On the whole, so far from admitting the principle of Mr. Newman, that a "book-revelation" of moral and spiritual truth is unnecessary, I should rather be disposed to infer the very contrary, from the uncertainty, vacillation, and feebleness of man's spiritual nature. I should be disposed to infer it, whether I look at the lessons which experience and history teach, or those taught by my own anxious and sincere scrutiny of my own consciousness. If it be, on the other hand, as he says, "impossible," mankind are in a very hopeless predicament, since it only proves that, the "spiritual insight" of man having unhappily failed the great majority of our race, it cannot be supplied by any external aid; that the malady, which is but too apparent, is also as apparently without a remedy.
For myself, I must say that I find myself hopelessly at issue with him in virtue of the above axiom, whether I receive or reject his theory of religious truth; for, if that axiom be true, I must reject his theory of religion,—since it is nothing but a book-revelation to me,—issued by Mr. Newman, instead of the Bible or the Koran. On the other hand, if that theory be true, and I accept it, his maxim must be false, for the very same reason; since he himself will have given me a double book-revelation,—a revelation at once of the theory and of the genesis of religion, both of which are in many respects absolute novelties to my consciousness.
But further; if we take the genesis of religion as described by either of these writers, and consider the infinite corruptions to which they both acknowledge a perverted, imperfect "development" of the "religious sentiment" and the "spiritual faculty" has led, one would imagine that an external communication from Heaven might be both very possible and very useful; useful, if only by cautioning men against those "false conceptions" which have so uniformly swamped the "idea," and those "degraded types," into which all the various principles of our nature have wheedled the "spiritual faculty." Only listen to a brief specimen of the "by-path meadows" which entice the poor soul from the direct course of its development, and judge whether a communication from Heaven, if it were only to the extent of a sign-post by the way-side, might not be of use! First comes "awe." "But even in this early stage," says Mr. Newman, "numberless deviations take place, and mark especially the rudest Paganism. We may embrace them under the general name of Fetichism, which here claims attention …… But even in the midst of enlightened science, and highly literate ages, errors fundamentally identical with those of Fetichism may and do exist, and with the very same results." (Soul, pp. 7, 10.) Then comes wonder: "But of this likewise we find numerous degraded types in which the rising religion is marred …… Of this we have eminent instances in the gods of Greece, and in the fairies of the German and Persian tribes …… Under the same head will be included the grotesque devil-stories and other legends of the Middle Ages …… Yet the dreadful alternative of gross superstition is this, that the graver view tends to cruel and horrible rites, while the fanciful and sportive sucks out the life-blood of devout feeling." (Ibid. pp. 14-16.) Then comes the sense of beauty: "This was strikingly illustrated in Greek sculpture. A statue of exquisite beauty, representing some hero, or an Apollo, because of its beauty, seemed to the Greeks a fit object of worship …… An opposite danger is often remarked to accompany the use of all the fine arts as handmaids to religion; namely, that the would-be worshipper is so absorbed in mere beauty as never to rise into devotion." (Ibid. pp. 21, 23.) Then comes the sense of order; but, alas! Atheism and Pantheism, and other "degrading types," may be begotten of it!
As I look at men thus tumbling into error along this wretched causeway to heaven, I seem to be viewing Addison's bridge of human life, with its broken arches, at each of which thousands are falling through. This way to the "celestial city" ought to be called the "Northwest Passage"; it has one, and only one, trait of your Christian path: "there will be few that find it."
If, then, by the confession of these writers, the "false conceptions" and the "degraded types"—the result of what are as truly "principles" of man's nature as the supposed "spiritual faculty," only that this last always has the worst in the conflict—have universally, and for unknown ages, involved man in the darkest abysses of superstition, crime, and misery, surely external revelation is any thing but superfluous; and if impossible, so much the worse.
The same truth is even formally evinced by the self-destructive course which both writers employ; for as the conditions of the development of our "spiritual nature," when not complied with, lead to all the deplorable consequences which they acknowledge, how do they propose to rectify them? Why, by "external" culture, proper discipline and training, judicious instruction, by enlightening mankind,—as we may suppose they are doing by these hopeful books of theirs! If man can do so much by his books, is it impossible that a book from God might do something more? But on this I will say nothing, since you tell me that you have heard attentively the conversation I had with my friend Fellowes the other day. I will therefore omit what I had written on this point ……
But I proceed to another, maintained by these writers, on which I confess I am equally sceptical. If they concede (as how can they help it?) that the "religious sentiment" and the "spiritual faculty" have somehow left humanity involved in the most deplorable perplexities and the most humiliating errors, they yet assure us that there is "a good time coming,"—an auspicious "progress" in virtue and religion, very gradual indeed, but sure and illimitable for the race collectively! Yes, "progress," that is 'the word; and a "progress" for the world at large, of which they speak as certainly as if they had received, at least on that point, that external revelation, the possibility of which they deny. A matter of spiritual "insight" I presume none will declare it to be, and the data are certainly far too meagre and unsatisfactory to make it calculation. Is Saul among the prophets? Yes; but, as usual, the truth (if it be a truth) for which they contend is, as with other parts of their system, a plagiarism from the abjured Bible. Now, if I must believe prophecy, I prefer the magnificent strains of Isaiah to the sentimental prose either of Mr. Parker or of Mr. Newman.
I must modestly doubt whether, apart from the representations of the "books" they abjure as special "revelations," there is any thing in the history of the world which will justly a sober-minded man in coming to any positive conclusion as to this promised "progress" this infidel millennium, either the one way or the other. The chief facts, apart from such special information, would certainly point the other way. Look at the condition of the immense majority of the race in every age,—so far as we can gather any thing from history,—compare it with that of the immense majority at the present moment;—what does it tell us? Why, surely, that, if there be a destiny of indefinite "progress" in religion and virtue for the race collectively, the hand of the great clock moves so immeasurably slow that it is impossible to note it. The experience of the individual, nay, of recorded history,—if we can say there is any such thing,—fails to trace the movement of the index on the huge dial. If there be this progress for the race collectively, it must be accomplished in a cycle vast as those of the geological eras;—a deposit of a millionth of an inch of knowledge and virtue over the whole race in fifty million years or so! Mr. Newman is pleased to say, "Some nations sink, while others rise; but the lower and higher levels are both generally ascending." Has this level for the whole race been raised perceptibly within the memory of so-called history?
Observe; I am not denying that the notion may be true: I am literally the sceptic I profess to be: I know not—apart from special information from a superhuman source—whether it be true or false. I am only venturing to laugh at men, who, denying any such information, affect to speak with any confidence on the solution of this prodigious problem, the data for solving which I contend we have not: while those we have, apart from the direct assurance of supposed inspiration, more plausibly point to an opposite conclusion. The conclusion which would more naturally suggest itself from the history of the past would be that of perpetual advance and perpetual retrogression, contemporaneously going on in different portions of the race,— perpetual flux and reflux of the waves of knowledge and science an different shores; though, alas! as to "religion and virtue;" I fear that these, like the Mediterranean, are almost without their tides. For a "progress" in the former,—in the race collectively.—far more plausible arguments can be adduced than for a progress in the latter; yet how much might be said that appears to militate even against that. Think of the frequent and signal checks to civilization; its transference from seat to seat; the decay of races once celebrated for knowledge and art; the inundations of barbarism from time to time;—these things alone might make a sober mind pause before he predicted for the entire race a certain progress even in art and science. Experience would at most justify a philosopher in saying. "Perhaps, yes; perhaps no." But the argument becomes incomparably more doubtful when we come to "religion," and especially that particular form of it which such writers as Messrs. Parker and Newman believe will be preeminent and universal; towards which consummation it does not appear at present that the smallest conceivable advance has been made; since, with the exception of that infinitesimal party, of which they are among the chief, the immense majority of mankind persist in rejecting the sufficiency of the "internal" oracle, and are still found as strongly convinced as ever both of the possibility and necessity of an "external" revelation, and that, in some shape or other, it has been given! Nay, the facts, so far as we have any, seem all the other way; for no sooner had men been put approximately in possession of the pure "spiritual truth," which both Mr. Newman and Mr. Parker suppose to be characteristic in larger measure of Judaism and Christianity than of any other religion, than they busily began the work, not of improvement, but of corruption. The Jews corrupted their pure monotheistic truths into what these writers believe the fables, legends, miracles, and absurd dogmas of the Old Testament: and, as if that were not enough, proceeded to bury them in the huge absurdities of the Rabbinical traditions; the Christians, in like manner, corrupted the yet purer truths, which these writers affirm Christianity teaches, with what they also affirm to be the load of myth, fiction, false history, and monstrous doctrine, which make up nine tenths of the New Testament: and, as if that were not enough, proceeded, just as did the Jews, to "expand" the New Testament itself into the worse than Rabbinical traditions of the Papacy! From approximate "spiritual truth" to the supposed legends and false dogmas of the Pentateuch, from the supposed legends and dogmas of the Pentateuch to the absurdities of the Talmud;—again, from the approximate "spiritual truth" of Christianity to the supposed legends and fanciful doctrines of the New Testament, and from the legends and doctrines of the New Testament to the corruptions the Papacy;—surely these are queer proofs of a tendency to progress! A tendency to retrogradation is rather indicated. No sooner, it appears, does man proceed to obtain "spiritual truth" tolerably pure, as tested by such writers, than he proceeds incontinently to adulterate it! This unhappy and uniform tendency is also a curious comment on the impotence of the internal spiritual oracle, as against the ascendency of the "historical" and "traditional."
Similar arguments of doubt may be derived from other facts.