Anxiety with regard to the effect on morality, private and public, chiefly accounts, no doubt, for the present conspiracy of silence. I have already gone into this question in some detail,[39] and we have seen that belief and morality are not necessarily Siamese twins, and that, when the belief is false, and still more, of course, when it is suspected or known to be false, it is no longer of any possible ethical value, but quite the reverse. Should you demur, I have a question to ask, which is this: Now that, whether we wish it or no, the truth about Christianity is fast leaking out, and, consequently, disbelief is rapidly spreading, how is it that you, how is it that the State, how is it that the majority outside the Church, display so peculiarly little anxiety? I confess I am at a loss to understand, unless it be that you and they have realised that morality is a thing apart from belief, and therefore feel that there is little cause for uneasiness. There is, however, an element of danger, and, temporary though it may be, it is sure, if disregarded, to affect the private and public morality of our own times.
(d) THE REAL DANGER.
The real danger lurks, where least suspected, in the very method which you advocate as the safest—the method of a gradual infiltration. In many matters such a method is undoubtedly sound. A reformation involving a complete revolution in opinions is best carried out gradually and tentatively, and, in this respect, nature’s slow processes of evolution provide a useful lesson for the too ardent reformer. I do not suggest a cataclysm, or suppose it possible. But I do say that your infiltration process must be carefully watched and tended, although a policy of masterly inactivity and laissez-faire may appeal to you as the easiest; I do say with Mr. Trevelyan that “true opinions do not spread always, and of their own force; but sometimes, and only by dint of courageous avowal”;[40] I do say that in this particular instance it is absolutely necessary that, side by side with a knowledge of the untruth of the Christian religion, there should be inculcated a knowledge of the true origin and need of morality; I do say that the infiltration process need not and ought not to be prolonged indefinitely, and that insincerity of any kind affects character banefully; I do say that you should not allow your children to be taught a false belief and a false basis of morality. This conspiracy of silence is as mistaken and mischievous as that by which boys and girls are allowed to find out for themselves what they should have had properly put to them by their parents and guardians. When the Church teaching, when the dogmas contained in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, are removed, the rational teaching must take its place at once.
(e) THE CONSOLATIONS OF BELIEF, AND THE DISTRESS WE MAY CAUSE BY OUR CANDOUR.
We cannot stop to inquire how this or that private interest will suffer when the theological mist has been dispelled. When machinery was invented—or, again, when slavery was abolished—enormous interests were affected. Such things will always adjust themselves. There is one difficulty, however, which we all feel very strongly, and which cannot be passed over lightly. We have to consider the distress of mind which the truth will cause to those who still firmly believe, and for whom their religion is so great a consolation that to be robbed of it would make life objectless—a dreary desert of despair. Have we, then, any right to disturb people’s belief, and to lacerate their feelings? It would almost appear, as Mr. Winwood Reade remarks, that “we can do nothing that is exclusively and absolutely good. Le genre humain n’est pas placé entre le bien et le mal, mais entre le mal et le pire.” Just as multitudes of martyrs are now suffering in unhappy Russia for the sake of its eventual reform, just as throughout history mankind owe their elevation to misfortune and their happiness to misery, so here, also, it seems as if the elevation and happiness in store for mankind after their liberation from superstition can only be achieved through suffering. The revolution will be bloodless, but it cannot be altogether tearless. Let us see whether the mental anguish will be as great as we imagine, and also whether it is not in the power of each one of us to adopt a line of conduct which will tend towards a vast reduction in the number of those who must pass through the vale of tears.
Are you and I any unhappier than the believer? Many of us have gone through an ordeal more or less severe before finally relinquishing our cherished beliefs. I will speak of that presently. But are we now any less happy than our fellows who are believers? Except for the unhappiness which our outspoken confession of belief may have brought upon us, surrounded as we are by believers and professing believers, I think we can, with confidence, say we are not; while this possible cause of unhappiness is precisely the one which will disappear as soon as the vast multitude of unbelievers agree to tell the truth. No longer then shall we seem, as now, to be in a minority. Very good. We are, or should be, quite as happy as believers; may we not suppose that, after the effect of a rude awakening from a beautiful dream has passed off, the convert to unbelief will settle down into the same condition of mind as ourselves? We are free from anxiety regarding the terrible fate that some of our Christian brethren still see fit to hold over us; but in place of their anxiety concerning an eternal after-life, which may be blissful or may be gruesome, the worst we expect is an eternal peace—an undisturbed sleep, such as we hope for every night when we retire to rest.
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.
We are Agnostics, and, though some may preserve an agnosticism concerning the continuance of consciousness after death, we are all of us resigned to the inevitable.
And if there be no meeting past the grave,
If all is darkness, silence, yet ’tis rest;