The Non-religion of the Future: A Sociological Study

by Jean-Marie Guyau

Social Aspect of Religions—Religious Communities and Churches—Ideal Type of Voluntary Association—Its Diverse Forms.

I. Associations for intellectual purposes—How such associations might preserve the most precious elements of religions—Societies for the advancement of science, philosophy, religion—Dangers to avoid—Popularization of scientific ideas; propagandism in the interests of science.

II. Associations for moral purposes—Tendency of religion in the best minds to become one with charity—Pity and charity will survive dogma—Rôle of enthusiasm in moral propagandism—Necessity of hope to sustain enthusiasm—Possibility of propagating moral ideas: 1. Apart from myths and religious dogmas; 2. Apart from any notion of a religious sanction—Baudelaire’s conception of a criminal and happy hero—Criticism of that conception—Worship of the memory of the dead.

III. Associations for æsthetic purposes—Worship of art and nature—Art and poetry will sever their connection with religion and will survive it—Necessity of developing the æsthetic sentiment and the worship of art, as the religious sentiment becomes more feeble—Poetry, eloquence, music; their rôle in the future—Final substitution of art for rites—Worship of nature—Feeling for nature originally an essential element of the religious sentiment—Superiority of a worship of nature over worship of human art—Nature is the true temple of the future.

Association and religion.

The most durable practical idea in possession of the religious spirit, as of the spirit of reform, is that of association. In the beginning, as we have seen, religion was essentially sociological, by its conception of a society of gods and men. The element of various religions that will survive in the non-religion of the future is precisely this conception, that the ideal of humanity and even of nature consists in the establishment of closer and closer social relations between all kinds of beings. Religions, therefore, have justly chosen to call themselves associations and églises, that is to say, assemblies. It is by force of assemblies, secret or open, that the great Jewish and Christian religions have conquered the world. Christianity has even resulted in the notion of an universal church, first militant, then triumphant, and united in love; although, by a strange aberration, instead of regarding universality as an ideal, as the inaccessible limit of an indefinite evolution, Catholicity has been presented as already realized in a system of dogmas which there was nothing to do but to disseminate, and that, if need be, by force. This mistake has been the ruin of dogmatic religions, and it still subsists, even in religions which have transmuted their dogmas into symbols; for an universal symbol is less conceivable than an universal dogma. The only universal thing is and should be precisely the liberty accorded to individuals of conceiving the eternal enigma in any manner whatever that appeals to them, and of associating themselves with those who share the same hypothesis.

Ideal type of association.

The right of association, which has hitherto been checked by law, by ignorance, by prejudice, by difficulties of communication, etc., had scarcely begun to manifest its full importance till in the present century. Associations of every kind will some day cover the globe, or rather everything, so to speak, will be accomplished by associate enterprise; and within the limits of the great body of society innumerable groups of the most diverse kinds will form and dissolve with an equal facility, without impeding the general movement. The ideal type of every form of association is a compound of the ideal of socialism and of the ideal of individualism—such a form of association, that is to say, as will afford the individual at once the maximum of present and future security, and the maximum of personal liberty. Every insurance company is an association of this kind; the individual member is protected by the immense power of the association; his contribution to the associate funds is of the slightest, he is free to join the association or to withdraw from it, and to lead his life absolutely as he chooses.

Its various forms.

The mistake of religions, and of systems of socialism also, as we have already remarked, is that they presuppose a society of individuals morally and intellectually of the same type. But human beings are, neither within nor without, copies of each other; the comparative psychology and physiology of races and nations, sciences which are still embryonic, will one day demonstrate the diversity which exists between different divisions of the human species and, owing to atavisms of various kinds, even between individuals of the most strictly homogeneous divisions and groups. Religious, metaphysical, and moral sentiment will one day appear in very various forms, and give rise to associations of every kind—some individualistic, some socialistic—so that men of the same stamp may mutually aid and encourage each other, under condition, however, of preserving their complete independence, their perfect right to change their beliefs when they will. Union and independence should go hand in hand; everything should be shared, but nobody should be compelled to give or to receive; minds may be made transparent without losing their freedom of movement. The future, in a word, belongs to association, providing it be voluntary association, for the augmentation, and not for the sacrifice of personal liberty.