The Non-religion of the Future: A Sociological Study

by Jean-Marie Guyau

Menace to modern civilization.

Formerly the struggle for existence between two races or nations ended in a single violent crisis: the vanquished were massacred or reduced to slavery, and slavery usually resulted in the gradual extinction of the inferior race; it was a slow massacre. Famine, produced by methodical devastation, achieved what war had begun—whole races disappeared abruptly from the face of the globe and left not a trace behind: the most recent and most striking example is that of the great American empires of Mexico and Peru. Thus the strongest and most intelligent races alone survived, and had only to confirm their victory with all its consequences by clearing the earth before them. Existence was a monopoly in the hands of the strong. It is no longer so. To-day the vanquished are no longer massacred; on the contrary, when an uncivilized country is conquered, it is supplied with good laws, with police and hygiene. Inferior races increase and multiply under the rule of superior races. The Cape negroes, the Chinese, the negroes in the United States, and even the last surviving red-skins, who seem disposed to-day to take heart, are examples of what I mean. Well, the Orient contains, in the Chinese Empire, a veritable reservoir of men, which some day or other will overflow the entire earth. In the face of this compact multitude, which is increasing rapidly, and with advancing civilization will increase more rapidly, the four or five great nations of Europe, and the United States and Australia, seem a small matter. The future of humanity depends mathematically upon the proportions in which the more intelligent races are represented in the complex composition of the man of the future. And every son of one of the more highly endowed races of the globe, such as the French, German, or English, commits a positive fault in not labouring for the multiplication of his race; he contributes to lower the future level of human intelligence. Men of science have already established it as a law that the power of reproduction decreases with the increase of cerebral activity, and that intelligent races reproduce themselves with increasing difficulty; to augment this natural difficulty by a voluntary restriction is daily to labour for the brutalization of the human race.

Duty of civilized races to multiply.

The followers of Malthus, supposing that there at present exists an equilibrium between population and the means of subsistence, look with anxiety upon every new arrival in the world; but even admitting that the struggle for existence has already reached that acute stage, it might still be hoped that only the more intelligent would leave children behind them. Malthus’ law should possess no force for the educated men of Europe, who alone are acquainted with it, but only for the negroes or the Chinese, who are absolutely ignorant of it. Malthus’ law is not meant for us; in reality it is not meant for anyone. By the very fact that one is acquainted with it, and possesses foresight and self-control enough to put it into practice, one proves that one stands beyond the circle of its applicability. Malthusians, who endeavour to apply to the reproduction of mankind the principles of animal-breeders, forget that the dominant principle in all breeding is to favour the multiplication of the superior species. One Durham bull is worth ten common bulls. What is true of bulls and sheep is true of men: a Frenchman, with the scientific and æsthetic aptitude of his race, represents on the average a social capital a hundred times greater than that represented by a negro, an Arab, a Turk, a Cossack, or a Chinaman. To leave few French descendants, in order that Cossacks and Turks may increase and multiply, is to commit an absurdity, even on the principles of a Malthusian. Be it remembered that it was among the Aryans, and in especial among the Greeks, that science and art worthy of the name took their rise; from them they passed to the other Aryans, and then to the other human races.

Bad outlook for the future.

Michelet compares the treasure of science and truth, amassed by the human mind, to the egg that a slave carried into the Roman circus, at the end of the entertainment, into the midst of the great lions, who were gorged and asleep. If one of the wild beasts opened his eyes and was seized once more by desire at sight of the man with the egg, which is the symbol of human genius, the slave was lost. In our times genius is infinitely less persecuted than heretofore, and is no longer in danger of the arena or of the headsman, and it seems as if the sacred egg out of which the future is to arise has nothing further to fear; but this is a mistake. Precisely because the human mind is year by year growing richer, its treasure is becoming so considerable, so delicate, and difficult to preserve in its entirety, that it may well be asked whether a succession of people sufficiently well endowed will arise to retain and to augment the acquisitions of science. Up to the present day those truths alone have survived the wear and tear of time which were simple; at the present epoch the rapidity of the progress of science may well make us anxious as to its permanence. The extreme complexity of science may well make us fear that the peoples of the future may not possess mental elevation enough to embrace it in its entirety, and to add to it by a constant increase. Suppose, for example, that the world should be reduced abruptly to Africa, Asia, and South America, where the Spanish race has not yet produced a single scientific genius; must not the scientific labours of our century inevitably miscarry? Happily their safety is bound up with that of certain great nations. The Anglo-Saxon and Germanic peoples to-day cover the earth with their children and their colonies. But it is sad to think that one of the three or four great European peoples, which alone count for much in the progress of humanity, should be dancing gaily toward annihilation.

Danger from Asia.

A fusion of races will sooner or later take place in humanity; it is already taking place in the United States, and the perfection of means of communication is hastening its consummation throughout the entire world. Europe is pouring out its surplus upon America, Africa, and Australia; Asia will some day overflow Europe and America; what is taking place to-day, fifty years after the invention of railways, can scarcely give us an idea of the mixture and amalgamation of races which will some day be realized on the earth. Such a mixture, even though it raise the level, in some small degree, of races intellectually ill-endowed, may well abase the level of races intellectually well-endowed, if the latter are greatly outnumbered by the former.