While it has been shown how it has been possible for primeval man to have acquired a moral sense or conscience, yet it must not be forgotten that the lower animals, at least such as have come under the civilizing influence of man, have also come into possession of the same highly complex sentiment which has been of such inestimable service to man for his progressive advancement. Other faculties, such as the powers of imagination, wonder, curiosity, an undefined sense of beauty, a tendency to imitation, and the love of excitement or novelty, have also been of immense importance in this direction, for they could not fail to have led to the most capricious changes of customs and fashions. Caprice, it has been rather oddly claimed by a recent writer, is “one of the most remarkable and typical differences between savages and brutes.” It is not only possible to perceive how it is that man is capricious, but the lower animals, as has been previously shown, are capricious in their affections, aversions and sense of beauty. And there is good reason to suspect that they love novelty for its own sake. Self-consciousness, individuality, abstraction, general ideas, etc., which have been held by several recent writers as making the sole and complete distinction between man and the brutes, seem useless subjects for discussion, since hardly any two authors agree in their definitions of these high faculties. In man, such faculties could not have been fully developed until his mental powers had advanced to a high state of perfection, and this implies the use of a highly-developed language. No one supposes that one of the lower animals reflects whence he comes or whither he goes, or what is death or what is life, but can one feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory, and some power of imagination as shown by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures in the chase? And this would be a form of self-consciousness. On the contrary, as Büchner ably remarks, how little can the hard-worked wife of an Australian savage who scarcely uses any abstract words and whose ability to count does not extend beyond four, exert her self-consciousness, or reflect on the origin, nature and aim of her own existence. That animals retain their mental individuality is unquestioned, for when any voice awakens a train of old associations in the mind of some favorite dog, as in the case of my dog Frisky, already referred to, he must have retained his mental individuality, although every atom of his brain had probably undergone change more than once during the five or six years he lived in my family. Animals have some ideas of numbers. The crow has been known to count as far as the number six, and a dog I once had knew as well as I did when Saturday came. The sense of beauty, which has been declared peculiar to man, is innate in birds. Certain bright colors and certain sounds, when in harmony, excite in them pleasure as they do in man. The taste for the beautiful, at least so far as female beauty is concerned, is not of a special nature in the human mind, for it differs widely in the different races of man, and is not quite the same even in the different nations of the same race. If we are to judge from the hideous ornaments and the equally hideous music admired by most savages, it might be urged that their æsthetic faculty was less highly developed than it is in some species of birds. No animal, it is obvious, would be capable of admiring the nocturnal heaven, a beautiful landscape, or refined music. And this should not be wondered at, for such high tastes, dependent as they are upon culture and complex associations, are not even enjoyed by barbarous or by uneducated persons.
Seeing that man in a state of nature has no preëminence above the lower animals so far as his mental and moral qualities are concerned, and in many instances ranks far below the so-called brute, let us examine fora short time his religious nature. No evidence exists to show that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary, ample evidence, not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, can be adduced to show that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea. If under the term religion is included the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is entirely different, for this belief seems to be almost universal with the less civilized races. Nor is it difficult to understand how it originated. With the development of the imagination, wonder and curiosity, and of a moderate power of reasoning, man would naturally have craved to understand what was going on around him, and even have vaguely speculated on his own existence. According to McLennan man must, in his efforts to arrive at some explanation of the phenomena of life, feign for himself. Judging from the universality of this life, the same author remarks that “the simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess.” Probably, as has been clearly shown by Tyler, dreams may have first given rise to the notion of spirits. Savages do not readily discriminate between subjective and objective phenomena. When a savage dreams, the figures which appear in his vision are believed to have come from a distance and to stand over him, or the soul of the dreamer goes out on a journey and returns with a remembrance of what has been seen. That tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects and agencies are animated by living or spiritual beings may be illustrated by a little fact which I have frequently noticed. Standing on the corner of a street, waiting for a closed snow-sweeper, which was driven by electricity, to pass, my attention was directed to a young horse that was geared to a hansom. The horse was at rest, and its driver, evidently awaiting some one, sat upon the box. Upon the appearance of the sweeper the horse reared, turned his face directly toward the object of his fear, pawed the pavement in the most impatient manner possible, and then looked wistfully and pleadingly at his master, as though imploring protection from some fearful and gigantic monster. Another sweeper passed while I was still in waiting, and the poor animal went through the same trying and fearful ordeal as before. He must, I think, have reasoned in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, which was about to do him some serious physical harm. Belief in spiritual agencies would thus easily pass into a belief in the existence of one or more gods, for savages would naturally ascribe to spirits the same passions, the same line of vengeance or simple form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves experienced.
Religious devotion is a highly complex feeling. Love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for the future and other elements enter into its composition. No being could experience so complex an emotion unless his intellectual and moral faculties had attained a moderately high level. Some approach to this high state of mind is visible in the profound love of a dog for his master, for it is associated with complete submission, some fear, reverence, gratitude and perhaps other feelings. A dog’s behavior towards his master, after a long absence, is widely different from that which he shows towards his fellows, for his transports of joy in the latter case are less intense, and his every action savors of a mere sense of equality. But upon his master, as Prof. Braubach goes so far as to maintain, he looks as on a god.
These high mental faculties, which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, and subsequently in fetishism, polytheism and monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained at a very low level, to various strange superstitions and customs, many of which, such as the sacrifice of human beings to a blood-loving god and the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire, are too terrible to contemplate. It is well, however, to reflect occasionally on these superstitions, for they show us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to improved reason, science and accumulated knowledge. How much better is the life of civilized man than that of the savage, for as Lubbock has well remarked, “it is not too much to say that the horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and embitters every pleasure.”
From the opinions advanced, it is evident that the belief in God has been the ultimate outcome of belief in unseen spiritual agencies. There has been a gradual leading up through fetishism and polytheism to monotheism. If religion implies belief in unseen agencies, as well as belief in a personal agency in the universe strong enough to influence conduct in any degree, then it is obvious that there has been a progressive advancement in religious thought, each succeeding form of religion by its superior advantages over its predecessor tending to supplant it wherever and whenever its beneficent influences are felt. It is true that fetishism and polytheism still prevail among rude, uncultured peoples, as well as the worship of false deities and prophets, but with the spread of the civilizing and elevating influence of Christianity these religions in the fitness of time will disappear. Christianity, from its foundation in Judaism, has throughout been a religion of sacrifice and sorrow. It has been a religion of blood and tears, and yet one of profoundest happiness to its votaries. While fakirs hang on hooks, and pagans cut themselves and even their children, for the sake of propitiating diabolical deities, yet Christianity, which has its roots in Judaism, has no need for such practices. It is par excellence the religion of sorrow, because it reaches to truer and deeper levels of our spiritual nature, and therefore has capabilities both of sorrow and joy which are presumably non-existent except in civilized man. They are the sorrows and joys which arise from the fully-developed consciousness of sin against a God of Love, as distinguished from propitiation of malignant spirits. These joys and sorrows are wholly spiritual, not merely physical. “Thou desirest no sacrifice.” God’s only sacrifice at the hands of sinful man is a troubled spirit.
Estimated by the influence which He has exerted on mankind, there can be no question, even from a secular point of view, that Christ is much the greatest man who has ever lived. That the revolution which His teachings have effected in human life is immeasurable and unparalleled by any other movement in history is unquestioned. Though most nearly approached by the religion of the Jews, of which it is a development, so that it may be regarded as of a piece with it, it is evident that this whole system of religion is so immeasurably in advance of all others that it may be truthfully said, if it had not been for the Jews, the human race would have had no religion worthy of serious consideration. Had it not been for this religion man’s spiritual side would not have been developed in civilized life. And although there are numberless individuals who are all unconscious of its development in themselves, yet these have been influenced to an enormous extent by the religious atmosphere by which they are surrounded.
Not only is Christianity so immeasurably in advance of all other religions, but it is no less of every other system of thought that has ever been promulgated in regard to what is moral and spiritual. Neither philosophy, science nor poetry has ever produced results in thought, conduct or beauty in any degree comparable with it. What has science or philosophy done for the thought of mankind compared with what has been done by the single doctrine, “God is love?” The Story of the Cross, from its commencement in prophetic aspiration to its culmination in the Gospel, is preëminently the most magnificent presentation in literature. Only to a man wholly destitute of religious perception can Christianity fail to appear the greatest exhibition of the beautiful, the sublime, and of all else that appeals to our spiritual nature, which has ever been known upon the earth. It is not only adapted to men of the highest culture, but the most remarkable thing about it is its perfect adaptation to all sorts and conditions of men. Its problems, historical and philosophical, open up to you worlds of material, over which you may spend your life with the same interminable interest as the student meets in the fields of natural science.
Whatever our theory of the origin of man, there can be no doubt that we all feel that his intellectual part is higher than the animal; and that the moral is higher than the intellectual, whatever our theory of either may be; and that the spiritual is higher than the moral, whatever our theory of religion may be. It is what is understood by his moral, and still more by his spiritual qualities, that make up what is called his character, and, astonishing to say, it is character that tells in the long run. Morality and spirituality are two different things, for a man may be highly moral in conduct without being in any degree spiritual in nature, and the reverse, though to a less extent. Objectively, the same distinction subsists between morals and religion. Intellectual pleasures are more satisfying and enduring than sensual, or even sensuous; and spiritual, to those who have experienced them, than intellectual, an objective fact, abundantly testified to by those who have had experience, which seems to indicate that the spiritual nature of man is the highest part of man—the culminating point of his being. That there will always be materialists and spiritualists, as Renan says, is probably true, inasmuch as it will always be observable on the one hand that there is no thought without brain, while, on the other hand, the instincts of man will always aspire to higher beliefs. If religion is true, and life is a state of probation, this is just what ought to be. It is not probable that the materialistic position, which is discredited even by philosophy, is due simply to custom and a want of imagination. Else why the inextinguishable instincts which we have thus shown to exist?
ERA OF MIND AND HEART.
Things as They Will Exist in a Future Earth-Life.