Nineteenth Century Questions

by James Freeman Clarke

Skepticism, being a negative principle, is necessarily unproductive and barren. To have no strong belief, no fixed opinion, no vital conviction for or against anything,—this is surely not a state of intellect favorable to any great creation or discovery. Goethe, who was certainly no bigot, says, in a volume of his posthumous works, that skepticism is only an inverted superstition, and that this skepticism is one of the chief evils of the present age. "It is worse," he adds, "than superstition, for superstition is the inheritance of energetic, heroic, progressive natures; skepticism belongs to weak, contracted, shrinking men, who venture not out of themselves." Lord Bacon says ("Advancement of Learning," Book II.) that doubts have their advantages in learning, of which he mentions two, but says that "both these commodities do scarcely countervail an inconvenience which will intrude itself, if it be not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labor rather how to keep it a doubt than how to solve it." It will be seen, therefore, that Lord Bacon gives to skepticism scarcely more encouragement than is given it by Goethe.

Mr. Buckle says (Vol. I. p. 250) that "Skepticism, which in physics must always be the beginning of science, in religion must always be the beginning of toleration." We have seen that in physics skepticism is rather the end of science than its beginning, and the same is true of toleration. Skepticism does not necessarily produce toleration. The Roman augurs, who laughed in each other's faces, were quite ready to assist at the spectacle of Christians thrown to the lions. Skeptics, not having any inward conviction as a support, rest on established opinions, and are angry at seeing them disturbed. A strong belief is sufficient for itself, but a half-belief wishes to put down all doubts by force. This is well expressed by Thomas Burnet (Epistola 2, De Arch. Phil.): "Non potui non in illam semper propendere opinionem, Neminem irasci in veritate defendenda, qui eandem plene possidet, viditque in claro lumine. Evidens enim, et indubitata ratio, sibi sufficit et acquiescit: aliisque a scopo oberrantibus, non tam succenset, quam miseretur. Sed cum argumentorum adversantium aculeos sentimus, et quodammodo periclitari causam nostram, tum demum æstuamus, et effervescimus."

The least firm believers have often been the most violent persecutors. Nero persecuted the Christians; Marcus Antoninus persecuted them; but neither Nero nor Antoninus had any religious reason for this persecution. Antoninus, the best head of his time, was a sufficient skeptic to suit Mr. Buckle, as regards all points of the established religion, but his skepticism did not prevent him from being a persecutor. Unbelieving Popes, like Alexander VI. and Leo X., have persecuted. True toleration is not born of unbelief, as Mr. Buckle supposes, but of a deeper faith. Religious liberty has not been given to the world by skeptics, but by such men as Milton, Baxter, Jeremy Taylor, and Roger Williams.

So far from general skepticism being the antecedent condition of intellectual progress and discovery, it is a sign of approaching intellectual stagnation and decay. A great religious movement usually precedes and prepares the way for a great mental development. Thus the religious activity born of Protestantism showed its results in England in the age of Elizabeth, and in a general outbreak of intellectual activity over all Europe. On the other hand, the skepticism of the eighteenth century was accompanied by comparative stagnation of thought throughout Christendom.

IV. Mr. Buckle's View of the small Influence of Religion on Civilization.—Mr. Buckle thinks it is erroneous to suppose that religion is one of the prime movers of human affairs. (Vol. I. p. 183.) Religion, according to him, has little to do with human progress. In this opinion, he differs from nearly all other great historians and philosophical thinkers. In modern times, Hegel, Niebuhr, Guizot, Arnold, and Macaulay, among others, have discussed the part taken by religious ideas in the development of man, laying the greatest stress on this element. But Mr. Buckle denies that religion is one of the prime movers in human affairs. The Crusades have been thought to have exercised some influence on European civilization. But religion was certainly the prime mover of the Crusades. Mohammedanism exercised some influence on the development of European life. But Mohammedanism was an embodiment of religious ideas. The Protestant Reformation shook every institution, every nation, every part of social life, in Christendom, and Europe rocked to its foundations under the influence of this great movement. But religion was the prime mover of it all. The English Revolution turned on religious ideas. The rise of the Dutch Republic was determined by them. In one form they colonized South America and Mexico; in another form, they planted New England. Such great constructive minds as those of Alfred and Charlemagne have been benevolently inspired by rational religion; such dark, destructive natures as those of Philip II. of Spain, Catharine de Medicis of France, and Mary Tudor of England have been malevolently inspired by fanatical religion.

On what grounds, then, does Mr. Buckle dispute the influence of religion? On two grounds mainly. First, he tells us that moral ideas are not susceptible of progress, and therefore cannot have exercised any perceptible influence on the progress of civilization. For that which does not change, he argues, cannot influence that which changes. That which has been known for thousands of years cannot be the cause of an event which took place for the first time only yesterday. "Since civilization is the product of moral and intellectual agencies," says Mr. Buckle, "and since that product is constantly changing, it cannot be regulated by the stationary agent; because when surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent can produce only a stationary effect." On this principle, gravitation could not be the cause of the appearance of Donati's comet in the neighborhood of the sun. For gravitation is a stationary and uniform agent; it cannot therefore produce an accelerated motion. Mr. Buckle will answer, that though the law of gravitation is one and the same in all ages, and uniform in its action, the result of its action may be different at different times, according to the position in the universe of the object acted upon. True; and in like manner we may say, that, though religious ideas are immutable, the result of their action on the human mind may be different, according to the position of that mind in relation to them. The doctrine of one God, the Maker and Lord of all things, was not a new one, or one newly discovered in the seventh century. Yet when applied by Mohammed to the Arabian mind, it was like a spark coming in contact with gunpowder. Those wandering sons of the desert, unknown before in the affairs of the world, and a negative quantity in human history, sprang up a terrible power, capable of overrunning and conquering half the earth. Religion awakened them; religion organized them; religion directed them. The fact that an idea is an old one is no proof, therefore, that it may not suddenly begin to act with awful efficiency on civilization and the destiny of man.

The other reason given by Mr. Buckle why religious ideas have little influence in history is, that the religion of a nation is symptomatic of its mental and moral state. Men take the religious ideas which suit them. A religion not suited to a people cannot be accepted by it; or, if accepted, has no influence on it. This thought, argued at considerable length by Mr. Buckle, is so perfectly true as to be a truism. The religion of a people is no doubt an effect. But may it not also be a cause? It, no doubt, cannot be received by a people not prepared for it. But does it therefore exercise no influence on a people which it finds prepared? Fire cannot explode an unexplosive material, nor inflame one not inflammable. But does it follow that it effects nothing when brought into contact with one which is inflammable or explosive? A burning coal laid on a rock or put into the water produces no effect. But does this prove that the explosion of gunpowder is in no manner due to the contact of fire?

"The religion of mankind," says Mr. Buckle, "is the effect of their improvement, and not the cause of it." His proof is that missions and missionaries among the heathen produce only a superficial change among barbarous and unenlightened tribes. Knowledge, he says, must prepare the way for it. There must, no doubt, be some kind of preparation for Christianity. But does it follow that Christianity, when its way is prepared, is only an effect? Why may it not be also a cause? Judaism prepared the way for Christianity. But did not Christianity produce some effect on Judaism? The Arab mind was prepared for Mohammedanism. But did not Mohammedanism produce some effect on the Arab mind? Europe was prepared by various influences for Protestantism. But did not Protestantism produce some effects on Europe?

It might, with equal truth, and perhaps with greater truth, be asserted that intellectual ideas are the result of previous training, and that they are therefore an effect, and by no means a cause. The intellectual truths accepted by any period depend certainly on the advanced condition of human culture. You cannot teach logarithms to Hottentots, trigonometry to Digger Indians, or the differential calculus to the Feejee Islanders. Hence, according to our author's logic, those very intellectual ideas which he thinks the only great movers in human affairs are really no movers at all, but only symptoms of the actual intellectual condition of a nation.

But it is a curious fact, that, while Mr. Buckle considers religious ideas of so little importance in the history of civilization, he nevertheless devotes a large part of both his volumes to proving the great evil done to civilization by erroneous forms of religious opinion. Nearly the whole of his second volume is in fact given to showing the harm done in Spain and Scotland by false systems of religious thought. Why spend page after page in showing the evil influence of false religion on society, if religion, whether true or false, has scarcely any influence at all? Why search through all the records of religious fanaticism and superstition, to bring up to the day the ghosts of dead beliefs, if these beliefs are, after all, powerless either for good or evil?