Love, Ruler of the world permeated through and through with pain, and sorrow, and sin? Love, mainspring of a nature whose cruelty is sometimes appalling? Love? Think of the "martyrdom of man!" Love? Follow the History of the Church! Love? Study the annals of the slave-trade! Love?
Walk the courts and alleys of our towns! It is of no use to try and explain away these things, or cover them up with a veil of silence; it is better to look them fairly in the face, and test our creeds by inexorable facts. It is foolish to keep a tender spot which may not be handled; for a spot which gives pain when it is touched implies the presence of disease: wiser far is it to press firmly against it, and, if danger lurk there, to use the probe or the knife. We have no right to pick out all that is n.o.blest and fairest in man, to project these qualities into s.p.a.ce, and to call them G.o.d. We only thus create an ideal figure, a purified, enn.o.bled, "magnified" Man. We have no right to shut our eyes to the sad _revers de la medaille_, and leave out of our conceptions of the Creator the larger half of his creation. If we are to discover the Worker from his works we must not pick and choose amid those works; we must take them as they are, "good" and "bad." If we only want an ideal, let us by all means make one, and call it _G.o.d_, if thus we can reach it better, but if we want a true induction we must take _all_ facts into account. If G.o.d is to be considered as the author of the universe, and we are to learn of him through his works, then we must make room in our conceptions of him for the avalanche and the earthquake, for the tiger"s tooth and the serpent"s fang, as well as for the tenderness of woman and the strength of man, the radiant glory of the sunshine on the golden harvest, and the gentle lapping of the summer waves on the gleaming shingled beach.*
* "I know it is usual for the orthodox when vindicating the moral character of their G.o.d to say:--"All the Evil that exists is of man; All that G.o.d has done is only good." But granting (which facts do not substantiate) that man is the only author of the sorrow and the wrong that abound in the world, it is difficult to see how the Creator can be free from imputation. Did not G.o.d, according to orthodoxy, plan all things with an infallible perception that the events foreseen must occur? Was not this accurate prescience based upon the inflexibility of G.o.d"s Eternal purposes? As, then, the purposes, in the order of nature, at least preceded the prescience and formed the groundwork of it, man has become extensively the instrument of doing mischief in the world simply because the G.o.d of the Christian Church did not choose to prevent man from being bad. In other words, man is as he is by the ordained design of G.o.d, and, therefore, G.o.d is responsible for all the suffering, shame, and error, spread by human agency.--So that the Christian apology for G.o.d in connection with the spectacle of evil falls to pieces."--Note by the Editor.
The Nature of G.o.d, what is it? Infinite and Absolute, he evades our touch; without human will, without human intelligence, without human love, where can his faculties--the very word is a misnomer--find a meeting-place with ours? Is he everything or nothing? one or many? _We know not. We know nothing._ Such is the conclusion into which we are driven by orthodoxy, with its pretended faith, which is credulity, with its pretended proofs, which are presumptions. It defines and maps out the perfections of Deity, and they dissolve when we try to grasp them; nowhere do these ideas hold water for a moment; nowhere is this position defensible. Orthodoxy drives thinkers into atheism; weary of its contradictions they cry, "there is _no_ G.o.d"; orthodoxy"s leading thinker lands us himself in atheism. No logical, impartial mind can escape from unbelief through the trap-door opened by Dean Mansel: he has taught us reason, and we cannot suppress reason. The "serpent intellect"--as the Bishop of Peterborough calls it--has twined itself firmly round the tree of knowledge, and in that type we do not see, with the Hebrew, the face of death, but, with the older faiths, we reverence it as the symbol of life.
There is another fact, an historical one, still on the destructive side, which appears to me to be of the gravest importance, and that is the gradual attenuation of the idea of G.o.d before the growing light of true knowledge. To the savage everything is divine; he hears one G.o.d"s voice in the clap of the thunder, another"s in the roar of the earthquake, he sees a divinity in the trees, a deity smiles at him from the clear depths of the river and the lake; every natural phenomenon is the abode of a G.o.d; every event is controlled by a G.o.d; divine volition is at the root of every incident. To him the rule of the G.o.ds is a stern reality; if he offends them they turn the forces of nature against him; the flood, the famine, the pestilence, are the ministers of the avenging anger of the G.o.ds. As civilisation advances, the deities lessen in number, the divine powers become concentrated more and more in one Being, and G.o.d rules over the whole earth, maketh the clouds his chariot, and reigns above the waterfloods as a king. Physical phenomena are still his agents, working his will among the children of men; he rains great hailstones out of heaven on his enemies, he slays their flocks and desolates their lands, but his chosen ure safe under his protection, even although danger hem them in on every side; "thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day; for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the sickness that destroyeth in the noon-day. A thousand shall fall besides thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee....
He shall defend thee under his wings, and thou shalt be safe under his feathers." (Ps. xci., Prayer-Book.) Experience contradicted this theory rather roughly, and it gave way slowly before the logic of facts; it is, however, still more or less prevalent among ourselves, as we see when the siege of Paris is proclaimed as a judgment on Parisian irreligion, and when the whole nation falls on its knees to acknowledge the cattle-plague as the deserved punishment of its sins! The next step forward was to separate the physical from the moral, and to allow that physical suffering came independently of moral guilt or righteousness: the men crushed under the fallen tower of Siloam were not thereby proved to be more sinful than their countrymen. The birth of science rang the death-knell of an arbitrary and constantly interposing Supreme Power-.
The theory of G.o.d as a miracle worker was dissipated; henceforth if G.o.d ruled at all it must be as in nature and not from outside of nature; he no longer imposed laws on something exterior to himself, the laws could only be the necessary expression of his own being. Laws were, further, found to be immutable in their working, changing not in accordance with prayer, but ever true to a hair"s breadth in their action. Slowly, but surely, prayer to G.o.d for the alteration of physical phenomena is being found to be simply a well-meant superst.i.tion; nature swerves not for our pleading, nor falters in her path for our most pa.s.sionate supplication.
The "reign of law" in physical matters is becoming acknowledged even by theologians. As step by step the knowledge of _the natural_ advances, so step by step does the belief in _the supernatural_ recede; as the kingdom of science extends, so the kingdom of miraculous interference gradually disappears. The effects which of old were thought to be caused by the direct action of G.o.d are now seen to be caused by the uniform and calculable working of certain laws--laws which, when discovered, it is the part of wisdom implicitly to obey. Things which we used to pray for, we now work and wait for, and if we fail we do not ask G.o.d to add his strength to ours, but we sit down and lay our plans more carefully.
How is this to end? Is the future to be like the past, and is science finally to obliterate the conception of a personal G.o.d? It is a question which ought to be pondered in the light of history. Hitherto the supernatural has always been the makeweight of human ignorance; is it, in truth, this and nothing else?
I am forced, with some reluctance, to apply the whole of the above reasoning to every school of thought, whether nominally Christian or non-Christian, which regards G.o.d as a "magnified man." The same stern logic cuts every way and destroys alike the Trinitarian and the Unitarian hypothesis, wherever the idea of G.o.d is that of a Creator, standing, as it were, outside his creation. The liberal thinker, whatever his present position, seems driven infallibly to the above conclusions, as soon as he sets himself to realise his idea of his G.o.d.
The Deity must of necessity be that one and only substance out of which all things are evolved under the uncreated conditions and eternal laws of the universe; he must be, as Theodore Parker somewhat oddly puts it, "the materiality of matter, as well as the spirituality of spirit;"
_i e._, these must both be products of this one substance: a truth which is readily accepted as soon as spirit and matter are seen to be but different modes of one essence. Thus we identify substance with the all-comprehending and vivifying force of nature, and in so doing we simply reduce to a physical impossibility the existence of the Being described by the orthodox as a G.o.d possessing the attributes of personality. The Deity becomes identified with nature, co-extensive with the universe; but the G.o.d of the orthodox no longer exists; we may change the signification of G.o.d, and use the word to express a different idea, but we can no longer mean by it a Personal Being in the orthodox sense, possessing an individuality which divides him from the rest of the universe. I say that I use these arguments "with some reluctance,"
because many who have fought and are fighting n.o.bly and bravely in the army of freethought, and to whom all free-thinkers owe much honour, seem to cling to an idea of the Deity, which, however beautiful and poetical, is not logically defensible, and in striking at the orthodox notion of G.o.d, one necessarily strikes also at all idea of a "Personal" Deity.
There are some Theists who have only cut out the Son and the Holy Ghost from the Triune Jehovah, and have concentrated the Deity in the Person of the Father; they have returned to the old Hebrew idea of G.o.d, the Creator, the Sustainer, only widening it into regarding G.o.d as the Friend and Father of all his creatures, and not of the Jewish nation only. There is much that is n.o.ble and attractive in this idea, and it will possibly serve as a religion of transition to break the shock of the change from the supernatural to the natural. It is reached entirely by a process of giving up; Christian notions are dropped one after another, and the G.o.d who is believed in is the residuum. This Theistic school has not gained its idea of G.o.d from any general survey of nature or from any philosophical induction from facts; it has gained it only by stripping off from an idea already in the mind everything which is degrading and revolting in the dogmas of Trinitarianism. It starts, as I have noticed elsewhere, from a very n.o.ble axiom: "If there be a G.o.d at all he must be at least as good as his highest creatures," and thus is instantly swept away the Augustinian idea of a G.o.d,--that monster invented by theological dialectics; but still the same axiom makes G.o.d in the image of man, and never succeeds in getting outside a human representation of the Divinity. It starts from this axiom, and the axiom is prefaced by an "if." It a.s.sumes G.o.d, and then argues fairly enough what his character must be. And this "if" is the very point on which the argument of this paper turns.
"If there be a G.o.d" all the rest follows, but _is there a G.o.d at all_ in the sense in which the word is generally used? And thus I come to the second part of my problem; having seen that the orthodox "idea of G.o.d is unreasonable and absurd, is there any idea of G.o.d, worthy to be called an idea, which is attainable in the present state of our faculties?"
The argument from design does not seem to me to be a satisfactory one; it either goes too far or not far enough. Why in arguing from the evidences of adaptation should we a.s.sume that they are planned by a mind? It is quite as easy to conceive of matter as self-existent, with inherent vital laws moulding it into varying phenomena, as to conceive of any intelligent mind directly modelling matter, so that the "heavens declare the glory of G.o.d, and the firmament showeth his handy-work." It is, I know, customary to sneer at the idea of beautiful forms existing without a conscious designer, to parallel the adaptations of this world to the adaptations in machinery, and then triumphantly to inquire, "if skill be inferred from the one, why ascribe the other to chance?" We do not believe in chance; the steady action of law is not chance; the exquisite crystals which form themselves under certain conditions are not a "fortuitous concourse of atoms:" the only question is whether the laws which we all allow to govern nature are immanent in nature, or the outcome of an intelligent mind. If there be a lawmaker, is he self-existent, or does he, in turn, as has been asked again and again by Positivist, Secularist, and Atheist, require a maker? If we think for a moment of the vast mind implied in the existence of a Creator of the universe, is it possible to believe that such a mind is the result of chance? If man"s mind imply a master-mind, how much more that of G.o.d? Of course the question seems an absurd one, but it is quite as pertinent as the question about a world-maker. We must come to a stop somewhere, and it is quite as logical to stop at one point as at another. The argument from design would be valuable if we could prove, a priori, as Mr. Gillespie attempted to do,* the existence of a Deity; this being proved we might then fairly argue deductively to the various apparent signs of mind in the universe. Again, if we allow design we must ask, "how far does design extend?" If some phenomena are designed, why not all? And if not all, on what principle can we separate that which is designed from that which is not? If intellect and love reveal a design, what is revealed by brutality and hate? If the latter are not the result of design, how did they become introduced into the universe?
I repeat that this argument implies either too much or too little.*
* "The Necessary Existence of Deity."
There is but one argument that appears to me to have any real weight, and that is the argument from instinct. Man has faculties which appear, at present, as though they were not born of the intellect, and it seems to me to be unphilosophical to exclude this cla.s.s of facts from our survey of nature. The nature of man has in it certain sentiments and emotions which, reasonably or unreasonably, sway him powerfully and continually; they are, in fact, his strongest motive powers, overwhelming the reasoning faculties with resistless strength; true, they need discipline and controlling, but they do not need to be, and they cannot be, destroyed. The sentiments of love, of reverence, of worship, are not, as yet, reducible to logical processes; they are intuitions, spontaneous emotions, incomprehensible to the keen and cold intellect. They may be laughed at or denied, but they still exist in spite of all; they avenge themselves, when they are not taken into account, by ruining the best laid plans, and they are continually bursting the cords with which reason strives to tie them down. I do not for a moment pretend to deny that these intuitions will, as our knowledge of psychology increases, be reducible to strict laws; we call them instincts and intuitions simply because we are unable to trace them to their source, and this vague expression covers the vagueness of our ideas. Therefore, intuition is not to be accepted as a trustworthy guide, but it may suggest an hypothesis, and this hypothesis must then be submitted to the stern verification of observed facts. We are not as yet able to say to what the instinct in man to worship points, or what reality answers to his yearning. Increased knowledge will, we may hope, reveal to us* where there lies the true satisfaction of this instinct: so long as the yearning is only an "instinct" it cannot pretend to be logically defensible, or claim to lay down any rule of faith. But still I think it well to point out that this instinct exists in man, and exists most strongly in some of the n.o.blest souls.
* "Is there in man any such Instinct? May not the general tendency to worship a Deity, everywhere be the result of the influence gained by Priests over the mind by the play of the mysterious Unknown and Hereafter upon susceptible imaginations? Besides, what are we to say of the immense number of philosophical Buddhists and Brahmins, for whose comfort or moral guidance the idea of a G.o.d or a hereafter is felt to be quite unnecessary? They cannot comprehend it, and consequently acts of worship to G.o.d would be deemed by them fanatical. It is traditionalists who either do not think at all, or think only within a narrow, creed-bound circle, that are most devoted to worshipping Deity; and if so, may not the whole history of worship have its origin in superst.i.tion and priestcraft! In that case, the theory of an instinct of worship falls to the ground."--Note by the Editor.
Of all the various sentiments which are thus at present "intuitional,"
none is so powerful, none so overmastering as this instinct to worship, this sentiment of religion. It is as natural for man to worship as to eat. He will do it, be it reasonable or unreasonable. Just as the baby crams everything into his mouth, so does man persist in worshipping something. It may be said that the baby"s instinct does not prove that he is right in trying to devour a matchbox; true, but it proves the existence of something eatable; so fetish-worship, polytheism, theism, do not prove that man has worshipped rightly, but do they not prove the existence of something worshipable! The argument does not, of course, pretend to amount to a demonstration; it is nothing more than the suggestion of an a.n.a.logy. Are we to find that the supply is correlated to the demand throughout nature, and yet believe that this. .h.i.therto invariable system is suddenly altered when we reach the spiritual part of man? I do not deny that this instinct is hereditary, and that it is fostered by habit. The idea of reverence for G.o.d is transmitted from parent to child; it is educated into an abnormal development, and thus almost indefinitely strengthened; but yet it does appear to me that the bent to worship is an integral part of man"s nature. This instinct has also sometimes been considered to have its root in the feeling that one"s individual self is but a "part of a stupendous whole;" that the so-called religious feeling which is evoked by a grand view or a bright starlight night is only the realisation of personal insignificance, and the reverence which rises in the soul in the presence of the mighty universe of which we form a part. Whatever the root and the significance of this instinct, there can be no doubt of its strength; there is nothing rouses men"s pa.s.sions as does theology; for religion men rush on death more readily and joyfully than* for any other cause; religious fanaticism is the most fatal, the most terrible power in the world. In studying history I also see the upward tendency of the race, and note that current which Mr. Matthew Arnold has called "that stream of tendency, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." Of course, if there be a conscious G.o.d, this tendency is a proof of his moral character, since it would be the outcome of his laws; but here again an argument which would be valuable were the existence of G.o.d already proved, falls blunted from the iron wall of the unknown. The same tendency upwards would naturally exist in any "realm of law," although the law were an unconscious force. For righteousness is nothing more than obedience to law, and where there is obedience to law, Nature"s mighty forces lend their strength to man, and progress is secured.
Only by obedience to law can advance be made, and this rule applies, of course, to morality as well as to physics. Physical righteousness is obedience to physical laws; moral righteousness is obedience to moral laws: just as physical laws are discovered by the observation of natural phenomena, so must moral laws be discovered by the observation of social phenomena. That which increases the general happiness is right; that which tends to destroy the general happiness is wrong. Utility is the test of morality. But a law must not be drawn from a single fact or phenomenon; facts must be carefully collated, and the general laws of morality drawn from a generalisation of facts. But this subject is too large to enter upon here, and it is only hinted at in order to note that, although there is a moral tendency apparent in the course of events, it is rather a rash a.s.sumption to take it for granted that the power in question is a conscious one: it may be, and that, I think, is all we can justly and reasonably say.
Again, as regards Love. I have protested above against the easiness which talks glibly of the Supreme Love while shutting its eyes to the supreme agony of the world. But here, in putting forward what may be said on the other side of the question, I must remark that there is a possible explanation for sorrow and sin which is consistent with love given immortality of man and beast, and the future gain may then outweigh the present loss. But we are bound to remember that we can only have a _hope_ of immortality; we have no demonstration of it, and this is, therefore, only an a.s.sumption by which we escape from a difficulty.
We ought to be ready to acknowledge, also, that there is love in nature, although there is cruelty too; there is the sunshine as well as the storm, and we must not fix our eyes on the darkness alone and deny the light. In mother-love, in the love of friends, loyal through all doubt, true in spite of danger and difficulty, strongest when most sorely tried, we see gleams of so divine, so unearthly a beauty, that our hearts whisper to us of an universal heart pulsating throughout nature, which, at these rare moments, we cannot believe to be a dream. But there seems, also, to be a vague idea that love and other virtues could not exist unless derived from the Love, &c. It is true that we do conceive certain ideals of virtue which we personify, and to which we apply various terms implying affection; we speak of a love of Truth, devotion to Freedom, and so on. These ideals have, however, a purely subjective existence; they are not objective realities; there is nothing answering to these conceptions in the outside world, nor do we pretend to believe in their individuality. But when we gather up all our ideals, our n.o.blest longings, and bind them into one vast ideal figure, which we call by the name of G.o.d, then we at once attribute to it an objective existence, and complain of coldness and hardness if its reality is questioned, and we demand to know if we can love an abstraction? The n.o.blest souls do love abstractions, and live in their beauty and die for their sake.
There appears, also, to be a possibility of a mind in Nature, although we have seen that intelligence is, strictly speaking, impossible. There cannot be perception, memory, comparison, or judgment; but may there not be a perfect mind, unchanging, calm, and still? Our faculties fail us when we try to estimate the Deity, and we are betrayed into contradictions and absurdities; but does it therefore follow that He is not? It seems to me that to deny his existence is to overstep the boundaries of our thought-power almost as much as to try and define it.
We pretend to know the Unknown if we declare Him to be the Unknowable.
Unknowable to us at present, yes! Unknowable for ever, in other possible stages" of existence?--We have reached a region into which we cannot penetrate; here all human faculties fail us; we bow our heads on "the threshold of the unknown."
And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; But if we could see and hear, this Vision--were it not He?
Thus sings Alfred Tennyson, the poet of metaphysics: "if we could see and hear"; alas! it is always an "if."
We come back to the opening of this essay: what is the practical result of our ideas about the Divinity, and how do these ideas affect the daily working life? What conclusions are we to draw from the undeniable fact that, even if there be a "personal G.o.d," his nature and existence are beyond our faculties, that "clouds and darkness are round about him,"
that he is veiled in eternal silence and reveals himself not to men?
Surely the obvious inference is that, if he does-really exist, he desires to conceal himself from the inhabitants of our world. I repeat, that if the Deity exist, he does-not wish us to know of his existence.
There may be, in the very nature of things, an impossibility of his revealing himself to men; we may have no faculties with which to apprehend him; can we reveal the stars and the rippling expanse of ocean to the sightless limpet on the rock? Whether this be so or not, certain is it that the Deity does not reveal himself; either he cannot or he will not. And the reason--I am granting for the moment, for argument"s sake, his personal existence--is not far to seek; it is blazed upon the face of history. For what has been the result of theology upon the whole? It has turned men"s eyes from earth, to fix them on heaven; it has bid them be careless of the temporal, while luring them to grasp at the eternal; it has induced mult.i.tudes to lavish fervent sentiment upon a conception framed by Priests of an incomprehensible G.o.d, while diverting their strength from the plain duties which Humanity has before it; it has taught them to live for the world to come, when they should live for the world around them; it has made earth"s wrongs endurable with the hope of the glory to be revealed. Wisely indeed would the Deity hide himself, when even a phantom of him has wrought such fatal mischief; and never will real and steady progress be secured until men acquiesce in this beneficent law of their nature, which draws a stern circle of the "limits of Religious Thought" and bids them concentrate their attention on the work they have to do in this world, instead of being "for ever peering into and brooding over the world beyond the grave." "What is to be our conception of morality, is it to base itself on obedience to G.o.d, or is it to be sought for itself and its effects?"
When we admit that G.o.d is beyond our knowing, morality becomes at once necessarily grounded on utility, or the natural adaptation of certain feelings and actions to promote the general welfare of society. As no revelation is given to us as one "infallible standard of right and wrong," we must form our morality for ourselves from thought and from experience. For example, our moral nature, as educated under the highest civilisation, tells us that lying is wrong;* with this hypothesis in our minds we study facts, and discover that lying causes mistrust, anarchy, and ruin; thence we lay down as a moral law, "Lie not at all." The science of morality must be content to grow like other sciences; first an hypothesis, round which to group our facts, then from the collected and collated facts reasoning up to a solid law. Scientific morality has this great advantage over revealed, that it stands on firm, una.s.sailable ground; new facts will alter its details, but can never touch its method; like all other sciences, it is at once positive and progressive.
* All men do not think lying wrong, e g.. Thugs and old Spartans. Therefore it is not our moral nature that intuitively tells us thus, but our moral nature as instructed by the moral ideas prevailing in the society in which we happen to be living.--Note by the Editor.
"_Is our mental att.i.tude to be kneeling or standing?_" When we admit that the Deity is veiled from us, how can we pray? When we see that that law is inexorable, of what use to protest against its absolute sway?
When we feel that all, including ourselves, are but modes of Being which is one and universal, and in which we "live and move," how shall we pray to that which is close to us as our own souls, part of our very selves, inseparable from our thoughts, sharing our consciousness? As well talk aloud to ourselves as pray to the universal Essence. Children _cry_ for what they want; men and women _work_ for it. There are two points of view from which we may regard prayer: from the one it is a piece of childishness only, from the other it is sheer impertinence. Regarding Nature"s mighty order, her grand, silent, unvarying march,--the importunity which frets against her changeless progress is a mark of the most extreme childishness of mind; it shows that complete irreverence of spirit which cannot conceive the idea of a greatness before which the individual existence is as nothing, and that infantile conceit which imagines that its own plans and playthings rival in importance the struggles of nations and the interests of distant worlds. Regarding Nature"s laws as wiser than our own whims, the idea which finds its outlet in prayer is a gross impertinence; who are we that we should take it on ourselves to remind Nature of her work, G.o.d of his duty? Is there any impertinence so extreme as the prayer which "pleads" with the Deity? There is only one kind of "prayer" which is reasonable, and that is the deep, silent, adoration of the greatness and beauty and order around us, as revealed in the realms of non-rational life and in Humanity; as we bow our heads before the laws of the universe and mould our lives into obedience to their voice, we find a strong, calm peace steal over our hearts, a perfect trust in the ultimate triumph of the right, a quiet determination to "make our lives sublime." Before our own high ideals, before those lives which show us "how high the tides of divine life have risen in the human world," we stand with hushed voice and veiled face; from them we draw strength to emulate, and even dare struggle to excel. The contemplation of the ideal is true prayer; it inspires, it strengthens, it enn.o.bles. The other part of prayer is work: from contemplation to labour, from the forest to the street. Study Nature"s laws, conform to them, work in harmony with them, and work becomes a prayer and a thanksgiving, an adoration of the universal wisdom, and a true obedience to the universal law.
"_Is the mainspring of our actions to be the idea of duty to G.o.d, or the of loyalty to law and to man"s well-being?_" We cannot serve G.o.d in any real sense; we are awed before the Unknown, but we cannot _serve_ it.
For the Mighty, for the Incomprehensible, what can we do? But we can serve man, ay, and he needs our service; service of brain and hand, service untiring and unceasing, service through life and unto-death.
The race to which we belong (our own families and kinsfolk, and then the community at large) has the first claim on our allegiance, a claim from which nothing can release us until death drops a veil over our work.
Surely I may claim that my subject is not an unpractical one, and that our ideas of the Nature and Existence of G.o.d influence our lives in a very real way. If I have subst.i.tuted a different basis of morality for that on which it now stands, if I have suggested a different theory of prayer, and offered a different motive for duty, surely these changes affect the whole of human life And if one by one these theories ate denied by the orthodox, and they reject them because they sever human life from that which is called revealed religion, is not my position justified, that the ideas we hold of G.o.d are the ruling forces of our lives? that it is of primary importance to the welfare of mankind that a false theory on this point should be destroyed and a more reasonable faith accepted?
Will any one exclaim, "You are taking all beauty out of human life, all hope, all warmth, all inspiration; you give us cold duty for filial obedience, and inexorable law in the place of G.o.d?" All beauty from life? Is there, then, no beauty in the idea of forming part of the great life of the universe, no beauty in conscious harmony with Nature, no beauty in faithful service, no beauty in ideals of every virtue? "All hope?" Why, I give you more than hope, I give you certainty: if I bid you labour for this world, it is with the knowledge that this world will repay you a thousandfold, because society will grow purer, freedom more settled, law more honoured, life more full and glad. What is your hope?
A heaven in the clouds. I point to a heaven attainable on earth. "All warmth?" What! You serve warmly a G.o.d unknown and invisible, in a sense the projected shadow of your own imaginings, and can only serve coldly your brother whom you see at your side? There is no warmth in brightening the lot of the sad, in reforming abuses, in establishing equal justice for rich and poor? You find warmth in the church, but none in the home? Warmth in imagining the cloud-glories of heaven, but none in creating substantial glories on earth? "All inspiration?" If you want inspiration to feeling, to sentiment, perhaps you had better keep to your Bible and your creeds; if you want inspiration to work, go and walk through the east of London, or the back streets of Manchester. You are inspired to tenderness as you gaze at the wounds of Jesus, dead in Judaea long ago, and find no inspiration in the wounds of men and women dying in the England of to-day? You "have tears to shed for him,"
but none for the sufferer at your doors? His pa.s.sion arouses your sympathies, but you see no pathos in the pa.s.sion of the poor? Duty is colder than "filial obedience?" What do you mean by filial obedience?
Obedience to your ideal of goodness and love, is it not so? Then how is duty cold? I offer you ideals for your homage: here is Truth for your Mistress, to whose exaltation you shall devote your intellect; here is Freedom for your General, for whose triumph you shall fight; here is Love for your Inspirer, who shall influence your every thought; here is Man for your Master--not in heaven but on earth--to whose service you shall consecrate every faculty of your being. Inexorable law in the place of G.o.d? Yes: a stern certainty that you shall not waste your life, yet gather a rich reward at the close; that you shall not sow misery, yet reap gladness; that you shall not be selfish, yet be crowned with love, nor shall you sin, yet find safety in repentance. True, our creed is a stern one, stern with the beautiful sternness of Nature. But if we be in the right, look to yourselves: laws do not check their action for your ignorance; fire will not cease to scorch, because "you did not know."
We know nothing beyond Nature; we judge of the future by the present and the past; we are content to work now, and let the work to come wait until it appears as the work to do; we find that our faculties are sufficient for fulfilling the tasks within our reach, and we cannot waste time and strength in gazing into impenetrable darkness. We must needs fight against superst.i.tions, because they hinder the advancement of the race, but we will not fall into the error of opponents and try to define the Undefinable.
EUTHANASIA.
I HAVE already related to you with what care they look after their sick, so that nothing is left undone which may contribute either to their health or ease. And as for those who are afflicted with incurable disorders, they use all possible means of cherishing them, and of making their lives as comfortable as possible; they visit them often, and take great pains to make their time pa.s.s easily. But if any have torturing, lingering pain, without hope of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates repair to them and exhort them, since they are unable to proceed with the business of life, are become a burden to themselves and all about them, and have in reality outlived themselves, they should no longer cherish a rooted disease, but choose to die since they cannot but live in great misery; being persuaded, if they thus deliver themselves from torture, or allow others to do it, they shall be happy after death.
Since they forfeit none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life by this, they think they not only act reasonably, but consistently with religion; for they follow the advice of their priests, the expounders of G.o.d"s will. Those who are wrought upon by these persuasions, either starve themselves or take laudanum. But no one is compelled to end his life thus; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, the former care and attendance on it is continued. And though they esteem a voluntary death, when chosen on such authority, to be very honourable, on the contrary, if any one commit suicide without the concurrence of the priest and senate, they honour not the body with a decent funeral, but throw into a ditch.*
* Memoirs. A translation of the Utopia, &c, of Sir Thomas Moore, Lord High Chancellor of England. By A. Cayley the Younger, pp. 102,103. (Edition of 1808.)
In pleading for the morality of Euthanasia, it seems not unwise to show that so thoroughly religious a man as Sir Thomas Moore deemed that practice so consonant with a sound morality as to make it one of the customs of his ideal state, and to place it under the sanction of the priesthood. As a devout Roman Catholic, the great Chancellor would naturally imagine that any beneficial innovation would be sure to obtain the support of the priesthood; and although we may differ from him on this head, since our daily experience teaches _us_ that the priest may be counted upon as the steady opponent of all reform, it is yet not uninstructive to note that the deep religious feeling which distinguished this truly good man, did not shrink from this idea of euthanasia as from a breach of morality, nor did he apparently dream that any opposition would (or could) be offered to it on religious grounds. The last sentence of the extract is specially important; in discussing the morality of euthanasia we are not discussing the moral lawfulness or unlawfulness of suicide in general; we may protest against suicide, and yet uphold euthanasia, and we may even protest against the one and uphold the other, on exactly the same principle, as we shall see further on. As the greater includes the less, those who consider that a man has a right to choose whether he will live or not, and who therefore regard all suicide as lawful, will, of course, approve of euthanasia; but it is by no means necessary to hold this doctrine because we contend for the other. _On the general question of the morality of suicide, this paper expresses no opinion whatever_. This is not the point, and we do not deal with it here. This essay is simply and solely directed to prove that there are circ.u.mstances under which a human being has a moral right to hasten the inevitable approach of death. The subject is one which is surrounded by a thick fog of popular prejudice, and the arguments in its favour are generally dismissed unheard. I would therefore crave the reader"s generous patience, while laying before him the reasons which dispose many religious and social reformers to regard it as of importance that euthanasia should be legalised.
In the fourth Edition of an essay on Euthanasia, by P. D. Williams, jun.,--an essay which powerfully sums up what is to be said for and against the practice in question, and which treats the whole subject exhaustively--we find the proposition for which we contend laid down in the following explicit terms:
"That in all cases of hopeless and painful illness, it should be the recognised duty of the medical attendant, whenever so desired by the patient, to administer chloroform, or such other anaesthetic as may by-and-by supersede chloroform, so as to destroy consciousness at once, and to put the sufferer to a quick and painless death; all needful precautions being adopted to prevent any abuse of such duty; and means being taken to establish, beyond the possibility of doubt or question, that the remedy was applied at the express wish of the patient."
It is very important, at the outset, to lay down clearly the limitations of the proposed medical reform. It is, sometimes, thoughtlessly stated that the supporters of euthanasia propose to put to death all persons suffering from incurable disorders; no a.s.sertion can be more inaccurate or more calculated to mislead. We propose only, that where an incurable disorder is accompanied with extreme pain--pain, which nothing can alleviate except death--pain, which only grows worse as the inevitable doom approaches--pain, which drives almost to madness, and which must end in the intensified torture in the death agony--that pain should be at once soothed by the administration of an anaesthetic, which should not only produce unconsciousness, but should be sufficiently powerful to end a life, in which the renewal of consciousness can only be simultaneous with the renewal of pain. So long as life has some sweetness left in it, so long the offered mercy is not needed; euthanasia is a relief from unendurable agony, not an enforced extinguisher of a still desired existence. Besides, no one proposes to make it obligatory on anybody; it is only urged that where the patient asks for the mercy of a speedy death, instead of a protracted one, his prayer may be granted without any danger of the penalties of murder or manslaughter being inflicted on the doctors and nurses in attendance. I will lay before the reader a case which is within my own knowledge,--and which can be probably supplemented by the sad experience of almost every individual,--in which the legality of euthanasia would have been a boon equally to the sufferer and to her family. A widow lady was suffering from cancer in the breast, and as the case was too far advanced for the ordinary remedy of the knife, and as the leading London surgeons refused to risk an operation which might hasten, but could not r.e.t.a.r.d, death, she resolved, for the sake of her orphan children, to allow a medical pract.i.tioner to perform a terrible operation, whereby he hoped to prolong her life for some years. Its details are too-painful to enter into unnecessarily; it will suffice to say that it was performed by means of quick-lime, and that the use of chloroform was impossible.
When the operation, which extended over days, was but half over, the sufferer"s strength gave way, and the doctor was compelled to acknowledge that even a prolongation of life was impossible, and that to complete the operation could only hasten death. So the patient had to linger on in almost unimaginable torture, knowing that the pain could only end in death, seeing her relatives worn out by watching, and agonised at the sight of her sufferings, and yet compelled to live on from hour to hour, till at last the anguish culminated in death. Is it possible for any one to believe that it would have been wrong to have hastened the inevitable end, and thus to have shortened the agony of the sufferer herself, and to have also-spared her nurses months of subsequent ill-health. It is in such cases as this that euthanasia would be useful. It is, however, probable that all will agree that the benefit conferred by the legalisation of euthanasia would, in many instances, be very great; but many feel that the objections to it, on moral grounds, are so weighty, that no physical benefit could countervail the moral wrong. These objections, so far as I can gather them, are as follows:--
Life is the gift of G.o.d, and is therefore sacred, and must only be taken back by the giver of life.*
* We, of course, here, have no concern with theological questions touching the existence or non-existence of Deity, and express no opinion about them.
Euthanasia is an interference with the course of nature, and is therefore an act of rebellion against G.o.d.
Pain is a spiritual remedial agent inflicted by G.o.d, and should therefore be patiently endured.
_Life is the gift of G.o.d, and is therefore sacred, and must only be taken back by the Giver of life_. This objection is one of those high-sounding phrases which impose on the careless and thoughtless hearer, by catching up a form of words which is generally accepted as an unquestionable axiom, and by hanging thereupon an unfair corollary.
The ordinary man or woman, on hearing this a.s.sertion, would probably answer--"Life sacred? Yes, of course; on the sacredness of life depends the safety of society; anything which tampers with this principle must be both wrong and dangerous." And yet, such is the inconsistency of the thoughtless, that, five minutes afterwards, the same person will glow with pa.s.sionate admiration at some n.o.ble deed, in which the sacredness of life has been cast to the winds at the call of honour or of humanity, or will utter words ot indignant contempt at the baseness which counted life more sacred than duty or principle. That life is sacred is an undeniable proposition; every natural gift is sacred, _i e._, is valuable, and is not to be lightly destroyed; life, as summing up all natural gifts, and as containing within itself all possibilities of usefulness and happiness, is the most sacred physical possession which we own. But it is _not_ the most sacred thing on earth. Martyrs slain for the sake of principles which they could not truthfully deny; patriots who have died for their country; heroes who have sacrificed themselves for others" good;--the very flower and glory of humanity rise up in a vast crowd to protest that conscience, honour, love, self-devotion, are more precious to the race than is the life of the individual. Life is sacred, but it may be laid down in a n.o.ble cause; life is sacred, but it must bend before the holier sacredness of principle; life which, though sacred, can be destroyed, is as nothing before the indestructible ideals which claim from every n.o.ble soul the sacrifice of personal happiness, of personal greatness, yea, of personal life.*
* The word "life" is here used in the sense of "personal existence in this world." It is, of course, not intended to be a.s.serted that life is really destructible, but only that personal existence, or ident.i.ty, may be destroyed. And further, no opinion is given on the possibility of life otherwhere than on this globe; nothing is spoken of except life on earth, under the conditions of human existence.