After my arguments on the subject of institutions and climates, I come to another, which I should really have put before all the rest; not that I think it stronger than they are, but because the facts on which it is based naturally command our reverence. If my conclusions in the preceding chapters are admitted, two points become increasingly evident: first, that most human races are for ever incapable of civilization, so long as they remain unmixed; secondly, that such races are not only without the inner impulse necessary to start them on the path of improvement, but also that no external force, however energetic in other respects, is powerful enough to turn their congenital barrenness into fertility. Here we shall be asked, no doubt, whether the light of Christianity is to shine in vain on entire nations, and whether some peoples are doomed never to behold it at all.
Some writers have answered in the affirmative. They have not scrupled to contradict the promise of the Gospel, by denying the most characteristic feature of the new law, which is precisely that of being accessible to all men. Their view merely restates the old formula of the Hebrews, to which it returns by a little larger gate than that of the Old Covenant; but it returns all the same. I have no desire to follow the champions of this idea, which is condemned by the Church, nor have I the least difficulty in admitting that all human races are gifted with an equal capacity for being received into the bosom of the Christian Communion. Here there is no impediment arising from any original difference between races; for this purpose their inequalities are of no account. Religions and their followers are not, as has been assumed, distributed in zones over the surface of the earth. It is not true that Christianity must rule from this meridian to that, while from such and such a point Islam takes up the sceptre, holding it only as far as a certain impassable frontier, and then having to deliver it into the hands of Buddhism or Brahmanism, while the fetichists of the tribe of Ham divide among themselves the rest of the world.
Christians are found in all latitudes and all climates. Statistics, inaccurate perhaps, but still approximately true, show us a vast number of them, Mongols wandering in the plains of Upper Asia, savages hunting on the tableland of the Cordilleras, Eskimos fishing in the ice of the Arctic circle, even Chinese and Japanese dying under the scourge of the persecutor. The least observation will show this, and will also prevent us from falling into the very common error of confusing the universal power of recognizing the truths of Christianity and following its precepts, with the very different faculty that leads one human race, and not another, to understand the earthly conditions of social improvement, and to be able to pass from one rung of the ladder to another, so as to reach finally the state which we call civilization. The rungs of this ladder are the measure of the inequality of human races.
It was held, quite wrongly, in the last century, that the doctrine of renunciation, a corner-stone of Christianity, was essentially opposed to social development; and that people to whom the highest virtue consists in despising the things here below, and in turning their eyes and hearts, without ceasing, towards the heavenly Jerusalem, will not do much to help the progress of this world. The very imperfection of man may serve to rebut such an argument. There has never been any serious reason to fear that he will renounce the joys of earth; and though the counsels of religion were expressly directed to this point, we may say that they were pulling against a current that they knew to be irresistible, and were merely demanding a great deal in order to obtain a very little. Further, the Christian precepts are a great aid to society; they plane away all roughness, they pour the oil of charity on all social relations, they condemn violence, force men to appeal to the sole authority of reason, and so gain for the spirit a plenitude of power which works in a thousand ways for the good of the flesh. Again, religion elevates the mind by the metaphysical and intellectual character of its dogmas, while through the purity of its moral ideal it tends to free the spirit from a host of corrosive vices and weaknesses, which are dangerous to material progress. Thus, as against the philosophers of the eighteenth century, we are right in calling Christianity a civilizing power—but only within certain limits; if we take the words in too wide a sense, we shall find ourselves drawn into a maze of error.
Christianity is a civilizing force in so far as it makes a man better minded and better mannered; yet it is only indirectly so, for it has no idea of applying this improvement in morals and intelligence to the perishable things of this world, and it is always content with the social conditions in which it finds its neophytes, however imperfect the conditions may be. So long as it can pull out the noxious weeds that stifle the well-being of the soul, it is indifferent to everything else. It leaves all men as it finds them—the Chinese in his robes, the Eskimo in his furs, the first eating rice, and the second eating whale-blubber. It does not require them to change their way of life. If their state can be improved as a direct consequence of their conversion, then Christianity will certainly do its best to bring such an improvement about; but it will not try to alter a single custom, and certainly will not force any advance from one civilization to another, for it has not yet adopted one itself. It uses all civilizations and is above all. There are proofs in abundance, and I will speak of them in a moment; but I must first make the confession that I have never understood the ultra-modern doctrine which identifies the law of Christ and the interests of this world in such a way that it creates from their union a fictitious social order which it calls “Christian civilization.”
There is certainly such a thing as a pagan civilization, just as there is a Brahman, Buddhist, or Jewish civilization. Societies have existed, and still exist, which are absolutely based on religion. Religion has given them their constitution, drawn up their laws, settled their civic duties, marked out their frontiers, and prescribed their foreign policy. Such societies have only been able to persist by placing themselves under a more or less strict theocracy. We can no more imagine their living without their rites and creeds than we can imagine the rites and creeds existing by themselves, without the people. The whole of antiquity was more or less in this condition. Roman statesmanship certainly invented the legal tolerance of creeds, and a decadent theology produced a vast system of fusion and assimilation of cults; but these belonged to the latest age of paganism, when the fruit was already rotten on the tree. While it was young and flourishing, there were as many Jupiters, Mercuries, and Venuses, as there were towns. The god was a jealous god, in a sense quite different from the jealousy of the Jewish God; he was still more exclusive, and recognized no one but his fellow-citizens in this world and the next. Every ancient civilization rose to greatness under the ægis of some divinity, of some particular cult. Religion and the State were united so closely and inseparably that the responsibility for all that happened was shared between them. We may speak, if we will, of “finding traces of the cult of the Tyrian Heracles in the public policy of Carthage”; but I think that we can really identify the effects of the doctrines taught by the priests with the policy of the suffetes and the trend of social development. Again, I have no doubt that the dog-headed Anubis, Isis Neith, and the Ibises taught the men of the Nile valley all that they knew and practised. Christianity, however, acted in this respect quite differently from all preceding religions; this was its greatest innovation. Unlike them, it had no chosen people. It was addressed to the whole world, not only to the rich or the poor. From the first it received from the Holy Ghost the gift of tongues,[[31]] that it might speak to each man in the language of his country, and proclaim the Gospel by means of the ideas and images that each nation could best understand. It did not come to change the outward part of man, the material world; it taught him to despise this outward part, and was only concerned with his inner self. We read in a very ancient apocryphal book, “Let not the strong man boast of his strength, nor the rich man of his riches; but let him who will be glorified glorify himself in the Lord.”[[32]] Strength, riches, worldly power, and the way of ambition—all these have no meaning for our law. No civilization whatever has excited its envy or contempt; and because of this rare impartiality, and the consequences that were to flow from it, the law could rightly call itself “Catholic,” or universal. It does not belong exclusively to any civilization. It did not come to bless any one form of earthly existence; it rejects none, and would purify all.
The canonical books, the writings of the Fathers, the stories of the missionaries of all ages, are filled with proofs of this indifference to the outward forms of social life, and to social life itself. Provided that a man believes, and that none of his daily actions tend to transgress the ordinances of religion, nothing else matters. Of what importance is the shape of a Christian’s house, the cut and material of his clothes, his system of government, the measure of tyranny or liberty in his public institutions? He may be a fisherman, a hunter, a ploughman, a sailor, a soldier—whatever you like. In all these different employments is there anything to prevent a man—to whatever nation he belong, English, Turkish, Siberian, American, Hottentot—from receiving the light of the Christian faith? Absolutely nothing; and when this result is attained, the rest counts for very little. The savage Galla can remain a Galla, and yet become as staunch a believer, as pure a “vessel of election,” as the holiest prelate in Europe. It is here that Christianity shows its striking superiority to other religions, in its peculiar quality of grace. We must not take this away, in deference to a favourite idea of modern Europe, that something of material utility must be found everywhere, even in the holiest things.
During the eighteen centuries that the Church has existed, it has converted many nations. In all these it has allowed the political conditions to reign unchecked, just as it found them at first. It began by protesting to the world of antiquity that it did not wish to alter in the slightest degree the outward forms of society. It has been even reproached, on occasion, with an excess of tolerance in this respect; compare, for example, the attitude of the Jesuits towards the Chinese ceremonies. We do not, however, find that Christianity has ever given the world a unique type of civilization to which all believers had to belong. The Church adapts itself to everything, even to the mud-hut; and wherever there is a savage too stupid even to understand the use of shelter, you are sure to find a devoted missionary sitting beside him on the hard rock, and thinking of nothing but how to impress his soul with the ideas essential to salvation. Christianity is thus not a civilizing power in the ordinary sense of the word; it can be embraced by the most different races without stunting their growth, or making demands on them that they cannot fulfil.
I said above that Christianity elevates the soul by the sublimity of its dogmas, and enlarges the intellect by their subtlety. This is only true in so far as the soul and intellect to which it appeals are capable of being enlarged and elevated. Its mission is not to bestow the gift of genius, or to provide ideas for those who are without them. Neither genius nor ideas are necessary for salvation. Indeed the Church has expressly declared that it prefers the weak and lowly to the strong. It gives only what it wishes to receive. It fertilizes but does not create. It supports but does not lift on high. It takes the man as he is, and merely helps him to walk. If he is lame, it does not ask him to run.
If I open the “Lives of the Saints,” shall I find many wise men among them? Certainly not. The company of the blessed ones whose name and memory are honoured by the Church consists mainly of those who were eminent for their virtue and devotion; but, though full of genius in all that concerned heaven, they had none for the things of earth. When I see St. Rosa of Lima honoured equally with St. Bernard, the intercession of St. Zita valued no less than that of St. Teresa; when I see all the Anglo-Saxon saints, most of the Irish monks, the unsavoury hermits of the Egyptian Thebaid, the legions of martyrs who sprang from the dregs of the people and whom a sudden flash of courage and devotion raised to shine eternally in glory—when I see all these venerated to the same extent as the cleverest apologists of dogma, as the wisest champions of the faith, then I find myself justified in my conclusion that Christianity is not a civilizing power, in the narrow and worldly sense of the phrase. Just as it merely asks of every man what he has himself received, so it asks nothing of any race but what it is capable of giving, and does not set it in a higher place among the civilized races of the earth than its natural powers give it a right to expect. Hence I absolutely deny the egalitarian argument which identifies the possibility of adopting the Christian faith with that of an unlimited intellectual growth. Most of the tribes of South America were received centuries ago into the bosom of the Church; but they have always remained savages, with no understanding of the European civilization unfolding itself before their eyes. I am not surprised that the Cherokees of North America have been largely converted by Methodist missionaries; but it would greatly astonish me if this tribe, while it remained pure in blood, ever managed to form one of the States of the American Union, or exert any influence in Congress. I find it quite natural also that the Danish Lutherans and the Moravians should have opened the eyes of the Eskimos to the light of faith; but I think it equally natural that their disciples should have remained in the social condition in which they had been stagnating for ages. Again, the Swedish Lapps are, as we might have expected, in the same state of barbarism as their ancestors, even though centuries have passed since the gospel first brought them the message of salvation. All these peoples may produce—perhaps have produced already—men conspicuous for their piety and the purity of their lives; but I do not expect to see learned theologians among them, or skilful soldiers, or clever mathematicians, or great artists. In other words they will for ever exclude the select company of the fine spirits who clasp hands across the ages and continually renew the strength of the dominant races. Still less will those rare and mighty geniuses appear who are followed by their nations, in the paths they mark out for themselves, only if those nations are themselves able to understand them and go forward under their direction. Even as a matter of justice we must leave Christianity absolutely out of the present question. If all races are equally capable of receiving its benefits, it cannot have been sent to bring equality among men. Its kingdom, we may say, is in the most literal sense “not of this world.”