fury in man. Many of the ideas concerning the origin of religions, insists De la Saussaye truly, need only to be mentioned to have their insufficiency realised. "Such is, for instance, that formerly popular explanation which regarded religion as a human discovery sprung from the cunning deception of priests and rulers. Another opinion not less insipid, though at present sometimes regarded as the highest philosophy, is that which declares religion to be a madness, a pathological phenomenon closely allied with neurosis and hysteria." The phenomena in question are on such a gigantic scale, and the instinct which finds an expression therein is so general, so persistent, and so deep-seated, that they cannot be lightly passed over in this way. In the eyes of the evolutionist they must have some meaning, they must be associated with some widereaching law of our social development as yet unenunciated. 1 The one fact which stands out clear above it all is that the forces against which man is engaged throughout the whole course of the resulting struggle are none other than those enlisted against him by his reason. As in Calderon's tragic story the unknown figure which, throughout life, is everywhere in conflict with the individual whom it haunts, lifts the mask at last to disclose to the opponent his own features, so here underneath these religious phenomena we see man throughout his career engaged in a remorseless and relentless struggle in which the opponent proves to be none other than his own reason. Throughout all the centuries in which history has him in view we witness him driven by a profound instinct which finds expression 1 Manual of the Science of Religion, by P. D. C. De La Saussaye, translated from the German, by B. S. Colyer-Fergusson, 1891. in his religions unmistakably recognising a hostile force of some kind in his own reason. 1 This is the spectacle which demands our attention. This is the conflict the significance of which in human evolution it is necessary to bring out into the fullest and clearest light. It is a conflict, the meaning of which has been buried for over two thousand years under the fierce controversy (not less partisan and unscientific on the one side than on the other) which has been waged over it. Goethe was not speaking with a poet's exaggeration, but with a scientific insight in advance of his time when he asserted of it, that it is "the deepest, nay, the one theme of the world's history to which all others are subordinate." 2 1 It is a remarkable and interesting fact that the two sides in this conflict, even under all the forms and freedom of modern life where the fullest scope is allowed for every kind of inquiry, still seem to recognise each other intuitively as opponents. Mr. Galton, as the result of his inquiries into the personal and family history of scientific men in England, says that it is a fact that, in proportion to the pains bestowed on their education, sons of clergymen rarely take the lead in science. The pursuit of science he considers must be uncongenial to the priestly character. He says that in his own experience of the councils of scientific societies it is very rare to find clergymen thereon. Out of 660 separate appointments clergymen held only sixteen, or one in forty, and these were in nearly every case attached to subdivisions of science with fewest salient points to jar against dogma.-English Men of Science, their Nature and Nurture, by F. Galton. 2 Vide The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte, by E. Caird, LL.D., p. 160. CHAPTER V THE FUNCTION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IN THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY SINCE science first seriously directed her attention to the study of social phenomena, the interest of workers has been arrested by the striking resemblances between the life of society and that of organic growths in general. We have, accordingly, had many elaborate parallels drawn by various scientific writers between the two, and “the social organism" has become a familiar expression in a certain class of literature. It must be confessed, however, that these comparisons have been, so far, neither as fruitful nor as suggestive as might naturally have been expected. The generalisations and abstractions to which they have led, even in the hands of so original a thinker as Mr. Herbert Spencer, are often, it must be acknowledged, forced and unsatisfactory; and it may be fairly said that a field of inquiry which looked at the outset in the highest degree promising has, on the whole, proved disappointing. Yet that there is some analogy between the social life and organic life in general, history and experience most undoubtedly suggest. The pages of the historian seem to be filled with pictures of organic life, over the moving details of which the biologist instinctively H lingers. We see social systems born in silence and obscurity. They develop beneath our eyes. They make progress until they exhibit a certain maximum vitality. They gradually decline, and finally disappear, having presented in the various stages certain well-marked phases which invariably accompany the development and dissolution of organic life wheresoever encountered. It may be observed too that this idea of the life, growth, and decline of peoples is deeply rooted. It is always present in the mind of the historian. It is to be met with continually in general literature. The popular imagination is affected by it. It finds constant expression in the utterances of public speakers and of writers in the daily press, who, ever and anon, remind us that our national life, or, it may be, the life of our civilisation, must reach, if it has not already reached, its stage of maximum development, and that it must decline like others which have preceded it. That social systems are endowed with a definite principle of life seems to be taken for granted. Yet: What is this principle? Where has it its seat? which control the development and decline of those so-called organic growths? Nay, more: What is the social organism itself? Is it the political organisation of which we form part? Or is it the race to which we belong? Is it our civilisation in general? Or, is it, as some writers would seem to imply, the whole human family in process of evolution? It must be confessed that the literature of our time furnishes no satisfactory answers to a large class of questions of this kind. What are the laws It is evident that if we are ever to lay broadly and firmly the foundations of a science of human society, that there is one point above others at which attention must be concentrated. The distinguishing feature of human history is the social development the race is undergoing. But the characteristic and exceptional feature of this development is the relationship of the individual to society. We have seen in the preceding chapters that fundamental organic conditions of life render the progress of the race possible only under conditions which have never had, and which have not now, any sanction from the reason of a great proportion of the individuals who submit to them. The interests of the individual and those of the social organism, in the evolution which is proceeding, are not either identical or capable of being reconciled, as has been necessarily assumed in all those systems of ethics which have sought to establish a rational sanction for individual conduct. The two are fundamentally and inherently irreconcilable, and a large proportion of the existing individuals at any time have, as we saw, no personal interest whatever in this progress of the race, or in the social development we are undergoing. Strange to say, however, man's reason, which has apparently given him power to suspend the onerous conditions to which he is subject, has never produced their suspension. His development has continued with unabated pace throughout history, and it is in full progress under our eyes. The pregnant question with which we found ourselves confronted was, therefore: What has then become of human reason? It would appear that the answer has, in effect, been given. The central feature of human history, the meaning of which neither science nor philosophy has hitherto fully recognised, is, apparently, the struggle which man, throughout the whole period of his social development, has carried on to effect the subordination of his own reason. |