The Non-religion of the Future: A Sociological Study

by Jean-Marie Guyau

Belief consists not in worship, but in action.

A belief in the divine will then no longer consist in passive adoration, but in action. A belief in Providence will no longer consist in a justification of the existing world and of its evils in the name of the divine intention, but in an effort to introduce by human intervention a greater amount of justice and of goodness into the world. We have seen that the notion of Providence was based among ancient peoples on the conception of an exterior finality, forcibly imposed upon things, of a secret and transcendent aim, which the universe was warped to serve by force of some unknown will. With such a theory of things, man was incessantly checked in his activity, since he conceived it to be impossible to prevent the course of the world from achieving its aim. The world seemed to him to be organized definitively; he had no hope, except in prayer and miracle; everything about him seemed to him to be sacred; the inviolability of nature was both a principle and a consequence of the notion of Providence thus understood. And, as we have seen, science was long regarded as sacrilegious. It created both surprise and scandal to see science intervene in the affairs of this world, disturbing everything, changing the direction of natural forces, transforming the divine rulers of the world into humble ministrants to human wants. In our days, however, science is coming to be more and more held in honour. For the past century nature has been, to the best of human ability, turned upside down. Humanity’s long quietism has been succeeded by a feverish activity. Everybody wishes to lend a hand in the universal mechanism, and to contribute his part in the modification of the direction of the whole; everybody wishes to bend things to his own views, and to become, so far as in him lies, a minor Providence.

Increasing power of mankind in the universe.

Just as the individual is coming to feel himself more and more a citizen of the state, so he is coming to feel himself more and more a citizen of the universe, inseparably bound by relations of cause and effect with the universal sum of phenomena. He recognizes that there is nothing in the world that does not concern him, and that on every side he can exert an influence, great or small, and leave his mark on the great world. He perceives with astonishment the extent of the power of his will and intelligence. Just in so far as his rational faculties establish a connection between phenomena, they establish by that very fact a connection between phenomena and himself, and he no longer feels himself alone in the universe. Since, according to a celebrated theory, the centre of the world is in each and every distinct being, it follows that if this centre were exhaustively self-conscious it would see all the rays in infinite space focussing in it, and all the chains of phenomenal causation meeting in it, and the effects of its volition stretching out into infinity, and its every action possessing an influence upon the totality of things. It would perceive itself to be a sort of universal Providence.

A consequence of liberty of thought.

If human beings are not so exhaustively self-conscious as all that, the progress of science is carrying them forward in that direction. A portion of the government of nature is in our hands, some part of the responsibility for what takes place in the universe is on our heads. At the beginning man conceived himself as living in a state of dependence on the world, in a state which ancient religions symbolize; at present he perceives that the world is equally dependent upon him. The substitution of a human providence for the omnipresent influence of a divine providence might be given as being, from this point of view, the formula of progress; the increasing independence of mankind, in the face of the natural universe, will thus result in an increasing inner independence, in a growing independence of mind and thought.

Mankind to be its own special providence.

The vulgar conception of a special and exterior providence which, as we have seen, is so closely bound up with the conception of man’s place in the universe as one of subjection—nay, even the most refined conception of providence as transcendent and distant and as assigning to each being its determinate place in the totality of things—may thus, without ground of regret, be displaced in the mind of humanity. We shall some day perceive that we are stronger when we stand on our feet, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, than when we kneel with bowed heads and implore the unfeeling sky. Among the ancient Germans, when one of the faithful was about to enter a sacred forest he had his hands bound together as a symbol of his subjection to the gods; if he had the misfortune to fall as he was making his way into the forest, he did not dare to get up again; so to do would have been an affront to the gods; he was reduced to squirming and rolling like a reptile out of the immense temple. To this primitive conception of religious servitude, the modern conception of mankind as free in the presence of its God, of its beloved ideal, of its conceived work in the world, of its dream of progress, is more and more opposed. Even at the present day a true sense of the divine may be recognized by its giving man a consciousness of his liberty and his dignity rather than his subjection; the true gods are those who make us lift our heads higher in the struggle for existence; adoration no longer consists in prostration but in standing upright.

Story of the anchorite.

To borrow once more from the classic land of symbolism, from India, whence our German or Gallic ancestors came, the great epic of Ramayana tells us of a sainted and sage anchorite who exemplified in his own person the whole sum of human virtue and piety. One day, confiding in the justice of heaven, he was invoking Indra and the whole chorus of the gods, and the gods were capricious and did not listen to him; his prayer fell back from the heavens unheard. The man, perceiving the indifference of the gods, was moved with indignation; and gathering together the power that he had hoarded, by his sacrifices and renunciation, and, feeling himself more powerful than his gods, more powerful than Indra himself, began to issue forth commands to the high heavens. And at his voice new stars rose and shone in the crystal sphere; he said, “Let there be light!” and there was light; he refashioned the world; his goodness became a creative providence. Nor was this all: he conceived the notion of creating new and better gods; and Indra himself was trembling toward his fall, for not even he that commands the air and the skies shall prevail against sanctity. Indra, the powerful, therefore hastened to yield and cried out to the saint, “Thy will be done!” and he left a place in the heavens for the new stars, and their light bears eternal witness to the omnipotence of goodness, which is the supreme God and object of adoration among men.