Man is the only animal with a religion. The conduct of the lower animals is guided by instinct,[186] and instinct normally works for the benefit of the species. Any action which is dictated by instinct is likely to result in the preservation of the species, even at the expense of the individual which acts, provided there has not been a recent change in the environment.
But in the human species reason appears, and conduct is no longer governed by instinct alone. A young man is impelled by instinct, for instance, to marry. It is to the interests of the species that he marry, and instinct therefore causes him to desire to marry and to act as he desires. A lower animal would obey the impulse of instinct without a moment's hesitation. Not so the man. Reason intervenes and asks, "Is this really the best thing for you to do now? Would you not better wait awhile and get a start in your business? Of course marriage would be agreeable, but you must not be short-sighted. You don't want to assume a handicap just now." There is a corresponding reaction among the married in respect to bearing additional children. The interests of self are immediate and easily seen, the interests of the species are not so pressing. In any such conflict between instinct and reason, one must win; and if reason wins it is in some cases for the immediate benefit of the individual but at the expense of the species' interests.
Now with reason dominant over instinct in man, there is a grave danger that with each man consulting his own interests instead of those of the species, some groups and even races will become exterminated. Along with reason, therefore, it is necessary that some other forces shall appear to control reason and give the interests of the species a chance to be heard along with the interests of the individual.
One such force is religion. Without insisting that this is the only view which may be taken of the origin of religion, or that this is the only function of religion, we may yet assert that one of the useful purposes served by religion is to cause men to adopt lines of conduct that will be for the good of the race, although it may sacrifice the immediate good of the individual.[187] Thus if a young Mohammedan be put in the situation just described, he may decide that it is to his material interest to postpone marriage. His religion then obtrudes itself, with quotations from the Prophet to the effect that Hell is peopled with bachelors. The young man is thereupon moved to marry, even if it does cause some inconvenience to his business plans. Religion, reinforcing instinct, has triumphed over reason and gained a victory for the larger interests of the species, when they conflict with the immediate interests of the individual.
From this point of view we may, paraphrasing Matthew Arnold, define religion as motivated ethics. Ethics is a knowledge of right conduct, religion is an agency to produce right conduct. And its working is more like that of instinct than it is like that of reason. The irreligious man, testing a proposition by reason alone, may decide that it is to the interests of all concerned that he should not utter blasphemy. The orthodox Christian never considers the pros and cons of the question; he has the Ten Commandments and the teachings of his youth in his mind, and he refrains from blasphemy in almost the instinctive way that he refrains from putting his hand on a hot stove.
This chapter proposes primarily to consider how eugenics can be linked with religion, and specifically the Christian religion; but the problem is not a simple one, because Christianity is made of diverse elements. Not only has it undergone some change during the last 1900 years, but it was founded upon Judaism, which itself involved diverse elements. We shall undertake to show that eugenics fits in well with Christianity; but it must fit in with different elements in different ways.
We can distinguish four phases of religion:
1. Charm and taboo, or reward and punishment in the present life. The believer in these processes thinks that certain acts possess particular efficacies beyond those evident to his observation and reason; and that peculiar malignities are to be expected as the consequence of certain other acts. Perhaps no one in the memory of the tribe has ever tested one of these acts to find whether the expected result would appear; it is held as a matter of religious belief that the result would appear, and the act is therefore avoided.
2. Reward and punishment in a future life after death. Whereas the first system was supposed to bring immediate reward and punishment as the result of certain acts, this second system postpones the result to an after-life. There is in nature a system of reward and punishment which everyone must have observed because it is part of the universal sequence of cause and effect; but these two phases of religion carry the idea still farther; they postulate rewards and punishments of a supernatural character, over and above those which naturally occur. It is important to note that in neither of these systems is God essentially involved. They are in reality independent of the idea of God, since that is called "luck" in some cases which in others is called the favor or wrath of God. And again in some cases, one may be damned by a human curse, although in others this curse of damnation is reserved for divine power.
3. Theistic religion. In essence this consists of the satisfaction derived from doing that which pleases God, or "getting into harmony with the underlying plan of the universe," as some put it. It is idealistic and somewhat mystic. It should be distinguished from the idea of doing or believing certain things to insure salvation, which is not essentially theistic but belongs under (2). The true theist desires to conform to the will of God, wholly apart from whether he will be rewarded or punished for so doing.