From the older pagan and Jewish religious usages were afterwards developed in the Christian Church those parts of the cult which are known as sacraments. These miraculous sacraments, by the mysterious action of which man is supposed to be born again or regenerated, very quickly became powerful instruments in the hand of the Church and thorny problems for theologians, especially after Gregory the Great introduced the dogmas of Purgatory and the relieving power of the Mass. According to St. Thomas of Aquin, the sacraments are channels that convey the grace of God to sinful man. The papal authorities fixed their number at seven (baptism, eucharist, penance, confirmation, matrimony, orders, and extreme unction) in the twelfth century. The superstitious content of these sacraments was generally lost sight of in the glamour of their ceremonious side, but their authority was unshaken. Since the Reformation the Protestants have retained only the two chief sacraments which were founded by Christ himself—Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Christian baptism is a continuation of the older ceremonies of washing and purification that were in use thousands of years before Christ among nations of the East and among the Greeks. They combined the hygienic value of the bath with the idea of a regeneration of the soul and spiritual purification. Augustine, who founded the dogma of original sin, held that the baptism of children was necessary for the salvation of their souls, and it then became general. It has since given rise to a number of superstitious ideas and unfortunate family troubles, but it is still regarded as a sacred ceremony. Millions of Christians still believe that the child's soul is saved (though it has no consciousness whatever when baptized) and delivered from the power of the devil and the curse of sin by baptism.
The second sacrament that Luther retained is the Lord's Supper, or the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. It was instituted by Christ on the night before his death, and is a continuation of the paschal supper of the Jews, in which the head of the house shared bread and wine with his family with certain ritual ceremonies. In this paschal supper the people of Israel celebrated their release from the bondage of Egypt and their distinction as the "chosen people." By connecting his "last supper" with the traditional rite of the Jews, Christ sought on the one hand to found the new dispensation on the old, and on the other hand to institute a love-feast (communion or agape) among his followers. Like baptism, the Lord's Supper led afterwards to the bitterest controversy among theologians.
The differences of opinion as to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages culminated at last in the opposition of the two reformers, Luther and Zwingli. The latter, the founder of the Free Reformed Church, saw in the Supper only a symbolical act and a commemoration of Christ. Luther, however, adhered to the mysterious miracle that had been defined in 1215 by the dogma of transubstantiation. Bread and wine are believed on this view to be converted physically into the body and blood of Christ! I was taught this in 1848 by the minister who prepared me for confirmation, and to whom I was greatly attached. We were actually to perceive this change when we assisted at the Supper for the first time, if we did so with real faith. As I was quite conscious of having this quality, I had great expectations of the miracle. But I was very painfully disillusioned when I found only the familiar taste of bread and wine, not the flesh and blood that faith had desired. I had to regard myself (then a boy of fourteen years) as an utterly abandoned sinner, and it was with the greatest difficulty that my parents succeeded in pacifying me over my want of faith.
I have spoken somewhat fully in the seventeenth chapter of the Riddle of the view of the papacy and ultramontanism which modern historical and anthropological science leads us to form. No one who has any idea of history and of the metamorphoses of religion can question that Romanism is a miserable caricature of primitive Christianity; it retains the name, but has completely reversed the principles. In the course of its domination, from the fourth to the sixteenth century, the papacy has raised up the marvellous structure of the Catholic hierarchy, but has departed farther and farther from the stand-point of pure Christianity. The aim of Romanism is to-day, as it was a thousand years ago, to dominate and exploit a blindly believing humanity. It finds admirable instruments for this in its mystic sacraments, to which it has ascribed an "indelible character." From the cradle to the grave, from baptism to the last anointing, in confirmation and penance, the believer must be reminded that he must live as an obedient and self-sacrificing child; and the sacrament of ordination must teach him that the priest, with his higher inspiration, is the only intermediary between man and God. The symbolical rites that are associated with these sacraments serve to surround them with the magic of the mysterious and exclude the penetration of reason. This is particularly true of the sacrament that has had the greatest practical influence—matrimony.
In view of the extreme importance of the life of the family as a foundation of social and civic life, it is advisable to consider marriage from the biological point of view, as an orderly method of reproduction. Here, as in all other sociological and psychological questions, we must be careful not to accept the present features of civilized life as a general standard of judgment. We have to take a comparative view of its various stages, as we find them among barbarians and savages. When we do this impartially, we see at once that reproduction, as a purely physiological process having for its end the maintenance of the species, takes place in just the same way among uncultivated races as among the anthropoid apes. We may even say that many of the higher animals, especially monogamous mammals and birds, have reached a higher stage than the lower savages; the tender relations of the two sexes towards each other, their common care of their young, and their family life, have led to the development of higher sexual and domestic instincts, to which we may fitly ascribe a moral character. Wilhelm Bölsche has shown, in his Life of Love in Nature, how a long series of remarkable customs has been developed in the animal world by adaptation to various forms of reproduction. Westermarck has pointed out, in his History of Marriage, how the crude animal forms of marriage current among savages have been gradually elevated as we rise to higher races. As the sensual pleasure of generation is combined with the finer psychological feeling of sympathy and psychic attachment, the latter gains constantly on the former, and this refined love becomes one of the richest sources of the higher spiritual functions, especially in art and poetry. Marriage itself, of course, remains a physiological act, a wonder of life, with the organic sex impulse as its chief foundation. As the conclusion of marriage represents one of the most important moments in human life, we find it accompanied by symbolic ceremonies and festive rites even among lower tribes. The immense variety of marriage festivals shows how this important act has appealed to the imagination. Priests quickly recognized this, and decked out marriage with all kinds of ceremonies and turned it to the advantage of their Church. While the Catholic Church raised it to the status of a sacrament and ascribed to it an "indelible" character, it declared that it was indissoluble when performed according to ecclesiastical rite. This unwholesome influence of Romanism, this dependence of matrimony on religious mysteries and ceremonies, and difficulty of obtaining divorce, etc., still continue in our day. It is only a short time since the German Reichstag, under the influence of the Centre [Catholic] party, added laws to its civic code which increase instead of lessening the difficulty of obtaining divorce. Reason demands the liberation of marriage from ecclesiastical pressure. It demands that matrimony be grounded on mutual love, esteem, and devotion, and that it at the same time be counted a social contract, and be protected, as civil marriage, by proper legislation. But when the contracting parties find (as so often happens) that they have mistaken each other's character, and that they do not suit each other, they should be free to dissolve the bond. The pressure which comes of marriage being regarded as a sacrament, and which prevents the dissolution of unhappy marriages, is merely a source of vice and crime.
We find in many other features of our social life, besides marriage, a contradiction between the demands of reason and the traditional usages which modern civilization has taken over as a heritage from earlier and lower nations, and partly from barbarians and savages. In the public life of states this contradiction is much more striking than in the private life of the family or the individual. Whereas the milder teaching of the Christian religion—sympathy, love of one's fellows, patience, and devotion—has had a good influence in many ways, there can be no question of this in the international relations of the nations; here we find pure egoism. Every nation seeks to take advantage of others by cunning or force, and, wherever possible, to subjugate them: if they will not consent, the brute force of war is employed. Social misery of all kinds spreads wider and wider, almost in proportion as civilization develops. Alexander Sutherland is right when he characterizes "the leading nations of Europe and their offshoots" (in the United States) as lower civilized races. In some respects we are still barbarians.
How far the bulk of modern nations still are from the ideal and the reign of pure reason can be seen by a glance at the social, juridical, and ecclesiastical condition of "these leading nations of Europe," either Teutonic or Latin. We need only consider with an unprejudiced mind the accounts in our journals of parliamentary and legal proceedings, government measures and social relations, in order to realize that the force of tradition and fashion is immense, and resists the claims of reason on every side. This is most clearly seen externally in the power of fashion, especially as regards clothing. There is a good ground for the complaint about "the tyranny of fashion." However unpractical, ridiculous, ugly, and costly a new garment may be, it becomes popular if it is patronized by authority, or some clever manufacturer succeeds in imposing it by specious advertisements. We need only recall the crinoline of fifty years ago, the bustle of twenty years ago, and the exposure of the breast and back by low dresses (with the object of sexual excitement) which was the fashion of forty years ago.[11] For centuries we have had the pernicious fashion of the corset, an article that is as offensive from the æsthetic as from the hygienic point of view. Thousands of women are sacrificed every year to this pitiful fashion, through disease of the liver or lungs; nevertheless, the craze for the hour-glass shape of the female form continues, and the reform of clothing makes little headway. It is just the same with numbers of fashions in the home and in society, of devices in commerce and laws in the state. Everywhere the demands of reason advance little in their struggle with the venerable usages of tradition.
A false sense of honor dominates our social life, just as a false sense of modesty controls our clothing. The true honor of man or woman consists in their inner moral dignity, in the determination to do only what they conceive to be good and right, not in the outer esteem of their fellows or in the worthless praise of a conventional society. Unfortunately, we have to admit that in this respect we are still largely ruled by the foolish views of a lower civilization, if not of crude barbarians.
In many other features of our life besides this false modesty and false honor we perceive the force of social usage. Many of what are thought to be honorable customs are relics of barbarism; much of our morality is, in the light of pure reason, downright immorality. As even the latter is due to adaptation, and as the same custom may be at one time thought useful and fitting, at another time injurious and bad, we see again that it is impossible to restrict the idea of adaptation to useful variations. We may say the same of the changing rules of education, commerce, legislation, and so on. The ideal in all departments of life is pure reason; but it has to struggle long against the current prejudices and customs, which find their chief support in the superstitions of the Church and the conservative tendencies of the state. In this state of Byzantine immorality, decorating itself so often with the mantle of piety, practical materialism flourishes, while monism, or theoretical materialism, is thrust aside.