The kingdom of the unselfish, or empire of the wise

Preface

THIS book makes its appearance because the existing stage of social evolution demands something not yet possessed ; and it is one of the many things evolved to supply that demand. But it may not prove well suited to the present state of opinion. In that case it will be better adapted to a later one, and if not read in this century may be in the next.

That it will meet with hostile criticism from those who fail to apprehend its best meaning is quite likely. That it can do any serious harm, however, is not probable ; not only because its motive is good, and because it is better to know the truth than to believe the unreal, but also because the human mind seems disposed to appropriate what is adapted to its condition of growth, and to refuse all that is beyond. There are other persons who will be able to appreciate the most of it ; and these too, in all kindness, may find much to criticise adversely. The author has been continually conscious of such imperfection, and in excuse must reply that the work undertaken needed to be done ; there was no one else to do it ; and he has done the best he could. Whatever comments, friendly or unfriendly, may point out unseen faults, will be accepted, and turned to good account in the future, when there shall be opportunity.

Regarding the various dogmatic statements that will be found throughout the following pages, it must be said there was no time for proving everything, and these were left to prove themselves; while the justification of the book as a whole is trusted to justify this mode of proceeding. Whatever failure there is to give credit for ideas used that are not original has the same reason for a partial excuse; another part will be found on page 139, and in the whole of the succeeding chapter; while it may also be said that they are mostly such as are already familiar to persons acquainted with the progress and present condition of Science. For similar reasons, no better claim is made for anything else that is here presented.

Those who possess facts bearing upon any of the peculiar theories here advanced, or who, after sufficient reading and thought, shall be animated by a desire to take some steps toward the ideal ''Kingdom " described, are invited to correspond with the author, addressing communications in care of the publishing company named on title page. J. L. P.

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER I. Introductory. The Reliable and The Unreliable IN Thought

CHAP. II. The Evolution of Morality. CHAP. III. The Evolution of Morality {Continued). CHxVP. IV. Independence.

CHAP. V. Vanity and Pride, t/- CHAP. VI. Intellectual Immorality.

CHAP. VII. Conceit and Self-Righteousness. CHAP. VIII. Natural and Social Selection. CHAP. IX. Natural and Social Selection (Continued). CHAP. X. Natural and Social Selection {Continued). CHAP. XI. Natural and Social Selection {Continued). CHAP. XII. Natural and Social Selection {Continued). CHAR XIII. Love.

CHAP. XIV. Love {Continued).

CHAP. XV. Religiosity and Religion.

CHAP. XVI. Conversion and Salvation. CHAP. XVII. Artosity and Art.

CHAR XVIII. God.

CHAP. XIX. Immortality.

CHAP. XX. Human Perfectibility.

CHAPTER L

THE RELIABLE AND UNRELIABLE IN THOUGHT,

INTRODUCTORY.

IF we take all the different sorts of ideas or conceptions that enter the human mind, either as knowledge, opinion, doctrine, dogma, philosophy, revelation, myth or tradition, and put them into two contrasted classes regarding the point of their reliability or certainty, one of these classes will naturally be called Science and the other Nescience, or one Knowledge and the other Conjecture. Under the head of Conjecture or Nescience will be included all tradition, myth, revelation, doctrine, dogma, speculation and opinion, as the more uncertain part ; while under that of Knowledge or the Reliable will be positive science only. Science will stand over against all the rest as the only certainty. Indeed, science and certainty are almost exchangeable words. All those things classed as Nescience contain so miich of that which is doubtful that doubt, skepticism or criticism is their great enemy, the one thing they all dread, and which is really dangerous to them ; whereas, Science has no fear of criticism, and boldly challenges it to do its worst. For, whatever cannot endure criticism is not science, and until it can will not become such. And the point is to be noted that although what passes for science is not yet all positively certain, it is in the process of becoming certain — is having its doubtful material constantly reduced in amount, unlike the opposite class of conceptions, in which the uncertain matter increases or become^ more prominent under the application of criticism. The authority and influence of the latter is continually being weakened, while the matter composing science is continually going forward to a point where it can be received by every one alike as beyond question. Thus it was in the old contest over Astronomy, in the later one over Geology, and so it is in the present disputes concerning Biology and the philosophy of Evolution.

At the same time that there is more or less of doubt attached to everything outside of positive science, there is also more or less of truth mixed with the falsity, both together waiting for that final sifting process to be ultimately applied by the Scientific Method, which shall separate one from the other, and leave to us the clear grain of knowledge unmixed with any chaff of superstition, misrepresentation, or misconception. Moreover, 1 here willingly venture the opinion, to be supported more or less farther on, that little of what passes for truth is wholly false, and that Science will yet discover some solid rocks of certainty where it now sees only the marsh and swamp of superstition and folly.

In claiming so much for Science, however, it is not forgotten that at the bottom of all Science, as we now commonly understand the word, there remain some questions of a philosophical character, such as the ultimate test of truth, the nature of the Absolute, the nature of force, of intelligence and of cause, with definitions of space, time, matter and motion, to be definitively settled before Science can finally conquer its whole domain from its opponents. This done we shall then at last be able to speak of a scientific Ontology.

To a mature mind the theory or philosophy of a subject seems the first thing that ought to be learned ; and the fact that Science has not yet fully reached its philosophical basis— that these great questions are still undecided — is and will be a hindrance to its progress. But though it will hinder, it will not prevent, the acceptance of any ordinary scientific truth when supported by evidence in sut^cient amount. Nobody can escape from his own instincts, nor always refuse to believe his own senses ; and so positive truth makes its way notwithstanding all philosophy or lack of philosophy. We may trust philosophy to the final outcome, well believing that it, like all the subordinate departments of knowledge, will at last take on the positive and unquestionable character.

Neither is it to be understood that what I am about to offer in this course of essays is all indubitable scientific knowledge. I mean to claim only that positive knowledge is the foundation of the whole. Though the structure may be carried up to a dizzying height, or branched out in various unfamiliar directions, yet the underwork is in the solid ground. Or, with a different simile, just as in springtime the sap absorbed by the roots of a tree must be carried into all its highest and widest branches, or else they die, so the spirit and method of Science must be carried into' all that claims to be developed from it, else such outgrowth will die and fall to the ground. The radical truths of science are the roots out of which everything must grow ; and whatever is not properly affiHated to them cannot be expected to live. For this reason it is intended to put forth nothing but what is believed able to hold its place, and live and grow, under these conditions.

Let us now make a short review of the unreliable species of knowledge, or rather thought, and afterward a comparison with it of the more positive or reliable kind, in order to understand how they are naturally related to each other, what is the present state and tendency of thought, and what is likely to be the final outcome from the existing conflict of influences between them. All of the work that is to follow will then possess something of the character of prediction.

To speak first of Tradition and Revelation, these are so nearly connected, nearly all the accepted revelations are so old, so obscure, and though written are to the masses of people so much a tradition, that for my purpose it will be sufficiently correct to discuss them both under one head. To realize how truly and how much revelation is tradition let one but remember that the Christian world has for eighteen hundred years been disputing over the natural or ordinary meaning of old Hebrew writings, absurd though they are when so understood, while only in the present century has the idea got abroad that the disputed portions are allegories, having a symbolical and spiritual sense that is rational, and were probably written with no expectation of their ever being taken for anything else.

All over the world, wherever there has been any civilization, there exist old books or scriptures that are looked upon as more or less sacred. In China, India, Central and Western Asia, and Northern Africa they are still the authorities by which people are taught, and their lives to some small extent governed. In ancient Egypt, if not Chaldea, similar writings were possessed, and doubtless served the same purpose of teaching men how to live. Greece and Rome also had their sacred mysteries and oracles, and Rome at least some sacred books. Where civilization was not sufficiently advanced for records to be made there were still oral traditions, similar to those in the written volumes or scrolls. These existed in Central America, Mexico and Peru, and are found in various barbarous or half-civilized tribes, on this continent and the other. The Kings, the Vedas, the Avesta, the Dhamapada, the Book of the Dead, the Sibylline books, the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and the Koran, besides various other works closely related to them, and a host of commentaries and expositions, all come into this class of documents. Some records previously unknown to us have been brought to light by the researches of modern scholars ; while those who profess to have penetrated into the mysteries of the ancient secret societies tell us there are still other old books hidden away in the Buddhist monasteries of Central Asia, of which we have never had any account.

Regarding these I will quote from an author known both as a religionist and a scientist,* one who has proved his Christianity by his deeds — Mr. Charles L. Brace, the founder some thirty years ago of the Five Points missionary work in New York City.

"It is a grand and consoling thought," he says, ''harmonious with reason and with the utterances of inspired men, that there is in human history a continuity of divine revelations. That is, that the Spirit of God has not merely manifested itself to one race in a remote corner of the world during a few years, but that it has been struggling with human souls during all ages and among all races. Certain individuals have especially received these inspirations, and have so grasped certain moral and spiritual truths, or have led such pure and unselfish lives, as to profoundly affect the humane and moral progress of whole races of men. Indeed the continuance and relative advance of great nations have often depended on the degree to which they followed the instructions and truths taught by their great reHgious leaders. Under this aspect God is an ever-acting force in human history, and men and women in the most widely scattered countries, and among races given up to superstition and degrading practices, have opened their souls to this divine light. The light which they in turn have given to the world has not indeed been like the pure radiance shining forth from the Son of Man in Judea, but it has contained rays of the heavenly light, and though obscured by the mists of superstition and the clouds of human ignorance, it has yet guided manv a weary soul in the dark ways of the world."

"One faith has existed in India as a reform of Brahmanism, and has extended to China, Japan and other countries, which in the life of its founder and the truths he taught showed a peculiar divine inspiration that brought

* Author of " Gesta Christi " and " The Eaces of the Old World."

it in many respects very near to Christianity. Undoubtedly in the original form of this relig-ion are seen the workings of the Divine Spirit on a most pure and exalted human soul. Indeed the truths taught by Gautama .Buddha seem to be foregleams of those taught by Christ. Never has compassion been more divinely illustrated in a human life ; nowhere are self-sacrifice, human brotherhood, universal benevolence and sympathy, and purity of heart and life more directly taught than in the v/ords transmitted of Sakya-Muni. The Buddhist legends might well say that all nature budded into spring, and a thrill of joy reached every animated being, that the blind saw, and the dumb spake, that prisoners were set free and the flames of hell extinguished, and a mighty sound of music arose from heaven and earth when a human soul so pure and holy, so filled with an almost infinite compassion, began its life in the body." (Gesta Christi, pp. 445-51.)

All these old scriptures have much similarity in character, and the quotation just made is an admission that the best of them possess a comparative equaHty in moral or spiritual value. Indeed the slight superiority which ]\Ir. Brace attributes to Christianity is only what the adherents of all religions are in the habit of attributing to their own, and assuming to be greater than the critic can allow ; though in this case the claimant is unusually fair.

All of them contain traces of philosophy, that is, some explanation of cosmic and human origin ; they all prescribe rites, sacrifices, and observances having regard to spiritual beings ; and all give some kind of ordinances for influencing the conduct of men toward each other. The three subjects of philosophy, religion and morals are more or less mixed — not separated as with us of modern times — and there are various other matters of less pretension. Most of them agree in having some portion that comes through prophets and seers from a spiritual source, a misty, undefined and little-known region outside the ordinary world, and this portion is what is here meant by revelation. In fact, prophets, seers, mediums, and all the phenomena of Spiritualism, seem to have been as famihar to the ancients as to the present generation ; and were looked upon with much more respect. It has been commonly supposed that Buddhism has no spirit world ; but many scholars think, on the contrary, that the Nirwana of that doctrine is not a state of extinction for the entire consciousness, but only of the supposed baser, material part. The Chinese doctrines appear to have a greater share of philosophy and less of spiritual teaching.

No society of any kind can exist without morality ; and none considerably civilized, like those of the ancient world, without morality of a corresponding degree. Hence all the sacred books contain moral instruction. There is a variety in their injunctions ; for what may be thought good morality in one country, or one state of society, may not in another. Yet there are certain great principles, such as regard for life, for property, for the family, for justice in a general sense, which are found in all systems and doctrines, as being essentials to any social existence.

This sort of moral teaching — mostly upon spiritual authority or the word of the prophet — is the only moral teaching that Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe have ever had ; indeed even Western Europe and America can hardly yet be said to possess any other.

Of the political morality of these old authorities it is necessary to say only that they knew nothing of liberty or democracy ; theocracy or despotism was all. Of their religion and philosophy it may be well to speak a little further.

At the time the Asiatic and Egyptian civilizations were flourishing the greater part of their knowledge was held by the priesthood or professional caste, the military, trading and laboring classes being supposed to have known little beyond what was required in the performance of their functions. It is commonly assumed that the priests kept it within their own order for the purpose of thereby securing their own power and importance, though it is possible to believe that along with this they had another and less selfish motive , as will soon appear.

According to the evidences now being discovered by scholars in ancient lore, certain secret societies, either within or above the priesthoods, and superior to all others in their mystical knowledge, existed over nearly all the civilized parts of Asia and Africa. After their decrease and loss of influence by the decay of these old nations, the lingering remnants of their membership were scattered over Europe during the Middle Ages, and some few societies yet remain, still attempting to preserve the old knowledge and teaching in its purity. Some portion of their symbolism, probably with the less vital part of its meaning, has also come down to us under the guise of Free-Masonry. The Theosophical movement of the last few years is an effort by some present thinkers to get acquainted with their ancient doctrines and mysteries.

Among the leading ideas of the religious philosophy taught by them was that of a great spiritual Source or Origin of all things, having a name of such peculiar sacredness as to be in some localities ineffable to ordinary men and known only to the few, while in other parts its utterance was supposed to give a sanctifying virtue. Creation was by emanation from this source ; and it is to the credit of the old thinkers that creation from nothing was never thought of till the time of the Christian Fathers. There was a division of all the emanations into two great worlds, one of goodness and light, the spiritual; the other material, dark and evil. There was a three-fold distribution of man into body, soul and spirit, the body being further of two kinds, the familiar material one, and one of a finer substance imperceptible to ordinary sensation. The development of the soul was accomplished by its transmigration through various bodies and lives, till its final attainment of the spirit, and absorption into its parent source, the Absolute All.

Egypt and India were the centers of this philosophy, which was almost wholly speculative and spiritualistic. It is believed to underlie Brahmanism, Buddhism, and the Hermetic ''Wisdom of the Egyptians." It was probably known to the Persian Magi, and to the wiser part of the priesthood of the Jews. Apparently it is the fount and origin of all the rational spirituality of all the world's great religions. Prophets, seers and poets have added to it their contributions ; and priests have represented it to the populace in symbols, images and ceremonial rites, which have gradually lost all proper meaning and finally become mere idol worship or dead formality.

Materialism, as a philosophy, though it must have existed latently, was scarcely known to the Eastern world except to a slight extent in India at a comparatively late period.

How ancient the secret brotherhoods may have been no one knows. How they came by their mysteries and allegories is explained only by the supposition that under the moral progress of a growing civilization they had come to experience certain exalted states of mind, which only a few persons unusually favored by nature could realize, and which to the masses therefore were wholly inconceivable. These, and the conceptions belonging to them, which to themselves were sacred, they embodied m allegories, and transferred to them some of the old symbols of the primitive sun-earth-and-sky worship, with a new and higher meaning, in order to preserve the knowledge of them, or some hints of it at least, to a later and more favorable time.

A considerable share of the mass of Eastern traditions, allegories, and religious dogmas became incorporated in Christianity ; some of it coming from Egypt, some from the Persian Magism, some from the Hebrews, some from the Gnostics, and some from the Greek philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato. Thus it has influenced all Christendom down to the present time.

But Christianity as it now is, and ever since it became an estabhshed rehgion, is far from being a true child of its ancient parentage, or anything but a poor representative of the ideas taught by the old brotherhood of prophets and thinkers. The archaic doctrines may have been adulterated and debased before Christianity obtained them, but if so she still further diluted, confused and corrupted them, till they became scarce recognizable, and turned the old allegories into extravagant relations of actual fact, with a literal meaning to every word, thus compelling the mind to stultify itself by a blind, senseless belief, or else skeptically to reject them, with all the associated teachings of the Church. To those who care to know how much truth there can be in this paragraph I commend the reading of a single book, written by two students of the ancient wisdom, and called ''The Perfect Way, or The Finding of Christ. " Christianity has a virtue of its own in its power to arouse enthusiasm ; but in rationality it falls far behind the olden type.

As already stated, the wisdom of the ancients was largely an esoteric wisdom. The best part of it was never given to the public except in symbolical dress, nor even to the lower grades of the instructed. Only the few who had reached the highest degree of merit, through their own elevated character and intelligence, could know the \vhole. If transferred to the populace the most sacred truths would be misunderstood, doubted, despised and profaned; while its teachers, becoming objects of suspicion and dislike, would lose whatever influence for good they possessed. This is the natural result of placing before men knowledge of what is beyond their experience, and hence beyond their ability to apprehend or

THE UNRELIABLE II

believe, according to the well-understood law that all knowledge must come through some kind of sensation or experience. That truth of a high order was possessed by some of these teachers will be readily admitted by all enquirers who through their own experience come to understand what it was ; for it was the kernel truth of all religion.

Here is an obvious reason why it is that we discover in the old civilizations the traces of an elaborate philosophy, a monotheistic religion, and a high standard of moral excellence, existing at the same time and place with the lowest forms of polytheism, idolatry, and sensuality; the former for the happy few who could attain to it, the latter for the great mass who could conceive of nothing better. With no means for the ready and general diffusion of intelligence, the mental condition could hardly have been different.

In our own times, and our own religion, we still see something of the same kmd — at one extreme an educated, thoughtful and moralized class, at the other a more numerous body, still worshipping charms, images, and a plurality of gods little better than demons, with elaborate ritual ceremony, while possessing no higher moral ambition than is accordant with sensual gratification and vain display. The difference between our time and the past is that we have a large intermediate class, partially educated, and to some extent thoughtful. But even the esoteric feature is not absent. Many intelligent persons believe esoterically what they find it inexpedient to utter publicly. They find that when a truth transcending the experience of any group or class of persons is offered them by one more advanced it is immediately misconcieved, likened to something base, and the author suspected, maligned, or hated, for no fault except that of having too much faith in humanity. The private conviction, and public expression will continue to be at variance in some degree until the advanced thought and the common opinion are more nearly alike than they have ever yet been.

In regard to all this there is but one special point that needs to be emphasized. A part of the old sacred books claims to have come through revelation ; and the whole religious, philosophic, and moral movement belonging to their mfluence, and that of the sages referred to, is predominantly spiritualistic. Admitting a world of spiritual existences, there would then seem to have been a time when that world readily gave revelations to this, through prophets and seers, with a design of teaching the morality necessary to social life and mdividual development; and to enforce it by such religious considerations as would be effective among selfish and superstitious races of men. Certain revelations have come, and they seem adapted to the nature of those who have received them. Possibly they were the only kind of teaching that would have been accepted at all. Though differing at different times and places, they all appear to have had the purpose of making men better, more moral, more unselfish. They have operated through hope and through fear, and the sacrifices of selfish interest that hopes and fears have induced. It seems to me probable that some good result has been thus accomplished. Whether a large amount or not may be questioned ; but the more appropriate question is whether any good effect at all could have been produced by a teaching that did not act upon men's fears through their superstitions, and by raising false hopes equal to their fears. Strong motives only could move the coarse, simple, indolent, brutal, nature of the primitive man. Taking this view, the instruction was suited to a weak, ignorant, selfish, and m all respects childish or immature condition of humanity — a childishness not so much that of the civihzed child as that of the child barbarian.

In modern Europe and America we still have seers, prophets and revelations. But they are not distinguished like the old ones, no such reverence attaches to them, and being new and well known they are not traditions. The bringers of them do not cultivate any special secrecy, and their teachings are in plain language designed for all. What, they tell us professes to be more rational than the ancient deliverances, more scientific, more correctly descriptive of the spirit world and of what goes on there. The doctrines taught are not yet authoritative, but the process of making them so has commenced, and but for the competition of newer ones, only time would be needed for the older ones to be endowed with that character. They are intermediate between tradition and science, showing the effect of scientific influence, and illustrating the fact that progress or improvement characterizes even this strange process of revelation. Their influence is not yet great, but they seem entitled to mention in connection with the two great extremes that constitute our subject. In Europe the most notable of these have been given by Emanuel Swedenborg, in America by A. J. Davis.

Dogma and Speculative Philosophy, like Tradition and Revelation, have a close relationship. We have religious dogmas, like that of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, and less important ones thought out by the speculative founders of churches, creeds and sects ; we have political ones, such as the Divine Right of Kings, or the claim that All Men are born Free and Equal ; we have moral ones, such as Freedom of the W^ill, or the right to Freedom of Conscience and Opinion ; and we have economic ones, like the right of Freedom in Trade. Most of them have a similarity in being the result of deductive speculation, in which a part of the premises is always left out, and unreal assumptions put in. When submitted to verification by being put in practice, or by testing their origins, they all alike fail, either wholly or in part. The results of criticism or of practice never justify the expectations. When we look around us we see no indication that God, more than the devil, is the father of all men; neither is there a brotherhood, in race or in sentimental feeling. Modern Physiology and Psychology do not prove the freedom of the will, nor is the ignorant and vicious person morally entitled to freedom of conscience and opinion. However much it ought to be true that we are all born free and with equal rights, there is no such equality. And in these times, when every one thinks and talks of the Labor question, it is not difficult to perceive that competition is never free, and that the outcome of it as it really is, does not prove the rightfulness of greater freedom any more than it does the opposite, if as much. Thus all such doctrines have a common faultiness, unlike the truth of Science, by means of which we can predict with certainty, and accomplish what we set out to realize.

It -is but just, however, to admit that many dogmas belong to that order of truth called Theoretical, which would be true" if the materials dealt with were perfect, and will be practical in proportion as we attain to the final perfection of all things. They are therefore truths when rightly apprehended ; but taken as they are commonly understood, to be applicable now, or as right under all circumstances, they are only false, delusive and disappointing. The requirements of absolute morality, as well as some of the dogmas above named, are of this nature.