Essays on freethinking and plainspeaking

Dedication

My dear Norton,

I venture to dedicate this book to you in memory of a friendly intercourse never, I trust, to be forgotten by me ; and in gratitude for its fruitfulness in that best kind of instruction which is imparted unconsciously to the giver.

Your affectionate friend,

Chapter I. The Broad Chuech»

Not long ago, a letter was published in the newspapers from a distinguished resident at Cambridge. In it he assigned certain reasons which induced him to give up his position as a clergyman, so far as the state of the law enabled him to do so. He had to declare, he said, at his ordination as a deacon, that he e un-* feignedly believed in the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament ; ' but he could not now make that declaration, i taking the words in their natural sense.' Other expressions in the Prayer-book evidently assume the untenable doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible, whereas some portions of the Scriptures seemed to him to contain errors in fact, and questionable teaching in morality. Further, there were certain expressions in the Liturgy which he could no longer use. He could not stand beside the altar and say ' God spake these words ' when he was convinced that God did not speak

B them. Holding these views, he could not, as an honourable man, continue to occupy a position which necessarily involved a certain amount of insincerity ; and it would be impertinent to pay him any compliments on obeying the dictates of his conscience.

In this every one will, of course, agree. Any one who believed, whether rightly or mistakenly, that he could not at the same time officiate as a clergyman and speak the truth, would be bound to officiate no longer; or, if we may not assume so much, we may at least say that a man who refuses to officiate from a regard to truth is guilty of nothing worse than a pardonable error or an amiable weakness. There is, however, a further question, which may be fairly discussed. The Broad Church party have a very natural dislike to the course of conduct adopted by this gentleman. They hold opinions strongly resembling his, or, it may be, in some respects identical ; but they do not see — what he saw so forcibly — the incompatibility between holding those opinions and retaining the position of a clergyman. His action, therefore, forms an awkward precedent, and tends to abridge the liberty which they at present enjoy. It has been decided, they urge, by the highest legal authorities, that a man may continue to act as a clergyman who does not believe in the infallibility of the Scriptures; who holds that they may contain erroneous statements both of facts and of morality ; and who by no means believes that the account given in the Pentateuch of the promulgation of the Ten Commandments is to be taken as a literal historical truth. Mr. Wilson, for example, asserted in plain terms in one of the Essays and Revieics that there was a ( dark crust of human error and passion over many parts of the Bible ; ' yet the prosecution directed against him, and supported by all the elo^- quence and learning of skilled advocates, left him in possession of his living, and therefore determined, as far as a les:al decision could determine, that a clero-yman is not bound, whatever may be the ( natural sense of the words,' to hold the obnoxious doctrine. It is only to be expected that a different mode of action should be unpalatable to gentlemen whe value and make constant use of the privilege thus secured. It amounts, in their opinion, to an admission that vague popular interpretations are to be allowed to supersede legal decisions ; and that a man may be expelled — not because he is convicted of disputing the formularies of the Church in the sense affixed to them by the legitimate authorities ; but because he disputes the sense affixed to them by ignorant party prejudice. Men who value the Church of England above all things for the wide comprehension which results in their opinion from its connection with the State, and its subordination to secular tribunals, may well be jealous of any concession, even in appearance, to popular clamour.

This argument raises a question of the highest importance to the future of the Church of England ; and of some interest even to persons outside the sacred

B 2 pale. The theory of the Broad Church party is that the legal restrictions upon the clergy are the measure of the moral restrictions. The law, and the law alone, decides upon the tests which ought to be imposed; and the law must determine the sense in which they are to be taken. It is decided, for example, that the profession of unfeigned belief in the canonical Scriptures does not mean to assert an unfeigned belief of the absolute truth and accuracy of every statement in the Bible. A man who makes that profession only avows what the law says that he avows-; and whatever sense the words may convey to an uncultivated understanding, he is not guilty of the slightest insincerity in using them in the sense put upon them by their authorised interpreters. If an assertion that God is God and Mahomet is his prophet should be declared by those who imposed it to mean a belief in Christianity, it might doubtless be taken in that sense by a scrupulously honest man. Hence it clearly follows that no one has a right to accuse a clergyman of insincerity so long as he takes the test in the legal sense. I may be privately of opinion that certain dignitaries not only hold doctrines which are logically incompatible with some assertions in the Articles ; but that they use words in a very odd fashion. But I am not thereby authorised to impute to them the very slightest degree of dishonesty, equivocation, or mental reservation. And, as a matter of fact, no reasonably candid person doubts that many members of the very wide

THE BROAD CHURCH. o

party generally described as the Broad Church, are as honourable in every sense of the word as men can be. There is, however, a further question which must be left to every man's own conscience. It does not follow that because the law allows a certain liberty, it is right or wise to take advantage of it. The law may say that by professing a belief in the canonical Scriptures, I only imply a modified belief in an uncertain part of them. But a man may feel that by using such words he is conveying a false impression to his hearers, and is propagating a doctrine from which he inwardly revolts. When he reads the Psalms or the Commandments in church, he is perhaps taken in law to assert nothing more than a general respect for their authors, such as he might feel for Dante or Socrates ; if, however, his action helps to strengthen ninety-nine people out of a hundred in the belief, which he does not share, that they possess a supernatural and infallible authority, he might properly refuse to take part in the ceremony. Admitting that he has some duty to those whose privileges will be endangered by his resignation, he has also a primary and, it may be, a conflicting duty of not taking part in the spread of error and superstition. In short, it is one thing to take a test, and another to assume all the responsibilities involved in the position of a clergyman. We have no right of any sort to blame anybody who is not breaking the law; but we may fairly discuss the policy of using the freedom it confers.

I mention this, merely to evade the inference that, in what follows, I mean to cast the slightest blame upon any one for taking what may be a mistaken, but certainly not a dishonest, view of his position and responsibilities. And, assuming that there is no question as to the action of any individuals, I may venture to speak of a problem which often perplexes outsiders. Men who believe that many of the popular views of Christianity are erroneous and immoral, but who believe nevertheless that Christianity in some sense will be the ultimate religion of the world, are in a very difficult position. Should they use the old formulas and trust that they will gradually purify themselves from that : crust of human error,' or should they break with the old state of things and try a fresh start ? Is it a time for adaptation or for entire reconstruction ? Will they have the best standing-ground by demanding reform from within or from without ? Is there vitality enough in the existing organisation to give promise of a renewed vigour when it is freed from the dead excrescences which hamper and impede its growth ; or must they decide that the constraints which it imposes more than counterbalance the advantages which it offers ? There is always fair ground for hesitation at such a period as the present. It is difficult to decide the precise point of time at which wise conservatism passes into obstructiveness. Many of the best men amongst us will have the tenderest attachment to the old beliefs and be most reluctant to give up even the old phraseology. Whatever claims are still possessed by the Church of England to the allegiance of thinking men are due to the Broad Church element amongst the clergy. In evangelicism the old Puritanic element has become thin and sour ; whilst Ritualism is surely the most vapid form of sacerdotalism ever imposed upon effeminate natures. Adherents of both phases of opinion may have great merits in point of practical zeal. But were it not that a party of equal sincerity and greater breadth of view still remains within the Church, it would be hard for any male person of liberal views to have anything to do with it. Such a man would stand aside and let the dead bury their dead. He would be curious to know how long a creed could retain its vitality after the brains had been taken out, but would take little interest in the precise details of the decay which must inevitably ensue.

There is, however, a much higher interest involved than that of any Church whatever. The Church of England may hold together or it may gradually die of inanition or split into hostile fragments. The world would survive even if Anglicanism were a thing of the past, and would probably find itself much better off than clergymen expect. Whatever happens, the religious instincts of mankind will survive and will find some mode of expression. Whether they take such a form as is expected by the followers of Comte, or return to the ancient modes of thought, they have a vitality independent of any existing organisation. We

8 FREETHINKING AND PLA1NSPJEAKING.

are, however, passing through a great change, of which no living man can expect to witness the end or even the beginning of the end. How is it to be brought about with the least shock to morality and lofty sentiment ; and how are the ideas already familiar to educated people to be propagated through less cultivated classes with the least possible injury to the vital parts of their faith ? Innumerable cases of conscience constantly arise from this condition of opinion, the solution of which is not always evident. Am I to say, for example, openly, that the history of the promulgation of the Jewish Law is nothing but a popular legend, when ignorant persons will suppose that I mean to strike at the very foundation of morals? The proposition that God did not give the Ten Commandments to Moses in the thunders of Mount Sinai will be understood to mean that there is no divine sanction condemning murder, false witness, and adultery. Is not silence in such a case better than a rash proclamation of a bare truth, which without the necessary corollaries and qualifications may be practically equivalent to a falsehood ? Difficulties more or less resembling this are very frequent, and it would be useless to deny that they are real difficulties. But I imagine that one conclusion is plain enough in theory, though not always carried out in practice. Whatever reticence may be desirable, we ought not to tell lies, or to countenance the telling lies. The greatest danger to which we are exposed at the present moment is not that people find the old faiths failing them., but that they begin to doubt that there is anywhere such a thing to be found as faith in anything.

A father naturally shrinks from telling his children that the biblical stories which they hear at school or from their mother are not undoubted truths. A clever child probably strikes out some little fragment of scepticism ; he doubts whether all the animals in the Zoological Gardens could have been got into the ark ; or whether Samson could have found the jaw-bone of an ass so effective a weapon as is represented in the Bible. His parent probably tells him that good little boys believe all that their masters say. Presently the boy grows towards manhood and learns without much trouble that Samson's jawbone and Noah's ark are reckoned amongst childish fables by his own father and by all sensible men. The discovery gives a much greater shock to his faith than he would have received from an originally frank explanation, and had he always believed that the adventures of Samson were as little to be relied upon and had as little to do with rational religion as the adventures of Hercules. He begins to disco ver, or to think he disco vers, that religions are preached, not because they are true, but because they are a highly convenient substitute for police regulations. There may be no such place as hell, but we can't afford to let the criminal classes into the secret. We all make-believe as hard as we possibly can ; we go to church with the most praiseworthy punctuality ;

we shake our heads at the preacher's lamentations over the progress of rationalism ; and some of us go home to lunch and treat the whole history as Socrates treated the polytheism of his time. It was highly useful, but not worth arguing seriously with intelligent people. ~No one who has any knowledge of the kind of language held by intelligent men when not arrayed in surplices or cassocks, will doubt that such sentiments are exceedingly common. It is only a few who have the iconoclastic temperament and desire to break down the convenient old creeds, because they may be rotten at the core ; but a large minority, or possibly a large majority, believe that they are rotten, and that by a sudden crash or a slower process of decay, they will disappear or undergo some profound transformation. Such a state of mind, it may be said, is by no means a novelty. But if by no means a novelty, it possesses a new significance. The argument of Christian apologists has undergone a singular change. The old advocates of orthodox opinions said, in substance, Believe this because it is true. The sum and substance of most modern advocacy is, Believe this, true or not true, because its falsehood cannot be mathematically demonstrated. It is hard indeed to find what is the ultimate foundation upon which most modern controversialists would rest their arguments in the last resort. They play so many tricks with faith and reason that we are puzzled to say in what name they speak. The whole tendency of a large and zealous school is to deny the competence of reason, which when put into plain English and stripped of all the ingenious logical devices by which we may be perplexed and thrown off the scent, amounts pretty much to denying that the question whether a doctrine is or is not true, is a relevant argument in deciding whether we are to believe it. Be a Roman Catholic or you are certain to become an atheist, is simply an argument for atheism. It means that all fair methods of argument applicable in other cases will lead you to atheism. The ingenious inference, which by an odd

1 inversion of meaning claims to be peculiarly logical, is that as two and two will make four if you persist in adding them, you should refrain from adding them.

J ( Do you not see,' said one controversialist to another, e that the inevitable inference from your opinions is so and so ? ' ' Probably,' was the reply, ( but I do not draw it.' This method of reasoning, which consists in frightening a man out of all reasoning by exhibiting its logical conclusion, may answer for a time with some people, but its final result must be ruinous. It means that our religious faiths are to be cut off from all solid groundwork of fact and be cultivated as a poetical sentiment or a taste for the fine arts without any reference to reality. The application of the principle to history naturally follows. The apologists do not attempt to prove that the events recorded in the Bible really happened, or possess such evidence as would convince a reasonable man : but confine themselves to showing that it is not proved that they did not happen. We can believe them without encountering any invincible shock to our credulity, if we try very hard to believe them ; and that is quite enough for our imaginations, if we are not wicked enough to be troublesome with our critical faculties. Religion, in short, is so beautiful a thing ; it gives such fine scope for our best emotions ; it affords such healthy exercise for the soul, that we ought to believe all the dogmas upon which it is founded without looking closely upon the evidence.

When language approaching to this, though neither so frank nor extravagant, is openly talked, it is in fact a concession to the covert scepticism of which I have spoken. Christianity, says the freethinker, is very good for women and children and clergymen ; but it is not worth the serious discussion of educated men. Putting this sentiment into a decent theological dress, it is the equivalent of the theological assertion, that religion is a matter of faith and not of reason. The two parties may be perfectly harmonious ; and a kind of tacit compact may be arranged in virtue of which we may talk as we please in private, but allow the clergy to have their say in public, and affect to shrug our shoulders at Voltaire and his more scientific successors.

Such an arrangement is common enough. I need not here argue that it is essentially immoral and must ultimately be ruinous to the creed which accepts so treacherous a support. The Broad Church, however, distinguish themselves by repudiating any such compromise in theory. They tell us with a frankness which does them honour, that the Bible records must be tested by every method which the ingenuity of critics has discovered, and that they do not ask us to accept it unless it will stand an examination as searching as we should demand in the case of profane history : or, as Mr. Jowett forcibly put it, that the Bible must be criticised ' like any other book.' They assert further that Christianity must be divine because its moral teaching is incomparably purer than any other creed, and includes and reconciles all the half-thoughts of merely human creatures ; they admit that if these propositions could not be established, if it could be proved that the Christian morality were imperfect or positively erroneous, Ave should be bound to reject it. They confess that the ultimate test of religious truth must lie in its conformity to our moral sense and the historical accuracy of the assertions upon which it is founded. They therefore ask for our belief on straightforward grounds and do not seek to perplex the question by irrelevant appeals to considerations which could , have no weight in the court of pure reason. Every fair reasoner is therefore bound to respect them even if (as is the case with me) he is compelled to reject their conclusions. If they are not allies they are satisfactory antagonists. They have a common ground with all who are anxious to discover the truth at all hazards, and are anxious for nothing else. So long as they act up to their principles they can do nothing but good. A man who is led to the right conclusions by the right methods is doubtless the most useful ; but next to him is the man whose conclusions are wrong, though his methods are right. If every man would speak candidly and we could all agree upon the canons by which our opinions are to be judged, we should reach a fair unanimity with surprising rapidity. I imagine that educated men are much nearer agreement than is generally supposed ; though unluckily we have got into such habits of conscious or unconscious deception of ourselves and others that it is difficult to disinter a man's genuine faith from the masses of conventional language and insincere dogma under which it is habitually covered. The great merit of Broad Churchmen is that they try to meet argument fairly, and admit in theory the importance of searching, fair, and unfettered inquiry. If they admitted it in practice as well as in theory, there would be no more to be said.

Is there then anything about them which may lead us to believe not that they are consciously insincere but that they do not in practice allow free play to the convictions thus stated ?

To this it must be answered that there is one cause of bewilderment to everybody who has studied the writings of the school. We have to believe in a miracle as singular as that by which the British Constitution has been, at every stage in its development, the pride and envy of the world. Our thriceblessed system is as we all know the product of a series of compromises, accidents, and bit by bit reforms, carried out on no definite principle but by a sort of indefinite rule of thumb ; and yet the result of all this patching and piecing, this hammering and tinkering, has always been a kind of embodiment of perfect wisdom. It would have antecedently seemed almost as likely as that a house which had been inhabited by a series of tenants, each of whom had thrown out a window or added a closet wherever it seemed good to him, should exhibit the perfect symmetry and adaptation to its purposes of the Parthenon. One consequence of such theories is at any rate rather shocking to people who believe that truthfulness and simplicity have their value even in the sphere of politics, and share Mr. Carlyle's contempt for shams. A large part of the constitutional machinery has been preserved, although it has become useless for any intelligible purposes. We are assured, however, by adepts in political mysteries, that a good constitution ought to consist of two parts — a showy outside to impose upon the vulgar, and some really efficient machinery to carry on business. It should resemble some of the buildings erected at the lowest ebb of architecture, where all the structural parts were carefully concealed behind a vast screen intended to look magnificent. That such a system is inevitable at times and may be endured in preference to a revolution is an intelligible creed ; but it does seem strange that any one should openly hold it up as the quintessence of legislative wisdom. There are some symptoms that this device is beginning to lose its prestige ; and rash people dare hint that a government need not command less respect because it is all intended primarily for work as well as for show.

Few people, however, have learnt this lesson in the analogous case. Our creed still contains a vast number of obsolete dogmas which are kept for show instead of for use. If any rash person dares to denounce them, a cry is raised in all quarters against his sacrilegious presumption. The tares and the wheat, or, to speak more plainly, the truths and the humbugs, are so intricately mixed that we dare not touch one lest the other should suffer. It is an ingenious plan and may answer for a time ; but it has its dangers. There may come a time when inquiry will be too late and the whole constitution be injured because we have obstinately averted our eyes from the unpleasant symptoms of decay. The Thirty-nine Articles are the product of a series of compromises of thought and legislation as strange as those to which the British constitution is owing ; and yet, like our secular legislation, they are confidently asserted to contain the highest expression of wisdom that the human brain can comprehend. They are an expression of the views about theology current in this part of the British islands in the sixteenth century ; they embody all sorts of dogmas which have floated down from distant ages, the sense of many of them entirely evaporating on the road ;

they represent the best available compromise which could be struck out under the circumstances of the time ; and it need not be said that the whole current of modern thought has ebbed away from many of the questions discussed and left nothing but the bare husks of extinct opinions which for ordinary Englisnmen have next to no significance. Next comes a gentleman of great Candour and abilities, thoroughly versed in all modern philosophy, who professes to have started from first principles, to have worked out his conclusions without fear or favour ; to have followed the united teaching of reason and revelation wherever it led him ; and behold ! he discovers that these Articles exactly express his very deepest convictions in the most unequivocal language. When such a phenomenon occurs, as it sometimes does, I must confess it gives me a very unpleasant sensation. One of two conclusions is inevitable. Either there is a coincidence which may almost be called miraculous; if Lord Bacon or the wisest man of his time, whoever he was, had drawn up a scheme of politics, we should now have pronounced j it defective and erroneous, and altogether beside the modern modes of thought ; theology has undergone a change not less profound and extensive ; yet this ' formula, drawn up by men ignorant of our modern ; doubts and convictions, turns out to be so flexible or jto have such vitality that it exactly expresses the ripest conclusions of an eminent modern thinker, — a I result which is to me as singular as if the strategics of

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18 FEEETHINKING AND PLA1NSPEAKING.

days before, gunpowder were precisely suitable for the of ironclads and Henry rifles. Or else — and I confess this is the only conclusion at which I could arrive — the eminent modern thinker, like many other eminent men, has been unconsciously biassed in his reasonings by the desire to reach certain foregone conclusions.

It is this constantly recurring difficulty which is destroying the influence of the Broad Church party. They protest, and I doubt not with perfect sincerity, that they throw aside all considerations except the simple desire of discovering the truth. And yet their investigations always end in opinions which are at least capable of expression in the words of the most antiquated formulae. It is as if a man should say that he always steered due north and yet his course should invariably take him safely through all the shoals and tortuosities of the Thames and land him conveniently at Lambeth stairs. I should think that there must be something very odd about his compasses. We talk of the dishonesty of the men who sidle up to the Roman Catholic Church in spite of every obstacle raised by rubrics and Privy Council decisions. The true difference between them and the Broad Church seems to be that one set of thinkers base their whole system on some single but gigantic fiction, whilst the others prefer to mix truth and fiction in each article separately. Of conscious dishonesty, which means lying to others, there is probably little enough in either case; but towards lying to onesself, which is a bad thing in its way, there is abundant temptation in both cases.

Such reflections torment the students of the writing's of the late most amiable and excellent Mr. Maurice. No one could listen to him or come within the ran^e of his personal influence without being profoundly attracted by the beauty of his character. The lads who had the advantage of hearing his teaching before the authorities of King's College discovered that he did not believe that hell was as hot and as durable as could be wished, generally went through a curious intellectual stage in after life. Some, indeed, have never emerged from it. To others it represents a mere transitory phase of thought upon which they look back with a half-pathetic and half-humorous interest. They remember how eagerly they followed this teacher, whose moving tones, tremulous with suppressed earnestness, seemed to promise a new revelation. Could they but learn the secret which he appeared to have discovered, they would be able to reconcile faith and science, to extract the true ennobling essence from all the creeds, to make scientific formulas glow with divine light, and to find refreshment for their souls in barren theological dogmas. They racked their brains over the written words of the teacher, and turned for help to his ever eloquent and impassioned speech. And yet, labour as they would, the secret always seemed to evade them. The master could force all theories into his service with