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.We may in this respect assert with confidencenot only that the average intelligence and ability of the present age is higher, because more essentiallypositive than that of ancient Greece, but that it is undergoing a marked development.The extraordinaryincrease of wealth in the last hundred years is primarily due to increased ability.The still more extraordi-nary advance of science is another proof.A further proof is to be found in the general mental develop-ment which is the explanation of the apparent decay of religion.But more important for our purpose isthe fact of the increased efficiency of all the producing classes in general ability and intelligence.All thiscan point to no other conclusion than that the human intellect is undergoing a remarkable development.It is a natural and prevalent error to confuse artistic or rhetorical achievement with ability; the essenceof all ability is the practical positive element.It is remarkable how consistent is the association of religionand ability in our best men.A curious feature of recent social history is a movement which is perhaps of no great importance inits aim, but which reveals a tendency that bodes ill for progress.When Christianity first appeared, menobserved with astonishment that the movement was organized by the poor and the lower classes. Canany good thing come out of Nazareth? asked the Jew, and the Greek and the Roman echoed his question96 in more general and philosophical terms.The fact, as we have seen, is not surprising in view of the realmeaning and origin of religion, its connexion from first to last with the elemental nature of man.Thecultured are always apt to carry to an extreme their control of human nature, much as the philosopher ofthe proverb is apt to forget his bodily necessities; they do not recognize the fact that the highest humanactivity depends on the proper use and development of the lowest.The energy of the lower classes, onthe other hand, is necessarily more or less restricted to the physical sphere.The result is that in the lowerintellectual strata of a community we have a permanent criticism of the higher.The curious feature to which we refer is the opposite of what happened at the beginning ofChristianity; the bitter attack upon religion and Christianity, some arguments of which we have surveyed,is chiefly the work of a socialistic party exploiting the claims of the lower classes.Militant freethought arises from the very same strata whence in an earlier age Christianity was evolved.Its leaders find theindifference to religion, which is increasing in the lower strata of society, a useful fulcrum for the sociallever.The object is to discredit the national religion as the abode of privilege, and the clergy as itsdepositaries and representatives.For this purpose its leaders force the usual opposition between science and religion, and make themost of what seem to them the defects of the latter. The hope of the cause of reason, says one of them, lies with the political ideals and movements which best promise to save the democracy, and to elevatethe mass.It is hopefully significant that the most systematic and scientific of these movements arepronouncedly rationalistic; and it is safe to say that ultimate success depends on their rationalism. Thepresent inquiry supplies some explanation of the curious connexion between socialism and non-religion.Now the danger, if danger there be in such a movement, does not lie so much in its aims as in thepossibility that in its chief method the hand is being lifted against human nature and the sacredness oflife.If its leaders have no substitute arising from the same source as the old religion, serving the sameneeds, and fully satisfying the same eternal elemental cravings, then the movement is either a mere phaseof discontent, which will pass away, or and this is the danger a symptom of impaired vitality anddegeneration.If the movement possessed a truly religious programme, then it would be clear that itsobject was the sound one of asserting the needs and claims of the vitality of the masses.But there isnothing of the kind apparent.The movement may, it is hoped, be nothing more than the extreme orperversion of the mental development which is at present transforming religion; but it is necessary torecord a warning that the permanent elements shall not be lost.Rationalists argue that theology causes stagnation; historians, on the other hand, make it a common-place of history that the decay of religion is a chief cause of the decline of nations.And the latter view,though religious decay has never occurred in any important degree, shows the instinctive good sense ofhuman nature.But, though it is not decay, the stagnation which results when the theological expressionof religious truth becomes stereotyped, is more dangerous.If man is to progress, his theology must beelastic.True religion cannot live, and cannot be understood for what it is, unless its forms are continuallychanging.On this change its essence depends.As a matter of fact, however, should religious decay everoccur, it would be not the cause of national decline, but a chief result of that cause.Irreligion is thus asymptom of deterioration.We must exclude here those cases where some catastrophe, such as conquestin the old style, attended by decimation and oppression, has overtaken a nation; such cases are not realinstances of national decay.Real decay is the degeneration physical, moral, and intellectual, of the greatmass of the people.There are some interesting cases in which variation has been checked by some peculiarity of customwhich deadens originality and keeps activity in too confined a sphere, or by another which, being moreclosely concerned with the physical facts of life, renders the stock too homogeneous, as a whole or in someof its parts, for variation.An example which illustrates the combination of both sets of customs is the97 population of India.The system of caste having been for so many centuries enforced both in occupationand marriage, has undoubtedly been responsible for that lack of variation and of progress which marksthe Hindu.There are numerous instances, again, from savage races, of a custom which has preventedphysical and therefore mental variation.This is, curiously enough, the intermarriage of cousins.Savagemarriage-law, in its lower forms, does not recognize the relationship of cousins, and where, as in thetypical savage tribe, the population is divided into two intermarrying sections, which are probably the twofamilies, now much enlarged, from the union of which the tribe arose, cousin-marriage is practically therule.The Fijians and Australians supply good examples of this bisectional exogamy.One obvious featureof such communities is the sameness of physiognomy and physical characters generally.Sameness in themental sphere follows [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.We may in this respect assert with confidencenot only that the average intelligence and ability of the present age is higher, because more essentiallypositive than that of ancient Greece, but that it is undergoing a marked development.The extraordinaryincrease of wealth in the last hundred years is primarily due to increased ability.The still more extraordi-nary advance of science is another proof.A further proof is to be found in the general mental develop-ment which is the explanation of the apparent decay of religion.But more important for our purpose isthe fact of the increased efficiency of all the producing classes in general ability and intelligence.All thiscan point to no other conclusion than that the human intellect is undergoing a remarkable development.It is a natural and prevalent error to confuse artistic or rhetorical achievement with ability; the essenceof all ability is the practical positive element.It is remarkable how consistent is the association of religionand ability in our best men.A curious feature of recent social history is a movement which is perhaps of no great importance inits aim, but which reveals a tendency that bodes ill for progress.When Christianity first appeared, menobserved with astonishment that the movement was organized by the poor and the lower classes. Canany good thing come out of Nazareth? asked the Jew, and the Greek and the Roman echoed his question96 in more general and philosophical terms.The fact, as we have seen, is not surprising in view of the realmeaning and origin of religion, its connexion from first to last with the elemental nature of man.Thecultured are always apt to carry to an extreme their control of human nature, much as the philosopher ofthe proverb is apt to forget his bodily necessities; they do not recognize the fact that the highest humanactivity depends on the proper use and development of the lowest.The energy of the lower classes, onthe other hand, is necessarily more or less restricted to the physical sphere.The result is that in the lowerintellectual strata of a community we have a permanent criticism of the higher.The curious feature to which we refer is the opposite of what happened at the beginning ofChristianity; the bitter attack upon religion and Christianity, some arguments of which we have surveyed,is chiefly the work of a socialistic party exploiting the claims of the lower classes.Militant freethought arises from the very same strata whence in an earlier age Christianity was evolved.Its leaders find theindifference to religion, which is increasing in the lower strata of society, a useful fulcrum for the sociallever.The object is to discredit the national religion as the abode of privilege, and the clergy as itsdepositaries and representatives.For this purpose its leaders force the usual opposition between science and religion, and make themost of what seem to them the defects of the latter. The hope of the cause of reason, says one of them, lies with the political ideals and movements which best promise to save the democracy, and to elevatethe mass.It is hopefully significant that the most systematic and scientific of these movements arepronouncedly rationalistic; and it is safe to say that ultimate success depends on their rationalism. Thepresent inquiry supplies some explanation of the curious connexion between socialism and non-religion.Now the danger, if danger there be in such a movement, does not lie so much in its aims as in thepossibility that in its chief method the hand is being lifted against human nature and the sacredness oflife.If its leaders have no substitute arising from the same source as the old religion, serving the sameneeds, and fully satisfying the same eternal elemental cravings, then the movement is either a mere phaseof discontent, which will pass away, or and this is the danger a symptom of impaired vitality anddegeneration.If the movement possessed a truly religious programme, then it would be clear that itsobject was the sound one of asserting the needs and claims of the vitality of the masses.But there isnothing of the kind apparent.The movement may, it is hoped, be nothing more than the extreme orperversion of the mental development which is at present transforming religion; but it is necessary torecord a warning that the permanent elements shall not be lost.Rationalists argue that theology causes stagnation; historians, on the other hand, make it a common-place of history that the decay of religion is a chief cause of the decline of nations.And the latter view,though religious decay has never occurred in any important degree, shows the instinctive good sense ofhuman nature.But, though it is not decay, the stagnation which results when the theological expressionof religious truth becomes stereotyped, is more dangerous.If man is to progress, his theology must beelastic.True religion cannot live, and cannot be understood for what it is, unless its forms are continuallychanging.On this change its essence depends.As a matter of fact, however, should religious decay everoccur, it would be not the cause of national decline, but a chief result of that cause.Irreligion is thus asymptom of deterioration.We must exclude here those cases where some catastrophe, such as conquestin the old style, attended by decimation and oppression, has overtaken a nation; such cases are not realinstances of national decay.Real decay is the degeneration physical, moral, and intellectual, of the greatmass of the people.There are some interesting cases in which variation has been checked by some peculiarity of customwhich deadens originality and keeps activity in too confined a sphere, or by another which, being moreclosely concerned with the physical facts of life, renders the stock too homogeneous, as a whole or in someof its parts, for variation.An example which illustrates the combination of both sets of customs is the97 population of India.The system of caste having been for so many centuries enforced both in occupationand marriage, has undoubtedly been responsible for that lack of variation and of progress which marksthe Hindu.There are numerous instances, again, from savage races, of a custom which has preventedphysical and therefore mental variation.This is, curiously enough, the intermarriage of cousins.Savagemarriage-law, in its lower forms, does not recognize the relationship of cousins, and where, as in thetypical savage tribe, the population is divided into two intermarrying sections, which are probably the twofamilies, now much enlarged, from the union of which the tribe arose, cousin-marriage is practically therule.The Fijians and Australians supply good examples of this bisectional exogamy.One obvious featureof such communities is the sameness of physiognomy and physical characters generally.Sameness in themental sphere follows [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]