The Five Great Philosophies of Life

by William De Witt Hyde

The harboured grudge, the unrepented injury, the offence for which we have not begged pardon, the employer's refusal to "recognise" his employees or their representatives, and treat with them on fair and equal terms, the workman's cultivated attitude of hostility to his employer, are all such flagrant violations of Love that acts of formal piety or public worship on the part of a person who harbours such feelings are an affront.

Controversies, lawsuits, industrial or political warfare in mere pride of opinion, class prejudice, or greed of gain, without first making every effort to respect the rights and protect the interests of the other party and so bring about a reconciliation, are all violations of Love and doom the person who is guilty of them to dwell in the narrow prison-house of a hard and hateful secularity, where the last farthing of exacted penalty must be paid, and hate is lord of life. "Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire. If, therefore, thou art offering thy gift at the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art with him in the way; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the last farthing."

Marriage to the Christian is an infinitely higher and holier estate than it could have been to any of the earlier schools. It is an opportunity to share with another person the creative prerogative of God. It brings opportunity for Love enhanced by the highest of complementary differences, under circumstances of tenderest intimacy, with the requirement of lifelong constancy.

From Love's point of view any lack of tender reverence for the person of another, whether in or out of marriage sinks man to the plane of the brute. Not that the normal exercise of any appetite or passion is base or evil in itself. All are holy, pure, divine, when Love through them assumes the lifelong responsibilities they involve. All that falls short of such tender reverence and permanent responsibility is lust. Jesus established chastity on the broad, rational basis of respect for the dignity of woman and the sanctity of sex. The logic of His teaching on this point is to place chastity on the eternal rock foundation of treating another only as Love and a true regard for the other's permanent welfare will warrant. In other words, Jesus permits no man to even wish to treat any woman as he would be unwilling another man should treat his own mother, sister, wife, or daughter. For, from His standpoint, all women are our sisters, daughters of the most high God. This standard is searching and severe, no doubt; but it is reasonable and right. There is not a particle of asceticism about it. And the man who violates it is not merely departing a little from the beaten path of approved conventionalities. He is doing a cruel, wanton wrong. He is doing to another what he would bitterly resent if done to one whom he held dear. And what right has any man to hold any woman cheap, a mere means of his selfish gratification, and not an object of his protection, and reverence, and chivalrous regard? The worst mark of uneliminated brutality and barbarism which the civilised world is carrying over into the twentieth century, to curse and blacken and pollute and embitter human life for a few generations more, is this indifference to the Spirit of Love, as it applies at this crucial point.

To destroy a wife's health, to purchase a moment's pleasure at the cost of a woman's lasting degradation, or to participate in practices which doom a whole class of wretched women to short-lived disease and shame, and early and dishonoured death (a recent reliable report estimates the cost of lives from this cause alone in a single city as 5000 a year) is so gross and wanton a perversion of manhood, that in comparison it would be better not to be a man at all.

All the devices for gratifying sexual passions without the assumption of permanent responsibilities, such as seduction, prostitution, and the keeping of mistresses, Christianity brands as the desecration of God's holiest temple, the human body, and the wanton wounding of His most sensitive creation,—woman's heart. The Greeks placed little restriction on man's passions beyond such as was necessary to maintain sufficient physical health and mental vigour to perform his duties as a citizen in peace and in war. If the individual is complete in himself, with no God above who cares, no Christ who would be grieved, no Spirit of Love to reproach, no rights of universal brotherhood and sisterhood to be sensitively respected and chivalrously maintained, then indeed it is impossible to make out a valid claim for severer control in these matters than Plato and Aristotle advocate. If there are persons in the world who are practically slaves, persons who have no claim on our consideration, then licentiousness and prostitution are logical and legitimate expressions of human nature and inevitable accompaniments of human society. Christianity, however, has freed the slave in a deeper and higher sense than the world has yet realised. Christianity does not permit any one who calls himself a Christian to leave any man or woman outside the pale of that consideration which makes this other person's dignity, and interest, and welfare as precious and sacred to him as his own. Obviously all loose and temporary sexual connections involve such degradation, shame, and sorrow to the woman involved, that no one who holds her character, and happiness, and lasting welfare dear to him can will for her these woful consequences. One cannot at the same time be a friend of the kindly, generous, sympathetic Christ and treat a woman in that way. It is for this reason, not on cold, ascetic grounds, that Christianity limits sexual relations to the monogamous family; for there only are the consequences to all concerned such as one can choose for another whom he really loves. If Christianity, at these and other vital points, asks man to give up things which Plato and Aristotle permit, it is not that the Christian is narrower or more ascetic than they; it is because Christianity has introduced a Love so much higher, and deeper, and broader than anything of which the profoundest Greeks had dreamed, that it has made what was permissible to their hard hearts forever impossible for all the more sensitive souls in whom the Love of Christ has come to dwell.

"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell."

Divorce is a confession of failure in Love's supreme undertaking. No two Christians, who have caught and kept alive the Spirit of Love in the married state, ever were or ever will be, ever wished to be or ever can be, divorced. No one Christian who has the true Christian Spirit of Love toward husband or wife will ever seek divorce unless it be under such circumstances of infidelity or brutality, neglect or cruelty, as render the continuance of the relation a fruitless casting of the pearls of affection before the swinishness of sensuality. The determination of the grounds on which divorce shall be granted belongs to the sphere of the state, and is a problem of social self-protection. The Christian church makes a serious mistake when it spends its energies in trying to build up legal barriers against divorce. Its real mission at this point is to build up in the hearts of its adherents the Spirit of Love which will make marriage so sweet and sacred that those who once enter it will find, as all true Christians do find, divorce intolerable between two Christians; and tolerable even for one Christian only as a last resort against hopeless and useless degradation. To translate Christ's Spirit into the life of the family is a much more Christian thing to do than to attempt to enact this or that somewhat general and enigmatical answer of His into civil law. It is generally a mistake, a departure from the Spirit of the Master, when the Christian community as such turns from its specific task of positive upbuilding of personality to the legal prohibition of the things that are contrary to the Christian Spirit. Laws and prohibitions, statutes and penalties against drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, theft, murder, gambling, and divorce, we must have. But those laws and penalties are best devised and enforced by the state, as the representative of the average sentiment of the community as a whole, rather than by the distinctively Christian element in the community, which in the nature of things is very far above the average sentiment. Undoubtedly the Christian Spirit is the only force strong enough to save the family from degeneration and dissolution in this intensely individualistic, independent, materialistic, luxurious age. But we must rely mainly on the Spirit working within, not on a law imposed from without; on the healing touch of the gentle Master, not on the hasty sword of the impetuous Peter.

"It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement; but I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress; and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery."

Love fulfils at once the law of truth-telling and the law against swearing; for words spoken in Love need no adventitious support. The appeal to anything outside one's self, and one's simple statement, is clear evidence that there is no Love, and therefore no truth within. Love has no desire to deceive, and hence no fear of being disbelieved. To back up one's words with an oath is to confess one's own lack of confidence in what one is saying, and to invite lack of confidence in others. Anything more than a plain statement of fact or feeling comes out of an insincere or unloving heart. Of course here, as in the case of divorce, what is the obvious and only law for the disciple of Jesus may or may not be wise for the civil authorities to enact into law and impose upon all. If the state and the courts think an oath helpful, the sensible Christian usually will conform to public custom and requirement; even though for him the practice is superfluous and meaningless.