This sign of redemption, as a certain herald of modern thought remarked, weighs like a mountain upon the mind of our day. He has no longer any understanding for the saving inst.i.tution of the Church, by whom he should be led: she is to him an inst.i.tution of intellectual serfdom. He makes his own religion, free from dogma, just as his individuality desires, just as he "lives" it.
Should our observer, while visiting the Protestant city, make a final visit to its university, he will find there the thoughts, which hitherto he had but vaguely felt, clothed in scientific language. There they meet his gaze, defined sharply on the pedestal of Research as the Modern Philosophy, protected, often exclusively privileged, by the state license of teaching. It is the modern scientific view of the world, the only one that men of modern times may hold. From here it is to find its way to wider circles.
"Man," we are told by a pupil of _Feuerbach_, in accord with his master"s teaching, "man is man"s G.o.d. And only by the enthronement of this human G.o.d can the super-human and ultra-human G.o.d be made superfluous. What Christianity was and claimed to be in times gone by, that now is claimed by humanity." "The being which man in religion and theology reveres," continues _Jodl_ with _Feuerbach_, "is his own being, the essence of his own desires and ideals. If you eliminate from this conception all that is mere fancy and contrary to the laws of nature, what is left is a cultural ideal of civilization, a refined humanity, which will become a reality by its own independent strength and labour" (_Ludwig Feuerbach_, 1904, 111 f., 194). "The greatest achievement of modern times,"
says another panegyrist of emanc.i.p.ated humanity, "is the deliverance from the traditional bondage of a direct revelation.... Neither revelation nor redemption approach man from without; he is bound rather to struggle for his perfection by his own strength. What he knows about G.o.d, nature, and his own self, is of his own doing. He is in reality "the measure of all things, of those that are, and why they are; of those that are not, and why they are not." Of his dignity as an image of G.o.d, he has therefore not lost anything; on the contrary, he has come nearer to his resemblance to G.o.d, his highest end, by his consciousness of being self-existent and of having the destiny to produce everything of himself; from a receptive being he has become a spontaneous one; he has at last come to a clear knowledge of his own real importance and destiny" (_Spicker_, Der Kampf zweier Weltanschauungen, 1898, 134).
Hence "not to make man religious," to quote again the above-mentioned exponent of modern wisdom of life, "but to educate, to promote culture among all cla.s.ses and professions, this is the task of the present time." "Religion cannot therefore be the watchword of a progressive humanity; neither the religion of the past nor the religion that is to be looked for in the future, but ethics" (_Jodl_, ibid., 108, 112). Ethics, to be sure, the fundamental principles of which are not the commandments of G.o.d, by the keeping of which we are to reach our eternal happiness, but human laws, which are observed for the sake of man.
"Morality and religion," we are told, "shall no longer give us a narrow ladder on which we, each one for himself, climb to the heights of the other world; we are vaulting a majestic dome above this earth under which the generations come and go, succeeding each other in continuous procession.... The day will come when the rays of thought which are now dawning upon the highest and freest mountain-tops will bring the light of noonday down to mankind."
Woe to us, if from these high mountain-tops, where the bare rocks no longer take life and fecundity from the heavens, the sad desert of estrangement from G.o.d should extend into the fresh green of the valleys!
The central ideas of the humanitarian view of the world appear again, though under different form, among Freemasons and free-thinkers, agitators for free religion and free schools. It is well known that Freemasonry has emblazoned "humanity" upon its standard. "One word of the highest meaning," so wrote an official authority some years ago, "contains in itself the principle, the purpose, and the whole tenor of Freemasonry, this word is humanity. Humanity is indeed everything to us." "What is humanity?
It is all, and only that, which is human" (Freiburger Ritual, 24.
_Pachtler_, Der Goetze der Humanitaet, 1875, 249 f.). "That which is essentially human is the sublime, divine, and the only Christian ideal," adds another authority, addressing the aspirant to Freemasonry. "Leave behind you in the world your different church-formulas when you enter our temple, but let there always be with you the sense for what is holy in man, the religion which alone makes us happy" (Latomia, 1868, p. 167, _Pachtler_, 248). As early as 1823 the "Zeitschrift fuer Freimauerei" wrote: "We should be accused of idolatry should we personify the idea of humanity in the way in which the Divinity is usually personified. This is indeed our reason for withholding from the eyes of profane persons the humanitarian cult, till the time has come when, from east to west, from noon to midnight, its high ideal will be pondered and its cult propagated everywhere" (_Pachtler_, 255).
The time has already come when "the rays of thought that dawned upon the mountain-tops" are descending into the valley. The Twenty-second Convention of German Free-religionists, at Goerlitz, at the end of May, 1907, pa.s.sed this resolution: "The Convention sees one of its chief tasks in the alliance of all anti-clericals and free-thinkers, and tries by united effort to obtain this common end and interest by promoting culture, liberty of mind, and humanitarianism." There was, moreover, taken up for discussion the thesis: "Free-religionists reject the teaching that declares man lost by original sin, unable to raise himself of his own strength and reason, that directs him to revelation, redemption, and grace from above."
This view of the world finds its most characteristic expression in _pantheism_, which, though expressed in various and often fantastic forms, is eminently the religion of modern man. From this gloomy depth of autotheism the apotheosis of man and his earthly life, the modern consciousness of freedom, draws its strength and determination.
To find this modern view of man expressed in the language of consistent radicalism, let us hear _Fr. Nietzsche_, the most modern of all philosophers. His ideal is the transcendental man, who knows that G.o.d is dead, that now there is no bar to stepping forth in unrestricted freedom to superhuman greatness and independence. To this "masterman," who deems himself superior to others, everything is licit that serves his egotism and will, everything that will promote his interest to the disadvantage of the rabble; probity is cowardice! "But now this G.o.d is dead. Ye superior men, this G.o.d was your greatest danger." Thus spoke Zarathustra. "Only since this G.o.d is buried do you begin to rise. Now at length the great Noon is in its zenith. Now the superior man becomes master. Onward and upward, then, ye superior men! At last the mountain of man"s future is in travail. G.o.d is dead; let the superior man arise and live." (Also sprach Zarathustra, W. W. VI, 418.) And, in the consciousness that the Christian religion condemns this self-exaltation, he breaks out in this blasphemous charge: "I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great internal corruption.... I call it the one immortal, disgraceful, blot on mankind"
(Antichrist, W. W. VIII, 313). This is independent humanity in the cloak of fanaticism. _Nietzsche_ has carried the modern view of the world to its final consequences; the autonomous man has developed into the G.o.d-like superman who carries into effect the behest: Ye shall be as G.o.ds; his code of ethics is that of the autocrat who is above the notions of good and bad.
And "let no one deceive himself," writes an intelligent observer of the times, "the spirit of our time is attuned to _Nietzsche"s_ idea."
Consciously or unconsciously this sentiment dominates more minds than many a man learned in the wisdom of the schools may dream of. Did _Nietzsche_ create this spirit? Certainly not: he grew out of it, he has only given it a philosophical setting. _Nietzsche_ would never have caused that tremendous sensation, never have gathered around him his enthusiastic followers, had not the soil been prepared. As it was, he appeared to "his"
men as the Messiah "in the fulness of time." He, too, in his own way "loosened the tongue of the dumb and opened the eyes of the blind." The veiled anti-Christian spirit, the unconscious religious and ethical nihilism, which no one before dared profess openly, though it was hatching in the minds, now had found its "master," its "scientific system" (_Von Grotthuss_, Tuermer, VII, 1905, 79). It is, a.s.serts _Wundt_, "the new ideal of free personality, dependent on precarious moods and chance influences, that has found in _Nietzsche"s_ philosophy a fantastic expression" (Ethik, ed. 3. 1905, p. 522).
The Autonomous Man.
Now we have a clearer idea of modern freedom. It is known as autonomism.
The individual wants to be a law to himself, his own court of last appeal; he wants to develop his personality, feeling, desires, and thought, independently of all authority. Too long, it is said, have man"s aspirations been directed upward, away from things, of this world, to a supernatural world. Religion and Church seek to determine his thought and desire, to subject him to dogma. Too long has he clung like a child to the ap.r.o.n-strings of authority. Man has at last awoken to self-consciousness and to a sense of his own dignity, after a period of estrangement, so to say, from himself; he has become himself again, as the poet sang when the century of the "illuminati" was closing:
"How beautiful, with palm of victory, O man, thou standest at the century"s close, The mightiest son thy Time has given birth, By reason free, by law and precept strong, Alike in meekness great and treasure rich, So long unknown concealed within thy breast."
Yes, man has discovered the treasure that long lay hidden in his breast, the seed and bud that longed to burst forth into life and blossom. Now the motto is: Independent self-development; no more restraint, but living out one"s personality. The eagle is not given wings to be bound down upon the earth; nor does the bud come forth never to unfold. Full freedom, therefore, too, for everything human! And modern man leaps to the fatal conclusion: therefore all interference of external authority is unjust, is force, constraint upon my being; the same error that boys fall into when life begins to tingle with its fulness of strength. Being ignorant of their nature, they feel any kind of dependence a chain; only themselves, their judgments and desires, are law. Just so modern man, in his deplorable want of self-knowledge, fails to see how he is cutting himself off from the source and support of life; how he is pulling himself out by the roots from the soil whence he derives his strength; how, left to his own littleness, he withers away; how, abandoned to his own diseased nature, he condemns himself to intellectual decay.
Autonomism, individualism, independent personality-these have become the ideals that permeate the man of this age, and influence the thought of thousands without their knowing it.
The well-known, Protestant, theologian, _A. Sabatier_, writes: "It is not difficult to find the common principle to which all the expressions and tendencies of the spirit of modern times can be reduced in any field whatever. One word expresses it-the word, "autonomy." By autonomy I understand the firm confidence, which the mind of man has attained in his present stage of development, that he contains in himself his own rule of life and norm of thought, and that he harbours the ardent desire of realizing himself by obeying his own law" (La Religion de la Culture moderne, 10).
"Modern times," writes _R. Eucken_, "have changed the position of the human subject ... it has become to them the centre of his life and the ultimate end of his endeavours" (Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 112 (1898), 165 s.). Still clearer are the following words of _G. Spicker_: "Man depended formerly either on nature or on revelation, or on both at once; now it is just the opposite: man is in every way, theoretically as well as practically, an autonomist. If anything can denote clearly the characteristic difference between the modern and the old scholastic view, it is this absolute, subjective, standpoint." "As we in principle do not intend to depend on any objectivity or authority, there is nothing left but the autonomy of the subject"
(Der Kampf zweier Weltanschauungen (1898), 143, 145).
A noted apostle of modern freedom exclaims enthusiastically:
"This after all is freedom: an unconditional appreciation of human greatness, no matter how it a.s.serts itself. This greatest happiness, as _Goethe_ called it, the humanists have restored to us. Henceforth we must with all our strength retain it. Whoever wants to rob us of it, even should he descend from heaven, is our deadliest enemy." (_H. St. Chamberlain._)
It is true, of course, that man should strive for perfection of self in every respect; for the harmonious development of all the faculties and good inclinations of his own being, and, in this sense, for a n.o.bler humanity; he should also develop and a.s.sert his own peculiar disposition and originality, so far as they are in order, and thus promote a healthy individualism. But all this he should do within the moral bonds of his created and limited nature, being convinced that only by keeping within the right limits of his being can he develop his ability and personality harmoniously; he dare not reach out, in reckless venture after independence, to free himself from G.o.d and his eternal end, and from the yoke of truth; he dare not transform the divine sovereignty into the distorted image of created autotheism.
He who professes a Christian view of the world, can see in such a view of man and his freedom only an utter misunderstanding of human nature and an overthrow of the right order of things. This overthrow, again, can only produce calamity, interior and exterior disorder. Woe to the planet that feels its...o...b..t a tyrannical restraint, and leaves it to move in sovereign freedom through the universe! It will move along free, and free will it go to ruin. Woe to the speeding train that leaves its track; it will speed on free, but invariably dash itself to pieces! A nature that abandons the prescribed safeguards can only degenerate into a wild sprout. We shall see how these principles have actually become in modern intellectual life the principles of negation and intellectual degeneration.
_St. Augustine_ states the history of mankind in the following, thoughtful words: "A twofold love divides mankind into the City of the World and the City of G.o.d. Man"s self-love and his self-exaltation pushed to the contempt of G.o.d const.i.tute the City of the World; but the love of G.o.d pushed to contempt of self is the foundation of the City of G.o.d."
(_Fecerunt itaque civitates duas amores duo, terrenam scilicet amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei, coelestem vero amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui._ De civ. Dei XIV, 28.) Thus _St. Augustine_, while contemplating the time when the war between heathenism and Christianity was raging. The same spectacle is presented to our own eyes to-day, probably more thoroughly than ever before in history.
The Period of Man"s Emanc.i.p.ation.
The modern view of man and his freedom has shaped itself gradually in recent times; the present is ever the child of the past. The most important factor in this development was undoubtedly the _Reformation_. It emanc.i.p.ated man in the most important affair, religious life, from the authority of the Church, and made him independent. "All have the right to try and to judge what is right and wrong in belief," so _Luther_ told the Christian n.o.bility of the German nation; "everybody shall according to his believing mind interpret the Scriptures, it is the duty of every believing Christian to espouse the faith, to understand and defend it, and to condemn all errors." Protestantism means even to the modern man "the thinking mind"s break with authority, a protest against being fettered by anything positive, the mind"s return to itself from self-alienation"
(_Schwegler_, Geschichte der Philosophie (1887), 167): "it puts out of joint the Christian Church organization, and overturns its supernatural foundation, quite against its will, but with an actual, and ever more plainly visible, effect" (_E. Troeltsch_, Die Bedeutung des Protestantismus fuer die Entstehung der modernen Welt (1906), 29).
The first step towards full autonomy was taken with energy; the emanc.i.p.ation from external authority then progressed rapidly in the domain of politics, sociology, economy, and especially of religion, to the very elimination of everything supernatural. There came the English individualism of the seventeenth century. The liberty of "individual conviction," termed also "tolerance," in the sense of rejecting every authoritative interference in the sanctuary of man"s thought and feeling, was extolled; of course at first only as the privilege of those who were intellectually superior. Soon the Deism of a _Herbert of Cherbury_ and _Locke_ was reached; it was the religion of natural reason, with belief in G.o.d and the obligation to moral action. Whatever is added by positive religions, and therefore by the Christian religion, is superfluous; hence not dogma, but freedom! _Locke_, indeed, denied to atheists state toleration; but _J. Toland_ already advised full freedom of thought, even to the tolerance of atheism. In the year 1717 _Freemasonry_ came into existence in England. _Adam Smith_ originated the idea of a liberal political economy which frees the individual from all bond, even in the economic field. The views prevailing in England then exert great influence in France. _Rousseau_ and _Voltaire_ appear.
In France and Germany the enlightenment of the eighteenth century makes rapid strides in the direction of emanc.i.p.ation. "The enlightenment of the eighteenth century," writes _H. Heltner_, "not only resumes the prematurely interrupted work of the sixteenth century, the Reformation, but carries it on independently, and in its own way. The thoughts and demands of the "enlightened" are bolder and more aggressive, more unscrupulous and daring.... With _Luther_ the idea of revelation remained intact; the new method of thought rejects the idea of a divine revelation, and bases all religious knowledge on merely human thought and sentiment.... It is only the free, entirely independent thought that decides in truth and justice, moral and political rights and duties.
Reason has regained its self-glory; man comes to his senses again"
(Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts II (1894), 553). _Kant_ gave it a philosophical setting.
Then the _French Revolution_ breaks into fierce blaze, writing on the skies of Europe with flaming letters the ideas of emanc.i.p.ated humanity; the adherents to the old religion are sent to the guillotine. On August 27, 1789, the proclamation of the "rights of man" is made. "The principles of 1789," as they are now called, henceforth dominate the nineteenth century. The system which adopted these principles called itself, and still calls itself, _Liberalism_.
Liberalism as a principle-we are speaking of the principles of liberalism, not of its adherents, who for the most part do not carry out these principles in their consequences, and occasionally do not even grasp them completely-tried to accomplish man"s utter emanc.i.p.ation from all external and superior authority. It sought to accomplish this in the political field, by inst.i.tuting const.i.tutional, and, wherever possible, a republican form of government; in the field of economy, by granting freedom to labour and possession, to capital and commerce; but especially in the field of morals and religion, by emanc.i.p.ating thought and science, and the entire life of man,-school, marriage, state,-from every religious influence and direction, and in this sense it aimed at humanizing the whole life of man.
This is its purpose. To achieve this, it aims at establishing itself in the state, by gaining political power through the aid of compulsory laws, of course against all principles of freedom; it tries to attain this by compulsory state-education, by obligatory civil marriage, and so on. At first there appeared only a moderate liberalism, which gradually gave place to a more radical tendency, striving more directly and openly toward the enfeeblement and, if possible, the destruction of the Christian view of the world and its chief representative, the Church. In 1848 the well-known materialist _K. Vogt_ said at the national a.s.sembly in Frankfort: "Every church is opposed to a free development of mankind, in that it demands faith above all. Every church is an obstacle in the way of man"s free intellectual development, and since I am for such intellectual development of man, I am against every church" (cf. _Rothenbuecher_, Trennung von Staat und Kirche (1908), 106).
In the field of economics, every one can see how liberalism has failed. In some countries people were ashamed to retain its name any longer. It suddenly disappeared from public life, and gave place to its translation,-free thought. This shows that n.o.body cares to boast of its success. All barriers of safety had been removed in a night; crises, confusion, and the serious danger of the social question were the consequence. In the field of actual economics it became clear that the principle of unlimited freedom could not be carried out, because it was utterly ruinous, and it really means a complete misunderstanding of human nature. Therefore liberalism has disappeared from this field, leaving to others to solve the problem it created, and to heal the wounds it inflicted. It is otherwise in the field of theoretical economics. Here it still strives to dominate, often more thoroughly than before, no matter what name it may a.s.sume. The consequences do not appear so gross to the eyes as they would in the tangible sphere of sociology. Especially science it wants to hold in subjection to its principles of freedom in undiminished severity.
That freedom which is identified with absolute independence from all authority, especially in the intellectual sphere, we shall here know as Liberal freedom, in contradistinction to Christian freedom, which is satisfied with independence from unjust restraint.
In the foregoing discussion it has been shown how deeply the liberal idea of freedom is imbedded in the unchristian philosophical view of the world.
The inevitable result is a freedom of science which considers every authoritative interference in research and teaching as an encroachment upon the rights of free development in man"s personality, especially in the sphere of philosophy and religion. Moreover, the humanitarian view of the world, insisting on the independence of man and his earthly life, naturally demands the exclusion of G.o.d and the other world, it orders the rejection of "dualism" as unscientific, and the adoption of the monistic view in its stead; an autonomous science can hardly be reconciled with a superior, restricting authority. Later on we shall demonstrate that the main law of modern science is that the supernatural is inadmissible.
Furthermore, since science is not a superhuman being, but has its seat in the intellect of man, subject to the psychology of man, every one who knows the heart of man will suspect from the outset that man cannot stop at merely ignoring, but will often proceed to combat and explain away faith, the Church, and all authority that might be considered an oppressor of the truth. This undue love of liberty will of itself become a struggle for freedom against the oppressor. How far this is actually the case we shall have occasion to discuss later on.
We have heard _Nietzsche"s_ haughty and proud boast. Shortly after the philosopher had penned these words he was stricken (1889) with permanent, incurable insanity, with which he was afflicted till his death in 1900.
The "transcendental man" was dethroned. The strength of the t.i.tan was shattered. He that said with _Prometheus_, I am not a G.o.d, still I am in strength the equal of any of them, received the ironical answer, "Behold he has become as one of us" (Gen. iii. 22). He that cursed Christian charity towards the poor and suffering, was now cast helpless upon charity. His grave at Roecken, the place also of his birth, is a sign of warning to the modern world.
To the believing Christian a different grave opens on Easter day. From it comes the risen G.o.d-man; in His hand the banner of immortal victory. It points the way to true human greatness, to a superior humanity according to the will of G.o.d. Man longs for perfection; he longs to go beyond the narrow limits of his present condition. But modern man wants to rise to greatness by his own strength, without help from above; he would rise with giant bounds, without law. In his weakness he falls; error and scepticism and the loss of morality are the bitter fruit. Another way is pointed out by the great Friend of Man. Humanity is to be led on the way of progress by the hand of G.o.d, by faith in G.o.d, supported by His grace; thus man shall partic.i.p.ate in G.o.d"s nature, shall one day attain his highest perfection in eternal life, far beyond the limits of his present condition. "I am the way, the truth, and the life."