II
THE IDEAL OF TO-DAY
The way of the highest life is clear and certain. Its first and last precept is fidelity to the best we know. Its constant process is that fidelity wins moral growth and spiritual vision.
All attempts to demonstrate the nature and attributes of God, all effort to prove by argument that the universe is administered by righteousness and benevolence, are aside from the main road. The real task for man is to order his own life, as an individual and in society. To do that, he needs to understand his own life as a practical matter; he needs to study the procedure of the world in which he stands; he needs to rally every force of knowledge, resolution, sympathy, reverence, aspiration, upon this high business of personal and social living. As he achieves such life, there develop in him the faculties which read sublime meanings in the universe of which he is a part. As he becomes divine, he finds divinity everywhere.
The heart of religion is joy, peace, energy, support under suffering, inward harmony, true relation with fellow creatures, grateful sense of the past, full fruition of the present, glad out-reach to a beckoning future. The way to that life is wholly independent of doubtful argumentation. It lies simply in a whole-hearted conformity to what are known beyond all question as the worthy aims, the just requirements, the righteous laws.
Let us consider somewhat at large the unfolding of this philosophy of life. Let us seek to sympathetically interpret the deepest, most significant working of the human spirit in our time.
Is it not the distinctive note of the thoughtful and honest mind of to-day, as compared with a like mind some centuries ago, that it contemplates more directly the actual procedure of the universe, is less concerned with supernatural personages and transactions, and more attentive to what has happened and is happening in this mundane sphere? The piety of our ancestors contemplated the justice and mercy of God as manifested in the counsels of eternity,—his righteous condemnation of the wicked, and the love-inspired sacrifice of Christ. The philosophy of our ancestors was largely an attempt to map out a world-scheme from man's inner consciousness. The modern thinker, whether he calls himself Christian or not, is inclined to make his essay toward the Supreme Power by way of the observed workings of the universe. And certain general impressions which he thus receives we may distinguish.
That aspect of things which now engages us with the fascination of a new and vast discovery is what we term "Evolution." Its spectacle, on the one hand, prompts a sure and soaring hope. In the sum of things we see a movement upward and still upward,—from unorganized to organized matter, from unconscious to sentient existence, from beast to man, from savage to saint,—and who can say to what height in the coming ages? But on the other hand we see that thus far at least the progress of the favored is at deadly cost to the losers. And we see that parallel with the ascending white line of humanity runs an ascending black line,—the bad man of civilization is in some ways worse than the bad man of savagery. And this complexity of good and evil is recognized at a time when a higher sensibility has made the old familiar pain and sin of humanity seem more than ever intolerable.
Yet the spectacle of creation and of the world, as we see and know it, makes upon us an impression far beyond that of mere perplexity or dismay. It produces a sentiment which we may best call awe. All the great aspects of nature wake in us this reverential emotion. A familiar instance is the effect upon us of the starry heavens. The Psalmist thrilled at that sight,—how much more deeply are we moved, knowing what we know of the vastness and the order! Some like effect on us has the unfolding revelation of the whole process of nature. "I think the thoughts of God after him," said Kepler. Let any man study in some clear exposition the development of the human race from the animal; and the wonder of the process, the unity of design, the unforeseen goals reached one by one, the irresistible impression that the harmony which man's little faculties can discern is but a fraction of some sublimer harmony,—these emotions have in them a surpassing power to humble, purify, and exalt the spirit.
The modern mind addresses itself to the highest reality through the actualities of existence, and of those actualities one most significant phase is the procedure and laws of nature. But there is another and more impressive aspect: it is the inner life of humanity; it is man's own conscious existence, with its struggles, victories, defeats, its agonies and raptures, its mirth, its play, its sweetness and bitterness. This to us is the realm of real existence. In this we are at home. The march of the planets, the evolution of a world, the whole process of nature, is like the view from a window; and, gazing upon it, sits feeling, thinking, aspiring man. His consciousness is environed and conditioned by the surrounding world, but is utterly unexplained by it, wholly untranslatable in its terms. Definite and precise is the language of mathematics, of chemistry, of physical procedure. Mystery of mysteries is the human spirit,—mystery of mysteries and holy of holies. A new sense of the sacredness of human life has been born in this later age. It is our most precious acquisition. Better could we have waited for modern science than for modern humanity. Better could we spare the telegraph and the steam-engine and anaesthesia than that quickened sense of the value of man as man which inspires the deepest political and social movements of to-day. In all sober minds, in all lofty effort,—whatever there may be of despair of God or hopelessness of a personal future,—we see a profound recognition of the solemnity and sacredness of human existence. Through the sad pages of George Eliot, through Emerson's exultant psalm, through the reformer's battle, the socialist's scheme, runs this golden link,—the value of simple humanity.