But, it may be objected, the average man will not be deterred from wrong-doing by the fear of vague consequences; he is only concerned to snatch the immediate pleasure (or what seems to him to be a pleasure), to satisfy a momentary lust, to secure the gratification of his senses on the “bird-in-the-hand” principle. That is all very true, of course, and incidentally it accounts for the failure of Christianity or any other belief that relies for its ethical effect on a system of vague threats and promises. But once get rid of the nebulosity, and all is changed—so long, that is, as the brain is healthy, and the supremacy of reason acknowledged. Emotions of hate, cupidity, sensuality, and the like, are always liable, as are all other emotions, to cloud the reason—to derange the brain temporarily; how much more so when there is no clear perception of disagreeable consequences? No man in his senses will act with entire disregard of consequences; it is only when they are not sufficiently clear that they are disregarded. It is absurd to suppose that the ordinary man is such an unthinking animal that he never studies ultimate consequences. The most selfish men and women—and the religious world is not without its fair share of them—think of the morrow. No one more so. It is the exceptional individual of the happy-go-lucky sort, with no enemy but himself, on whom it is difficult to impress the need of thinking ahead.
THE NEED FOR AN EARLY EDUCATION IN ETHICAL PRINCIPLES.
My contention, then, is that a feeling of certainty regarding ultimate consequences is, above all others, the most powerful factor in influencing conduct. This certainty will be attained through, and only through, the medium of education. Knowing this, it is the duty of parents and teachers to be continually implanting in the minds of the young the objects of right-doing and the consequences of wrong-doing, wholly apart from questions of belief, not only because such teaching enshrines a great truth, but because this truth is liable to be lost sight of in the mists of theological dogmas and metaphysical theories. Children, it is true, adopt moral principles out of regard for social and parental authority, and not as the result of reasoned conviction, so that at first the scientific reasons for right conduct will doubtless be to some extent unappreciated. But, meanwhile, a habit of mind will be forming, and, as the new teaching will appeal to the common sense of the growing mind, and not to its credulity, a reasoned conviction will shortly follow. Conduct developed in this manner, free from theological speculations, is based on a firm foundation, which no later experiences in life will be able to upset. It is not nebulous. It is not susceptible of change through an alteration in religious views. It is true. The future generation, so brought up, will regard the consequences of immorality with complete certitude, and will do so without having to extricate themselves, as the present generation must, from objectionable habits of thought and conduct engendered by erroneous teaching.
THE OBJECT-LESSON FURNISHED BY THE JAPANESE.
This is no abstract theory. We have a concrete and magnificent example before us in a nation whose character is formed entirely by non-theological instruction. I refer, of course, to the Japanese. There are no people more refined, courteous, gentle, amiable, and innately æsthetic than these Latins of the Orient; no people more brave, hardy, and self-controlled; none more cleanly and healthy in body and happy in mind. The Japanese army, by its perfection of transport, commissariat, and equipment, its surgical and sanitary work, its discipline and dash, its passionate patriotism and its humanity to the conquered, surpasses the armies of the Christian nations who send their missionaries to Japan. With regard to sexual morality, “it must be remembered,” as Professor Inazo Nitobe remarks, “that, whatever charges may be made against the Japanese people, the same charge can be, and is, actually made against every country, England not excluded, by travellers, since it is usually the worst, the lax, side of life to which a foreigner is first introduced.”[5] Personally, I should say that the charge could be met by pointing to the acknowledged virtues and physical condition of the Japanese, and asking, “Can these be the result of vicious habits?”
There are certain significant circumstances in connection with the present moral condition in Japan which we must not omit to take into consideration. “Untruthfulness, dishonesty, and brutal crime,” says Lafcadio Hearn, speaking of Old Japan, “were rarer then than now, as official statistics show; the percentage of crime having been for some years steadily on the increase—which proves, among other things, that the struggle for existence has been intensified. The virtue of Japanese wives was generally in all ages above suspicion.”[6] “If there has been a serious relapse among us,” says another writer, “it has been the result of the shock occasioned by our contact with the new civilisation, and fortunately not the consequence of the abandoning of a belief in future punishment by an offended God.”[7] (What food for thought—falling off in morality attributed to over-population and contact with a Christian civilisation!) How do the Japanese hope to solve this new problem? By Christianity? Not at all. “Men are beginning to see,” continues the same writer, “that in the domain of morality the excellent precepts and propositions by which their fathers were guided under the old régime, but which have since fallen into disrepute, are fundamentally correct, and that, with slight adaptations in the light of the new civilisation, the old code of morality will serve their purpose under the altered circumstances of the new era.”
Only the charge of lack of commercial morality has any foundation in fact, and, with regard to this, here is the true explanation, given, not by a Japanese apologist, but by a Christian missionary: “The Japanese are often charged, and with good reason, with a lack of commercial morality. In days when the military virtues reigned supreme, the handling of trade was deemed an employment which no gentleman would take up; hence the commerce of the country is largely in the hands of men who do not represent her best traditions. Again, certain restrictions of mercy were always granted in the undertaking of a contract, whereas foreigners naturally regard a contract as binding unconditionally. But, in both respects, methods of trade are improving, and in the excellent commercial schools it is taught that ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ Among members of the humblest ranks of life the most striking instances of honesty will be met with; a jinrikisha man will run after you with the parcel you have forgotten, a shopkeeper will walk to your house to bring you a few cents he accidentally overcharged you.”[8]
As to their purely secular education and the severance of belief from conduct, Baron Suyematsu remarks that, “to the outsiders who have not grown up in an atmosphere of this kind, it may appear somewhat difficult to comprehend how boys and girls could be thoroughly imbued with moral sentiments without connecting them in some way with religion; but when these are taught with thoroughness, basing their systematic exposition on the duties of human beings towards one another and to the State, and on the noble tradition of their [the children’s] own community and the characteristic virtues of their forefathers in which they ought to rejoice, and when appeals are made to the honour and pride which one should feel and value, and, above all, to the conscience of individuals, one’s thoughts appear to become imbued with the lessons conveyed, and moral notions thus taught seem to become, per se, a kind of undefined, but nevertheless potent and serviceable, religion.”[9] Again, Baron Suyematsu tells us elsewhere that “the educated classes consider that he who does what is good for good’s sake, and not for a fear of anything exterior, is the most courageous man, and to be courageous is the most important feature of Bushido. The probability is that, were a Japanese gentleman a devout adherent of any particular form of religion, he would rather conceal it than make a display of it.”[10]
The words of other than Japanese writers may not be without some interest. A Christian friend of mine, once an English professor in a Japanese college, wrote to me lately: “I must admit that the Japanese do seem to have attained without Christianity a higher status than most Christian nations. Indeed, they appear to attain personal and national excellence without religion at all.” Again, another Englishman, who has spent a lifetime and occupies a high position in Japan, remarks (in the course of a letter replying to my queries): “There is not the remotest chance of Christianity becoming the religion of the State. For the last two centuries and a half the educated class have adopted the Agnostic ethical system of Confucius, which, once understood and embraced, can never be dislodged by the Christian or any other variety of theologian.”
Yet Dr. Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon, closes his book, The Witness of the Influence of Christ, with the familiar assertion of the inseparability of religion and ethics. It is an assertion which, now more than ever, the Churches are reiterating. Why? Is it not because they find that many are beginning to doubt its truth? I fear reiteration will not make it any truer. Only facts will appeal to the man who looks below the surface, and these all tend the other way.