The spirit of the new philosophy

Foreword

We have often been told that in the critical periods of history it is the soul of the people that really counts; that "where there is no vision the people perish." In this most critical hour of the world's evolution when, in the turning and overturning of the very foundations of civilization, all familiar landmarks have been obliterated, all old ideals have been either dimmed or forgotten, and everything we once held necessary to the stability and progress of human life seems to be in the crucible, was there ever greater need for clear vision, and the faith and courage to translate the vision we see into living terms?

It is inconceivable that the world should ever go back to what it was in 1914. It is impossible that it should remain in its present disordered and chaotic state. There is only one way left open, — it must go forward to higher and better things.

vii

FOREWORD

It is the law of life that nothing new ever comes into being in this world except through suffering and pain. Surely something new and wonderful is even now in the birth-process in the life of humanity, forced into being through all the suffering and pain that afflicts mankind to-day.

Countless books by expert and able writers are coming constantly from the press, dealing with all phases of the great and complex problems that immediately confront the world to-day, — political, social, economic, moral and religious.

In this book, the author makes no pretense as an expert in the solution of any of these specific problems. He is, rather, seeking to translate an old, and yet, ever new vision of life into living terms, to transmute an old, but as yet unrealized, ideal into practical inspiration for the mighty tasks before us.

He cannot escape the deep conviction that greater than all other needs in men and in nations is the need of a new and transforming spirit, if this generation is to prove equal to its supreme opportunity. Of what avail

viii

FOREWORD

would it be to change men, if institutions and systems remained the same, or to change institutions and systems, if men remained the same? It is the inmost life of both institutions and men that must be transformed. It is the new spirit in all beings and all things that must be brought to birth.

In his previous books, the author has dealt with various phases of the new philosophy of life, based on a living experience, that is gradually assuming more definite form and is coming to hold a vital place in many thoughtful minds that have outgrown the older theologies.

In this book the spirit of the new philosophy is set forth as the basic spirit for the new age, in terms of a spiritual unity that may become a vital experience in the growing consciousness of mankind, and thus serve as the sure foundation upon which can be reared with confidence the superstructure of the new world.

As he pens these lines, the sun is setting behind the distant hills that bound the waters of the picturesque lake, across which his gaze is directed. The sky is dark overhead and the rays of the declining sun are throwing strange

ix

FOREWORD

shadows athwart the landscape. A few moments more and the sun will have disappeared, and then, — darkness, the night and the quiet shining of the stars. But he knows full well that the morrow will surely bring the sun again, when all the darkness and the shadows will be dispelled.

The world of human life is filled with strange shadows to-day. The sun of an age that is past and forever gone is surely disappearing from view. Its passing seems to leave the world in gloom and darkness. But all the shadows and the gloom are only for a time. We know that the rising sun of a new day must shortly make its appearance. Even now its sure approach is heralded upon the distant horizon. By faith, and in quiet confidence we await the coming of that new day.

John Herman Randall.

Belgrade Lakes, Maine.

August 15th, 1919.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I An Age op Revolt 1

II The Causes of Revolt 26

Chapter I

"We are living, we are dwelling In a grand and awful time; 'Tis an age on ages telling, To be living is sublime." — Anon,

IT is extremely difficult to characterize with any degree of accuracy the present age. The field to be considered is so vast, and the forces aroused and at work are so numerous and so complex, that any generalization is sure to be misleading. To many it is an age of splendid idealism, while to others the forces of materialism are clearly in the ascendency; to some altruism is the keynote of the age, while others see only rampant selfishness on every side; to many the age is radiant with hope for the future, while to others the years that lie before us are dark and threatening for all that is of most value in the life of humanity.

But whether one holds the hopeful or the fearful attitude, there is no question but that we are living in an age characterized throughout by widespread confusion of thought, in which conflicting ideals, antagonistic theories and contradictory opinions are struggling for the mastery. When even the accredited teachers of the race find it impossible to agree as to the solution of the gigantic problems confronting civilization, it is little wonder that the average man feels himself helpless and utterly lost in the intricate complexities of the present world situation.

"Who indeed is sufficient for these things ?" is the well-nigh despairing cry that goes up from many a heart; while still others of more confident spirit are earnestly inquiring: "Who will show us the pathway that leads to the new and better future for humanity?" For, despite all appearances to the contrary, there is an instinctive feeling that the building of the new world awaits no sign from the heavens, no influx of miraculous power from above, no manifestation of any supernatural wisdom, but only the willingness of man himself to rise to the present critical emergency and prove himself equal to the mighty tasks the age has thrust upon him.

In earlier times it was the naive belief that the gods who dwelt outside man, in the distance heavens, would step in, as it were, in times of crises and do for him what he could not do for himself; it was by the aid of supernatural Powers that he was supposed to be able to solve all his knotty problems. But to-day, humanity has reached the point in its evolution where man knows, more or less clearly, that he holds in his own hands the forces by means of which he may make the future whatsoever he will. He is beginning to realize that he does not, and need not, depend on supernatural assistance from without; he needs only to cooperate freely and fully with the God who dwells within himself, and all things will be made possible.

It is in this conviction, as it emerges gradually in the consciousness of the rank and file of mankind, that we glimpse both the glorious hopes and the solemn responsibilities for the future. Man need wait no longer for God to act, as in former ages; for the simple reason that God is always ready to act, waiting only man's willingness to act with Him and through Him. The present moment in human history is indeed God's great hour, — and man's; or better still, it may become God's great hour through man, if man is only ready at last to live out the divinest that is in him and thus realize his true Selfhood here on earth.

The one self-evident fact that stands forth unmistakably clear, above the universal confusion of contending minds and chaotic opinions, is that all the turmoil and strife, all the various expressions of force and violence that menace the stability of existing institutions, all the uncertainty that broods over the future, go back for their ultimate source to the spirit of revolt that fills the world to-day. Never before in human history has the revolutionary spirit been so widespread that it could be regarded as practically universal. Consciously or unconsciously, all men are influenced by it, and, to a greater extent than many realize, all men are slowly but surely being transformed by it. Even the most conservative to-day are conservative only by comparison with the radicals; their conservatism is far in advance of what it was yesterday, and it is moving steadily toward something still more advanced to-morrow.

The most stereotyped and conventional newspapers of the country are discovered to have changed their opinions over night; while the mental and moral agility with which some of them alter their editorial policy, in the interpretation of current events or immediate problems, is highly edifying as well as often most amusing. In every civilized land the crowds are being constantly harangued to overthrow the existing order so that something better may be ushered in, while great massmeetings are being just as earnestly urged to maintain the existing order at any cost so that anarchy may not engulf the world. And the irony of the whole situation lies in the fact that the only existing "order" in the world is frank and open disorder, and that in all countries, under whatever semblance of order may seem to exist, there is actually chaos and confusion worse confounded.

Behold! a thousand voices crying to the multitudes, but how few that speak with any genuine authority; and even these few fail to command the hearing or the respect of any considerable number. If there ever was a time demanding the strongest and sanest leadership, it is surely to-day; but where are the truly commanding figures in whom the people have confidence and whom they will instinctively follow?

It is by no means essential that the spirit of revolt should find expression in forms of violence, though these are its spectacular manifestations that we dread the most, not realizing that they are the least powerful of all the forces of revolt and inevitably tend to recoil upon themselves. The most intense spirit of revolt often burns in the breasts of men and women who would never dream of lifting their hands in any way against their fellows. The most revolutionary forces in the world, now and always, are ideas, convictions, enthusiasm for certain ideals that have become dynamic in the souls of men; and it is to these original sources that the spirit of revolt that fills the world to-day must ultimately be traced. For he utterly misreads the age who fails to see that the revolt characterizing the life of man to-day is essentially a revolt of the spirit in man against things-as-they-have-been in the past.

And so if it were possible for the hand of authority to silence all criticism and suppress all objectors and repress every form of outward disorder, — a course that is fortunately quite impossible, — the age would still be characterized by the spirit of revolt within the hearts and minds of people everywhere. And, sooner or later, it would be bound to make itself heard, in spite of all methods of repression or suppression that might be employed for a season.

We have only to recall the conditions that prevail in the world to-day, to realize the truth of the foregoing statements. Politically, old and familiar forms of government have either already been swept away or else are trembling in the balance. Czars and Emperors, Kings and Queens, hereditary rulers of all types, the vested nobility in all lands have been swept into the discard by the hundreds, while plain men of the people, with neither birth nor breeding, are holding the reins of governments and guiding the destinies of millions toward a more truly democratic state.

The nations that fought to make the world "safe for democracy" little knew how terribly unsafe they were making it for anything short of a genuine democracy, whose real implications few statesmen have as yet dared to frankly face. Whatever else the war may have accomplished, one thing is daylight plain at last: It has unleashed the mighty forces of democracy that, from the beginning, have lain potential in the breasts of all men, to such a degree that no form of autocracy, no kind of tyranny, no sort of human oppression can ever again be very long-lived on this planet. Sooner or later, government of the people, by the people, and for the people must surely be established in all the earth. For the People are awake at last, and the war has made them conscious as never before, not only of their rights, but of their power to secure those rights.

For five years now, we have been making the constant appeal to the rank and file of all lands as to those upon whom depended the preservation of the priceless liberties of humanity; and this, regardless of whether they fought in the trenches or toiled in the factories. All the world knows how nobly they responded to our appeals. It should not cause any surprise that now, with the ending of the war, these in every nation whose devotion and loyalty we have both witnessed and praised, should expect and even demand a larger share in the affairs of government than has ever yet been actually accorded them.

But the revolt that fills the air is not directed alone against old or obsolete political institutions. It finds even more intense and bitter expression against old and outworn social and economic systems that have clearly revealed their utter inadequacy to cope with the problems of the new age. However clearly the historian and the economist have realized the fundamental place held by the great economic forces in modern civilization, the mass of men have had but a dim and vague perception of the part played by these forces, either in the life of nations or of individuals. The veil of ignorance, however, has at last been torn away, and men everywhere realize to-day that the fierce competitions, the deadly rivalries, the bitter frictions that breed wars between nations and bring hunger and want to countless men, women and children in every land, are at bottom due to economic causes that can be removed or changed just as soon as nations and men are ready to reorganize their forces on a different basis and live their lives in a new spirit.

The Reconstruction Program, recently put forth by the British Labor Party, in its wise, constructive and statesmanlike treatment of the economic problems that immediately confront the world, is one of the noblest and most significant human documents that the world has yet seen. It is clear that the demands of intelligent labor are no longer concerned only with higher wages or shorter hours; they go far deeper than these things. As voiced by labor's most representative spokesmen, they involve nothing less than a larger share of the product of labor and a larger control of the means of production.

It is extremely significant that many of the representative employers of labor are already admitting publicly the justice of these primary demands, and through some form of profitsharing or plan of co-partnership are seeking to bridge the gulf between the old industrial system and the one that is to be. That changes are coming in our economic systems, no intelligent man can doubt any longer. The very tenseness of the industrial situation in all countries is the sure sign that things cannot remain as they have been. This revolt against the injustices of the old system, so deep-seated and widespread, together with the awakening sense of justice among a steadily increasing number of the employing class in England and the United States, gives promise of hope for a peaceful solution of the problems involved, at least in the more progressive countries.

In the realm of Religion, the same spirit of either active or passive revolt is increasingly in evidence. Long before the coming of the war, the drift away from the accredited churches had become clearly apparent, occasioning grave alarm among religious leaders in all countries. We are not thinking now of the intellectual revolt of the scholars from the historic institutions of religion, which became so marked about the middle of the nineteenth century and has steadily increased since that time. The discoveries of modern science, the historical criticism of the Bible, the comparative study of religions, the rise and rapid growth of the new social spirit, — all these explain easily enough the scholar's natural impatience with religious institutions that were content to jog along in the same old way with their eyes forever on the past, seemingly blind to all the new truth that had dawned upon the world, and unwilling to make the slightest effort to translate the eternal element in religion into terms of the thought and life of the new day.

Many such scholars bravely elected to remain within the churches of their fathers where they have continued to struggle most earnestly for the re-vitalizing of religion, often in the face of unjust criticism and even bitter persecutions. It is not strange, however, that many more have felt themselves debarred or driven out of the churches by their antagonistic attitude toward all who would not repeat verbatim the old shibboleths. And these have felt themselves obliged to live their own religious lives alone and apart from all churches. As most of these represented the finest mental and moral life of the age, it has meant a tremendous loss of power and leadership to the churches.

It is significant, however, that during the last generation, the spirit of revolt in religion has extended to the rank and file of the people themselves, who, however vaguely they may have grasped the intellectual view-point of the scholars, have nevertheless, in steadily increasing numbers, become convinced of the inadequacy of the existing churches to satisfy their religious needs. The most intelligent leaders in all churches have viewed with serious apprehension the falling away in church attendance, the loss of valued members to the various new cults that have sprung up so rapidly, and the growing indifference of so many who still remain nominally attached to the church. Each year the numerical statistics of church membership are published as the cause for self -congratulations, but the other side of the statistical table is rarely mentioned. What of the nearly sixty per cent, of the people of this country who rarely, if ever, darken the doors of any church? These figures become all the more significant when we remember that they stand, in large measure, for the intelligence and the moral enthusiasm of the age ; and what is still more serious, they include the great proportion of the so-called laboring classes who have come to feel, as they say very frankly, that the church has nothing for them and is not interested in their problems.

When the war first broke out, the hope was expressed in many quarters that it would lead to such a revival of interest in religion as would surely serve to stem the tide turning away from the historic institutions. But the war is over and the revival has not materialized as yet. As a matter of fact, the result of the war on the churches has been to accentuate the spirit of criticism within and the spirit of indifference or open hostility without the church. A careful and dispassionate survey of the many statements which have appeared in print from prominent religious leaders as to the influence of the war on religion gives the following as a summary: Our dogmas of all kinds are at a discount, our sectarianism has been riddled to pieces, our particular forms and rites and rituals are matters of indifference, and the demand everywhere is for a simplification both of the theology and the machinery of ecclesiasticism. The boys who come back, we are told constantly, with any vital interest in religion, are going to demand a different kind of a church.

Within the church, the war has awakened multitudes of people from their smug self-complacency and forced them to think as they never have thought before, with the result that many have frankly abandoned beliefs that were only nominal before, and are utterly at sea as to what they do believe. Others have come out openly against religion, repudiating all its institutions as having proved themselves bankrupt, both morally and spiritually, in the world's greatest crisis. And a still larger number are turning to New Thought, or to some other of the modern cults, in the wistful hope of finding what the regular churches have failed to furnish.

A professional reader for one of the largest publishing houses of this country and England recently told the author that among the religious manuscripts submitted during the last six months, more than a score came from well-known clergymen of all denominations and that every one of them dealt with some phase of the religious revolt that is now on within the churches themselves. This is only one publishing house, however, and it is safe to assume that all publishers are receiving similar manuscripts by religious leaders, in which breathes the same spirit of revolt.

But by far the most serious indictment of the churches is that they have failed the world in that moral and spiritual leadership which is their peculiar function, and of which the world has stood most in need during the last few years. There have been, to be sure, a few prophetic voices, but these have been the exception; they have been like voices crying in the wilderness, to which has come little response save that of slander and misrepresentation from their fellow churchmen. The Church as a whole, both Catholic and Protestant, has failed to voice clearly and unmistakably, in this critical hour for the world, the Gospel it professes to believe; and no amount of specious argument or sophistical statement can justify its failure to the minds of thinking men, or to the conscience of the common people.

This is not to deny that the Church has done many good works and assisted most generously many worthy causes; but as an organization, it has voiced no vital, clean-cut, moral message for the troubled times through which humanity has been and is still passing. It is for this message that the people everywhere have been listening, but listening in vain. "Where there is no vision the people perish." And it has ever been the instinctive faith of men that the one institution in society that should be spiritually capable of catching the vision needed in times of crisis, and translating it into moral and living terms, is the Church. Is it any wonder that multitudes in all lands have lost faith in the leadership of the Church for to-day, and, as a natural result, are turning elsewhere for light? The Church really leads, not because it claims to lead, but only when it does actually lead. If the Church were indeed leading the mighty moral and spiritual forces to-day, it would certainly need no apologists.

In the re-construction age that now lies before us, where are the indications that the Churches are preparing to assume the place of moral leadership amid the many intricate problems that confront the world? Since the signing of the armistice, the leading denominations have all been making extensive plans for huge financial campaigns, or already centering their machinery on the actual raising of vast sums of money, running up into the hundreds of millions, with the primary object of pushing more vigorously their own denominational enterprises both at home and abroad. But we have heard comparatively little from any of the great denominations, with the notable exception of the recent program put forth by the Roman Catholic Church, as to any real, constructive social program, or as to the part they propose to play in ushering in the new social order. We admit that money is necessary even for churches, but we deny that it is the first or most important necessity, or that the amount of money raised, however huge, is any criterion of the Church's true power. Its source of power is always and only in its moral and spiritual leadership; and this is what the churches must regain before their money can accomplish real and lasting benefit.

The revolt against the institutions of religion to-day may mean much for the religion of the future, and may tend, as nothing else, to bring the Church to itself, and thus empower it for its true mission in the world. A prominent Englishman, writing recently in the Atlantic Monthly, calls attention to the fact that there is a profound desire for religion in England that no church or sect is satisfying at present.

He closes his article with these significant words: "The question remains which no one yet can answer, whether any existing church has the energy to grasp the full-orbed conception of the Kingdom of Heaven, both as an inner and an outer thing, to free itself from its own past, to proclaim the truth that Christianity is yet to be discovered b3^ all the powers of man's mind, and to be practised by all the energy of his will. If not, we may dare to predict that a new Church will arise and destroy the old ones." It takes no prophet to see that a church that identifies religion with narrow patriotism, whose doctrines belong, in their phrasing, to an age that is gone, whose organization is undemocratic and whose spirit is exclusive, for which there has dawned no social vision and which is blind to the revolutionary character of its message, — for such a church there can be no possible future.

If the limits of space did not forbid, it would be interesting to trace the same spirit of revolt in the intellectual and moral life of to-day. Nothing is more strikingly significant than the new emergence of the spiritual sense, or the mystical spirit, in quarters where we would be least likely to look for it. It is true, wonderfully true, that "the moon is rising again and the tide of dreams once more floods the naked shingles of the world." The old star-lit mystery of things is coming back, and life is filled once more with meaning and significance. The very science that since the time of Darwin has seemed to be taking all the glory out of the sky and all of the divineness out of life, is to-day becoming more and more mystical, or in other words, less and less hostile toward the things of the spirit. Every day this science is confirming more clearly man's intuitive faith that he is spirit, that he does not live by bread alone, and that the meaning of his life is something mysteriously sacred, radiant and exalted beyond all mortal telling.

The new interest in the history of mysticism, in its philosophy and in the lives of the great mystics, as evidenced by the surprising number of volumes recently published on such subjects, would seem to indicate that the spirit in man is in revolt against the dogmatic materialism of so much of modern science, of its mechanistic theory of the universe, of its absorption in physical phenomena merely, and its unwillingness to accept or even to investigate the empirical evidence of the inner life of man. The tragic history of modern Germany reveals the fact that a science and a philosophy, blinded to the things of the spirit and dedicated to the ideal of power merely, is doomed to certain downfall. The fault, of course, is not due to science and philosophy as such, but rather to the arbitrary limitations imposed upon them, to the inadequacy of their methods and the superficiality of their treatment. It is against these limitations that the revolt is on in the intellectual realm, demanding a truer science and a completer philosophy for the future.

In the same way, the revolt in the moral realm is directed against the merely conventional morality that has proved so helpless in this time of stress and strain. The morality of expediency, that may pass unquestioned in times of peace, reveals its utter inadequacy when civilization is trembling in the balance.

The leaders in every land who seem so powerless to even point the way out of the present chaos to some higher order, stand self-condemned, as lacking the knowledge of those fundamental principles of morality, and as failing to possess that clear moral idealism, which alone are capable of ushering in the better day for humanity. It is the rank and file of the people who see this weakness most keenly, — the unsophisticated men and women, — and it is they who are demanding a higher type of morality both in private and public life. It is clear that the revolt is against the conventional limiting of morals to the individual life, while the worlds of politics, of business, of industry are practically regarded as being above or beyond the reach of all moral law.

What is becoming increasingly plain to all reflecting minds is that the spirit of revolt that is finding expression in the political, the social, the economic, the intellectual, the religious and the moral worlds is, in the last analysis, a revolt within oneself; or better still, a revolt against oneself, — against the imperfect self, and the only self that most of us know as yet.

All thoughtful minds realize more or less clearly to-day that both sin and salvation are social as well as individual facts. Whatever limitations or weaknesses or shortcomings may characterize our age, it is clear that we are all of us in some actual degree responsible. We must either all go up together or else go down together ; there is no such thing as being saved or lost alone. We are all members one of another, organically related in one living Whole ; so that in a real sense, what we are, all are. Whatever our age may prove to be, depends at bottom on what we, the individual men and women living in this age, actually are in our deepest selves.