process  of  which  we  have  no  cognizance."  l 

Lastly,  we  come  to  the  conclusions  to  be  deduced  from  the 
above  investigations.  "We  have  credited  to  the  Unconscious 
Brain  the  following  powers  and  faculties  : — 

1.  It  not  only  remembers  as  much  as  the  Conscious  Self 
can  recall,  but  often  much  more.    It  is  even  doubtful  whether 
it  may  not  be  capable,  under  certain  conditions,  of  repro 
ducing  every  impression  ever  made  upon  the  senses  during 
life. 

2.  It  can  understand  what  words  or  things  are  sought  to 
be  remembered,  and  hunt  them  up  through  some  recondite 

1  Report  of  Meeting  of  Royal  Institution.     Dr.  Carpenter's  Lecture,  March  1, 
1868,  pp.  4,  5. 


330  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

process  known  only  to  itself,  till  it  discovers  and  pounces 
on  them. 

3.  It  can  fancy  the  most  beautiful  pictures  and  also  the 
most  terrible  ones,  and  weave  ten  thousand  fables  with  in 
exhaustible  invention. 

4.  It  can  perform  the  exceedingly  difficult  task  of  mental 
arrangement  and  logical  division  of  subjects. 

5.  It  can  transact  all  the  mechanical  business  of  walking, 
reading,  writing,  sewing,  playing,  etc.,  etc. 

6.  It  can  tell  the  hour  in  the  middle  of  the  night  without 
a  timepiece. 

Let  us  be  content  with  these  ordinary  and  unmistakable 
exercises  of  unconscious  cerebration,  and  leave  aside  all 
rare  or  questionable  wonders  of  somnambulism  and  cognate 
states.  "We  have  got  Memory,  Fancy,  Understanding,  at  all 
events,  as  faculties  exercised  by  the  Unconscious  Brain.  Now 
it  is  obvious  that  it  would  be  an  unusual  definition  of  the 
word  "  Thought "  which  should  debar  us  from  applying  it 
to  the  above  phenomena ;  or  compel  us  to  say  that  we  can 
remember,  fancy,  and  understand  without  "  thinking  "  of  the 
things  remembered,  fancied,  or  understood.  But  Who,  or 
What,  then,  is  it  that  accomplishes  these  confessedly  mental 
functions  ?  Two  answers  are  given  to  the  query,  each  of 
them,  as  I  venture  to  think,  erroneous.  Biichner  and  his 
followers  say,  "  It  is  our  physical  Brains,  and  these  Brains 
are  ourselves."  l  And  non-materialists  say,  "  It  is  our  con 
scious  Selves,  which  merely  use  our  brains  as  their  instru 
ments."  We  must  go  into  this  matter  somewhat  carefully. 

In  a  certain  loose  and  popular  way  of  speaking,  our  brains 
are  "  ourselves."  So  also  in  the  same  way  of  speaking  are 
our  hearts,  our  limbs,  and  the  hairs  of  our  head.  But  in 

1  Biichner's  precise  doctrine  is,  "  The  brain  is  only  the  carrier  and  the  source, 
or  rather  the  sole  cause  of  the  spirit  or  thought ;  but  not  the  organ  which  secretes 
it.  It  produces  something  which  is  not  materially  permanent,  but  which  con 
sumes  itself  in  the  moment  of  its  production."— Kraft  und  Stof,  chap.  xiii. 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  331 


more  accurate  language  the  use  of  the  pronoun  "I"  applied 
to  any  part  of  our  bodies  is  obviously  incorrect,  and  even 
inadmissible.  We  say,  indeed,  commonly,  "  I  struck  with 
my  hand/'  when  our  hand  has  obeyed  our  volition.  It  is, 
then,  in  fact,  the  will  of  the  Self  which  we  are  describing. 
But  if  our  hand  has  been  forcibly  compelled  to  strike  by 
another  man  seizing  it,  or  if  it  have  shaken  by  palsy,  we 
only  say,  "  My  hand  was  forced/7  or  "  was  shaken."  The 
limb's  action  is  not  ours,  unless  it  has  been  done  by  our  will. 
In  the  case  of  the  heart,  the  very  centre  of  physical  life, 
we  never  dream  of  using  such  a  phrase  as  "  I  am  beating 
slowly,"  or  "I  am  palpitating  fast."  And  why  do  we  not  say 
so  ?  Because,  the  action  of  our  hearts  being  involuntary, 
we  are  sensible  that  the  conscious  "  I "  is  not  the  agent  in 
question,  albeit  the  mortal  life  of  that  "  I "  is  hanging  on 
every  pulsation.  Now  the  problem  which  concerns  us  is 
this :  Can  we,  or  can  we  not,  properly  speak  of  our  brains 
as  we  do  of  our  hearts  ?  Is  it  more  proper  to  say,  "  I  invent 
my  dreams,"  than  it  is  to  say,  "  I  am  beating  slowly  "  ?  I 
venture  to  think  the  cases  are  precisely  parallel.  When 
our  brains  perform  acts  of  unconscious  cerebration  (such  as 
dreams),  they  act  just  as  our  hearts  do,  i.e.  involuntarily; 
and  we  ought  to  speak  of  them  as  we  always  do  of  our 
hearts,  as  of  organs  of  our  frame,  but  not  our  Selves.  When 
our  brains  obey  our  wills,  then  they  act  as  our  hands  do 
when  we  voluntarily  strike  a  blow ;  and  then  we  do  right  to 
speak  as  if  "  we  "  performed  the  act  accomplished  by  their 
means. 

Now  to  return  to  our  point.  Are  the  an ti- Materialists 
right  to  say  that  the  agent  in  unconscious  cerebration  is, 
"We,  ourselves,  who  merely  use  our  brains  as  their  instru 
ments  ; "  or  are  the  Materialists  right  who  say,  "It  is  our 
physical  brains  alone,  and  these  brains  are  ourselves  "  ? 
With  regard  to  the  first  reply,  I  think  that  all  the  foregoing 


332  UNCONSCIOUS   CEREBRATION. 

study  has  gone  to  show  that  "  we  "  are  not  remembering,  not 
fancying,  not  understanding,  what  is  being  at  the  moment 
remembered,  fancied,  or  understood.  To  say,  then,  that  in 
such  acts  "  we  "  are  "  using  our  brains  as  our  instruments/' 
appears  nothing  but  a  servile  and  unmeaning  adherence  to 
the  foregone  conclusion  that  our  brains  are  nothing  else  than 
the  organs  of  our  will.  It  is  absurd  to  call  them  so  when 
we  are  concerned  with  phenomena  whose  speciality  is  that 
the  will  has  nothing  to  do  with  them.  So  far,  then,  as  this 
part  of  the  argument  is  concerned,  I  think  the  answer  of  the 
anti-Materialists  must  be  pronounced  to  be  erroneous.  The 
balance  of  evidence  inclines  to  the  Materialists'  doctrine  that 
the  brain  itself  performs  the  mental  processes  in  question, 
and,  to  use  Vogt's  expression,  "  secretes  Thought "  automati 
cally  and  spontaneously. 

But  if  this  presumption  be  accepted  provisionally,  and  the 
possibility  admitted  of  its  future  physiological  demonstration, 
have  we,  with  it,  accepted  also  the  Materialist's  ordinary 
conclusion  that  we  and  our  automatically  thinking  brains 
are  one  and  indivisible  ?  If  the  brain  can  work  by  itself, 
have  we  any  reason  to  believe  it  ever  works  also  under  the 
guidance  of  something  external  to  itself,  which  we  may 
describe  as  the  Conscious  Self  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  this 
is  precisely  what  the  preceding  facts  have  likewise  gone  to 
prove — namely,  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  action  of  the 
brain,  the  one  Automatic,  and  the  other  subject  to  the  wiU 
of  the  Conscious  Self ;  just  as  the  actions  of  a  horse  are 
some  of  them  spontaneous  and  some  done  under  the  com 
pulsion  of  his  rider.  The  first  order  of  actions  tend  to 
indicate  that  the  brain  "secretes  thought ;"  the  second  order 
(strongly  contrasting  with  the  first)  show  that,  beside  that 
automatically  working  brain,  there  is  another  agency  in  the 
field  under  whose  control  the  brain  performs  a  wholly  differ 
ent  class  of  labours.  Everywhere  in  the  preceding  pages  we 


UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION.  333 

have  traced  the  extraordinary  separation  which  continually 
takes  place  between  our  Conscious  Selves  and  the  automatic 
action  of  the  organ,  which  serves  as  our  medium  of  com 
munication  with  the  outward  world.  We  have  seen,  in  a 
word,  that  we  are  not  Centaurs,  steed  and  rider  in  one, 
but  horsemen,  astride  on  roadsters  which  obey  us  when 
we  guide  them,  and  when  we  drop  the  reins,  trot  a  little 
way  of  their  own  accord  or  canter  off  without  our  permis 
sion. 

When  we  place  the  phenomena  of  Unconscious  Thought 
on  one  side,  and  over  against  them  our  Conscious  Selves, 
we  obtain,  I  think,  a  new  and  vivid  sense  of  the  separation, 
not  to  say  the  antithesis,  which  exists  between  the  two  ; 
close  as  is  their  mutual  interdependence.  Not  to  talk  about 
the  distinction  between  object  and  subject,  or  dwell  on  the 
absurdity  fas  it  seems  to  me)  of  the  proposition  that  we  our 
selves  are  only  the  sum-total  of  a  series  of  cerebrations — 
the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  our  brains  sometimes  think 
without  us,  seems  to  enable  us  to  view  our  connexion  with 
them  in  quite  a  new  light.  So  long  as  all  our  attention 
was  given  to  Conscious  Thought,  and  philosophers  eagerly 
argued  the  question,  whether  the  Soul  did  or  did  not  ever 
sleep  or  cease  to  think,  it  was  easy  to  confound  the  organ 
of  thought  with  the  Conscious  Self  who  was  supposed  alone 
to  set  it  in  action.  But  the  moment  we  marshal  together 
for  review  the  long  array  of  the  phenomena  of  Unconscious 
Cerebration,  the  case  is  altered;  the  severance  becomes  not 
only  cogitable,  but  manifest. 

Let  us  then  accept  cheerfully  the  possibility,  perhaps  the 
probability,  that  science  ere  long  will  proclaim  the  dogma, 
"Matter  can  think."  Having  humbly  bowed  to  the  decree, 
we  shall  find  ourselves  none  the  worse.  Admitting  that  our 
brains  accomplish  much  without  our  conscious  guidance,  will 
help  us  to  realize  that  our  relation  to  them  is  of  a  variable — 


334  UNCONSCIOUS  CEREBRATION. 

an  intermittent — and  (we  may  therefore  venture  to  hope) 
of  a  terminable  kind. 

That  such  a  conclusion,  if  reached,  will  have  afforded  us 
any  direct  argument  for  human  immortality,  cannot  be  pre 
tended.  Though  we  may  succeed  in  proving  "  that  the 
Brain  can  think  without  the  Conscious  Man,"  the  great  con 
verse  theorem,  "  that  the  Conscious  Man  can  think  without 
a  Brain/'  has  as  yet  received  no  jot  of  direct  evidence ;  nor 
ever  will  do  so,  I  hold,  while  we  walk  by  faith  and  not  by 
sight,  and  Heaven  remains  "  a  part  of  our  religion,  and  not 
a  branch  of  our  geography." 

But  it  is  something,  nay  it  is  surely  much,  if,  by  groping 
among  the  obscurer  facts  of  consciousness,  we  may  attain  the 
certainty  that  whatever  be  the  final  conclusions  of  science 
regarding  our  mental  nature,  the  one  which  we  have  most 
dreaded,  if  reached  at  last,  will  militate  not  at  all  against 
the  hope,  written  on  the  heart  of  the  nations,  by  that  Hand 
which  writes  no  falsehoods;  that  "when  the  dust  returns 
to  the  dust  whence  it  was  taken,  the  Spirit " — the  Conscious 
Self  of  Man — "  shall  return  to  God  who  gave  it." 


ESSAY  XII. 
DREAMS, 

AS   ILLUSTRATIONS   OF   INVOLUNTARY   CEREBRATION. 

IN  the  preceding  Essay  I  have  endeavoured  to  range 
together  a  considerable  number  of  facts  illustrative  of  the 
automatic  action  of  the  brain.  My  purpose  in  the  present 
article  is  to  treat  more  at  length  one  class  of  such  phe 
nomena  to  which  I  could  not  afford  space  proportionate  to 
their  interest,  in  the  wide  survey  required  by  the  design 
of  the  former  paper.  I  shall  seek  to  obtain  from  some 
familiar  and  some  more  rare  examples  of  dreams,  such  light 
as  they  may  be  calculated  to  throw  on  the  nature  of  brain- 
work,  unregulated  by  the  will.  Perhaps  I  may  be  allowed 
to  add,  as  an  apology  for  once  more  venturing  into  this 
field  of  inquiry,  that  the  large  number  of  letters  and  friendly 
criticisms  which  my  first  paper  called  forth  have  both  en 
couraged  me  to  pursue  the  subject  by  showing  how  much 
interest  is  felt  in  its  popular  treatment,  and  have  also 
afforded  me  the  advantage  of  the  experience  of  many  other 
minds  regarding  some  of  the  obscure  mental  phenomena  in 
question.  In  the  present  case  I  shall  feel  grateful  to  any 
reader  who  will  correct  from  personal  knowledge  any 
statement  I  may  make  which  he  finds  erroneous. 


336  DREAMS. 


Dreams  are  to  our  waking  thoughts  much  like  echoes  to 
music ;  but  their  reverberations  are  so  partial,  so  varied,  so 
complex,  that  it  is  almost  in  vain  we  seek  among  the  notes 
of  consciousness  for  the  echoes  of  the  dream.  If  we  could 
by  any  means  ascertain  on  what  principle  our  dreams  for 
a  given  night  are  arranged,  and  why  one  idea  more  than 
another  furnishes  their  cue,  it  would  be  comparatively  easy 
to  follow  out  the  chain  of  associations  by  which  they  unroll 
themselves  afterwards ;  and  to  note  the  singular  ease  and 
delicacy  whereby  subordinate  topics,  recently  wafted  across 
our  minds,  are  seized  and  woven  into  the  network  of  the 
dream.  But  the  reason  why  from  among  the  five  thousand 
thoughts  of  the  day,  we  revert  at  night  especially  to  thoughts 
number  2,  and  4,  instead  of  to  thoughts  number  3,  and  6,  or 
any  other  in  the  list,  is  obviously  impossible  to  conjecture. 
We  can  but  observe  that  the  echo  of  the  one  note  has  been 
caught,  and  of  the  others  lost  amid  the  obscure  caverns  of 
the  memory.  Certain  broad  rules,  however,  may  be  remarked 
as  obtaining  generally  regarding  the  topics  of  dreams.  In 
the  first  place,  if  we  have  any  present  considerable  physical 
sensation  or  pain,  such  as  may  be  produced  by  a  wound,  or 
a  fit  of  indigestion,  or  hunger,  or  an  unaccustomed  sound, 
we  are  pretty  sure  to  dream  of  it  in  preference  to  any  sub 
ject  of  mental  interest  only.  Again,  if  we  have  merely  a 
slight  sensation  of  uneasiness,  insufficient  to  cause  a  dream, 
it  will  yet  be  enough  to  colour  a  dream,  otherwise  suggested, 
with  a  disagreeable  hue.  Failing  to  have  a  dream  suggested 
to  it  by  present  physical  sensation,  the  brain  seems  to  revert 
to  the  subjects  of  thought  of  the  previous  day,  or  of  some 
former  period  of  life,  and  to  take  up  one  or  other  of  them  as 
a  theme  on  which  to  play  variations.  As  before  remarked, 
the  grounds  of  choice  among  all  such  subjects  cannot  be 
ascertained,  but  the  predilection  of  Morpheus  for  those  which 
we  have  not  in  our  waking  hours  thought  most  interesting, 


DREAMS.  337 


is  very  noticeable.  Yery  rarely  indeed  do  our  dreams  take 
up  the  matter  which  has  most  engrossed  us  for  hours  before 
we  sleep.  A  wholesome  law  of  variety  comes  into  play,  and 
the  brain  seems  to  decide,  "  I  have  had  enough  of  politics, 
or  Greek,  or  fox-hunting,  for  this  time.  Now  I  will  amuse 
myself  quite  differently."  Yery  often,  perhaps  we  may  say 
generally,  it  pounces  on  some  transient  thought  which  has 
flown  like  a  swallow  across  it  by  daylight,  and  insists  on 
holding  it  fast  through  the  night.  Only  when  our  attention 
has  more  or  less  transgressed  the  bounds  of  health,  and 
we  have  been  morbidly  excited  about  it,  does  the  main 
topic  of  the  day's  interest  recur  to  us  in  dreaming  at  night ; 
and  that  it  should  do  so,  ought,  I  imagine,  always  to  serve 
as  a  warning  that  we  have  strained  our  mental  powers  a 
little  too  far.1  Lastly,  there  are  dreams  whose  origin  is 
not  in  any  past  thought,  but  in  some  sentiment  vivid 
and  pervading  enough  to  make  itself  dumbly  felt  even  in 
sleep.  Of  the  nature  of  the  dreams  so  caused  I  shall 
speak  presently. 

The  subject  of  a  dream  being,  as  we  must  now  suppose, 
suggested  to  the  brain  on  some  such  principles  as  the  above, 
the  next  thing  to  be  noted  is,  How  does  the  brain  treat  its 
theme  when  it  has  got  it  ?  Does  it  drily  reflect  upon  it, 
as  we  are  wont  to  do  awake?  Or  does  it  pursue  a  course 
wholly  foreign  to  the  laws  of  waking  thoughts?  It  does, 
I  conceive,  neither  one  nor  the  other,  but  treats  its  theme, 
whenever  it  is  possible  to  do  so,  according  to  a  certain  very 
important,  though  obscure,  law  of  thought,  whose  action 
we  are  too  apt  to  ignore.  We  have  been  accustomed  to  con 
sider  the  myth-creating  power  of  the  human  mind  as  one 
specially  belonging  to  the  earlier  stages  of  growth  of  society 

1  A  distinguished  man  of  science  has  told  me  that  ho  finds  the  dreams  of  the 
first  part  of  the  night  to  be  usually  connected  with  the  events  of  the  past  day, 
Avhile  those  of  the  morning  revert  to  long  past  scenes  and  interests. 

22 


338  DREAMS. 


and  of  the  individual.  It  will  throw,  I  think,  a  rather 
curious  light  on  the  subject  if  we  discover  that  this  instinct 
exists  in  every  one  of  us,  and  exerts  itself  with  more  or 
less  energy  through  the  whole  of  our  lives.  In  hours  of 
waking  consciousness,  indeed,  it  is  suppressed,  or  has  only 
the  narrowest  range  of  exercise,  as  in  the  tendency,  notice 
able  in  all  persons  not  of  the  very  strictest  veracity,  to 
supplement  an  incomplete  anecdote  with  explanatory  inci 
dents,  or  to  throw  a  slightly  known  story  into  the  dramatic 
form,  with  dialogues  constructed  out  of  their  own  conscious 
ness.  But  such  small  play  of  the  myth-making  faculty  is 
nothing  compared  to  its  achievements  during  sleep.  The 
instant  that  daylight  and  common  sense  are  excluded,  the 
fairy-work  begins.  At  the  very  least  half  our  dreams  (un 
less  I  greatly  err)  are  nothing  else  than  myths  formed  by 
unconscious  cerebration  on  the  same  approved  principles, 
whereby  Greece  and  India  and  Scandinavia  gave  to  us 
the  stories  which  we  were  once  pleased  to  set  apart  as 
"mythology"  proper.  Have  we  not  here,  then,  evidence 
that  there  is  a  real  law  of  the  human  mind  causing  us 
constantly  to  compose  ingenious  fables  explanatory  of  the 
phenomena  around  us, — a  law  which  only  sinks  into  abey 
ance  in  the  waking  hours  of  persons  in  whom  the  reason 
has  been  highly  cultivated,  but  which  resumes  its  sway 
even  over  their  well-tutored  brains  when  they  sleep  ?  1 

1  A  correspondent  has  kindly  sent  me  the  following  interesting  remarks  on  the 
above: — "When  dropping  asleep  some  nights  ago  I  suddenly  started  awake 
with  the  thought  on  my  mind,  'Why  I  was  making  a  dream!'  I  had  detected 
myself  in  the  act  of  inventing  a  dream.  Three  or  four  impressions  of  scenes 
and  events  which  had  passed  across  my  mind  during  the  day  were  present 
together  in  my  mind,  and  the  effort  was  certainly  being  made,  but  not  by  my 
fully  conscious  will,  to  arrange  them  so  as  to  form  a  continuous  story.  They  had 
actually  not  the  slightest  connexion,  but  a  process  was  evidently  going  on  in  my 
brain  by  which  they  were  being  united  into  one  scheme  or  plot.  Had  I  remained 
asleep  until  the  plot  had  been  matured,  I  presume  my  waking  sensation  would 
have  been  tbat  I  had  had  an  ordinary  dream.  But  perhaps  through  the  partial 
failure  of  the  unconscious  effort  at  a  plan,  I  woke  up  just  in  time  to  catch  a 


DREAMS.  339 


Most  dreams  lend  themselves  easily  to  the  myth-making 
process ;  but  pre-eminently  dreams  originating  in  Sensation 
or  in  Sentiment  do  so.  Of  those  which  arise  from  memory 
of  Ideas  only,  I  shall  speak  by  and  by. 

Nothing  can  better  illustrate  the  Sensation  myth  than 
the  well-known  story  recorded  of  himself  by  Reid.  "The 
only  distinct  dream  I  had  ever  since  I  was  about  sixteen, 
as  far  as  I  remember,  was  two  years  ago.  I  had  got  my 
head  blistered  for  a  fall.  A  plaster  which  was  put  on  it 
after  the  blister  pained  me  excessively  for  the  whole  night. 
In  the  morning  I  slept  a  little,  and  dreamed  very  distinctly 
that  I  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  party  of  Indians  and 
was  scalped."  l 

The  number  of  mental  operations  needful  for  the  transmu 
tation  of  the  sensation  of  a  blistered  head  into  a  dream  of 
Red  Indians,  is  very  worthy  of  remark.  First,  Perception 
of  pain,  and  allotment  of  it  to  its  true  place  in  the  body. 
Secondly,  Reason  seeking  the  cause  of  the  phenomenon. 
Thirdly,  Memory  failing  to  supply  the  real  cause,  but  offering 
from  its  stores  of  acquired  knowledge  an  hypothesis  of  one 
suited  to  produce  the  phenomenon.  Lastly,  Imagination 
stepping  in  precisely  at  this  juncture,  fastening  on  this  sug 
gestion  of  memory,  and  instantly  presenting  it  as  a  tableau 
vivant,  with  proper  decorations  and  couleur  locale.  The  only 
intellectual  faculty  which  remains  dormant  seems  to  be  the 
Judgment,  which  has  allowed  memory  and  imagination  to 
work  regardless  of  those  limits  of  probability  which  she 
would  have  set  to  them  awake.  If,  when  awake,  we  feel 

trace  of  the  '  unconscious  cerebration '  as  it  was  vanishing  before  the  full  light 
of  conscious  life.  I  accordingly  propounded  a  tentative  theory  to  my  friends, 
that  the  brain  uniting  upon  one  thread  the  fancies  and  memories  present  at  the 
same  time  in  the  mind,  is  really  what  takes  place  in  dreams — a  sort  of  faint 
shadow  of  the  mind's  natural  craving  for  and  effort  after  system  and  unity.  Your 
explanation  of  dreams,  by  reference  to  the  '  myth-making  tendency,'  seems  to  be 
so  nearly  in  accord  with  mine  that  I  venture  to  write  on  the  subject." 

1  Works  of  Dugald  Stewart.     Edited  by  Sir  W.  Hamilton.     Vol.  x.  p.  321. 


340  DREAMS. 


a  pain  which  we  do  not  wholly  understand,  say  a  twinge 
in  the  foot,  we  speculate  upon  its  cause  only  within  the 
very  narrow  series  of  actual  probabilities.  It  may  be  a 
nail  in  our  boot,  a  chilblain,  a  wasp,  or  so  on.  It  does  not 
even  cross  our  minds  that  it  may  be  a  sworn  tormentor 
with  red-hot  pincers;  but  the  same  sensation  experienced 
asleep  will  very  probably  be  explained  by  a  dream  of  the 
sworn  tormentor  or  some  other  cause  which  the  relations 
of  time  and  space  render  equally  inapplicable.1  Let  it  be 
noted,  however,  that  even  in  the  waking  brain  a  great  deal 
of  myth-making  goes  on  after  the  formation  of  the  most 
rational  hypothesis.  If  we  imagine  that  a  pain  is  caused 
by  any  serious  disease,  we  almost  inevitably  fancy  we  ex 
perience  all  the  other  symptoms  of  the  malady,  of  which 
we  happen  to  have  heard  —  symptoms  which  disappear, 
as  if  by  magic,  when  the  physician  laughs  at  our  fears, 
and  tells  us  our  pain  is  caused  by  some  trifling  local 
affection. 

Each  of  my  readers  could  doubtless  supply  illustrations 

1  The  analogy  between  insanity  and  a  state  of  prolonged  dream  is  too  striking 
to  be  overlooked  by  any  student  of  the  latter  subject.  The  delusions  of  insanity 
seem  in  fact  little  else  but  a  series  of  such  myths  accounting  for  either  sensations 
or  sentiments  like  those  above  ascribed  to  dreaming.  The  maniac  sees  and  hears 
more  than  a  man  asleep,  and  his  sensations  consequently  give  rise  to  numberless 
delusions.  He  is  also  usually  possessed  by  some  morbid  moral  sentiment,  such 
as  suspicion,  hatred,  avarice,  or  extravagant  self-esteem  (held  by  Dr.  Carpenter 
nearly  always  to  precede  any  intellectual  failure),  and  these  sentiments  similarly 
give  rise  to  their  appropriate  delusions.  In  the  first  case  we  have  maniacs  like 
the  poor  lady  who  wrote  her  confessions  to  Dr.  Forbes  "Winslow  ("  Obscure 
Diseases  of  the  Brain,"  p.  79),  and  who  describes  how,  on  being  taken  to  an 
asylum,  the  pillars  before  the  door,  the  ploughed  field  in  front,  and  other  details, 
successively  suggested  to  her  the  belief  that  she  was  in  a  Romish  convent  where 
she  would  be  "  scourged  and  taken  to  purgatory,"  and  in  a  medical  college  where 
the  inmates  were  undergoing  a  process  preparatory  to  dissection !  In  the  second 
case,  that  of  morbid  Sentiments,  we  have  insane  delusions  like  those  which 
prompted  the  suspicious  Rousseau  to  accuse  Hume  of  poisoning  him,  and  all  the 
mournfully  grotesque  train  of  the  victims  of  pride  who  fill  our  pauper  hospitals 
with  kings,  queens,  and  prophets.  Merely  suppose  these  poor  maniacs  are  re 
counting  dreams,  and  there  would  be  little  to  remark  about  them  except  their 
persistent  character. 


DREAMS.  341 


of  myth-making  as  good  as  that  of  Dr.  Reid.  It  happened 
to  me  once  to  visit  a  friend  delirious  from  fever,  who  lay 
in  a  bed  facing  a  large  old  mirror,  whose  gilt  wood-frame, 
of  Chinese  design,  presented  a  series  of  innumerable  spikes, 
pinnacles,  and  pagodas.  On  being  asked  how  she  was  feel 
ing,  my  poor  friend  complained  of  much  internal  dolour, 
but  added  with  touching  simplicity :  "  And  it  is  no  great 
wonder,  I  am  sure  !  (whisper)  IVe  swallowed  that  looking- 
glass!  "  Again.  A  young  lady  painted  her  thumb  one  night 
with  extract  of  aloes  to  cure  herself  of  the  habit  of  sucking. 
In  the  morning  she  woke  with  her  thumb  in  her  mouth 
and  the  aloes  all  sucked  off.  She  had  dreamed  she  was  sailing 
in  a  ship  of  wormwood  ;  that  she  drank  extract  of  worm 
wood  ;  that  a  doctor  ordered  her  to  eat  ox-gall,  and  then 
advised  her  to  consult  the  Pope,  who  sent  her  on  pilgrim 
age  to  Zoar,  where  she  ate  the  thumb  of  Lot's  wife. 

Again,  as  regards  Sentiments.  If  we  have  seen  a  forbid 
ding-looking  beggar  in  the  streets-  in  the  morning,  nothing 
is  more  probable  than  that  our  vague  and  transient  sense 
of  distrust  will  be  justified  by  ingenious  fancy  taking  up  the 
theme  at  night,  and  representing  a  burglar  bursting  into 
our  bedroom,  presenting  a  pistol  to  our  temples,  and  at  the 
supreme  moment  disclosing  the  features  of  the  objectionable 
mendicant.  Hope,  of  course  when  vividly  excited,  represents 
for  us  scores  of  sweet  scenes  in  which  our  desire  is  fulfilled 
with  every  pleasing  variation  j  and  Caire  and  Fear  have, 
alas  !  even  more  powerful  machinery  for  the  realization  of 
their  terrors.  The  longing  of  affection  for  the  return  of  the 
dead  has,  perhaps  more  than  any  other  sentiment,  the  power 
of  creating  myths  of  reunion,  whose  dissipation  on  awakening 
are  amongst  the  keenest  agonies  of  bereavement.  By  a  sin 
gular  semi-survival  of  memory  through  such  dreams  we 
seem  always  to  be  dimly  aware  that  the  person  whose  return 
we  greet  so  rapturously  has  been  dead ;  and  the  obvious  in- 


342  DREAMS. 


congruity  of  our  circumstances,  our  dress,  and  the  very 
sorrow  we  confide  at  once  to  their  tenderness,  with  the  sight 
of  them  again  in  their  familiar  places,  drives  our  imagination 
to  fresh  shifts  to  explain  it.  Sometimes  the  beloved  one  has 
been  abroad,  and  is  come  home  ;  sometimes  the  death  was  a 
mistake,  and  some  one  else  was  buried  in  that  grave  wherein 
we  saw  the  coffin  lowered  ;  sometimes  a  friendly  physician 
has  carried  away  the  patient  to  his  own  home,  and  brought 
us  there  after  long  months  to  find  him  recovered. 

One  of  the  most  affecting  mythical  dreams  which  have 
come  to  my  knowledge,  remarkable  also  as  an  instance  of 
dream-poetry,  is  that  of  a  lady  who  confessed  to  have  been 
pondering  on  the  day  before  her  dream  on  the  many  duties 
which  "  bound  her  to  life."  The  phrase  which  I  have  used 
as  a  familiar  metaphor  became  to  her  a  visible  allegory. 
She  dreamed  that  Life — a  strong,  calm,  cruel  woman — was 
binding  her  limbs  with  steel  fetters,  which  she  felt  as  well  as 
saw ;  and  Death,  as  an  angel  of  mercy,  hung  hovering  in  the 
distance,  unable  to  approach  or  deliver  her.  In  this  most 
singular  dream  her  feelings  found  expression  in  the  following 
touching  verses,  which  she  remembered  on  waking,  and  which 
she  has  permitted  me  to  quote  precisely  in  the  fragmentary 
state  in  which  they  remained  on  her  memory. 

"  Then  I  cried  with  weary  breath, 
Oh  be  merciful,  great  Death  ! 
Take  me  to  thy  kingdom  deep. 
Where  grief  is  stilled  in  sleep, 
Where  the  weary  hearts  find  rest. 


Ah,  kind  Death,  it  cannot  be 
That  there  is  no  room  for  me 
In  all  thy  chambers  vast .... 
See,  strong  Life  has  bound  me  fast 
Break  her  chains,  and  set  me  free. 


DREAMS.  343 


But  cold  Death  makes  no  reply, 
Will  not  hear  my  bitter  cry  ; 
Cruel  Life  still  holds  me  fast ; 
Yet  true  Death  must  come  at  last, 
Conquer  Life  and  set  me  free. 

A  dream  once  occurred  to  me  wherein  the  mythical 
character  almost  assumed  the  dimensions  of  the  sublime, 
insomuch  that  I  can  scarcely  recall  it  without  awe.  I 
dreamed  that  I  was  standing  on  a  certain  broad  grassy 
space  in  the  park  of  my  old  home.  It  was  totally  dark, 
but  I  was  aware  that  I  was  in  the  midst  of  an  immense 
crowd.  We  were  all  gazing  upward  into  the  murky  sky, 
and  a  sense  of  some  fearful  calamity  was  over  us,  so  that  no 
one  spoke  aloud.  Suddenly  overhead  appeared,  through  a 
rift  in  the  black  heavens,  a  branch  of  stars  which  I  recog 
nized  as  the  belt  and  sword  of  Orion.  Then  went  forth  a 
cry  of  despair  from  all  our  hearts  !  We  knew,  though  no 
one  said  it,  that  these  stars  proved  it  was  not  a  cloud  or 
mist,  which,  as  we  had  somehow  believed,  was  causing  the 
darkness.  No ;  the  air  was  clear ;  it  was  high  noon,  and 
the  sun  had  not  risen  !  That  was  the  tremendous  reason 
why  we  beheld  the  stars.  The  sun  would  never  rise  again  ! 

In  this  dream,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  very  complicated  myth 
was  created  by  my  unconscious  brain,  which  having  first  by 
some  chance  stumbled  on  the  picture  of  a  crowd  in  the  dark, 
and  a  bit  of  starry  sky  over  them,  elaborated,  to  account 
for  such  facts,  the  bold  theory  of  the  sun  not  having  risen 
at  noon ;  or  (if  we  like  to  take  it  the  other  way)  having  hit 
on  the  idea  of  the  sun's  disappearance,  invented  the  appro 
priate  scenery  of  the  breathless  expectant  crowd,  and  the 
apparition  of  the  stars. 

Next  to  the  myth-creating  faculty  in  dreams,  perhaps  the 
most  remarkable  circumstance  about  them  is  that  which  has 
given  rise  to  the  world-old  notion  that  dreams  are  frequently 


344  DREAMS. 


predictions.  At  the  outset  of  an  examination  of  this  matter, 
we  are  struck  by  the  familiar  fact  that  our  most  common 
dreams  are  continually  recalled  to  us  within  a  few  hours  by 
some  insignificant  circumstance  bringing  up  again  the  name 
of  the  person  or  place  about  which  we  had  dreamed.  On 
such  occasions,  as  the  vulgar  say,  "  My  dream  is  out." 
Nothing  was  actually  predicted,  and  nothing  has  occurred 
of  the  smallest  consequence,  or  ever  entailing  any  conse 
quence,  but  yet,  by  some  concatenation  of  events,  we  dreamed 
of  the  man  from  whom  we  received  a  letter  in  the  morning ; 
or  we  saw  in  our  sleep  a  house  on  fire,  and  before  the  next 
night  we  pass  a  street  where  there  is  a  crowd,  and  behold  ! 
a  dwelling  in  flames.  Nay,  much  more  special  and  out-of- 
the-way  dreams  than  these  come  "  out "  very  often.  If  we 
dream  of  Nebuchadnezzar  on  Saturday  night,  it  is  to  be 
expected  that  on  Sunday  (unless  the  new  lectionary  have 
dispensed  with  his  history)  the  lesson  of  the  day  will  pre 
sent  us  with  the  ill-fated  monarch  and  his  golden  image. 
Dreams  of  some  almost  unheard-of  spot,  or  beast,  or  dead- 
and-gone  old  worthy,  which  by  wild  vagary  have  entered 
our  brain,  are  perpetually  followed  by  a  reference  to  the 
same  spot,  or  beast,  or  personage,  in  the  first  book  or  news 
paper  we  open  afterwards.  To  account  for  such  coincidences 
on  any  rational  principle  is,  of  course,  difficult.  But  it  is 
at  least  useful  to  attempt  to  do  so,  seeing  that  here,  at  all 
events,  the  supernatural  hypothesis  is  too  obviously  absurd 
to  be  entertained  by  anybody ;  and  if  we  can  substitute  for 
it  a  plausible  theory  in  these  cases,  the  same  theory  may 
serve  equally  well  for  problems  a  little  more  dignified,  and 
therefore  more  liable  to  be  treated  superstitiously. 

In  the  first  place,  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  that  the 
same  sort  of  odd  coincidences  take  place  continually  among 
the  trivial  events  of  waking  life.  "  Sitting  in  my  office," 
writes  a  correspondent,  "  with  the  Post  Office  Directory  open 


DREAMS.  345 


before  me,  my  eye  happened  to  glance  casually  on  the  name 
of  a  firm  whose  place  of  business  was  a  considerable  distance 
away.  At  that  identical  moment  the  door  opened  and  a  lady 
entered  inquiring  the  address  of  the  firm  in  question."  It 
has  chanced  to  myself  within  the  last  few  hours  to  remark 
to  a  friend  how  the  word  "  subtle,"  applied  to  the  serpent  in 
Genesis,  is  always  spelled  "  subtil,"  and  within  a  few  minutes 
to  take  up  The  Index,  of  Toledo,  Ohio,  and  read  the  following 
anecdote  :  "  A  poor  negro  preacher  was  much  troubled  by  the 
cheating  of  the  sutlers  of  the  army  which  he  followed.  He 
chose  accordingly  for  the  text  of  his  sermon,  'Now  the 
serpent  was  more  sutler  than  any  beast  of  the  field/  etc." 
It  will  be  owned  that  this  is  precisely  the  kind  of  chance 
coincidence  which  occurs  in  dreams,  and  which,  when  it  hap 
pens  to  concern  any  solemn  theme,  is  apt  to  seem  portentous. 
But  ascending  beyond  these  trivial  coincidences,  we  arrive 
at  a  mass  of  dream-literature  tending  to  show  that  reve 
lations  of  all  sorts  of  secrets  and  predictions  of  future  events 
are  made  in  dreams.  Taking  them  in  order,  we  have,  first, 
discoveries  of  where  money,  wills,  and  all  sorts  of  lost 
valuables  are  to  be  found,  and  such  dreams  have  long  been 
rightly  explained  as  having  their  origin  in  some  nearly 
effaced  remembrance  of  information  leading  naturally  to  the 
discovery.  In  sleep  the  lost  clue  is  recovered  by  some 
association  of  thought,  and  the  revelation  is  made  with 
sufficient  distinctness  to  insure  attention.  A  story  of  the 
sort  is  told  by  Macnish  about  a  Scotch  gentleman  who  re 
covered  in  a  dream  the  address  of  a  solicitor  with  whom 
his  father  on  one  single  occasion  deposited  an  important 
document  on  which  the  family  fortunes  ultimately  de 
pended.  A  singular  occurrence  which  took  place  some 
years  ago  at  the  house  of  the  late  Earl  of  Minto  in 
Scotland  can  only  be  explained  in  a  similar  way.  An 
eminent  lawyer  went  to  pay  a  few  days'  visit  at  Minto 


346  DREAMS. 


immediately  before  the  hearing  of  an  important  case  in 
which  he  was  engaged  as  counsel.  Naturally  he  brought 
with  him  the  bundle  of  papers  connected  with  the  case,  in 
tending  to  study  them  in  the  interval ;  but  on  the  morning 
after  his  arrival  the  packet  could  nowhere  be  found.  Careful 
search  of  course  was  made  for  it,  but  quite  in  vain,  and 
eventually  the  lawyer  was  obliged  to  go  into  court  without 
his  papers.  Years  passed  without  any  tidings  of  the  mys 
terious  packet,  till  the  same  gentleman  found  himself  again 
a  guest  at  Minto,  and,  as  it  happened,  occupying  the  same 
bedroom.  His  surprise  may  be  imagined  when  on  waking 
in  the  morning  he  found  his  long-lost  bundle  lying  on  his 
dressing-table.  The  presumption  of  course  is,  that  on  the 
first  occasion  he  hid  them  in  his  sleep,  and  on  the  second 
visit  he  found  them  in  his  sleep ;  but  where  he  hid  and 
found  them  has  never  been  discovered. 

An  instance  of  the  renewal  in  sleep  of  an  impression  of 
memory  calling  up  an  apparition  to  enforce  it  (it  is  the 
impression  which  causes  the  apparition,  not  the  apparition 
which  conveys  the  impression)  occurred  near  Bath  half  a 
century  ago.  Sir  John  Miller,  a  very  wealthy  gentleman, 
died  leaving  no  children.  His  widow  had  always  understood 
that  she  was  to  have  the  use  of  his  house  for  her  life  with 
a  very  large  jointure ;  but  no  will  making  such  provision 
could  be  found  after  his  death.  The  heir-at-law,  a  distant 
connexion,  naturally  claimed  his  rights,  but  kindly  allowed 
Lady  Miller  to  remain  for  six  months  in  the  house  to  com 
plete  her  search  for  the  missing  papers.  The  six  months 
drew  at  last  to  a  close,  and  the  poor  widow  had  spent 
fruitless  days  and  weeks  in  examining  every  possible  place 
of  deposit  for  the  lost  document,  till  at  last  she  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  her  memory  must  have  deceived  her, 
and  that  her  husband  could  have  made  no  such  promise  as 
she  supposed,  or  have  neglected  to  fulfil  it  had  he  made 


DREAMS.  347 


one.  The  very  last  day  of  her  tenure  of  the  house  had 
just  dawned,  when  in  the  grey  of  the  morning  Lady  Miller 
drove  up  to  the  door  of  her  man  of  business  in  Bath,  and 
rushed  excitedly  to  his  bed-room  door,  calling  out,  "  Come 
to  me !  I  have  seen  Sir  John !  There  is  a  will ! "  The 
lawyer  hastened  to  accompany  her  back  to  her  house.  All 
she  could  tell  him  was  that  her  deceased  husband  had  ap 
peared  to  her  in  the  night,  standing  by  her  bedside,  and 
had  said  solemnly,  "  There  is  a  will !  "  Where  it  was, 
remained  as  uncertain  as  before.  Once  more  the  house  was 
searched  in  vain  from  cellar  to  loft,  till  finally  wearied  and 
in  despair  the  lady  and  her  friend  found  themselves  in  a 
garret  at  the  top  of  the  house.  "It  is  all  over/'  Lady 
Miller  said;  "I  give  it  up;  my  husband  deceived  me,  and 
I  am  ruined  !  "  At  that  moment  she  looked  at  the  table 
over  which  she  was  leaning  weeping.  "This  table  was  in 
his  study  once  !  Let  us  examine  it ! "  They  looked,  and  the 
missing  will,  duly  signed  and  sealed,  was  within  it,  and  the 
widow  made  rich  to  the  end  of  her  days.  It  needs  no  con 
juror  to  explain  how  her  anxiety  called  up  the  myth  of 
Sir  John  Miller's  apparition,  and  made  him  say  precisely 
what  he  had  once  before  really  said  to  her,  but  of  which 
the  memory  had  waxed  faint. 

A  more  difficult  class  of  stories  to  account  for  is  that  of 
tales  like  the  following : 

A  lady  left  her  old  country  house  in  England  and  went 
to  Australia  with  her  husband,  Colonel  II.  In  the  house 
she  had  quitted  there  was  a  room  in  which  one  of  her 
sisters  had  died,  and  which  the  bereaved  mother  kept  con 
stantly  shut  up.  Mrs.  H.,  after  some  years'  residence  in 
Australia,  dreamed  that  she  saw  her  mother  lying  dead  on 
the  bed  in  this  particular  room,  with  certain  members  of  the 
family  around  her.  Noting  the  dream  with  some  anxiety, 
she  received  in  due  time  the  news  that  her  mother  had 


348  DREAMS. 


had  a  fit  in  which  she  died,  and  that  the  body  had  been 
carried  into  the  long-deserted  room,  and  was  at  one  time  sur 
rounded  by  the  relatives  in  question.  Here  of  course  the 
coincidences  were  most  remarkable  and  impressive,  if  the 
story  have  come  to  us  with  any  exactitude — a  matter,  I 
must  remark,  of  which  the  fallacies  of  memory,  the  in 
accuracy  of  oral  transmission,  and  the  unconquerable  pro 
pensity  of  all  men  to  "  make  things  fit "  always  leaves  open 
to  doubt.  Taking  it,  as  it  stands,  however,  we  may  notice 
that  the  removal  of  her  mother's  corpse  to  the  deserted 
chamber  was  not  a  very  singular  circumstance  in  itself, 
while  the  daughter's  dream  of  her  early  home  was  entirely 
in  accordance  with  the  common  rules  of  dreams.  As  a 
sad  and  mournful  feeling  suggested  the  dream  (probably 
some  reasonable  anxiety  for  her  mother's  health),  it  was 
very  natural  that  any  analogous  solemn  or  dismal  circum 
stances  connected  with  her  mother  should  be  woven  into 
it.  If  she  dreamed  of  her  mother's  death,  nothing  was 
more  dream-like  than  that  she  should  associate  with  it  the 
previous  death  of  her  sister,  whom  they  had  mourned  to 
gether,  and  see  her  mother's  corpse  upon  the  bed  where 
she  had  once  actually  seen  that  of  her  sister.  Nay,  ac 
cording  to  the  laws  of  dreaming,  I  conceive  that,  given  the 
case  of  Mrs.  JL,  it  could  hardly  happen  that  she  should 
have  a  sad  or  anxious  dream,  of  which  her  old  home  afforded 
the  stage,  without  making  the  deserted  chamber,  which 
must  have  been  the  very  centre  of  all  solemn  thoughts  in 
the  house,  its  peculiar  scene. 

There  appeared  some  months  ago  in  Cassettes  Magazine  a 
ghost  story  narrated  by  Miss  Felicia  Skene,  which  from 
every  point  of  view  is  probably  one  of  the  best  instances 
of  the  kind  ever  published.  A  husband,  dubious  of  another 
existence,  promised,  if  possible,  to  appear  to  his  wife  after 
death.  His  widow  went  on  a  visit  to  some  friends,  and 


DREAMS.  349 


their  little  girl  slept  in  her  bed.  In  the  night  the  child 
thought  she  saw  the  husband  (of  whose  death  she  had  no 
knowledge)  standing  by  the  bedside  and  looking  at  his  wife 
sorrowfully.  The  child,  who  was  much  attached  to  him, 
spoke  to  him,  and  asked  him  what  present  he  had  brought 
to  her,  and  tried,  though  unavailingly,  to  waken  the  widow 
sleeping  beside  her.  Presently  the  figure  passed  into  an 
adjoining  dressing-room,  and  the  child  slept  till  morning, 
when  she  instantly  ran  into  the  dressing-room,  expecting 
to  find  her  old  friend.  Failing  to  do  so,  she  followed  the 

widow,  and  asked  her  eagerly  where  Mr. had   gone. 

An  explanation  followed.  The  widow  conceived  that  this 
revelation  through  the  mind  of  a  child  was  much  more 
satisfactory  than  any  which  her  own  senses,  excited  by 
anticipation,  could  have  brought  her,  and  unhesitatingly 
accepted  it  as  a  fact  that  her  husband  had  come  to  keep 
his  promise.  'Now,  without  denying  the  possibility  of  such 
spirit  visitations,  it  must,  I  think,  be  owned  that  the  easier 
solution  even  of  this  story  (wherein  the  circumstances  are 
unusually  worthy  and  befitting)  is  to  be  found  in  the  dream 
of  the  child.  The  widow's  presence  beside  her  most  naturally 
suggested  that  of  her  husband  whom  she  had  always  pre 
viously  associated  with  her.  That,  thinking  she  saw  him, 
she  should  have  asked  him  for  his  wonted  gift,  and  then 
have  thought  he  went  into  the  next  room,  were  simple  in 
cidents  of  the  dream,  which  was  just  sufficiently  vivid  to 
make  so  young  a  child  confuse  it  with  waking  fact  first  at 
the  moment,  and  much  more  afterwards,  when  she  found 
great  importance  attached  to  it  by  her  elders. 

In  these  and  hundreds  of  cases  of  supposed  revelations  and 
predictions,  both  given  in  normal  dreams  and  in  various 
states  of  trance,  I  conceive  that  a  careful  reference  to  the 
laws  of  unconscious  cerebration  will  rarely  fail,  if  not  to  ex 
plain,  at  least  to  elucidate,  in  a  manner,  the  modus  operandi  of 


350  DREAMS. 


the  mystery.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  we  have  got  to  do 
with  a  power  which  (under  conditions  imperfectly  known  to  us) 
obtains  access  to  the  entire  treasury  of  memory,  to  the  stores 
of  facts,  words,  and  transient  impressions  accumulated  during 
our  whole  lives,  and  to  which  in  our  ordinary  consciousness 
we  have  no  means  of  approach.  Those  states  of  abnormal 
remembrance  so  often  described  as  experienced  by  drowning 
persons,  would,  if  prolonged  through  our  waking  hours,  very 
obviously  put  us  in  possession  of  means  of  judging,  balancing, 
and  even  of  foretelling  events  of  which  our  normal  dim  and 
disconnected  vision  of  the  past  affords  no  parallel.  A  similar 
faculty,  not  taking  in  so  vast  a  sweep,  but  fastening  on  some 
special  point  to  which  attention  is  directed,  obviously  comes 
into  play  in  many  states,  both  of  "clairvoyance  "  and  (in  a 
lesser  degree)  in  natural  dreaming.  The  very  least  we  can  do 
before  deciding  that  any  revelation,  past,  present,  or  future, 
comes  from  any  other  sources  than  such  hyper-cesthetic  memory 
and  judgment  founded  on  it,  is  to  examine  carefully  whether 
those  faculties  must  be  absolutely  insufficient  to  account  for 
it.  The  notorious  fact  that  such  revelations  are  always  con 
terminous  with  somebody's  possible  knowledge,  gives  us,  of 
course,  the  best  warrant  for  doubting  that  they  come  from 
any  ultra-mundane  sphere. 

The  only  class  of  dream,  I  imagine,  which  escapes  the 
myth-making  faculty,  is  the  purely  intellectual  dream,  which 
takes  place  when  we  have  no  sensation  or  sentiment  suffi 
ciently  vivid  to  make  itself  felt  in  sleep,  and  the  brain  merely 
continues  to  work  on  at  some  one  of  the  subjects  suggested 
by  the  calm  studies  of  the  previous  hours.  Such  dreams,  as 
Dr.  Carpenter  remarks,  have  a  more  uniform  and  coherent 
order  than  is  common  to  others ;  and  it  may  even  happen  in 
time  that,  in  consequence  of  the  freedom  from  distraction 
resulting  from  the  suspension  of  external  influences,  the 
reasoning  processes  may  be  carried  on  with  unusual  vigour 


DREAMS.  351 


and  success,  and  the  imagination  may  develope  new  and 
harmonious  forms  of  beauty.  (Physiology,  5th  edit.  p.  643.) 
Under  this  head,  then,  come  all  the  remarkable  cases  of 
dreams,  of  the  problems  solved  by  Condorcet,  and  many 
others.  Nearly  every  one  who  has  been  much  interested  in 
mathematical  studies  has  done  something  of  the  kind  in  his 
sleep,  and  the  stories  are  numerous  of  persons  rising  in  sleep 
and  writing  out  lucid  legal  opinions. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  absurdities  of  which  the  mind  is 
capable  when  dealing  with  an  idea  in  sleep  are  beyond 
measure  ludicrous.  A  correspondent,  to  whom  I  am  indebted 
for  many  valuable  suggestions,  sends  me  the  following  de 
licious  story  :  "  At  a  time  when  I  was  unmarried,  I  dreamed 
that  I  returned  home  in  expectation  of  meeting  my  wife. 
To  my  consternation  and  grief  she  was  transformed  into 
a  small  piece  of  bread.  I  was  greatly  distressed,  thinking 
that  by  some  neglect  of  mine  I  had  brought  about  the 
sad  result.  However,  I  lost  no  time  in  endeavouring  to 
restore  her  if  possible,  and  for  this  purpose  I  got  a  small 
basin  of  water,  and  held  the  piece  of  bread,  which  I  knew 
to  be  my  wife  in  a  transformed  state,  therein.  To  my  dis 
may  I  felt  the  bread  gradually  melting  in  my  hand,  and 
then  awoke,  greatly  distressed  in  mind  at  my  approaching 
bereavement."  At  a  period  of  my  own  life,  when  my  atten 
tion  was  divided  between  reading  Leibnitz  and  providing 
soup  for  the  poor  in  a  hard  winter,  I  dreamed  that  my 
dog  had  been  cruelly  boiled  down  in  the  soup.  Happily 
recollecting,  however,  that  her  soul  was  an  "  indestructible 
monad,"  I  proceeded  to  search  for  it  diligently  with  a  ladle 
in  the  kettle,  and  discovered  it  in  the  shape  of  a  pasta. 

But  it  is  when  the  sleep  is  not  wholly  natural,  but  stimu 
lated  by  narcotics,  that  these  mental  feats  assume  their 
most  prodigious  dimensions.  The  difference  between  normal 
dreams  and  those  produced  by  opiates,  so  far  as  I  can  learn, 


352  DREAMS. 


is  mainly  this,  that  in  the  former  we  seem  always  more  or 
less  active,  and,  in  the  latter,  passive.  Whatever  strange 
sights  we  behold  in  the  natural  dream,  our  own  share  in 
what  is  going  on  is  prominent.  In  the  abnormal  dream  the 
marvellous  scenery  is  by  far  the  most  important  part  of  the 
vision.  In  a  word,  we  are  on  the  stage  in  the  first  case,  and 
in  the  stalls  in  the  second.  The  cause  of  this  singular  dis 
tinction  must  needs  be  that  the  action  of  morphia,  haschish, 
etc.,  paralyzes  more  completely  the  voluntary  and  active 
powers  than  in  natural  sleep,  wherein,  indeed,  the  true  con 
scious  will  is  dormant,  but  a  certain  echo  of  it  still  survives, 
leaving  us  the  semblance  of  choice  and  energy.  On  the 
other  hand,  while  the  opiate  obscures  even  such  moonlight 
of  volition,  it  excites  the  fancy  and  myth-creating  powers 
of  the  brain  to  supernatural  vigour,  causing  to  pass  before 
the  eyes  of  the  dreamer  whole  panoramas  of  beauty  or 
horror.  The  descriptions  of  such  miseries  in  the  "  Confessions 
of  an  English  Opium  Eater,"  and  many  other  books,  afford 
amazing  evidence  of  what  leaps  the  Pegasus  of  fancy  is 
capable  of  taking  under  the  spur  of  such  stimuli  on  the  brain. 
Here  also  the  singular  facility  in  adopting  suggestions  and 
impressions  which  distinguishes  hypnotism  from  natural 
dreaming,  seems  similarly  to  prevail.  All  opium-eaters 
speak  of  the  fearful  degree  in  which  every  painful  idea 
presented  to  them  before  sleeping  becomes  magnified  into 
portentous  visions  of  terror.  A  scent  suggesting  blood, 
caused  one  gentleman  to  dream  of  an  army  of  skin 
less  men  and  headless  horses  defiling  for  hours  before  his 
eyes ;  and  the  "  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain "  no  doubt 
contrived  to  suggest  to  his  assassins,  before  they  ate  the 
haschish,  those  ideas  which  resulted  in  their  dreams  of 
houris  and  paradise. 

Besides  the  picturing  of  marvellous   scenes,  passively  be 
held,  it  seems  that  narcotics   can  stimulate  the  unconscious 


DREAMS.  353 


brain  to  the  production  of  poetic  or  musical  descriptions  of 
them ;  the  two  actions  being  simultaneous.  Here  we  have 
surely  the  most  astonishing  of  all  the  feats  of  this  mysterious 
power  within  us ;  and  whether  we  choose  to  regard  it  as  a 
part  of  our  true  selves,  or  as  the  play  of  certain  portions  of 
nerve-matter,  in  either  case  the  contemplation  of  it  is  very 
bewildering.  What  truth  there  may  be  in  the  well- 
known  stories  of  the  composition  of  "  Rousseau's  Dream" 
or  of  Tartini's  "  Devil  Sonata,"  I  cannot  pretend  to  decide. 
In  any  case  it  is  admitted  that  several  musical  productions 
have  been  composed  in  sleep.  But  take  the  poem  of 
"Kubla  Khan."  Eemember  that  the  man  who  wrote  it 
only  rose,  in  a  very  few  of  his  multitudinous  waking  pro 
ductions,  into  the  same  region  of  high  poetical  fancy 
or  inspiration  of  verse.  Then  see  him  merely  reading, 
half  asleep,  the  tolerably  prosaic  sentence  out  of  Purchas' 
"  Pilgrimage  :  "  "  Here  the  Khan  Kubla  commanded  a  palace 
to  be  built,  and  a  stately  garden  thereunto,  and  thus  ten 
miles  of  fertile  ground  were  inclosed  in  a  wall."  And, 
dropping  his  book,  from  this  mere  bit  of  green  sod  of 
thought  he  suddenly  springs  up  like  a  lark  into  the  very 
heaven  of  fancy,  with  the  vision  of  a  paradise  of  woods  and 
waters  before  his  eyes  and  such  sweet  singing  breaking  from 
his  lips  as, 

"  The  shadow  of  the  dome  of  pleasure 
Floated  midway  o'er  the  waves," 

interspersed  with  weird  changes  and  outbursts  such  as  only 
music  knows  : — 

"  It  was  an  Abyssinian  maid, 
And  on  her  dulcimer  she  played, 
Singing  of  Mount  Abora  !  " 

Consider  all  this,  and  that  the  poem  of  which   this  is  the 
fragment  reached  at  least  the  length  of  three  hundred  lines, 

23 


354  DREAMS. 


— and  then  say  what  limits  shall  be  placed  on  the  powers 
which  lie  hidden  within  our  mortal  coil ! 

This  poem  of  "  Kubla  Khan  "  has  long  stood,  though  not 
quite  alone  as  a  dream  poem,  yet  as  far  the  largest  and  most 
singular  piece  so  composed  on  record.  A  friend  has  per 
mitted  me  now  to  publish  another  dream  poem,  not,  indeed, 
of  similar  aesthetic  merit,  but  in  a  psychological  point  of  view 
perhaps  even  more  curious,  seeing  that  the  dreamer  in  her 
waking  hours  is  not  a  poet,  and  that  the  poem  she  dreamed 
is  in  French,  in  which  language  she  can  speak  fluently,  but 
in  which  she  believes  herself  utterly  unable  to  compose  a 
verse.  It  has  been  suggested  that  in  this  case  the  act  of 
unconscious  cerebration  may  be  one  of  memory  rather  than 
of  creative  fancy,  and  that  the  lady  may,  at  some  time  of 
her  life,  have  read  the  poem  thus  reproduced  in  sleep.  Such 
a  feat  would  of  itself  be  sufficiently  curious,  seeing  that  she 
has  not  the  smallest  waking  recollection  of  having  ever  seen 
the  lines;  and  they  occurred  to  her  (just  as  "Kubla  Khan" 
did  to  Coleridge)  not  as  a  piece  of  literature,  but  as  the  de 
scription  of  a  scene  she  actually  beheld  simultaneously  with 
the  occurrence  to  her  mind  of  its  poetical  narrative.  But  I 
conceive  that  the  great  inaccuracies  of  rhyme  in  the  poem 
render  it  more  than  doubtful  whether  it  can  ever  have  been 
published  as  a  French  composition.  "  Espoir,"  made  to 
correspond  with  "  effroi,"  and  "  vert "  with  "  guerre,"  are  the 
sort  of  false  rhymes  which  an  English  ear  (especially  in 
sleep)  might  easily  disregard,  but  which  no  French  poet, 
accustomed  to  the  strict  rules  of  his  own  language,  could 
overlook.  If  I  err  in  this  conclusion,  and  any  reader  of  this 
little  paper  can  recall  having  already  seen  the  lines  elsewhere, 
I  shall  be  extremely  obliged  for  the  correction. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  dreamer  saw  all  she 
describes  as  in  a  vision,  and  that  in  the  middle  of  the  dream, 
between  the  morning  and  evening  visions,  there  intervened  a 


DREAMS.  355 


blank  and  pause,  as  if  a  cloud  filled  the  scene.  As  in  the 
case  of  Coleridge,  the  lady  had  taken  morphia  in  moderate 
quantity  before  her  'dream. 

Ce  matin  du  haut  de  1'ancienne  tourelle 
J'e"coutais  la  voix  de  la  sentinelle, 
Qui  criait  a  ceux  qui  passent  la-bas 
A  travers  le  pont — Dis  !     Qui  va  Id  ? 

Et  toutes  les  reponses  si  pleines  d'espoir 
Remplirent  mon  coeur  d'un  vague  efFroi ; 
Car  le  chagrin  est  de  1'espoir  le  fruit, 
Et  le  suit,  comme  au  jour  suit  la  sombre  nuit. 

Qui  va  la  ? 

Un  beau  jeune  homme  sur  un  coursier  fier, 
A  1'epee  luisante,  au  drapeau  vert, 
S'en  va  tout  joyeux  rejoindre  la  guerre  ; 
II  chante,  "  Je  reviens  glorieux  !  " 

Qui  va  la  ? 

Une  blonde  jeune  fille  sur  un  palefroi  gris, 
En  habit  de  page,  vert  et  cramoisi ; 
Elle  murmure,  "  Je  veille  sur  mon  bien  cheri," 
Et  le  suit  en  souriant  doucement. 

Qui  va  la  ? 

Un  bon  vieillard,  ses  cheveux  sont  blancs, 
II  porte  un  sac,  comme  1'or  brille  dedans  ! 
II  le  cache  bien  de  ses  doigts  tremblants 
Et  grommele,  "  Je  me  ferai  riche  !  " 

Qui  va  la  ? 

Un  joli  enfant  conduit  sa  soeur 
A  travers  les  champs  cueillir  des  fleurs  : 
"  Nous  t'en  donnerons  a  notre  retour," 
Us  disent  en  riant  follement. 

(Here  occurred  a  long  pause.) 


356  DREAMS. 


La  nuit  s'abaisse  sur  1'ancienne  tourelle, 
Ecoute  encore  a  la  sentiiielle, 
Qui  crie  a  ceux  qui  passent  la-bas 
A  travers  le  pont — Dis  !     Qui  va  Id  ? 

II  vient,  tout  sanglaut,  un  coursier  fier, 
La  selle  est  vide,  mais  il  traine  par  terre 
Un  mourant,  qui  serre  un  drapeau  vert : 
Bientdt  il  ne  gemira  plus. 

Qui  va  Id  ? 

Une  blonde  jeune  fille  sur  un  palefroi  gris, 
En  habit  de  page,  vert  et  cramoisi, 
Qui  suit  tout  eperdue  son  bien  che"ri, 
Et  qui  prie  d'une  voix  dechirante. 

Qui  va  Id  ? 

Un  triste  vieillard,  ses  cheveux  sont  blancs, 
II  porte  un  sac,  il  n'y  a  rien  dedans  ! 
Et  dit,  en  tordant  ses  doigts  tremblants, 
"Ah  c'est  dur  de  perdre  tout  /" 

Qui  va  la  ? 

Un  joli  enfant  qui  porte  sa  soaur  : 
"  Un  serpent  glissant  parmi  les  fleurs 
L'a  pique.     Mais  vois  !     Elle  dort  sans  pleurs  ? " 
Cher  petit !     Elle  n'en  versera  plus  ! 

Another  dream  poem,  which  a  correspondent  has  been  so 
good  as  to  send  to  me,  is  interesting  in  a  different  way.  It 
was  composed  in  a  dream  on  the  night  of  August  23,  1866, 
by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Taylor,  Principal  of  the  Grammar  School 
of  Houghton-le-Spring ;  and  the  author  died  of  fever  about 
a  week  afterwards. 

HYMN. 

Lord  !  my  weary  soul  is  yearning, 

Yearning  for  its  home  of  rest ; 
Anxious  eyes  for  ever  turning 

Towards  the  mansions  of  the  blest. 


DREAMS.  357 


But  the  warfare  is  not  over ; 

Foes  without,  and  foes  within, 
Fiercely  o'er  my  path  assail  me, 

Tempt  me  with  the  bait  of  sin. 

Faint  and  stricken  in  the  battle, 

I  raise  my  feeble  hands  and  cry, 
Save  me,  save  me,  Abba,  Father  ! 

Save  me,  save  me,  or  I  die. 

Then  a  voice  comes  softly,  sweetly, 

Bringing  peace,  expelling  fear, 
Cheers  my  drooping  spirit,  saying, 

Courage,  Christian  !  God  is  near. 

Then  revived,  encouraged,  strengthened, 

Onward  I  my  steps  pursue, 
Looking  upward,  looking  homeward, 

Keep  the  golden  gates  in  view. 

Then,  oh  then,  dear  Lord,  receive  me, 

Ope  the  gates,  and  let  me  in, 
To  thy  loving  bosom  take  me, 

Kansomed,  pardoned,  freed  from  sin. 

Lastly,  we  come  to  the  point  wherein  I  conceive  that 
dreams  throw  most  light  on  the  separability  of  the  self  from 
the  automatically- working  brain.  The  absence  of  the  Moral 
Sense  in  dreams  is  a  matter  touched  upon  in  my  former 
essay,  on  which  I  have  received  the  most  varied  communi 
cations.  On  one  hand  two  esteemed  friends  have  assured  me 
that  their  consciences  are  occasionally  awake  in  sleep;  on 
the  other,  a  great  many  more  tell  me  that  their  experience 
entirely  corroborates  my  somewhat  hazarded  observations. 
For  example,  an  admirable  and  most  kind-hearted  lady 
palmed  off  a  bad  sixpence  on  a  beggar,  and  chuckled  at  the 
notion  of  his  disappointment  when  he  should  discover  her 
deception.  A  distinguished  philanthropist,  exercising  for 


358  DREAMS. 


many  years  high  judicial  functions,  continually  commits  for 
gery,  and  only  regrets  the  act  when  he  learns  that  he  is  to  be 
hanged.  A  woman,  whose  life  at  the  time  of  her  dream  was 
devoted  to  the  instruction  of  pauper  children,  seeing  one  of 
them  make  a  face  at  her,  doubled  him  up  into  the  smallest 
compass,  and  poked  him  through  the  bars  of  a  lion's  cage. 
One  of  the  most  benevolent  of  men,  who  shared  not  at  all 
in  the  military  enthusiasm  of  his  warlike  brothers  (the 
late  Mr.  Richard  JSFapier),  ran  his  best  friend  through  the 
body,  and  ever  after  recalled  the  extreme  gratification  he 
had  experienced  on  seeing  the  point  of  his  sword  come  out 
through  the  shoulders  of  his  beloved  companion.  Other 
crimes  committed  in  dreams  need  not  be  here  recorded ; 
but  I  am  persuaded  that  if  we  could  but  know  all  the 
improper  things  done  by  the  most  proper  people  in  their 
sleep  with  the  utmost  sangfroid  and  completely  unblushing 
effrontery,  the  picture  would  present  a  diverting  contrast  to 
our  knowledge  of  them  in  their  conscious  hours. 

If  the  moral  sense  be  not  wholly  suppressed  in  sleep, 
there  is  certainly  enough  evidence  to  conclude  that  it  is 
only  exceptionally  active,  and  chiefly,  if  not  solely  so,  in 
the  case  of  dreams  assuming  the  character  of  nightmares, 
in  which  the  consciousness  is  far  less  perfectly  dormant  than 
in  others.  Let  it  be  understood  that  I  do  not  deny  the 
presence  of  the  peculiar  dread  and  horror  of  remorse  in 
sleep.  As  it  is  undoubtedly  the  worst  torture  of  which 
the  mind  is  susceptible,  so  it  is  the  form  of  mental  suffering 
which  continually  presents  itself  in  the  crisis  and  climax 
of  imaginary  woe  in  a  nightmare  or  in  insanity.  But  this 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  normal  consciousness  of  right  and 
wrong,  the  sense  that  what  we  are  actually  doing  is  morally 
good  or  bad ;  a  sense  which  is  never  wholly  absent  in  our 
waking  hours,  and  which  (as  I  conceive)  is  never  present 
in  a  perfectly  natural  dream.  If  the  experience  of  my 


DREAMS.  359 


readers  do  not  lead  them  to  correct  this  opinion,  then  I 
must  be  permitted  to  urge  that  the  discovery  of  such  a  law 
as  that  which  excludes  the  moral  sense  from  dreams  must 
needs  point  to  some  important  conclusion  concerning  the 
nature  of  unconscious  cerebration.  If  such  cerebration  be 
in  any  way  to  be  described  as  our  own  work,  how  is  it 
possible  that  so  intimate,  so  indissoluble  a  part  of  ourselves 
as  our  sense  of  the  moral  character  of  actions  should  be 
regularly  absent  ?  To  divide  the  idea  of  a  cruel  deed  from 
a  sense  of  loathing,  or  a  base  one  from  a  sense  of  contempt, 
would  be  an  impossible  feat  for  us  to  accomplish  awake. 
Our  perception  of  such  acts  is  simultaneously  a  perception 
of  their  moral  hideousness;  yet  we  do  this  in  dreams,  not 
merely  occasionally,  but,  as  I  conceive,  as  a  rule  of  which 
the  exceptions,  if  any,  are  extremely  rare. 

Nay,  further.  A  great  proportion  of  the  passions  of 
our  dreams  seem  often  not  reflexes  of  those  experienced  in 
former  hours  of  consciousness,  but  altogether  foreign  to 
our  natures,  past  and  present.  Passions  which  never  for 
a  moment  sullied  our  consciousness,  sentiments  the  very 
antitheses  of  those  belonging  to  our  idiosyncrasies,  present 
themselves  in  sleep,  and  are  followed  out  by  their  ap 
propriate  actions,  just  as  if  we  were  not  ourselves  at  all, 
but,  in  one  case,  a  Jack  Shepherd,  or  in  another  a  Caligula. 
The  man  who  would  go  to  the  stake  rather  than  do  a  dis 
honourable  act,  imagines  himself  cheating  at  cards ;  the 
woman  who  never  voluntarily  hurt  a  fly,  chops  a  baby  into 
mincemeat. 

The  theory  of  Dugald  Stewart,  that  the  Will  is  not  dor 
mant  in  dreams,  but  has  merely  lost  the  power  of  controlling 
the  muscles,1  seems  to  me  entirely  inadequate  to  fit  cases 
like  these.  If  the  will  were  awake,  it  must  inevitably  rebel 
against  acts  so  repugnant  to  it,  even  if  it  were  powerless 
1  Dugald  Stewart's  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  292. 


360  DREAMS. 


to  prevent  the  brain  from  inventing  them.  A  sense  of  dis 
cord  and  trouble  would  reign  in  our  dreams  as  of  "  a  house 
divided  against  itself."  The  fact  that  nothing  of  the  kind 
is  experienced,  and  that  we  have,  notoriously,  not  even 
a  sense  of  surprise  in  dreams  when  we  find  ourselves 
committing  the  most  atrocious  outrages,  is  surely  suffi 
cient  to  prove  that  the  true  self  is  not  merely  impotent  but 
dormant. 

Finally,  not  only  the  absence  of  the  moral  sense  in  dreams, 
but  also  the  absence  of  all  sense  of  mental  fatigue  in  them, 
appears  to  point  to  the  same  conclusion.  In  dreams  we 
never  experience  that  weariness  which  invariably  in  waking 
hours  follows  all  sustained  volition.  Wide  and  wild  as  may 
be  our  flights  of  fancy,  no  feather  of  our  wings  seems  to  droop 
after  them.  But  exertion  of  will  is  the  most  laborious  of 
all  things,  whether  it  be  employed  to  attend  to  a  subject 
of  study,  to  create  a  fanciful  story,  or  to  direct  our  limbs  in 
unwonted  actions.  It  has  been  truly  remarked,  that  if  the 
laws  of  our  constitution  required  us  to  perform  a  separate 
act  of  volition  for  every  muscular  motion  we  make  in  the 
course  of  twenty-four  hours, — in  other  words,  if  there  were 
no  such  power  as  that  of  automatic  action, — we  should  ex 
pire  of  the  fatigue  of  a  single  day's  exertion ;  nay,  of  the 
mere  rising  up  and  sitting  down,  and  washing  and  brushing 
and  buttoning,  and  moving  our  legs  down  stairs,  and  cut 
ting  and  buttering  and  chewing  and  swallowing,  and  all  the 
numberless  little  proceedings  which  must  be  gone  through 
before  even  breakfast  is  accomplished.  Nature  has  so  ar 
ranged  it  that  we  learn  the  various  arts  of  walking,  eating, 
dressing,  etc.,  etc.,  one  by  one,  and  at  an  age  when  we  have 
nothing  else  to  do;  so  that  when  the  further  lessons  of  how 
to  read,  to  write,  and  so  on,  have  to  be  learned,  the  rudiments 
of  life's  business  have  long  before  passed  into  the  class  of 
voluntary  acts  over  which  unconscious  cerebration  is  quite 


DREAMS.  361 


sufficiently  sensible  to  preside.  And  this  unconscious  brain- 
work  never  seems  to  tire  us  at  all ;  whether  it  consists  in 
setting  our  feet  and  eyes  going  in  the  proper  direction  for 
walking  or  riding,  or  in  painting  for  us  the  choicest  galleries 
of  pictures  in  dreamland,  or  composing  for  us  as  many  novels 
as  taxed  the  imagination  of  Alexandre  Dumas.  It  is  the 
conscious  Self  alone  whose  exertions  ever  flag,  and  for  whose 
repose  merciful  Nature  has  deserved  the  blessing  of  Sancho 
Panza  on  "  the  man  who  invented  sleep." 

Take  it  how  we  will,  I  think  it  remains  evident  that  in 
dreams  (except  those  belonging  to  the  class  of  nightmare 
wherein  the  will  is  partially  awakened)  we  are  in  a  condition 
of  entire  passivity  ;  receiving  impressions  indeed  from  the 
work  which  is  going  on  in  our  brains,  but  incurring  no 
fatigue  thereby,  and  exempted  from  all  sense  of  moral  re 
sponsibility  as  regards  it.  The  instrument  on  which  we  are 
wont  to  play  has  slipped  from  our  loosened  grasp,  and  its 
secondary  and  almost  equally  wondrous  powers  have  become 
manifest.  It  is  not  only  a  finger-organ,  but  a  self-acting 
one;  which,  while  we  lie  still  and  listen,  goes  over,  more 
or  less  perfectly,  and  with  many  a  quaint  wrong  note  and 
variation,  the  airs  which  we  performed  on  it  yesterday,  or 
long  ago. 

Is  this  instrument  ourselves  ?  Are  we  quite  inseparable 
from  this  manufactory  of  thoughts  ?  If  it  never  worked 
except  by  our  volition  and  under  our  control,  then,  indeed, 
it  might  be  difficult  to  conceive  of  our  consciousness  apart 
from  it.  But  every  night  a  different  lesson  is  taught  us. 
The  brain,  released  from  its  bit  and  rein,  plays  like  a  colt 
turned  to  pasture,  or,  like  the  horse  of  the  miller,  goes  round 
from  left  to  right  to  relieve  itself  from  having  gone  round 
from  right  to  left  all  the  day  before.  Watching  these  in 
stinctive  sports  and  relaxations  by  which  we  benefit,  but  in 
whose  direction  we  have  no  part,  do  we  not  acquire  the  con- 


362  DREAMS. 


viction  that  the  dreaming  brain-self  is  not  the  true  self  for 
whose  moral  worthiness  we  strive,  and  for  whose  existence 
after  death  alone  we  care?  ""We  are  of  the  stuff  which 
dreams  are  made  of."  Not  wholly  so,  0  mighty  poet- 
philosopher !  In  that  "  stuff"  there  enters  not  the  noblest 
element  of  our  nature ;  that  Moral  Will  which  allies  us, 
not  to  the  world  of  passing  shadows,  but  to  the  great 
Eternal  Will,  in  whose  Life  it  is  our  hope  that  we  shall 
live  for  ever. 


ESSAY  XIIL 


AURICULAR     CONFESSION 


CHURCH    OF    ENGLAND.1 

i 

CERTAIN  well-known  coarse  attempts  to  "unmask"  the 
Confessional  seem  to  have  effected  a  purpose  very  remote 
from  that  which  their  originators  designed.  By  fixing  the 
public  mind  on  gross  abuses,  which  no  one  seriously  appre 
hends  to  see  revived  in  the  hands  of  English  clergymen, 
attention  has  been  diverted  from  the  real  point  at  issue, 
namely,  the  moral  or  immoral,  spiritual  or  unspiritual,  ten 
dency  of  the  practice  of  Auricular  Confession  under  ordinary 
and  favourable  circumstances.  In  the  following  pages,  I 
propose  to  leave  aside  altogether  any  consideration  of  the 
evils  accidental  to  the  practice,  and  to  pass  no  judgment  on 

1  Tracts  for  the  Day.     1  vol.  8vo.     London  :  Longmans.     1868. 

A  Help  to  Repentance.  By  the  Eev.  Vernon  Huttoii.  4th  thousand.  London : 
Longmans. 

Pardon  through  the  Precious  Blood,  or  the  Benefit  of  Absolution.  Edited  by 
a  Committee  of  Clergy.  22nd  thousand.  London :  Palmer.  1870. 

The  Ordinance  of  Confession.  By  William  Gresley.  2nd  edition.  Masters. 
1852. 

The  Church  and  the  World.  Edited  by  the  Eev.  Orby  Shipley.  Article, 
"Thirty  Years  in  the  English  Church."  1st  series.  Longmans.  1866. 

The  Church  and  the  World.  Article,  "Private  Confession  and  Absolution." 
2nd  series.  Longmans.  1867. 


364  AURICULAR   CONFESSION  IN 

the  narratives  rife  through  Southern  Europe,  concerning 
"Priests,  Women  and  families."  I  shall  attempt  to  study 
as  candidly  as  possible  the  inherent  moral  character  of  such 
an  act  as  regular  confession  to  a  priest,  and  draw  such  con 
clusions  as  may  seem  warranted  regarding  the  attitude  to  be 
observed  towards  the  present  revival  of  the  practice.  That 
the  inquiry  is  not  untimely  may  be  judged  by  any  one  who 
will  take  the  trouble  to  inform  himself  of  what  the  whole 
High- Church  party  are  now  doing  in  this  matter,  and  to 
what  extent  all  over  the  country  they  are  raising  a  claim 
to  receive  the  confessions  of  their  flocks  as  a  regular  portion 
of  their  office. 

In  a  world  in  which  Sin  occupies  the  place  it  holds  to-day 
on  our  planet,  it  would  seem  almost  superfluous  to  protest 
against  the  use  of  any  method  which  aims  at  its  repression. 
The  evils  within  and  around  us  may  well  be  thought  great 
enough  to  occupy  all  our  energies,  without  turning  our  hand 
against  those  who  are  honestly  contending  against  them  also, 
even  if  they  employ  tactics  which  we  deem  ill  advised  and 
indiscreet.  "Let  us  leave  these  High- Churchmen,"  we  are  in 
clined  to  say,  "  to  make  what  efforts  they  please  to  stem  the 
flood  of  vice  in  our  great  cities.  If  we  do  not  augur  much 
success  for  their  attempt,  at  least  we  honour  their  zeal,  and 
are  fully  persuaded  that  to  do  anything  is  better  than  to  do 
nothing."  Such  first  impressions  are  even  in  a  certain  way 
deepened  if  we  chance  to  read  the  manuals  of  penitence 
prepared  by  our  English  Father- Confessors,  such  as  those 
quoted  at  the  head  of  this  article.  The  serious  tone 
of  these  books,  free  from  taint  of  cant,  and  the  exalted 
standard  of  morality  in  word  and  deed  obviously  accepted  by 
their  authors,  claim  the  highest  respect ;  nor  can  any  reader 
doubt  that  it  is  real  sin,  not  mere  ecclesiastical  error,  which 
is  attacked,  and  real  goodness,  not  mere  sheep-like  obedience, 
which  is  inculcated. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  365 

But  whatever  be  the  good  intentions,  the  honesty  and 
the  zeal,  of  the  modern  revivers  of  the  Confessional  in  our 
churches,  the  question  is  not  altered :  Is  the  practice  of 
Auricular  Confession  to  a  priest  spiritually  or  morally  ex 
pedient  ?  Are  its  natural  results  strengthening  or  weaken 
ing  to  the  mind?  Must  it  make  a  man  feel  more  deeply 
the  burden  of  his  sins,  or  teach  him  to  cast  them  off  on 
the  shoulders  of  another?  Will  it  (for  this  is  the  crucial 
question  of  all) — will  it  bring  the  sinful  soul  nearer,  in  the 
deep  solitudes  of  the  spiritual  world,  to  the  One  only  Source 
of  purity  and  restoration,  and  help  it  to  look  straight  up 
into  the  face  of  God;  or  will  it,  on  the  contrary,  thrust  a 
priest  always  between  man  and  *his  Maker  to  intercept 
even  the  embrace  of  the  returning  Prodigal  in  his  Father's 
arms  ? 

In  the  endeavour  to  find  the  solution  of  these  questions, 
it  will  of  course  be  necessary  to  leave  considerable  margin 
for  differences  of  moral  condition  such  as  exist  at  all  times  in 
a  given  population — a  margin  which  ought  to  be  still  further 
enlarged  when  we  include  in  our  survey  a  long  period  of 
history  and  the  inhabitants  of  both  barbarous  and  civilized 
lands.  The  practice  of  which  the  benefits  may  outweigh  its 
disadvantages,  or  which  may  have  few  disadvantages  at  all, 
when  applied  to  a  child  or  a  savage,  to  lawless  mediaeval 
barons  or  brutish  serfs,  may  do  indefinitely  more  harm 
than  good  when  used  by  full-grown  and  educated  people 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  Our  object  in  the  present 
paper  being  a  practical  one,  we  shall  limit  our  scope 
to  the  class  and  nation  which  the  revival  of  Auricular 
Confession  in  England  alone  concerns,  and  ask  :  How  is  it 
likely  to  affect  English  men  and  women  from  the  age  of 
confirmation  to  the  end  of  life,  and  from  the  highest  social 
and  intellectual  rank  down  to  that  level  of  poverty  and 
stupidity  against  which  the  waves  of  clerical  zeal  break 


366  AURICULAR   CONFESSION  IN 

for  ever  in  vain  ?  We  must  assume  average  intelligence, 
average  religious  feeling,  and,  especially,  average  moral 
condition.  The  old  Church  of  England  principle,  that  men 
burdened  with  any  "  grievous  crime "  should  seek  relief 
from  confession  to  "any  discreet  and  learned  minister  of 
God's  word,"  is  one  whose  wisdom  we  are  not  at  all  inclined 
to  dispute  ;  and  it  is  only  with  the  extension  of  this  reason 
able  rule  from  the  exceptional  to  the  general  and  universal, 
that  we  are  now  concerned.  An  elaborate  defence  of  such 
extension  may  be  seen  in  one  of  the  books  at  the  head  of 
this  article ; l  but,  when  it  was  published,  twenty  years  ago, 
English  High-Churchmen  had  not  gone  by  any  means  so 
far  in  their  inculcation  of  Confession  as  they  do  at  present ; 
and  Mr.  Gresley  was  ready  to  admit  that  "  in  foreign 
churches  where  Confession  is  compulsory  and  periodical, 
there  is  danger  of  formality "  (p.  135) ;  and  that  women 
may  be  led  to  rely  too  much  on  their  priests  (p.  137),  even 
while  he  set  forth  the  innumerable  reasons  why  people 
should  renew  their  confessions  and  seek  "  ghostly  counsel ' 
again  and  again.  More  recent  manuals  (among  which 
Pardon  through  the  Precious  Blood,  edited  by  a  Commit 
tee  of  Clergymen,  appears  to  be  most  authoritative)  take 
it  seemingly  for  granted  that  every  one  needs  Confession 
as  much  as  he  needs  the  perpetual  pardon  of  God  ;  and  the 
forms  recommended  for  use  always  refer  to  the  "  last  Confes 
sion,"  as  if  the  Anglican,  like  the  Romish  penitent,  made 
it,  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  regular  practice.  The  religious 
life  seems  understood  by  these  teachers  to  commence  nor 
mally  only  by  a  General  Confession,  just  as  an  Evangelical 
believes  it  to  commence  by  "  Conversion."  The  vivid  sense 
of  sinfulness  (which  is  the  one  natural  fact  of  the  case)  must, 
as  they  hold  it,  rigorously  take  the  shape  of  Auricular 
Confession  to  make  it  available.  "  Mere"  private  contrition 
1  The  Ordinance  of  Confession,  by  the  Rev.  "William  Gresley. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  367 

of  heart  and  amendment  of  life,  they  treat  as  wholly  un 
satisfactory  and  incomplete,  carrying  with  them  no  promise 
of  Divine  pardon.  Not  to  speak  disrespectfully,  they 
practically  affirm  that  a  man  must  repent  en  regie — confess 
to  a  priest,  do  penance,  and  be  absolved — or  his  repentance 
will  still  need  to  be  repented  of.  Thus  Confession  has 
ceased  to  be  an  exceptional  action,  and  has  become  the 
regular  practice  of  a  religious  life.  It  is  not  to  be  applied 
as  a  specific  remedy  in  cases  of  acute  disease.  It  is  to  be 
used  like  a  daily  ablution,  as  the  proper  means  of  purifica 
tion  and  health. 

Putting  aside,  then,  cases  of  offenders  who  have  com 
mitted  heinous  offences,  we  shall  suppose  the  instance  of  a 
person  of  ordinary  character  and  circumstances  in  the  con 
dition  of  mind  desired  by  the  preachers  of  Confession. 
He  is  sensible  of  his  sinfulness,  and  (a  point  to  which 
we  shall  hereafter  refer)  very  much  terrified  by  fear  of 
hell-fire.  His  pastors  instruct  him  that  his  private  peni 
tence,  whatever  may  be  its  intensity,  affords  no  sort  of 
security  that  the  benefits  of  the  "  Precious  Blood "  shall 
be  applied  to  his  particular  soul,  and  that  to  obtain  such 
security  he  must  confess  to  a  priest  who  has  received  at 
his  ordination  the  commission,  "  Whose  sins  thou  dost 
forgive,  they  are  forgiven  ;  and  whose  sins  thou  dost  re 
tain,  they  are  retained."  Goaded  by  remorse  and  terror, 
he  is  taught  further  to  lash  his  feelings  to  excitement  by 
such  representations  as  these  :  "  Look  at  His  sacred  body 
nailed  to  the  cross ;  see  His  flesh  torn  and  mangled, 
dripping  with  blood ;  this  is  the  work  of  thy  sins.  Thy 
sins  have  opened  His  wounds  and  made  them  bleed 
afresh;  they  have  torn  wider  the  rents  in  His  hands  and 
feet/'1  Finally,  he  makes  up  his  mind  to  come  to  confes 
sion  and  (as  he  is  assured)  become  "  clean  "  and  safe.  What 
1  The  Precious  Blood,  p.  20. 


368  AURICULAR   CONFESSION  IN 

are  the  moral  and   spiritual  results  likely   to   follow   such 
an  act? 

In  the  first  place,  the  long  and  close  self-examination 
which  is  ordered  as  a  preliminary,  may,  when  first  practised 
by  a  hitherto  thoughtless  person,  very  probably  open  quite 
a  new  view  to  a  man  of  his  own  character.  In  some  special 
cases  it  may  perhaps  even  do  the  invaluable  service  of 
teaching  a  self-satisfied  Pharisee  that  he  ought  to  put  him 
self  in  the  place  of  the  Publican.  Some  festering  secrets 
of  souls  may  be  healed  simply  by  being  brought  to  light, 
and  spectres  dissolved  into  air  by  being  fairly  faced.  Long 
cherished  hatred  may  be  tracked  to  its  root,  and  a  selfish 
life  looked  at  for  once  as  a  whole  in  its  proper  colours. 
All  these  good  results,  I  freely  admit,  may  follow  from 
the  self-examination  which  is  required  before  Confession, 
and  which  (it  may  be  added)  has  formed  a  recognized  por 
tion  of  all  metanoia,  from  the  days  of  Pythagoras  and 
David  to  our  own.  But  how  of  the  Confession  itself  ? 
What  good  or  harm  is  to  be  done  to  such  a  mind  as  we 
have  supposed,  by  the  process  of  kneeling  down  in  a  vestry 
before  a  clergyman,  making  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  then 
for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  (or,  in  some  cases,  for  five 
or  six  hours)  going  over  the  events  of  life  seriatim :  "  I 
accuse  myself  of"  this  falsehood,  that  unkindness,  and  so 
on?  If  the  individual  be  so  ignorant  of  morals  as  not 
to  know  what  is  sinful  and  what  is  innocent,  it  must 
be  a  great  benefit  to  him  to  receive  instruction  from  his 
Confessor,  provided  always  that  he  is — what  priests  un 
fortunately,  by  some  twist  of  mental  conformation,  seem 
very  rarely  to  be — a  sound  and  healthy  moralist.  In  such 
a  case,  the  Confessional  may  obviously  be  a  useful  school  of 
ethics.  But  it  is  surely  no  small  disgrace  to  our  spiritual 
guides  if  it  should  be  needed  as  such,  and  if  their  flocks 
have  been  so  little  instructed  in  the  principles  of  upright- 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  369 

ness  and  charity,  as  not  to  know  beforehand  what  is  right 
and  what  is  wrong,  and  to  require  to  wait  till  they  have 
sinned,  to  know  what  is  sinful. 

That  the  fear  of  having  hereafter  to  confess  a  sin  may 
sometimes  possibly  keep  a  man  from  committing  it,  is 
another  argument  for  the  usefulness  of  the  Confessional 
as  a  moral  agent,  on  which  I  need  not  enlarge.  Such  a 
motive  would,  of  course,  have  no  ethical  value,  and  as  to 
its  deterrent  force,  may  plausibly  be  balanced  against  the 
encouragement  (found  undoubtedly  by  Romish  criminals, 
bandits,  etc.,  and  possibly,  therefore,  also  by  Anglicans) 
in  the  assurance  of  pardon,  obtainable  at  any  moment,  by 
priestly  absolution.  When  we  have  descended  to  so  low 
a  level  of  motive  in  the  one  case,  we  are  called  on  to  do 
the  like  in  the  other. 

Lastly,  there  is  a  very  great  and  important  result  of 
the  practice  of  Confession,  which  to  some  of  its  upholders 
doubtless  appears  among  its  chief  advantages,  but  which 
I  must  be  excused  for  classing  altogether  in  another  cate 
gory,  namely,  the  enormous  influence  given  thereby  to  the 
priesthood  over  the  minds  of  their  flocks.  To  treat  fully 
of  this  matter,  and  to  trace  the  share  of  her  confessors 
in  building  up  the  vast  edifice  of  the  authority  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  would  need,  not  a  few  paragraphs  in 
an  article,  but  several  volumes.  That  the  influence  of 
the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  would  ever  be  as 
evil  as  that  of  their  brethren  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  I 
am  far  from  believing  ;  but  with  the  warning  of  all 
history  before  our  eyes,  I  think  that  he  must  be  a  bold 
man,  indeed,  who  should  desire  to  place  in  the  hands 
of  any  priesthood  on  earth  a  power  whose  most  partial 
misuse  means  ecclesiastical  despotism,  and  the  mental 
and  moral  slavery  of  all  the  weaker  minds  of  the  com 
munity. 

24 


370  AURICULAR   CONFESSION  IN 

Turning  now  to  the  disadvantages  of  the  practice  of  Con 
fession,  we  may  observe  three  points  in  particular : 

1.  The  fostering  of  a  materialistic  and  mechanical  view 
of  religion. 

2.  The  enervation  of  the  moral  constitution. 

3.  The   desecration   of    the   inner    spiritual   life    by   the 
exposure   to   a   priest   of  the   most   sacred   recesses   of  the 
penitent  soul. 

1.  In  nearly  every  essay  and  manual  on  the  subject  of  Con 
fession,  the  practice  is  recommended  as  indispensable  to  give 
reality  to  repentance.  So  long  as  a  man's  feelings  of  contri 
tion  are  hid  in  his  own  bosom,  or  only  poured  out  in  prayer 
to  God  in  his  chamber,  of  what  avail  (it  is  asked)  are  they  ? 
"  To  look  calmly,"  says  the  author  of  the  essay  on  the 
Seven  Sacraments  in  the  Tracts  for  the  Day  (p.  59),  "at  the 
cry,  '  Go  direct  to  Christ,'  what  does  it  mean  ?  .  .  .  The  Pro 
testant  directs  the  penitent  to  rely  wholly  and  entirely  on 
his  own  internal  feelings  ;  he  is  not  to  go  out  of  himself  for 
pardon  and  grace.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the 
operation,  it  is  something  worked  out  in  the  mind  and 

heart  of  the  sinner How  different  is  the  faith  of  the 

Catholic  Church  and  the  practice  of  the  Catholic  penitent !  " 
Yery  different  indeed,  we  may  truly  echo,  since  this  is  as 
good  an  illustration  as  could  be  chosen  of  the  difference 
between  spiritual  and  sacerdotal  religion.  An  operation, 
even  the  blessed  operation  of  penitence  and  restoration,  is  of 
no  value,  it  seems,  in  Catholic  eyes,  if  it  be  merely  "  worked 
out  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  sinner."  A  mere  change  of 
mind  and  heart,  from  the  love  of  sin  to  the  love  of  God, — 
the  alpha  and  omega  of  religion, — the  change  for  whose 
accomplishment  in  the  inner  man  some  sanguine  Protestants 
imagine  all  Catholic  machinery  to  be  honestly,  though 
clumsily,  designed, — this  greatest  of  all  spiritual  events, 
over  which  Christ  thought  that  angels  rejoice  in  heaven,  is, 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  371 

after  all,  we  are  told,  most  unsatisfactory  and  incomplete, 
if  it  be  not  accompanied  by  spoken  confession  to  a  priest, 
penance  of  outward  act,  and  the  receipt  of  duly  autho 
rized  priestly  absolution.  A  man  who  only  prays  in  the 
chamber  where  Christ  told  him  to  pray,  does  not  "go  out 
of  himself."  It  is  not  "  going  out  of"  oneself  to  pray  alone. 
T/iat,  we  presume,  is  a  mere  subjective  phenomenon,  liable, 
as  the  author  presently  points  out,  to  land  us  in  grievous 
error.  To  "go  out  of"  oneself,  it  is  necessary  to  do  a  great 
deal  more  (at  least  in  priestly  view)  than  only  to  rise  up  from 
the  swine's  husks  in  the  "  far  country  "  and  return  to  the 
Father's  feet.  It  is  necessary  to  speak  to  a  man — a  real, 
tangible,  audible  man — not  merely  to  the  unseen  and  silent 
Spirit.  Speaking  to  God  is  not  properly  a  real  act;  and 
as  for  listening  to  His  whispers  in  the  soul  of  reproof  or 
pardon,  it  is  the  most  dangerous  thing  in  the  world.  We 
must  speak  to  the  priest,  and  hear  from  the  priest  that 
we  are  absolved,  and  then  we  may  know  we  have  repented 
and  are  "safe."  All  other  knowledge,  whether  of  the  sin 
cerity  of  our  contrition  or  of  the  renewal  of  communion 
which  God  has  granted  to  us,  is  to  be  taken  as  mere  illusion, 
or  at  best  as  wholly  untrustworthy.  We  have  not  "  gone 
out  of  ourselves"  from  first  to  last. 

Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  this  is  the  true — if  not  the 
only — infidelity,  even  the  distrust  of  spiritual,  and  the 
reliance  on  physical,  facts,  displayed  in  dealing  with  the 
very  crisis  of  the  soul's  history  ? 

The  same  observations  apply  to  the  subjects  of  Penance 
and  Absolution,  in  which  the  sense  of  Repentance  is 
assumed  by  the  same  teachers  to  be  visionary  till  it  has 
done  something  else  beside  undoing  as  far  as  may  be  the 
evil  repented  of ;  and  the  sense  of  Restoration  is  disallowed 
till  a  form  of  words  has  been  pronounced  over  the  penitent 
by  the  priest. 


372  AURICULAR   CONFESSION  IN 


Again,  the  usual  practice  of  allotting  for  Penance  the 
repetition  of  certain  prayers,  in  the  Anglican  as  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  goes  a  little  further  in  the  direc 
tion  of  the  mechanical  and  the  profane.  Contemplating 
such  a  portent  as  a  clergyman  ordering,  and  his  penitent 
performing,  such  an  act  as  that  of  prayer  to  the  Father  in 
heaven  as  a  punishment,  or  (as  one  of  our  manuals  describes 
it,  as  an  improvement  on  this  notion)  as  a  "  token  of  obedi 
ence  to  the  Church,"  we  are  tempted  to  ask,  Do  either  con 
fessor  or  penitent  know  what  Prayer  means  ?  Do  they,  who 
use  it,  as  we  know,  with  so  much  constancy  and  reverence  in 
their  perpetual  services,  do  they  understand  that  it  is  some 
thing  more  than  a  funzione,  as  the  Italians  say — that  it  may 
be  life's  greatest  joy,  humanity's  highest  glory?  It  cannot 
be  but  that  such  devoted  men  must  know  it.  How,  then, 
can  they  endure  to  make  of  it  a  "penance"  ?  Are  children 
punished  by  sending  them  to  their  parent's  arms,  or  made  to 
"show  obedience"  to  the  nurse  by  seeking  their  father's  face  ? 

Again,  the  notion  of  Sin  itself  is  by  these  Anglicans 
strangely  materialized.  They  manifestly  hold  very  high 
and  pure  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong  acts  and  senti 
ments  ;  but  the  reasons  why  the  sinner  is  to  regret  and 
abhor  his  sins  are  set  forth  in  a  way  to  lead  us  to  imagine 
that  the  hatefulness  of  bad  deeds  and  feelings,  and  the  loss 
by  the  sinful  soul  of  that  divine  light  below  whose  plane 
it  has  fallen,  are  not  by  any  means  the  sole  or  worst  evils 
involved.  The  two  great  evils,  on  the  contrary,  seem  to  be, 
first,  that  if  the  soul  leaves  the  body  in  a  state  of  sin,  "  it  will 
be  driven  away  from  Gfod,  and  be  plunged  into  a  place  of 
darkness  and  misery  for  ever ;"  and,  secondly,  that  the  sin 
ner's  offences  have  had  a  part  in  causing  the  sufferings  of 
Christ.  "  By  thine  uncleanness,"  the  penitent  is  advised 
to  say  to  his  soul,  "thou  hast  scourged  his  body  with 
the  most  painful  stripes.  Thou  hast  had  no  mercy  on 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  373 

his  adorable  body/'  etc.1  Thus,  as  usual  in  the  orthodox 
system,  a  man's  mind  is  forcibly  diverted  from  his  own 
moral  guilt  to  vivid  images  of  Christ's  physical  sufferings, 
which  (even  supposing  them  to  have  had  a  mysterious  ante 
dated  connexion  with  his  sins)  were  certainly  not  intended 
by  him  to  be  aggravated,  and  therefore  are  not  properly  the 
subjects  of  his  genuine  contrition.  Having  really  maliciously 
injured  his  neighbour  A.,  or  been  too  selfish  to  help  B.,  he 
is  advised,  not  to  think  about  his  behaviour  or  feelings 
towards  A.  or  B.,  but  to  goad  himself  to  tortures  of  remorse 
for  having  hurt  C.,  who  died  long  before  he  was  born, 
and  who  he  believes  now  reigns  the  King  of  Paradise. 
Instead  of  writhing  under  the  load  of  his  present  shame 
and  guilt,  he  is  urged  to  ponder  on  the  dangers  of  exposure 
at  the  day  of  judgment  and  of  the  punishment  of  his  sins 
in  eternity.  Always,  it  is  the  material  consequence  to  him 
self  or  to  his  Saviour,  not  his  actual  moral  guilt,  which  is 
insisted  upon. 

The  conception  of  Sin  as  a  series  of  definite  wrong  acts 
which  can  be  catalogued  and  rehearsed,  rather  than  as  an 
evil  state  of  the  heart  which  God  alone  can  fully  know, 
is  another  instance  of  materialism.  Unless  in  the  case  of 
heinous  offences,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  idea  of  a  general 
confession  of  misdoings  and  omissions  were,  to  an  enlight 
ened  conscience,  something  almost  absurd.  The  thing  to 
be  confessed  above  all — the  only  thing,  in  fact,  which  very 
much  concerns  us — is  just  what  such  a  catalogue  must  omit. 
Many  a  man  presenting  a  long  list  of  actual  sins  to  his 
confessor  might  obviously  be  immeasurably  better  than  one 
who  could  hardly  tax  himself  with  the  omission  of  a  single 
tithe- giving  of  mint,  anise  or  cummin,  but  whose  heart  and 
will  had  swerved  from  God  altogether. 

1  The  Precious  Blood,  p.  20.  N.B. — This  little  book  is  bound  in  crimson,  and 
is  altogether  as  sensational  as  typography  and  literary  dress  can  make  it. 


374  A  URICULAR  CONFESSION  IN 

Finally,  as  regards  this  department  of  our  subject,  it 
ought  to  be  carefully  weighed  what  meaning  is  attached 
to  the  assurance,  tendered  to  the  penitent,  that  he  is 
"CLEAN  NOW."  The  desire  that  our  sins  should  never 
have  been  committed,  is  of  course  the  very  first  sentiment 
of  natural  repentance ;  but  this  being  a  matter  which  even 
God  cannot  change,  no  man,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  thinks 
of  asking  for  it.  Again,  the  desire  that  God  should  purify 
all  that  is  evil  in  us  now,  should  "  give  us  a  clean  heart  and 
renew  a  right  spirit  within  us,"  is  the  supreme  prayer  of 
every  contrite  soul;  but  it  is  one  whose  response  must 
come,  if  it  come  at  all,  in  a  spiritual  fact  about  which  we 
alone  may  have  cognizance,  and  concerning  which  a  priest's 
assurance  must  necessarily  go  for  nothing.  If  a  man  find 
his  spirit  really  "  renewed,"  filled  with  hatred  of  the  sin  he 
cherished,  and  of  love  to  God  and  goodness,  it  is  of  the 
smallest  possible  consequence  to  him  whether  anybody  tell 
him  that  such  is,  or  is  not,  the  case.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
he  feel  his  heart  still  full  of  evil  passions,  it  is  a  ghastly 
mockery  to  tell  him  he  is  "  clean,"  in  any  sense  such  as  that 
which  we  are  now  considering.  There  remains,  then,  only 
for  the  word,  as  employed  in  the  manuals  of  confessors,  the 
old  sense  in  which  it  was  used  by  Hebrews  and  Brahmins, 
Romans  and  Aztecs,  the  sense  of  a  magical  removal  of  guilt, 
attainable,  as  was  supposed,  by  means  of  a  scapegoat,  a 
Soma  sacrifice,  a  Taurobolia,  or  a  human  victim.  This  is 
not  the  place  to  criticize  these  crude  notions  of  half- 
civilized  races,  but  it  may  be  remarked  that  of  all  the 
eight  different  ways  in  which,  as  the  lamented  McLeod 
Campbell  told  us,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Atonement 
may  be  understood,  the  lowest  possible  is  that  which  assimi 
lates  it  to  these  heathen  rites  ;  first,  by  representing  Christ's 
sacrifice  as  a  device  to  save  men,  not  from  the  dominion 
of  sin,  but  from  its  punishment ;  and  then  by  making  the 


THE  CHURCH   OF  ENGLAND.  375 

application  of  the  benefit  depend,  not  on  a  spiritual  identi 
fication  of  the  sinful  soul  by  faith  and  love  with  its  supposed 
sinless  Redeemer,  but  on  a  practical  transaction  between 
the  man  and  a  priest  who  acts  as  Christ's  delegate, 
and  conveys  to  him  a  legal  absolution.  Throughout  the 
whole  treatment  of  the  subject  by  the  Anglican  advocates 
of  Confession,  it  will  also  be  observed  that  the  object  pro 
fessedly  sought  is  "Pardon,"  in  the  sense  in  which  that  word 
is  distinguished  from  "Forgiveness";  namely,  as  representing 
the  Remission  of  a  Penalty,  not  the  Reconciliation  of  an 
offended  Friend.  No  priest  presumes  to  tell  his  penitent 
that  Gfod,  through  his  mouth,  assures  him  of  the  restoration 
of  His  Fatherly  love  and  freedom  of  communion.  That 
fact,  like  the  fact  of  a  renewed  spirit,  must  be  felt  to  be 
believed ;  and  the  voices  of  all  the  priests  in  Christendom 
could  do  nothing  to  make  it  either  more  or  less  certain. 
But  the  magical  expiation  which  secures  the  remission  of 
a  remote  penalty,  is  a  matter  on  which  sacerdotal  authority 
may  successfully  pronounce  that  it  has  been  accurately  ac 
complished. 

Whether  anxiety  for  escape  from  punishment  be,  or  be 
not,  a  proper  feature  of  genuine  penitence,  is  a  question 
which  has  been  much  obscured  by  the  intrusion  of  the 
monstrous  doctrine  of  Eternal  Perdition  into  the  natural 
view  of  the  subject.  No  amount  of  religion  or  virtue  could 
enable  a  man  willingly  to  renounce  religion  and  virtue  to 
all  eternity  ;  and  therefore,  so  long  as  any  one  believes  that 
his  sins  may  incur  everlasting  banishment  from  God,  he  is 
compelled  to  crave  eagerly  for  the  remission  of  their  pun 
ishment.  But  the  moment  this  threat  is  removed,  the  case 
is  altered.  Genuine  contrition  occupies  itself  very  little 
about  the  suffering  which  we  may  have  entailed  on  ourselves 
by  sin ;  nay,  in  cases  of  poignant  self-reproach  and  remorse, 
the  prospect  of  such  suffering  is  undoubtedly  far  from 


376  AURICULAR  CONFESSION  IN 

unwelcome,  but  rather  a  relief.  That  " justice  should 
be  done/'  even  though  we  lie  prostrate  beneath  it,  is  the 
noblest  sentiment  of  the  repentant  soul ;  the  one  by  which 
it  most  surely  re-assumes  its  filial  relationship  to  the  Lord 
of  Justice.  To  encourage  an  opposite  frame  of  mind,  and 
inspire  urgent  desire  for  escape  from  punishment,  with  re 
course  to  such  a  method  as  priestly  absolution  for  avoiding 
it,  is  assuredly  very  far  from  an  elevating  system  of  religious 
training.  The  slave  shrinks  from  the  lash,  and  appeals 
to  the  Overseer  to  intercede  on  his  behalf.  The  son  cries, 
"Punish  me,  for  I  have  deserved  punishment,  but  only 
receive  me  again.  That  is  all  I  desire." 

A  very  marked  distinction  has  existed  at  all  times  be 
tween  the  two  kinds  of  sacrifices ;  those  which  were  intended 
for  a  propitiation  and  vicarious  satisfaction  for  sin,  and  those 
which  were  meant  as  expressions  of  love  and  devotion,  and 
of  the  inner  sense  of  the  rightfulness  that  all  which  man  is 
and  has  should  be  given  to  God.  The  High-Church  clergy, 
like  the  extreme  Evangelicals,  insist  on  treating  the  death 
of  Christ  in  the  former  light,  and  outrun  them  in  making 
the  Eucharist  a  magical  appropriation  of  that  event ;  a 
"  feeding  on  a  sacrifice."  But  the  Anglicans  alone  of  the 
two  parties  in  the  National  Church  have  attempted  to  re 
store,  not  only  the  vicarious,  but  the  devotional  type  of 
sacrifice,  and  by  their  whole  scheme  of  an  ornate  cultus 
and  perpetual  services  and  ceremonies,  to  renew  in  our 
century  the  formalism  of  an  earlier  age.  Not  wholly  with 
out  tenderness  can  we  view  this  movement,  judging  it  to  be 
in  a  great  measure  the  result  of  a  fervent  longing  to  retain 
a  grasp  of  religion  amid  the  gathering  clouds  of  doubt — a 
grasp  unhappily  fastened,  not  on  its  realities,  but  on  its 
mere  vesture  and  dress.  But  it  is  none  the  less  a  sad,  a 
deplorable  spectacle.  The  original  idea  of  such  sacrifice  of 
formal  devotion  as  we  are  speaking  of,  has  been  compared  to 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  377 

a  child's  delight  in  bringing  home  to  his  mother  the  weeds 
and  pebbles  with  which  he  has  been  himself  delighted  in 
his  daily  walk.  The  mother  accepts  them  lovingly  as 
tokens  of  her  child's  love  ;  and  the  child  brings  them  again 
and  again  and  soon  makes  a  habit,  well  nigh  sacred,  of 
giving  them  to  her  continually.  At  last  it  dawns  on  his 
mind  that  she  cannot  possibly  really  care  for  them;  that 
they  are  of  no  value  to  her  ;  and  that  she  has  only  accepted 
them  because  she  has  understood  that  he  meant  them  as 
offerings  of  affection.  "What  now  is  he  to  do  ?  Is  he  to  go 
on  giving  his  mother  the  weeds  and  pebbles  still  ?  He  has 
nothing  else  to  give,  and  his  heart  yearns  to  give  something, 
and  the  habit  has  become  so  fixed  that  there  seems  a  want 
of  filial  affection  in  discontinuing  it.  Yery  probably,  then, 
he  maintains  the  practice  for  a  time ;  but  it  is  obvious  that 
the  original  purpose  is  lost,  the  beauty  of  the  action  gone. 
If  he  persist  long  in  keeping  up  the  dry  and  now  unmean 
ing  custom,  a  mechanical  spirit  inevitably  creeps  over  his 
performance  of  it,  and  all  his  relations  with  his  parent 
become  falsified  and  distorted.  At  last,  one  day  she  says 
to  him,  "Bring  no  more  vain  oblations.  My  son,  give  me 
thine  heart.  Show  thy  love  to  me,  not  in  gifts  which  I  heed 
not,  but  in  serving  my  other  children,  thy  brothers."  If  he 
hears  this  warning  and  still  persists  in  presenting  his  paltry 
childish  offerings,  what  hope  is  there  for  him  ?  How  is  he 
ever  to  enter  into  true  relations  with  his  mother  ? 

2.  The  second  grave  objection  to  the  use  of  Confession, 
except  in  cases  of  extraordinary  guilt,  is  that  it  must  inevi 
tably  tend  to  enervate  the  moral  constitution.  To  acquire  the 
habit  of  running  to  a  priest  whenever  we  feel  penitent,  or 
desire  to  strengthen  our  good  resolutions,  or,  in  fact,  are  pass 
ing  through  any  of  the  deeper  phases  of  the  inner  life  when 
God's  spirit  is  striving  with  ours,  can  surely  have  no  other 


378  AURICULAR  CONFESSION  IN 

result  than  to  make  us  weaker  and  less  able  to  walk  alone 
with  God  every  year  of  our  lives.  The  conscience  which 
Js  itself  brought  to  another  bar,  is  no  longer  the  supreme 
Judge  within  us.  The  little  seed  of  good  which  is  fruc 
tifying  in  the  depth  of  our  hearts,  may  only  too  probably 
be  killed  by  exposure.  The  more  able  and  powerful  may 
be  our  Confessor,  the  more  certain  is  it  that  he  must  shortly 
assume  in  our  minds  a  place  of  authority  which  will  leave  us 
small  remnant  of  self-reliance  in  matters  wherein  our  judg 
ment  may  differ  from  his  as  to  the  rectitude  of  an  action ; 
and  if  we  reach  the  point  of  blindly  accepting  his  ipse  dixit 
in  cases  of  duty,  against  our  own  conscience,  where  are  we, 
but  in  the  net  of  the  Jesuit's  "  obedience  "  ?  Of  course,  as 
in  every  other  history  of  the  struggle  between  Authority 
and  Freedom,  there  are  endless  fine  things  to  be  said  of 
the  invaluable  use  of  authority  in  keeping  foolish  and  igno 
rant  people  straight,  and  of  the  terrible  consequences  of 
freedom  to  anybody  short  of  a  sage  and  a  saint.  Still,  if 
we  have  read  aright  the  great  purpose  for  which  God  has 
made  us,  and  are  not  mistaken  in  supposing  that  He  sees 
it  best  to  permit  all  the  evil  and  misery  which  arise  from 
moral  freedom,  sooner  than  leave  us  without  it,  we  may 
reasonably  demur  to  the  stride  which  priests  would  take 
in  curtailing  that  liberty,  were  we  to  allow  them  to  be 
once  more  the  guardians  of  the  consciences  of  the  nations. 
Even  if  the  ethics  taught  by  any  "  Catholic "  priesthood 
were  uniformly  pure  and  high,  if  vile  casuistry  were  a 
thing  unknown  in  their  books,  if  Catholic  nations  and 
individuals  trained  by  the  Confessional  obviously  held  the 
clearest  ideas  of  truth  and  uprightness,  if  ecclesiastical 
behaviour  never  betrayed  signs  of  shuffling  or  crooked- 
mindedness,  even  if  all  these  things  were  so,  we  should 
still  gravely  object  to  permitting  the  Anglican  clergy,  or 
any  other  order  of  clergy  in  the  world,  to  assume  the  sway 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  379 

over  men's  consciences  obtained  by  the  practice  of  Auricular 
Confession.  As  things  actually  are,  it  would  seem  to  us 
one  of  the  most  grievous  dangers  to  public  morality  to 
entrust  them  with  such  power  for  a  generation,  even  though 
we  fully  appreciate  the  lofty  morality  of  their  present  in 
structions. 

In  this,  as  in  every  other  of  the  High-Church  restorations 
of  Romish  practices,  we  find  ourselves  drawn  into  discuss 
ing  as  a  novelty  that  which  in  truth  has  been  an  experi 
ment  tried  on  an  enormous  scale  for  many  centuries,  and  of 
which  there  is  no  real  need  to  speak  save  by  rehearsing  the 
obvious  results.  Which  are  the  people  of  Europe  whose 
characters  are  most  straightforward  and  manly,  who  care 
most  for  public  justice,  and  whose  word  is  most  gene 
rally  accepted  by  friends  and  foes  as  trustworthy?  Is 
it  the  nations  who  have  enjoyed  all  the  supposed  moral 
benefits  of  Auricular  Confession  from  the  Dark  Ages  till 
to-day, — the  Spaniards,  the  Greeks,  the  Neapolitans,  the 
Irish?  Or  does  it  chance  that  even  in  those  Catholic 
countries  an  English  or  American  heretic,  the  descendant 
of  a  dozen  generations  of  unconfessing  heretics,  is  believed 
on  his  word  and  trusted  more  readily  than  a  native  ?  How 
is  it  that  every  foreigner  points  with  envy  and  admiration 
to  the  public  spirit  and  love  of  justice  which,  as  M.  Taine 
says,  "  support  England  on  a  million  columns "  ?  How 
is  it  that  we  are  not  learning  public  and  private  virtue 
from  the  priest-led  nations  of  Europe,  if  the  Confessional 
be  the  true  school  of  goodness  ?  How  is  it  that  the  ages 
when  it  reigned  supreme  and  unquestioned,  were  worse 
ages  than  any  the  world  has  since  beheld?  How  is  it 
that  we  are  growing  a  little  more  humane,  a  little  more 
truthful,  a  little  more  sober,  as  the  generations  bear  us 
further  from  the  last  days  even  of  Protestant  Confession; 
while  the  comparison  of  English  domestic  morality  with 


380  AURICULAR   CONFESSION  IN 

that  of  Southern  Europe,  and  of  English  charities  with 
those  of  any  other  land,  show  that  even  as  regards  the 
virtues  which  the  Confessional  is  supposed  expressly  to 
guard  and  to  inculcate,  we  are  no  whit  the  worse  for  its 

disuse  ? 1 

3.  Lastly,  we  have  to  consider  among  the  objections  to 
the  revival  of  the  practice  of  Confession,  the  desecrating 
influence  on  the  spiritual  life  involved  in  the  exposure  of 
the  recesses  of  the  soul.  The  manual  already  quoted 2  says 
that  penitents  have  two  objections  to  Confession.  One  is, 
that  they  are  afraid  the  clergyman  will  betray  their  secrets 
— an  idle  fear.  The  other  is,  that  they  are  ashamed — a 
sentiment  which  ought  to  be  conquered,  because  "  sin  not 
forgiven  now  will  be  proclaimed  to  our  endless  shame  here 
after,  before  men  and  devils,  holy  angels  and  God  Himself." 
Our  inquiry  is  whether  this  latter  sentiment  be  wholly  a 
bad  one,  which  a  man  will  be  permanently  the  better  for 
disregarding  and  trampling  on  ?  This  is  a  very  important 
point  in  the  whole  subject  we  are  considering;  and  to  do 
it  justice  we  must  pause  an  instant  to  define  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  shame  in  question. 

There  is,  first,  the  kind  of  shame  which  consists  in  the 
pain  of  exposure,  the  sense  that  we  are  fallen  in  the  esteem 
of  the  person  who  learns  our  guilt,  and  perhaps  have  be 
come  the  object  of  his  contempt.  To  those  in  whom  the  sen 
timent  which  phrenologists  style  Love  of  Approbation  is 
strongly  developed,  shame  of  this  sort  is  torture;  and  to 

1  In  connexion  with  this  subject  it  may  be  remarked,  that  the  Fathers  of  the 
Reformation  were  all  brought  up  on  the  Catholic  system  and  never  got  beyond 
Catholic   ethics.       If  some   of   their   actions  lend  a  shade   of  colour  to  Dr. 
Littledalc's  application  to  them  of  his  term  of  "  scoundrel  martyrs,"   he  may 
look  to  "  the  hole  of  the  pit  whence  they  were  digged,"  or  rather  whence  they 
partially  lifted  themselves  heavenward,  for  their  exculpation. 

2  Pardon  through  tbe  Precious  Blood. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  381 


all,  save  the  most  hardened,  it  is  probably  one  of  the  bitter 
est  drops  in  the  cup  of  life.  Now  it  is  clear  that  it  is  this 
common  kind  of  shame  which  the  advocates  of  Confession 
have  in  their  mind  as  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  practice, 
because  they  constantly  insist  that  the  sinner  had  better 
make  up  his  mind  to  compound  for  the  shame  of  telling  his 
sin  to  his  priest,  because  "sin  not  forgiven  now  will  be 
proclaimed  to  our  endless  shame  hereafter,  before  men  and 
devils,  holy  angels  and  God  Himself."1  (How  anything  is 
to  be  proclaimed  before  Gfod  hereafter,  which,  by  implication, 
must  be  concealed  from  Him  now,  we  cannot  stop  to  con 
sider.)  Thus  Confession  is  represented  rather  in  the  light 
of  a  security  for  secresy,  than,  as  some  liberal  writers 
have  more  charitably  supposed  it,  an  outburst  of  honesty. 
It  is  recommended  as  a  wise  plan  for  confining  to  the 
ear  of  a  single  clergyman  secrets  which,  if  not  so  judi 
ciously  guarded,  will  infallibly  be  published  hereafter  to 
the  sound  of  the  Last  Trumpet.  Some  shame  and  ex 
posure  the  sinner  is  assured  he  must  needs  endure.  Who 
would  not  seize  the  opportunity  of  limiting  the  disgrace  to 
a  single  auditor,  rather  than  incur  the  terrible  penalty  of 
being  pilloried  before  the  assembled  universe — which  of 
course  will  have  nothing  better  to  do  than  to  stand  aghast 
and  listen  to  the  long  catalogue  of  our  misdemeanours? 

Now,  putting  aside  this  piece  of  ecclesiastical  bribery,  let 
us  hold  to  the  point  of  the  moral  advantage  or  disadvan 
tage  of  braving  the  shame  of  exposure  so  far  as  to  confess 
our  sins  to  a  priest.  Is  the  process  likely  to  be  ethically 
beneficial  or  the  reverse  ?  It  would  seem  that  the  pain  in 
question  is  of  very  varied  influence  on  the  characters  of 
those  who  endure  it.  To  estimate  its  results  aright,  we 
must  distinguish  carefully  between  the  effects  of  being  ex 
posed  involuntarily  and  publicly,  and  to  all  our  little  world 
1  Pardon  through  the  Precious  Blood,  p.  15. 


382  AURICULAR   CONFESSION  IN 

at  once ;  or  of  being  exposed  voluntarily  only  to  one  person, 
and  under  peculiar  conditions  of  penitence  pleading  on  our 
behalf  for  a  restoration  of  esteem.  And,  again,  we  must 
distinguish  between  the  exposure  of  great  sins,  proving  our 
whole  life  to  have  been  a  hollow  pretence,  or  that  of  such 
ordinary  weaknesses  as  do  not  entirely  forfeit  our  claim  to 
respect.  Public  involuntary  exposure  of  great  sins  com 
monly  proves  too  overwhelming  an  agony  to  leave  the  soul 
any  sufficient  balance  of  self-respect  or  hope  enabling  it 
even  to  retain  such  virtues  as  were  previously  preserved. 
The  miserable  swindler,  or  fallen  woman,  under  such  dis 
grace,  sinks  commonly  in  despair,  if  not  in  drunkenness, 
into  complete  moral  collapse.  Only  in  exceptional  cases 
does  public  involuntary  exposure  of  either  vice  or  crime, 
clearing  away  all  fogs  of  self-deception,  leave  behind  it 
strength  of  character  and  religious  or  conscientious  feeling 
sufficient  to  enable  the  fallen  person  to  start  afresh  from 
new  ground,  and  become  virtuous  in  a  truer  sense  than 
ever.  As  all  who  have  studied  the  characters  of  children, 
or  of  persons  convicted  of  crime,  are  well  aware,  this  shame 
of  exposure  is  a  punishment  to  be  used  with  extremest  cau 
tion;  very  useful  as  a  threat,  but  nearly  always  injurious 
as  an  actual  infliction*  It  is  doubtless  most  unwholesome 
for  any  one  to  go  on  bearing  an  entirely  false  character  with 
those  around  him,  and  to  be  placed  upon  a  pedestal  when 
he  deserves  to  be  on  a  gibbet ;  or  to  be  allowed  to  weave 
a  romance  of  self- exculpation  and  glorification  when  he 
actually  merits  nothing  but  blame  and  compassion.1  Even 
the  sudden  downfall  of  absolute  disgrace  may  be  less  dan 
gerous  than  this.  But,  as  a  rule,  public  exposure  of  guilt 
is  a  terrible  and  most  perilous  trial,  to  which  they  who  best 

1  This  is  said  to  be  peculiarly  the  case  with  inmates  of  Penitentiaries,  who 
invariably  enter  them  with  a  rigmarole  of  a  history  taken  out  of  a  penny 
novelist,  and  with  whom  no  real  reformation  ever  begins  till  they  admit  this 
pseudo -biography  to  be  a  lie,  and  tell  the  plain  facts  of  their  lives. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  383 

understand  human  nature  are  most  reluctant  to  expose  any 
fellow-creature  whose  reclamation  is  possible  by  other  means. 

Does  it  follow  that  private  voluntary  exposure — a  very 
much  milder  process,  no  doubt — is  a  particularly  healthful 
one  ?  The  pang  of  shame  once  passed,  is  passed  for  ever. 
No  one  can  ever  feel  it  again  in  its  sharpness.  Is  it  good 
to  have  it  behind  us  in  our  experience,  as  a  thing  we  have 
gone  through  and  know  the  worst  of ;  or  to  have  it  always 
before  us  as  a  formless  horror  of  warning  ?  I  may  be 
wrong  in  my  conclusion,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  pain 
we  should  feel  the  first  time  we  practised  Auricular  Con 
fession  would  leave  us  harder  and  more  shameless  ever 
after.  It  might  seem  to  us  right  to  endure  it.  I  can  readily 
imagine  a  stern  sense  of  self-revenge  and  thirst  for  expia 
tion  making  a  man  force  his  lips  to  utter  his  own  condemna 
tion,  as  Cranmer  held  his  guilty  hand  in  the  fire.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  penance,  even  if  undertaken  in  the 
purest  spirit  of  contrition,  would  leave  us  any  the  better  for 
practising  it. 

This  matter,  however,  is  one  on  which  I  do  not  wish  to 
insist.  The  important  point  seems  to  be  that  of  which  the 
advocates  of  Confession  take  no  notice,  namely,  that  there 
is  another  kind  of  shame  beside  the  shame  of  exposure 
There  is  a  shame  which  is  "  a  glory  and  grace,"  and  which 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  "  What  will  he  think  of  me  ?  " 
which  is  all  they  ever  seem  to  contemplate.  It  cannot 
be  a  dream  that  there  is  a  spiritual,  no  less  than  a  physical, 
modesty  implanted  in  all  natures  save  the  very  lowest ; 
and  if  there  be  such  a  sentiment,  the  mode  by  which 
it  can  most  grossly  be  outraged  is  assuredly  by  the  reve 
lation  to  a  human  being  of  that  which  passes  at  the  very 
meeting-place  between  the  repentant  soul  and  God.  The 
shame  of  such  violation  of  all  the  sanctities  of  the  spiritual 
temple  as  is  included  in  the  idea  of  a  "  General  Confession," 


384  AURICULAR  CONFESSION  IN 

or  "making  a  clean  breast"  to  a  priest,  seems  (to  one  to 
whom  the  idea  has  not  been  familiarized)  something  actually 
portentous  ;  something  which  must  leave  the  soul  which  has 
thus  exposed  itself  no  shelter  evermore  even  in  the  deepest 
recesses  of  the  spiritual  world.  To  have  our  whole  past 
laid  bare,  if  only  in  the  crude,  imperfect  way  in  which 
words  can  describe  it ;  to  talk  to  a  man  of  all  that  is  most 
awful,  most  agonizing,  and  yet  (if  we  have  repented  and 
been  restored)  most  inexpressibly  tender  and  sacred  in  our 
memories;  to  uncover  every  grave  of  dead  sins  in  our  "God's 
Acre,"  and  exhume  the  contents  for  the  autopsy  of  an 
ecclesiastical  coroner, — all  this  is  so  purely  shocking  to 
the  unsophisticated  sense,  that  we  feel  as  if,  before  it  could 
be  done,  the  soul  must  be  drugged  with  false  excitements. 
Of  course  we  shall  be  told  that  it  is  to  no  ordinary  human 
friend  that  auricular  confession  is  made,  but  to  a  priest  who 
stands  as  the  representative  of  God,  and  holds  the  keys  of 
remission  from  Him.  Of  the  monstrous  nature  of  the  last 
pretension  I  shall  not  now  speak ;  but  of  the  fact  that  it  is 
our  priest,  and  not  our  brother,  mother,  friend,  to  whom  we 
are  called  to  make  confession,  is,  I  insist,  an  aggravation 
of  the  evil  complained  of,  not  a  mitigation  of  it.  Love, 
deep  and  perfect,  the  union  of  two  souls  filled  with  the 
same  love  to  God,  and  wont  to  approach  Him  together,  may 
indeed  justify,  because  it  sanctifies,  confidences  and  self- 
revelations  which  would  be  hateful  if  made  to  one  less  near 
or  dear.  Though  even  in  the  tenderest  friendship  it  is 
certain  that  many  reservations  must  be  made,  yet  a  great 
deal  which  no  one  else  may  know,  may,  without  any 
violation  of  what  I  have  named  spiritual  modesty,  be  con 
fided  to  the  one  who  is  "  soul  of  our  soul,"  the  nearest  to  us 
of  created  beings,  though  yet  far  less  near  than  our  God.1 

1  It  is  remarkable  that  the  Mosaic  law  of  Confession  says  nothing  about  a 
priest,  but  makes  the  penitent  confess  to  his  companion. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  385 

But  the  relation  of  penitent  and  confessor,  as  understood 
by  Christian  churches,  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
this  union  of  hearts.  There  is  nothing  reciprocal  in  it,  nor 
does  the  penitent  suppose  the  priest  has  any  interest  in 
him  beyond  one  of  pure  benevolence.  For  obvious  reasons, 
it  becomes  especially  dangerous  and  shocking  for  any  such 
natural  human  affections  to  subsist  where  the  sexes  of  the 
two  are  opposite.  The  confessor  is  not  a  friend,  and  has 
none  of  a  friend's  sacred  rights.  But  he  claims,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  be  just  that  very  thing  which  it  is  most 
mischievous  to  employ,  namely,  a  human  "  go-between," 
standing  in  the  place  of  God  to  us,  and  therefore  hindering 
us  from  accomplishing  that  one  act  wherein  lies  salvation, 
namely,  looking  straight  up  to  God,  and  enduring  as  best 
we  may  the  awful  Light  of  Light  shining  full  on  our  dark 
ness.  The  intervention  of  a  priest  in  such  a  moment  must 
be  tantamount,  I  conceive,  to  the  nullification  of  half  the 
purifying  power  of  repentance.  And,  further,  it  must  es 
tablish  in  our  minds  a  tribunal  which  is  not  that  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  within  us, — a  Pardoner  who  is  not  our  God. 
To  get  behind  and  beyond  this  priestly  interloper,  and  once 
more  come  directly  to  the  Father,  must  ever  after  be  ten 
fold  more  difficult.  In  fact,  I  seriously  question  whether 
any  man  long  accustomed  to  auricular  confession  can 
really  so  break  the  law  of  association  of  ideas  as  to  thrust 
aside  in  hours  of  penitence  the  thought  of  his  confessor, 
and  think  only  simply  of  God  against  whom  he  has  sinned, 
and  to  whom  he  desires  once  more  to  bring  his  sin-stained 
heart. 

We  have  now  seen  reason  to  doubt  that  the  endurance 
of  the  lower  form  of  shame  felt  by  a  penitent  in  con 
fession  would  be  of  moral  advantage  ;  and  we  have  seen 
(I  apprehend)  excellent  reason  for  believing  that  the  viola 
tion  of  sacred  feelings  which  would  form  the  higher  shame, 

25 


386  AURICULAR  CONFESSION  IN 

would   prove   spiritually   injurious   in  an   almost  indefinite 
degree. 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  there  are  unhappily 
many  natures  to  whom  these  arguments  do  not  apply,  for 
the  simple  reason  that,  by  an  odious  inversion  of  healthy 
sentiment,  they  find  self-exposure  not  a  pain  but  a  pleasure. 
Nobody  who  knows  much  of  the  world  will  be  liable  to  fall 
into  the  error  of  supposing  that  every  one  who  attends  the 
Confessional  does  serious  violence  to  himself,  or  herself,  or 
makes  any  genuine  sacrifice,  by  such  an  act.  On  the  con 
trary,  just  as  fashionable  physicians  are  wearied  by  the 
needless  pathological  disclosures  of  egotistic  patients,  so,  in 
all  Catholic  countries,  fashionable  confessors  have  complained 
of  the  fatal  facility  with  which  their  penitents  talk  of  the 
state  of  their  souls,  and  detail  their  spiritual  symptoms 
with  as  much  obvious  gratification  as  others  find  in  de 
scribing  those  of  their  bodies.  On  aime  mieux  dire  du  mal 
de  soi-meme  que  de  nen  point  parler,  says  La  Rochefoucauld, 
and  the  Confessional  is  often  the  best  evidence  of  the  truth 
of  the  remark.  Is  it  needful  to  observe  that  to  such  sickly 
hysterical  natures,  whose  souls  possess  no  sanctuary  which 
they  are  not  willing  at  any  moment  to  violate,  there  cannot 
be  a  worse  peril  than  the  presentation,  in  guise  of  a  self- 
denying  duty,  of  a  practice  which  is  really  to  them  one  of 
vicious  self-indulgence  ? 

Does  any  reader  ask  :  Are  we,  then,  never  to  be 
absolutely  true  to  any  one,  never  to  stand  wholly  revealed 
to  one  single  fellow- creature  ?  Goethe  says — most  falsely 
as  I  take  it  —  that  we  all  have  that  concealed  in  our 
hearts  which  if  revealed  would  make  us  an  object  of 
abhorrence  to  those  who  love  us.  Is  this  nightmare  to 
haunt  us  for  ever,  and  are  we  never  to  cast  it  off  and  feel 
we  are  free  and  honest,  and  may  look  the  world  in  the 
face  ? 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.         387 

I  believe  that  some  feelings  like  these  are  at  the  bottom 
of  a  good  deal  of  the  favour  which  the  suggestion  of  a 
revival  of  Confession  has  met  with  in  England,  and  they 
have  a  right,  undoubtedly,  to  be  weighed  in  our  estimate  of 
its  benefits  and  ill  results.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  sen 
timent  in  question  is  essentially  one  belonging  to  what  may 
be  termed  the  second  period  of  youth.  We  are  then  still 
in  the  age  of  fervent  enthusiasms  and  of  very  partial  self- 
knowledge.  "We  have  violated  our  early  vows  of  heroic 
virtue,  and  are  sore  with  the  bruises  of  our  falls.  At  such 
an  age  we  naturally  feel  an  intense  desire  to  come  into 
closest  communion  with  the  souls  we  love,  and  to  be  utterly 
and  truly  known  to  them,  never  cheating  them  of  affection 
which  we  feel  we  do  not  deserve.  We  are  tempted  to  pour 
out  all  the  accusations  against  ourselves  which  even  exag 
gerated  self-reproach  can  dictate.  But  in  later  life  and  with 
calmer  judgment,  we  recognize  that  such  "auricular  confes 
sions  "  of  love  and  friendship  are  in  no  way  needful  to  place 
even  the  tenderest  relationships  on  a  footing  of  absolute  can 
dour  and  veracity.  Nay,  we  learn  to  know  that  it  is  so  im 
possible  to  see  ourselves  altogether  truthfully  (our  own  breath 
obscuring  the  mirror  in  which  we  attempt  to  gaze),  and 
still  more  impossible  to  convey  to  another  mind  by  spoken 
words  what  we  truly  are,  that  it  is,  in  reality,  little  or  no 
gain  to  genuine  mutual  understanding  to  interchange  such 
confidences.  If  we  do  not  add  the  history  of  our  virtues^ 
to  those  of  our  faults ;  describe  where  we  conquered  as  well 
as  where  we  fell ;  how  we  struggled,  no  less  than  when  we 
yielded  to  temptation ;  in  a  word,  paint  all  the  lights  as 
well  as  all  the  shadows  of  our  lives,  we  are  in  fact  giving 
our  friend  a  picture  of  ourselves  as  false  in  its  own  way 
as  mere  self-laudation  would  be  in  another.  What  sin 
cerity  really  demands  in  friendship  is,  that  there  should 
be  nothing  in  our  outward  conduct  or  inward  desires  or 


- 


388  A  URICULAR  CONFESSION  IN 

intentions  noiv,  which,  if  our  friend  should  see  and  under 
stand,  would  alter  his  opinion  of  us  for  the  worse.  He 
has  a  right  to  unlock  our  hearts,  and  see  all  that  is  there. 
God  alone  has  right  of  entrance  into  the  deep  chambers 
of  memory. 

Thus,  then,  I  apprehend,  the  thirst  for  self- revelation, 
which  may  lead  some  young  or  weak  spirits  to  the  Confes 
sional,  is  one  always  to  be  outgrown  with  advancing  wisdom. 
Still  more  certainly  must  it,  I  apprehend,  be  outgrown  by 
advancing  spiritual  life,  till  a  point  be  reached  wherein 
Divine  communion,  ever  enjoyed  in  the  depths  of  the  soul, 
would  render  the  suggestion  of  such  an  exposure  hateful  as 
that  of  any  other  sacrilege. 

To  sum  up  the  argument  of  the  present  paper.  The  ad 
vantages  to  be  derived  from  the  practice  of  Confession, — the 
benefits  of  self-knowledge,  moral  instruction  and  priestly 
guardianship, — cannot  be  weighed  against  the  evils  it  in 
volves, — the  materializing  of  penitence,  the  enervation  of 
the  moral  nature,  and  the  desecration  of  the  spiritual  life. 
A  method  of  combating  sin  which  involves  evils  of  such 
magnitude,  becomes  itself  an  evil.  Even  supposing  that 
every  tale  of  grossness  and  misuse  be  nothing  but  malig 
nant  falsehood,  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  remains  in 
the  inherent  mischief  of  the  practice  of  Confession  to  urge 
every  friend  of  morality  and  religion  to  oppose  it  to  the 
utmost  of  his  power. 

"What  is  the  true  Confession  ?  The  life  which  shall  be 
open  and  honest  as  the  day,  and  yet  whose  inner  springs 
shall  rise  pure  from  hidden  depths  where  no  defilement 
may  reach  them  ?  It  is  not  very  hard  to  picture  what  such 
a  life  might  be.  Men  go  about  to  urge  us  to  confess  our  sins 
alone,  and  to  confess  them  to  a  single  priest,  while  they 
are  content  that  we  keep  closest  silence  to  our  nearest  and 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  389 

dearest  concerning  much  that  we  are,  and  more  that  we  think. 
Let  them  extend  their  notions  of  honesty  a  little  further.1 
Let  them  bid  us  speak  out  what  we  think,  and  live  out  what 
we  speak ;  seem  what  we  are,  and  be  what  we  seem.  Let 
them  exhort  us  to  have  no  secrets,  save  of  sins  long  since 
repented  and  passed  into  God's  keeping ;  and  of  generous 
deeds,  in  regard  to  which  the  left  hand  may  not  know  what 
the  right  has  done.  Let  them  bid  us  strive  for  that  noble 
state  wherein  we  should  feel  assured  that  nothing  could  ever 
be  discovered  concerning  us,  in  word,  deed  or  thought, 
which  would  not  make  those  who  love  us  already,  love 
us  still  more.  And  then  let  them  add  one  counsel  more 
concerning  a  part  of  life  which  in  old  times  men  heeded 
most  of  all  should  be  honest,  but  which  in  these  days  is 
wrapped  by  thousands  of  us  in  a  haze  of  obscurity,  if  not 
of  deception.  Let  them  bid  us  confess  before  friends  and 
foes,  everywhere,  and  at  all  times  when  the  avowal  may  be 
called  for,  what  we  in  our  inmost  hearts  believe  concerning 
God  and  duty  and  immortality;  so  that  neither  the  fear 
of  forfeiting  the  worldly  advantages  of  orthodoxy  on  one 
side,  or  that  of  meeting  the  sneer  of  scepticism  on  the  other, 
shall  drive  us  one  step  out  of  the  straight  path  of  absolute 
sincerity. 

In  a  recent  sermon,  Mr.  Martineau  spoke  of  keeping 
secrets  "  not  from  God,  but  with  Him ; "  and  advised  his 
.hearers  to  make  it  a  rule  "  not  to  speak  of  everything  which 
passes  between  the  soul  and  God ;  not  to  betray  every  burden 

1  The  self-told  story  of  the  lady  (The  World  and  the  Church,  p.  225)  who 
went  secretly  from  her  father's  house  to  Confession  to  Mr.  Goodwin  in  a 
London  church,  and  kept  all  her  doings  a  mystery  till  after  some  interviews, 
is  a  very  good  sample  of  the  way  in  which  Auricular  Confession  makes  a 
man  or  woman  more  honest.  To  tell  our  past  sins  to  a  stranger  who  has  no 
natural  right  to  know  anything  ahout  us,  while  we  hide  our  whole  present 
course  of  action  and  thinking  from  the  parents,  hrothers  and  sisters  whose 
love  and  confidence  we  continue  to  accept, — this  forsooth  is  to  he  specially 
pious  and  truthful ! 


390  AURICULAR   CONFESSION. 


He  lays  upon  us,  but  to  reserve  somewhat  which  shall  be  His 
and  ours  alone."  Between  such  a  lesson  as  this  and  that  of 
the  Anglican  Manuals  of  Confession  which  we  have  now  re 
viewed,  there  seems  to  lie  the  whole  width  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  horizon. 


ESSAY  XIV. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION.1 


[The  following  brief  Essay,  written  while  this  book  has  been  in  the  press,  is 
here  reprinted  as  supplementing  the  expression  of  the  writer's  views  on 
the  Development  of  Morals  in  Essay  I.] 


HISTORIES  of  the  progress  of  the  Intellect  and  of  Religious 
Ideas  have  occupied  the  attention  of  scholars  for  a  consider 
able  time.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  we  should  not  now 
direct  our  studies  rather  to  the  history  of  the  Religious 
Sentiment,  and  to  the  development  through  the  ages,  not  of 
human  thoughts  about  Grod,  but  of  human  feelings  towards 
Him.  The  furthest  insight  we  are  able  to  obtain  into  our 
own  nature,  seems  to  show  that  the  share  which  ideas  exer 
cise  in  the  production  -of  feelings  is  superficial  compared 
to  the  profound  influence  of  feelings  in  the  formation  of 
opinions;  and  that  the  transmission  of  ideas  by  means  of 
oral  or  written  language,  is,  in  moral  and  religious  matters, 
of  the  smallest  possible  value,  unless,  by  some  extraneous 
means,  the  feelings  may  be  brought  up  to  the  level  whereto 
the  ideas  belong.  Only  in  our  day  have  the  materials  for 
anything  like  a  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  Religious  Senti 
ment  been  collected ;  and  much  yet  remains  obscure ;  but  the 
outline  of  such  a  progress  begins  to  be  apparent.  The  Moral 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Manchester  Friend,  January  15th,  1872. 


392      THE    EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION. 

Sense,  out  of  which  the  higher  part  of  religious  feeling  (all 
which  distinguishes  human  piety  from  a  dog's  loyalty)  must 
necessarily  grow,  is  itself  now  recognized  as  a  slowly  de 
veloped  thing,  hardly  perceptible  in  the  savage,  and  only 
through  long  millenniums  acquiring  the  shape  in  which  we 
find  it  within  the  historic  era.  The  barbaric  "  ages  before 
morality,"  of  which  Mr.  Jowett  long  ago  spoke,  have,  as 
Mr.  Bagehot  remarks,1  been  rendered  clear  to  us  by  the  re 
searches  of  Sir  John  Lubbock  and  Mr.  Tylor  into  the  state 
of  savages  at  the  present  day  ;  and,  starting  from  this 
earliest  period,  we  may  now  trace  the  gradual  development 
together  of  the  Moral  Sense  and  Social  Affections;  and  of 
the  Religious  Sentiment  which  grows  with  their  growth  and 
strengthens  with  their  strength.  Without  in  any  way  in 
dorsing  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis,  that  the  Moral  Sense  is 
nothing  more  than  the  instincts  of  a  social  animal  developed 
under  the  conditions  of  human  life,  we  may  gladly  admit 
that, — even  as  the  immortal  part  in  us  seems  to  be  slowly 
built  up  within  the  scaffolding  of  our  animal  part,  from  the 
first  germ  of  being,  through  infant  and  childish  life  up  to 
manhood, — so  the  Moral  Sense,  which  is  the  sense  of  the  soul, 
is  developed  slowly  likewise,  not  only  in  the  individual,  but 
also  in  the  race,  during  the  millenniums  through  which  it 
has  emerged  from  the  brutal  into  the  human. 

1.  At  the  earliest  stage  of  religion,  the  savage  had  a 
vague  conception  of  invisible  Powers  lurking  behind  the 
forces  of  nature,  in  sun  and  moon,  star  and  thundercloud, 
in  the  mysterious  beasts  and  serpents,  in  trees  and  stones. 
In  other  words,  at  this  stage  of  Fetichism  he  possessed  the 
Sentiments  of  awe,  fear,  and  wonder, — but  nothing  higher. 
His  gods  could  have  no  moral  attributes,  because  his  own 
moral  nature  was  as  yet  too  immature  and  cloudy  to  project 
any  image  of  such  qualities  as  Justice  or  Truth.  He  recog- 
1  Fortnightly  Review,  December,  1871. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION.      393 

nized  neither  an  Orrauzd  nor  an  Ahrimanes,  but  only  unseen 
Wills  as  wayward  and  passion-led  as  his  own.1  To  take  a 
savage  at  this  stage  and  endeavour  to  convey  to  him  a  true 
conception  of  the  goodness  of  God,  is  labour  thrown  away. 
"  Good,"  as  one  such  barbarian  said  to  a  French  missionary, 
"is  when  I  take  my  enemy's  wives.  Evil  is  when  he  takes 
mine."  The  man  who  has  no  higher  sense  of  goodness  than 
this,  is  as  incapable  of  feeling  Divine  goodness,  as  a  table  or 
a  door  is  incapable  of  feeling  the  benevolence  of  its  owner. 
According  to  the  admirable  simile  used  by  a  writer  on  Dar 
winism  in  Macmillan's  Magazine,  he  is  as  little  conscious  of 
such  character  in  God  as  a  jelly-fish  is  of  the  presence  of  a 
man,  whom  a  bird  or  a  mouse  will  perceive  and  fear ;  and 
whom  a  dog  will  so  far  understand  as  to  be  able  to  love. 
Only  through  a  long  upward  course,  in  which  intellectual 
instruction  will  by  no  means  perform  the  chief  part,  can  the 
savage  be  brought  to  the  level  whereon  he  can  have  any 
comprehension  of  goodness,  properly  so  called. 

2.  In  the  second  stage,  the  gods  are  recognized  to  be 
Just,  that  is,  to  exercise  a  certain  amount  of  judicial  control 
over  human  affairs,  precisely  corresponding  to  the  point 
which  men's  conception  of  justice  has  attained.  This  is  the 
period  at  which  Hesiod  warns  rapacious  kings  to  fear  Zeus, 
whose  all-beholding  eye  witnesses  their  tyranny.  But  at 
the  same  epoch  this  justice-executing  Zeus  is  unhesitatingly 
credited  with  horrible  personal  vices  and  base  deceptions. 
Even  long  ages  afterwards,  when  Pindar  exhorts  his  hearers — 

Then,  0  man  with  holy  fear, 
Touch  the  character  of  gods  : 
Of  their  sacred  nature  say 
Nought  irreverent,  nought  profane. 

— he  immediately  proceeds  to  glorify  in  glowing  verse  one  of 
the  worst  of  the  immoralities  of  Olympos.  It  is  quite  obvious 

1  See  ante,  p.  171. 


394      THE  EVOLUTION-  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION. 


that  it  never  so  much  as  crossed  the  poet's  mind  that  it  was 
"profane"  to  attribute  to  Zeus  the  grossest  licentiousness. 
Such  elevation  as  had  taken  place  in  the  Moral  Sense  of  the 
nation  was  as  yet  unreflected  in  the  character  attributed  to 
the  gods ;  and  indeed,  in  this  matter  of  the  virtue  of  chastity, 
was  probably  hardly  perceptible  at  all.  It  is  this  second 
stage  of  human  religion  to  which  poets  have  always  looked 
back  as  the  Golden  Age — 

Quando  al  placer  nemica 
Non  era  la  virtti ; 

— when  there  was  no  antithesis  between  pleasure  and  virtue, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  all  the  virtue  then  apprehended 
concerned  the  externals  of  justice  between  man  and  man, 
and  never  touched  the  inner  laws  of  personal  purity,  veracity, 
and  sobriety.  It  is  the  ideal  age  of  youth  which  St.  Paul 
describes  himself  as  having  passed  through :  "  For  I  was 
alive  without  the  law  once;  but,  when  the  commandment 
came,  sin  revived,  and  I  died." 

3.  The  third  stage  of  religion  is  attained  when  the  Moral 
Sense  and  the  Affections  have  both  received  considerable  de 
velopment.  Beyond  the  earlier  vague  and  imperfect  sense  of 
Justice,  the  moral  sense  is  now  so  far  extended  in  the  direc 
tions  of  Fidelity  and  Purity,  that  the  conception  of  Divine 
Holiness  begins  to  loom  on  the  mental  horizon,  and  the  at 
tribution  to  God  of  perfidy  or  licentiousness  ceases  to  be  en 
durable.  The  Affections,  likewise,  have  grown  in  the  direc 
tion  of  friendship,  favouritism,  and  patriotism,  so  far,  that 
the  notion  of  God  entertaining  friendship  for  particular  men, 
having  favourites  as  a  king  might  have,  and  loving  the  par 
ticular  tribe,  country,  or  town  of  the  worshipper,  begins  to 
be  a  familiar  part  of  the  ideal  of  His  character.  The  limita 
tions  in  both  cases  are  very  obvious.  The  Holiness  of  God 
is  not  felt  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  His  tempting  His 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION.      395 

creatures  to  sin,  or  inspiring  immoral  actions,  even  though 
His  own  nature  is  supposed  to  be  pure.  And,  as  the 
Affections  of  men,  at  this  stage,  are  but  slightly  influenced 
by  the  moral  qualities  of  the  persons  to  whom  they  are 
directed,  so  Jehovah  may  "  love  Jacob  and  hate  Esau," 
irrespective  of  the  baseness  of  the  one,  and  of  the  honest 
simplicity  of  the  other.  Further,  as  favouritism  has  always 
its  counterpart  in  equally  unreasonable  dislikes,  so  the 
peculiar  favour  of  God  shown  to  certain  men  or  tribes, 
always  implies  Divine  hatred  towards  their  neighbours  and 
enemies. 

This,  then,  the  stage  of  belief  in  a  partially  holy,  and  par 
tially  loving  God,  is  that  at  which  we  find  nearly  all  the  more 
religious  nations  of  antiquity  when  we  are  first  introduced  to 
them  ;  and  it  is,  alas !  the  stage  beyond  which  the  civilized 
world  has  hardly  advanced  a  step  to  this  day.  The  Hebrews 
had  manifestly  attained  to  it  in  the  age  in  which  the  Penta 
teuch  was  written,  when  God  was  in  a  measure  recognized  as 
holy,  and  yet  was  supposed  to  have  inspired  or  rewarded 
many  evil  actions ;  and  when  He  was  believed  to  love 
"Abraham  and  his  seed,"  and  to  hate  the  Egyptians  and 
Canaanites.  Only  the  later  Isaiah,  of  all  the  Old  Testa 
ment  writers,  soared  entirely  above  this  level,  and  felt  that 
Jehovah  loved  Edom  and  Moab  as  well  as  Israel,  and  would 
reconcile  all  nations  at  last.  In  India,  the  hymns  of  the 
Big-veda  prove  that  in  the  very  earliest  epoch  of  recorded 
religious  history,  the  sense  of  Divine  holiness  was  strong 
enough  to  prompt  confession  of  sin,  and  entreaties  for 
pardon ;  while  the  belief  in  the  partiality  of  the  Deity  for 
the  Aryans,  and  his  hatred  for  the  Dasyus  (their  dark-skinned 
enemies),  may  be  traced  as  clearly  in  the  maledictory  Psalms 
attributed  to  the  Eishi  Viswamitra  as  in  those  of  the  Bible 
attributed  to  David.  The  Zoroastrians  enjoyed,  from  the 
first,  exceedingly  high  conceptions  of  the  sanctity  and  benefi- 


396      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION. 

cence  of  Ahura-mazda ;  but  even  He  was  invoked  as  the 
enemy  of  their  enemies,  albeit,  with  the  blessed  underlying 
faith  that  in  the  final  day  He  would  pardon  Ahriman  himself, 
and  restore  to  His  love  all  the  souls  in  the  universe.  Practi 
cally,  as  we  have  said,  the  civilized  world  remains  at  this 
stage  to  the  present  hour.  /  The  Christian,  Jewish,  and 
Moslem  God,  loves  the  Elect,  the  Chosen  Race,  the  Faithful, 
and  hates  other  men;  condemning  (according  to  the  orthodox 
Christian  creed)  a  vast  number  of  them  to  eternal  banish 
ment  from  His  presence,  in  darkness  and  torture.J  He  is 
adored  as  Holy,  and,  in  a  measure,  men  understand  real  holi 
ness  when  they  apply  the  word  to  Him,  but  they  by  no 
means  feel  the  incongruity  from  which  a  thoroughly  trained 
moral  sense  would  revolt,  in  the  attribution  to  this  holy  God 
of  many  acts  recorded  in  their  sacred  writings ;  or  of  such  a 
system  of  government  as  is  unfolded  in  the  plan  of  Atonement 
as  commonly  understood.  The  reason  why  they  do  not  feel 
these  monstrous  derogations  from  the  Divine  perfections  is 
obvious.  It  is  because  their  own  Sentiments  of  love  and 
mercy,  truth  and  justice,  are  as  yet  so  imperfectly  developed 
that  even  when  accustomed  to  apply  the  terms  expressive  of 
goodness  to  God,  they  simply  do  not  know  what  they  involve. 
When  their  hearts  are  really  full  of  love  (as  we  see  in  the 
case  of  many  living  saints),  their  creeds  hardly  hamper  them 
at  all,  and  their  intellectual  errors  hang  so  loosely  as  to  be 
practically  harmless.  On  the  other  hand,  the  lessons  of 
Christ,  repeated  parrot- wise  for  sixty  generations,  have  failed 
to  bring  men,  who  are  not  loving,  to  understand  anything  of 
the  Divine  goodness  more  than  in  that  most  imperfect  and 
partial  way  which  we  have  marked  as  the  third  stage  of  the 
religious  sentiment. 

4.  Lastly,  we  may  dimly  foresee  the  fourth  and  final  stage 
of  religion,  when  the  sense  of  what  constitutes  Holiness  will 
be  too  lofty  to  permit  of  attribution  to  God  of  many  of  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION.      397 

acts  and  modes  of  government  which  at  present  are  ascribed 
to  Him ;  and  when  men  will  have  gained  so  much  of  the 
Divine  power  of  loving  and  pitying  the  erring  and  the  un 
lovely,  that  they  will  realize  at  last,  the  meaning  of  calling 
God  the  Father  of  All.  No  doubt  Christ,  when  he  uttered 
those  marvellous  sayings  about  the  beatitude  of  loving  our 
enemies,  blessing  those  who  curse  us,  and  praying  for  those 
who  despitefully  use  us  and  persecute  us,  had  attained  this 
exalted  stage.  He  felt  the  Divine  Fatherhood,  as  none  before 
him,  that  we  know  of,  had  felt  it,  because  he  had  in  his  own 
heart  a  power  of  pitying  the  sinful,  and  pardoning  the  offend 
ing,  such  as  few,  if  any,  had  felt  before.  Even  he,  however, 
if  we  may  trust  the  records,  did  not  see  the  hideous  anomaly 
involved  in  his  own  words,  when  he  represented  that  same 
Divine  Father  as  not  pardoning  all  those  who  "despitefully 
used  "  .Him,  but  casting  them  into  "outer  darkness  "  for  ever. 
But  it  remains  clear  that  in  this  direction  must  surely  lie  the 
path  of  progress  in  moral  feeling  which  is  to  lead  us  at  last 
to  the  joy  of  unbroken  sympathy  with  God.  Hitherto, 
while  individual  Christians  have  repeatedly  performed  heroic 
acts  of  forgiveness  and  kindness  to  their  enemies,  and  while 
thousands  have  devoted  their  lives  to  the  restoration  of  the 
vicious  and  the  criminal,  there  has  been  yet  hardly  an 
approach  to  a  general  sentiment  of  love  for  the  unlovely  ;  or 
even  a  working  theory  of  what  that  love  should  be,  beyond 
the  Schoolmen's  barren  distinction,  between  Love  of  Benevo 
lence  and  Love  of  Complacency.  Too  many  of  us,  instead 
of  feeling  the  intense  sense  of  the  misery  and  hatefulness  of 
sin  out  of  which  true  pity  for  the  sinner  can  alone  arise,  are 
disposed  to  make  light  of  the  evil  with  mere  easy  good 
nature,  and  so  to  be  really  further  from  the  higher  charity 
than  those  who  harshly  condemn  and  righteously  abhor  it. 
And,  for  our  personal  enemies,  the  men  and  women  in  many 
ways  obnoxious  to  us,  it  yet  remains  almost  an  insoluble 


398      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION. 

problem  how  we  ought  to  act  towards  them.  "We  lack  the 
unselfish,  magnanimous,  deep-sighted  love,  for  the  struggling 
human  spirit  beneath  its  load  of  passion,  meanness,  vul 
garity,  and  stupidity,  which  would  inspire  us  with  the  right 
conduct.  But  only  when  we  have  attained  this  holy  love,  can 
our  own  spiritual  progress  flow  on  calmly  and  surely,  and  our 
communion  with  God  cease  to  be  fitful  and  often  interrupted. 
Only  when  we  ourselves  love  the  unlovely  as  well  as  the 
lovely,  shall  we  attain  the  goal  of  the  religious  life,  and  "be 
perfect  as  our  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect,  who  maketh  his 
sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on 
the  just  and  on  the  unjust."  The  first  stage  of  religion, 
when  nothing  but  Power  was  felt ;  the  second,  when  men 
believed  God  to  be  Just,  but  knew  not  that  He  was  Holy ;  the 
third,  when  they  felt  Him  to  be  Holy,  but  conceived  of  Him 
still  as  Partial,  will  all  have  been  left  far  behind.  "We  shall 
then  feel  and  know  that  He  is  more  than  all  this — that  He 
is  All-loving. 

Well  says  Charles  Yoysey : — "  The  greatest  reward  which 
a  generous,  forgiving,  loving  life,  can  ever  bring,  must 
be  to  enable  us  to  feel  the  Goodness  of  God/'  There 
is  no  use  deceiving  ourselves  with  the  idea  that  we  can 
learn  His  goodness,  like  an  answer  in  a  catechism,  by 
the  intellect  alone.  All  that  the  intellect  can  help  in 
the  matter  is  but  little,  and  that  little  chiefly  of  the 
negative  sort.  The  sense  must  grow  with  our  own  moral 
growth.  We  must  scale  height  after  height  before  we  see 
the  heaven-high  summit  far  off  in  the  cloudless  blue.  Of 
course,  at  each  step  we  are  aided  and  cheered  onward  and 
upward  by  the  view  already  attained.  Once  a  man  has 
begun  to  realize  that  God  is  all  which  his  heart  craves  to  love 
and  adore,  he  has  gained  a  level  from  which  he  can  hardly 
altogether  fall  away  again.  All  the  disappointed  affections 
of  life  are  calmed,  all  its  terrors  of  loneliness  subdued,  all  its 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION.      399 

trials  made  endurable,  by  that  deep  rest  of  the  soul.  But 
there  are  further  and  further  visions  attainable  of  what  His 
Goodness  is,  as  we  grow  more  good;  and  of  what  God's 
Love  may  be  for  us  and  for  all  men,  as  we  ourselves  love 
more  divinely. 


FINIS. 


STEPHEN  AUSTIN  AND  SONS,  PRINTERS,  HERTFORD. 


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