How is it possible to reconcile this ideal of life, still more the hope of everlasting life, with the acknowledged vanity of desire? It is accomplished through the medium of an emotion which more than any I have touched upon reveals the character of the religious sentiment--Love.
This mighty but protean feeling I shall attempt to define on broader principles than has. .h.i.therto been done. The vague and partial meanings a.s.signed it have led to sad confusion in the studies of religions. In the language of feeling, love is a pa.s.sion; but it does not spring from feeling alone. It is far more fervid when it rises through intellect than through sense. "Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love," says the fair Rosalind; and though her saying is not very true as to the love of sense, it is far less true as to the love of intellect. The martyrs to science and religion, to principles and faith, multiply a hundred-fold those to the garden G.o.d.
The spell of the idea is what
"Turns ruin into laughter and death into dreaming."
Such love destroys the baser pa.s.sion of sense, or transfigures it so that we know it no longer. The idea-driven is callous to the blandishments of beauty, for his is a love stronger than the love to woman. The vestal, the virgin, the eunuch for the kingdom of heaven"s sake are the exemplars of the love to G.o.d.
What common trait so marks these warring products of mind, that we call them by one name? In what is all love the same? The question is pertinent, for the love of woman, the love of neighbor, the love of country, the love of G.o.d, have made the positive side of most religions, the burden of their teachings. The priests of Cotytto and Venus, Astarte and Melitta, spoke but a more sensuous version of the sermon of the aged apostle to the Ephesians,--shortest and best of all sermons--"Little children, love one another."[59-1]
The earliest and most constant sign of reason is "working for a remote object."[59-2] Nearly everything we do is as a step to something beyond.
Forethought, conscious provision, is the measure of intelligence. But there must be something which is the object, the aim, the end-in-view of rational action, which is sought for itself alone, not as instrumental to something else. Such an object, when recognized, inspires the sentiment of love. It springs from the satisfaction of reason.
This conclusion as to the nature of love has long been recognized by thinkers. Richard Baxter defined it as "the volition of the end," "the motion of the soul that tendeth to the end," and more minutely, "the will"s volition of good apprehended by the understanding."[60-1] In similar language Bishop Butler explains it as "the resting in an object as an end."[60-2] Perhaps I can better these explanations by the phrase, _Love is the mental impression of rational action whose end is in itself_.
Now this satisfaction is found only in one cla.s.s of efforts, namely, those whose result is continuity, persistence, in fine, _preservation_.
This may be toward the individual, self-love, whose object is the continuance of personal existence; toward the other s.e.x, where the hidden aim is the perpetuation of the race; toward one"s fellows, where the giving of pleasure and the prevention of pain mean the maintenance of life; toward one"s country, as patriotism; and finally toward the eternally true, which as alone the absolutely permanent and preservative, inspires a love adequate and exhaustive of its conception, casting out both hope and fear, the pangs of desire as well as the satiety of fruition.
In one or other of these forms love has at all times been the burden of religion: the glad tidings it has always borne have been "love on earth." The Phnix in Egyptian myth appeared yearly as newly risen, but was ever the same bird, and bore the egg from which its _parent_ was to have birth. So religions have a.s.sumed the guise in turn of self-love, s.e.x-love, love of country and love of humanity, cherishing in each the germ of that highest love which alone is the parent of its last and only perfect embodiment.
Favorite of these forms was s.e.x-love. "We find," observes a recent writer, "that all religions have engaged and concerned themselves with the s.e.xual pa.s.sion. From the times of phallic worship through Romish celibacy down to Mormonism, theology has linked itself with man"s reproductive instincts."[61-1] The remark is just, and is most conspicuously correct in strongly emotional temperaments. "The devotional feelings," writes the Rev. Frederick Robertson in one of his essays, "are often singularly allied to the animal nature; they conduct the unconscious victim of feelings that appear divine into a state of life at which the world stands aghast." Fanaticism is always united with either excessive lewdness or desperate asceticism. The physiological performance of the generative function is sure to be attacked by religious bigotry.
So prominent is this feature that attempts have been made to explain nearly all symbolism and mythology as types of the generative procedure and the reproductive faculty of organism. Not only the pyramids and sacred mountains, the obelisks of the Nile and the myths of light have received this interpretation, but even such general symbols as the spires of churches, the cross of Christendom and the crescent of Islam.[62-1]
Without falling into the error of supposing that any one meaning or origin can be a.s.signed such frequent symbols, we may acknowledge that love, in its philosophical sense, is closely akin to the mystery of every religion. That, on occasions, love of s.e.x gained the mastery over all other forms, is not to be doubted; but that at all times this was so, is a narrow, erroneous view, not consistent with a knowledge of the history of psychical development.
s.e.x-love, as a sentiment, is a cultivated growth. All it is at first is a rude satisfaction of the erethism. The wild tribes of California had their pairing seasons when the s.e.xes were in heat, "as regularly as the deer, the elk and the antelope."[63-1] In most tongues of the savages of North America there are no tender words, as "dear," "darling," and the like.[63-2] No desire of offspring led to their unions. The women had few children, and their fathers paid them little attention. The family instinct appears in conditions of higher culture, in Judea, Greece, Rome and ancient Germany. Procreation instead of l.u.s.t was there the aim of marriage. To-day, mere sentiment is so much in the ascendant that both these elements are often absent. There is warm affection without even instinctive knowledge of the design of the bond a.s.sumed.[63-3]
Those who would confine the promptings of the pa.s.sion of reproduction as it appears in man to its objects as shown in lower animals, know little how this wondrous emotion has acted as man"s mentor as well as paraclete in his long and toilsome conflict with the physical forces.
The venereal sense is unlike the other special senses in that it is general, as well as referable to special organs and nerves. In its psychological action it "especially contributes to the development of sympathies which connect man not only with his coevals, but with his fellows of all preceding and succeeding generations as well. Upon it is erected this vast superstructure of intellect, of social and moral sentiment, of voluntary effort and endeavor."[64-1] Of all the properties of organized matter, that of transmitting form and life is the most wonderful; and if we examine critically the physical basis of the labors and hopes of mankind, if we ask what prompts its n.o.blest and holiest longings, we shall find them, in the vast majority of instances, directly traceable to this power. No wonder then that religion, which we have seen springs from man"s wants and wishes, very often bears the distinct trace of their origin in his reproductive functions. The liens of the family are justly deemed sacred, and are naturally a.s.sociated with whatever the mind considers holy.
The duty of a citizen to become a father was a prominent feature in many ancient religions. How much honor the sire of many sons had in Rome and Palestine is familiar to all readers. No warrior, according to German faith, could gain entrance to Valhalla unless he had begotten a son. Thus the preservation of the species was placed under the immediate guardianship of religion.
Such considerations explain the close connection of s.e.xual thoughts with the most sacred mysteries of faith. In polytheisms, the divinities are universally represented as male or female, virile and fecund. The processes of nature were often held to be maintained through such celestial nuptials.
Yet stranger myths followed those of the loves of the G.o.ds. Religion, as the sentiment of continuance, finding its highest expression in the phenomenon of generation, had to reconcile this with the growing concept of a divine unity. Each separate G.o.d was magnified in praises as self-sufficient. Earth, or nature, or the season is one, yet brings forth all. How embody this in concrete form?
The startling refuge was had in the image of a deity at once of both s.e.xes. Such avowedly were Mithras, Ja.n.u.s, Melitta, Cybele, Aphrodite, Agdistis; indeed nearly all the Syrian, Egyptian, and Italic G.o.ds, as well as Brahma, and, in the esoteric doctrine of the Cabala, even Jehovah, whose female aspect is represented by the "Shekinah." To this abnormal condition the learned have applied the adjectives epicene, androgynous, hermaphrodite, arrenothele. In art it is represented by a blending of the traits of both s.e.xes. In the cult it was dramatically set forth by the votaries a.s.suming the attire of the other s.e.x, and dallying with both.[66-1] The phallic symbol superseded all others; and in Cyprus, Babylonia and Phrygia, once in her life, at least, must every woman submit to the embrace of a stranger.
Such rites were not mere sensualities. The priests of these divinities often voluntarily suffered emasculation. None but a eunuch could become high priest of Cybele. Among the sixteen million worshippers of Siva, whose symbol is the Lingam, impurity is far less prevalent than among the sister sects of Hindoo religions.[66-2] To the Lingayets, the member typifies abstractly the idea of life. Therefore they carve it on sepulchres, or, like the ancient nations of Asia Minor, they lay clay images of it on graves to intimate the hope of existence beyond the tomb.
This notion of a hermaphrodite deity is not "monstrous," as it has been called. There lies a deep meaning in it. The G.o.ds are spirits, beings of another order, which the cultivated esthetic sense protests against cla.s.sing as of one or the other gender. Never can the ideal of beauty, either physical or moral, be reached until the characteristics of s.e.x are lost in the concept of the purely human. In the n.o.blest men of history there has often been noted something feminine, a gentleness which is not akin to weakness; and the women whose names are ornaments to nations have displayed a calm greatness, not unwomanly but something more than belongs to woman. Art acknowledges this. In the Vatican Apollo we see masculine strength united with maidenly softness; and in the traditional face and figure of Christ a still more striking example how the devout mind conjoins the traits of both s.e.xes to express the highest possibility of the species. "Soaring above the struggle in which the real is involved with its limitations, and free from the characteristics of gender, the ideal of beauty as well as the ideal of humanity, alike maintain a perfect s.e.xual equilibrium."[67-1]
Another and more familiar expression of the religious emotion, akin to the belief in double-s.e.xed deities,--nay, in its physiological aspect identical with it, as a.s.suming s.e.xual self-sufficiency, is the myth of the Virgin-Mother.
When Columbus first planted the cross on the sh.o.r.es of San Domingo, the lay brother Roman Pane, whom he sent forth to convert the natives of that island, found among them a story of a virgin Mamona, whose son Yocauna, a hero and a G.o.d, was chief among divinities, and had in the old times taught this simple people the arts of peace and guided them through the islands.[68-1] When the missionaries penetrated to the Iroquois, the Aztecs, the Mayas, and many other tribes, this same story was told them with such startling likeness to one they came to tell, that they felt certain either St. Thomas or Satan had got the start of them in America.
But had these pious men known as well as we do the gentile religions of the Old World, they would have seasoned their admiration. Long before Christianity was thought of, the myth of the Virgin-Mother of G.o.d was in the faith of millions, as we have had abundantly shown us of late years by certain expounders of Christian dogmas.
How is this strange, impossible belief to be explained? Of what secret, unconscious, psychological working was it the expression? Look at its result. It is that wherever this doctrine is developed the _status matrimonialis_ is held to be less pure, less truly religious, than the _status virginitatis_. Such is the teaching to-day in Lha.s.sa, in Rome; so it was in Yucatan, where, too, there were nunneries filled with spouses of G.o.d. I connect it with the general doctrine that chast.i.ty in either s.e.x is more agreeable to G.o.d than marriage, and this belief, I think, very commonly arises at a certain stage of development of the religious sentiment, when it unconsciously recognises the indisputable fact that s.e.x-love, whether in its form of love of woman, family, or nation, is not what that sentiment craves. This is first shown by rejecting the idea of s.e.x-love in the birth of the G.o.d; then his priests and priestesses refuse its allurements, and deny all its claims, those of kindred, of country, of race, until the act of generation itself is held unholy and the thought of s.e.x a sin. By such forcible though rude displays do they set forth their unconscious acknowledgment of that eternal truth: "He that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me."
The significance of these words is not that there is an antagonism in the forms of love. It is not that man should hate himself, as Pascal, following the teachings of the Church, so ably argued; nor that the one s.e.x should be set over against the other in sterile abhorrence; nor yet that love of country and of kindred is incompatible with that toward the Supreme of thought; but it is that each of these lower, shallower, evanescent forms of emotion is and must be lost in, subordinated to, that highest form to which these words have reference. Reconciliation, not abnegation, is what they mean.
Even those religions which teach in its strictness the oneness of G.o.d have rarely separated from his personality the attribute of s.e.x. He is the father, _pater et genitor_, of all beings. The monotheism which we find in Greece and India generally took this form. The ancient Hebrews emphasized the former, not the latter sense of the word, and thus depriving it of its more distinctive characteristics of s.e.x, prepared the way for the teachings of Christianity, in which the Supreme Being always appears with the attributes of the male, but disconnected from the idea of generation.
Singularly enough, the efforts to which this latent incongruity prompts, even in persons speaking English, in which tongue the articles and adjectives have no genders, point back to the errors of an earlier age.
A recent prayer by an eminent spiritualist commences:--"Oh Eternal Spirit, our Father and our Mother!" The expression ill.u.s.trates how naturally arises the belief in a hermaphrodite G.o.d, when once s.e.x is a.s.sociated with deity.
Of all founders of religions, Mohammed first proclaimed a divinity without relation to s.e.x. One of his earliest suras reads:
"He is G.o.d alone, G.o.d the eternal.
He begetteth not, and is not begotten; And there is none like unto him."
And elsewhere:--
"He hath no spouse, neither hath he any offspring."[71-1]
While he expressly acknowledged the divine conception of Jesus, he denied the coa.r.s.e and literal version of that doctrine in vogue among the ignorant Christians around him. Enlightened christendom, to-day, does not, I believe, differ from him on this point.
Such s.e.xual religions do not arise, as the theory has. .h.i.therto been, from study and observation of the generative agencies in nature, but from the ident.i.ty of object between love in sense and love in intellect, profane and sacred pa.s.sion. The essence of each is _continuance_, preservation; the origin of each is subjective, personal; but the former has its root in sensation, the latter in reason.
The s.e.x-difference in organisms, the "abhorrence of self-fertilization"
which Mr. Darwin speaks of as so conspicuous and inexplicable a phenomenon, is but one example of the sway of a law which as action and reaction, thesis and ant.i.thesis, is common to both elementary motion and thought. The fertile and profound fancy of Greece delighted to prefigure this truth in significant symbols and myths. Love, Eros, is shown carrying the globe, or wielding the club of Hercules; he is the unknown spouse of Psyche, the soul; and from the primitive chaos he brings forth the ordered world, the Kosmos.
The intimate and strange relation between sensuality and religion, so often commented upon and denied, again proven, and always misinterpreted, thus receives a satisfactory explanation. Some singular manifestations of it, of significance in religious history, are presented by the records of insane delusions. They confirm what I have above urged, that the a.s.sociation is not one derived from observation through intellectual processes, but is a consequence of physiological connections, of ident.i.ty of aim in the distinct realms of thought and emotion.
That eminent writer on mental diseases, Schroeder van der Kolk, when speaking of the forms of melancholy which arise from physical conditions, remarks: "The patient who is melancholy from disorders of the generative organs considers himself sinful. His depressed tone of mind pa.s.ses over into religious melancholy; "he is forsaken by G.o.d; he is lost." All his afflictions have a religious color." In a similar strain, Feuchtersleben says: "In the female s.e.x especially, the erotic delusion, unknown to the patient herself, often a.s.sumes the color of the religious."[73-1] "The unaccomplished s.e.xual designs of nature,"
observes a later author speaking of the effects of the single life, "lead to brooding over supposed miseries which suggest devotion and religious exercise as the nepenthe to soothe the morbid longings."[73-2]
Stimulate the religious sentiment and you arouse the pa.s.sion of love, which will be directed as the temperament and individual culture prompt.
Develope very prominently any one form of love, and by a native affinity it will seize upon and consecrate to its own use whatever religious aspirations the individual has. This is the general law of their relation.
All the lower forms of love point to one to which they are the gradual ascent, both of the individual and on a grander scale of the race, to wit, the love of G.o.d. This is the pa.s.sion for the highest attainable truth, a pa.s.sion which, as duty, prompts to the strongest action and to the utter sacrifice of all other longings. No speculative acquaintance with propositions satisfies it, no egotistic construction of systems, but the truth expressed in life, the truth as that which alone either has or can give being and diuturnity, this is its food, for which it thirsts with holy ardor. Here is the genuine esoteric gnosis, the sacred secret, which the rude and selfish wishes of the savage, the sensual rites of Babylon, "mother of harlots," and the sublimely unselfish dreams of a "religion of humanity," have alike had in their hearts, but had no capacity to interpret, no words to articulate.
Related to this emotional phase of the religious sentiment is the theurgic power of certain natural objects over some persons. The biblical scholar Kitto confesses that the moon exerted a strange influence on his mind, stirring his devotional nature, and he owns that it would not have been hard for him to join the worshippers of the G.o.ddess of the night. Wilhelm von Humboldt in one of his odes refers to similar feelings excited in him by the gloom and murmur of groves. The sacred poets and the religious arts generally acknowledge this _fascination_, as it has been called, which certain phenomena have for religious temperaments.
The explanation which suggests itself is that of individual and ancestral a.s.sociation. In the case of Kitto it was probably the latter.
His sensitively religious nature experienced in gazing at the moon an impression inherited from some remote ancestor who had actually made it the object of ardent worship. The study of the laws of inherited memory, so successfully pursued of late by Professor Layc.o.c.k, take away anything eccentric about this explanation, though I scarcely expect it will be received by one unacquainted with those laws.
The emotional aspect of religion is not exhausted by the varieties of fear and hope and love. Wonder, awe, admiration, the aesthetic emotions, in fact all the active principles of man"s mental economy are at times excited and directed by the thought of supernatural power. Some have attempted to trace the religious sentiment exclusively to one or the other of these. But they are all incidental and subsidiary emotions.
Certain mental diseases, by abnormally stimulating the emotions, predispose strongly to religious fervor. Epilepsy is one of these, and in Swedenborg and Mohammed, both epileptics, we see distinguished examples of religious mystics, who, no doubt honestly, accepted the visions which accompanied their disease as revelations from another world. Very many epileptics are subject to such delusions, and their insanity is usually of a religious character.
On the other hand, devotional excitement is apt to bring about mental alienation. Every violent revival has left after it a small crop of religious melancholies and lunatics. Competent authorities state that in modern communities religious insanity is most frequent in those sects who are given to emotional forms of religion, the Methodists and Baptists for example; whereas it is least known among Roman Catholics, where doubt and anxiety are at once allayed by an infallible referee, and among the Quakers, where enthusiasm is discouraged and with whom the restraint of emotion is a part of discipline.[76-1] Authoritative a.s.surance in many disturbed conditions of mind is sufficient to relieve the mental tension and restore health.
If, by what has been said, it is clear that the religious sentiment has its origin in a wish, it is equally clear that not every wish is concerned in it. The objects which a man can attain by his own unaided efforts, are not those which he makes the subjects of his prayers; nor are the periodic and regular occurrences in nature, how impressive they may be, much thought of in devotional moods. The moment that an event is recognized to be under fixed law, it is seen to be inappropriate to seek by supplication to alter it. No devotee, acquainted with the theory of the tides, would, like Canute the King, think of staying their waves with words. Eclipses and comets, once matters of superst.i.tious terror, have been entirely shorn of this attribute by astronomical discovery.
Even real and tragic misfortunes, if believed to be such as flow from fixed law, and especially if they can be predicted sometime before they arrive, do not excite religious feeling. As Bishop Hall quaintly observes, referring to a curious medieval superst.i.tion: "Crosses, after the nature of the c.o.c.katrice, die if they be foreseen."
Only when the event suggests the direct action of _mind_, of some free intelligence, is it possible for the religious sentiment to throw around it the aureole of sanct.i.ty. Obviously when natural law was little known, this included vastly more occurrences than civilized men now think of holding to be of religious import. Hence the objective and material form of religion is always fostered by ignorance, and this is the form which prevails exclusively in uncultivated societies.