The Churches and Modern Thought

P. 253, lines 25–6.—Some such psychical experiences largely account for religious superstitions.

With regard to phenomena at present popularly known as spiritualistic, but for which scientists have now adopted the term “metapsychical,” the following declaration by Professor Lombroso (appearing in the review La Lettura, November, 1906) is of considerable interest. “As the result,” he writes, “of our researches, I have been bound to admit the conviction that these phenomena are of colossal importance, and that it is the plain duty of science to direct attention towards them without delay.” N.B.—The Professor, when interviewed subsequently by the Turin correspondent of the Standard, repudiated any suggestion of supernatural agency, and said: “All spiritualistic phenomena can be understood and explained without any reference to the intervention of the supernatural. Spiritualists affirm that the soul is an emanation from God, while I contend that it is an emanation of the brain. This is the whole thing in a nutshell. You therefore see how, from this point of view, I cannot be called a spiritualist—at least, in the sense in which the term is generally understood. Almost all spiritualistic phenomena can be classed among those positive facts which science can explain.” However, in an article contributed by him to the Grand Magazine for January, 1907, and entitled “Why I became a Spiritualist,” Professor Lombroso admits that he has felt himself “compelled to yield to the conviction that spiritualistic phenomena, if due in great part to the influence of the medium, are likewise attributable to the influence of extra-terrestrial existences, which may, perhaps, be compared to the radio-activity which still persists in tubes after the radium which originated them has disappeared.” Professor Cesare Lombroso, it may be mentioned, is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Turin, and the author of standard works on criminology, hypnotism, and psychology, as well as of a number of valuable treatises relating to cerebral study. Two of his publications, Man of Genius (1891) and Female Offender (1895), have been issued in English.

The phenomena Professor Lombroso refers to are those which have induced such eminent scientists as Wallace, Lodge, Hyslop, Barrett, and Crookes to remain or to become supernaturalists. One, and to my mind the chief, reason why these metapsychical phenomena are, as Professor Lombroso tells us, of colossal importance—why science should direct attention towards them without delay—is that, so soon as they are universally acknowledged to be manifestations occurring in obedience to one of Nature’s laws—a law as yet not fully understood—the last excuse for belief in the supernatural will have vanished. Supernaturalism will receive its death-blow, and Rationalism be infused with fresh life.

P. 254, line 28.—Professor James—an earnest champion of religion.

In defining his philosophic position he admits his own “inability to accept either popular Christianity or scholastic Theism” (see his Postscript, p. 521). He is of opinion that both the metaphysical argument for God’s existence and the arguments for a God with moral attributes must be rejected, and “the man who is sincere with himself and the facts, but who remains religious still,” must soothe “his perplexed and baffled intellect” with “a trustful sense of presence” (ibid, pp. 445–8). A careful perusal of his book, however, makes it tolerably clear that this feeling of the presence of Spiritual Beings is simply a hallucination.

P. 256, lines 22–26.—There has never yet been a case of a Mohammedan or a Hindoo, or any other non-Christian, who, without having heard of Christianity, has had a revelation of Christian “truth.”

Chet Ram, the founder of a sect whose numbers, according to the last Indian census, “are increasing day by day,” began by being a Hindu, and then became the disciple of a Mohammedan fakir in the Punjab. After following him for some years he had what he described as a vision of Christ, who revealed Himself as the author of salvation, and commanded him (Chet Ram) to build a church and to place within it the Bible. He was himself illiterate, but immediately began to proclaim the divinity of Christ, and was soon followed by disciples recruited alike from the Hindus and the Moslems. It is “religious” experiences such as these which continue to deceive even educated men and women, and hinder the growth of Rationalism.

Chapter VII

P. 285, lines 10–11.—The ghastly death of the witch.

“It is impossible to leave the history of witchcraft without reflecting how vast an amount of suffering has, in this respect at least, been removed by the progress of rationalistic civilisation.... It is probable that no class of victims endured sufferings so unalloyed and so intense.... All these sufferings were the result of a single superstition, which the spirit of Rationalism has destroyed.” (See pp. 137–8 of Lecky’s Rationalism in Europe, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1904.)

Pp. 290–96, and p. 294, note 4.

The following are some further notes on the spread of Christianity:—

When, after more than three centuries, the spread became fairly rapid, owing, as we have seen, to circumstances of a distinctly mundane character, what was the effect on public morality? The Roman Empire passed its zenith in the first half of the second century—under Stoics. Historians agree that it was declining all through the third century. On the other hand, it was making fresh progress morally in the fourth century. It deteriorated morally after A.D. 380–90, the date of the triumph of Christianity! Do these facts bear out the Christian contention that Christianity purifies empire?

If we continue the history of Christianity’s spread, we find similar samples of Divine Providence and similar samples of moral progress. Take, for instance, the facts connected with the conversion of the barbarians, as related by the author of the apologetic work, Beneficial Influence of the Ancient Clergy. We learn that “Many a deviation from primitive simplicity, dangerous though it might justly seem to the integrity of the Roman faith, was productive of consequences the most momentous to tribes who reverenced principally the pomp and mysterious ceremony attendant on the faith which they embraced, and would have scorned to bow down before priests or altars whose faultless humility merely recalled the rude shrines of their native forests.” Also we learn that “the lavish piety of barbarian sovereigns” directed “the plunder of suffering lands into the capacious coffers of the Church.” Although this led to “the most fatal period of clerical corruption,” our apologist is yet able to see in it the guiding hand of Providence establishing “the constant grandeur of the ecclesiastical edifice”!

In Central Europe it was by force of arms that Charlemagne succeeded in spreading Christianity. “It cannot be doubted,” we are told, “that the conquering hosts of the Franks were far more effective in the conversion of Central Europe than could have been the most self-denying of missionaries, or the most undoubtedly miraculous of Italian relics.” This fresh spread took place towards the close of the eighth century. After a hundred years or so for the leaven to work, we should expect to see a distinct advance in morality among both the clergy and the laity. We find, on the contrary, that during the whole of the tenth century the spectacle presented by society was “revolting.” “Not only did the clerical body present sure tokens of that gigantic cancer which was wasting the energies of the Church, but their degeneracy was relieved by nothing that was noble or praiseworthy among the laity.”

P. 315, lines 3–4.—The Rationalistic explanation of that essence of the “religious instinct,” belief in an after-life.

“Eternity is at best but an artificial idea; in reality, it is no true idea at all, since we cannot conceive it; it is only the negation of an idea, being, in fact, the negation of that which passes away. When we begin discussing eternity we see that, from the point of view of natural science, nothing is eternal except the ultimate particles of matter and their forces; for no one of the thousandfold phenomena and combinations under which matter and force present themselves to us can be eternal” (Weismann on Heredity, vol. ii., p. 74 [Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1892]).

Chapter VIII

P. 331, lines 15–16.—A kind of undefined, but nevertheless potent and serviceable, religion.

The Rev. Henry Scott Jeffreys, of Sendai, contributed a paper, entitled “Some of the Native Virtues of the Japanese People,” to the Japan Evangelist. The following are some, out of many, exceedingly significant admissions:—“After seven years’ residence among this people, I wish to place on record my humble testimony to their native virtues. I refer to virtues that belong to the Japanese people without reference to their faith. In this connection it may be said that perhaps the most remarkable part is their devotion to ethics alone, utterly divorced from religion. They love virtue for its own sake, and not from fear of punishment or hope of reward.... They have eliminated from their system of ethics not only heaven and hell, but God also.... To be sure, there are religions (so-called), both native and foreign; but they have little effect upon the popular conscience.... The conversion of this people to the Christian faith is a most complex and perplexing problem; not because they are so bad, but because they are so good.”

P. 334, lines 29–31.—Crime and bad lives will be the measure of a State’s failure.

It is customary to scout the idea of State control as the panacea for social evils. One is warned against grandmotherly legislation, interference with the liberty of the private individual, etc. I may be permitted, therefore, to give an illustration of its beneficial effect. The Gothenburg system, by which the liquor traffic is judiciously controlled, has, in spite of all opposition, fought its way victoriously, and is now adopted, although partly modified, in most towns in Sweden, and also in Norway and Finland. Thus the evil effects of drink have been considerably mitigated; intemperance, pauperism, and vice have been reduced. Would not legislation of this nature for the removal of England’s greatest curse be far better than half-hearted measures that are palliative rather than remedial? Now that the Church has taken up the temperance cause, could she not bring her great influence to bear towards the introduction of some such system, pitting herself against vested interests? Remarkable work is being carried on by the Danish temperance societies on the basis of allowing their members to regard beer of low alcoholic strength as a temperance beverage. Australia has been watching New Zealand in the matter of drink reform, and the Government of New South Wales, at any rate, has found it necessary to fulfil pledges given at the last general election, with the result that, among a certain class, there is an immense diminution in the temptation to drink. Where the nature of the case demands it, more drastic remedies must be applied. Thus Belgium has forbidden the very presence of absinthe within her borders, and in Switzerland—in some of the cantons, at all events—the authorities have made up their minds to prohibit the manufacture and sale of absinthe. Even in China an edict has now been promulgated for the abolition of the use of opium, and an anti-opium movement is spreading which bids fair to embarrass the interested abettor of the vice—a Christian Government.

In their volume, The Making of the Criminal (Macmillan & Co.), Messrs. C. E. B. Russell and L. M. Rigby confirm the now generally accepted view that it is, as a rule, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one that the habitual criminal is made, and show that juvenile crime is a product of the wretched economic, social, and family condition in which so many unhappy children are born and have to live. The criminal is also recruited, as Dr. W. D. Morrison points out (in a review of their book appearing in the Tribune, December 12th, 1906), from those whose home and social antecedents may be good enough, but who are themselves either mentally or physically below the average of the general community, and who, therefore, when times are bad, drift insensibly into crime. When to all this unfavourable environment we add an unfavourable heredity, we get a conjunction of circumstances against which it is quite impossible for the unfortunate to contend, even though he be aided by the “gift of freewill” and by all the intercessory prayers of the Churches. The Borstal system and other remedies recommended in The Making of the Criminal are excellent in their way, but can be regarded only as palliatives. They deal with the criminal after he has been made. What is wanted is, to quote Dr. Morrison, “a wise and progressive statesmanship which will cut off crime at its roots—a statesmanship which will devote itself with care and foresight to ameliorating the whole material and moral conditions of existence of the workman, the woman, and the child.” And this statesmanship will take an enlightened view of the population question, recognising that it is in the diminution of the struggle for existence, not in the rise of the birth-rate, that the material and moral condition of the people can be ameliorated.

P. 336, note.—Psychical research will lead to the discovery of a complete and scientific method for the toughening of our moral fibres.

A quarter of a century ago Proctor remarked (see pp. 203–4 of his essays, Rough Ways Made Smooth) that the phenomena of hypnotism “promise to afford valuable means of curing certain ailments, and of influencing in useful ways certain powers and functions of the body.” He recognised “possibilities which, duly developed, might be found of extreme value to the human race.” Since these words were uttered this branch of science has not stood still, and there seems every prospect that his prophecy will be fulfilled in the near future. There are now cliniques for hypnotic treatment in France (Dr. Bérillon’s in Paris, for example), Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, and America. “The commencement of the present revival of hypnotism in England, from its medical side, was apparently due to Dr. Lloyd Tuckey, who happened to be in the neighbourhood of Nancy in August, 1888, and visited Liébeault out of curiosity” (see p. 35 of Dr. Milne Bramwell’s Hypnotism: Its History, Practice, and Theory [Alexander Moring, Hanover Square, London; 2nd ed., 1906]).

The following are some of the facts about the matter which should be clearly understood and widely made known:—

(1) “The object of all hypnotic treatment ought to be the development of the patient’s control of his own organism” (see p. 436 of Hypnotism: Its History, Practice, and Theory).

(2) The hypnotic control may be obtained without any effort on the part of the operator, the effort formerly supposed to be required being purely imaginary, and the hypnotic state being, in fact, obtained without any operation whatever. Indeed, it has now been found that for curative purposes the “suggestion” may be conveyed without throwing the patient into the hypnotic condition, and that anyone not absolutely an idiot or insane may be amenable to the treatment.

(3) “Both ‘Scientist’ [the author is speaking of Christian Scientists] and Suggestionist also use the same method for creating belief—namely, Assertion.... Assertions are not made clumsily, ignorantly, and at random, as assertions are in our daily intercourse, but are made skilfully, with a purpose, and with a knowledge of the effects they will produce” (see p. 9 of the late Richard Harte’s The New Psychology; or, The Secret of Happiness [Fowler & Co., London and New York]). Is this one of the reasons why the believer is able to continue a believer in spite of all disproof? Certainly he is constantly repeating assertions, and sometimes these must get through to his subliminal consciousness—his subjective mind.

(4) Auto-suggestion. The suggestion should be made when you are composing yourself to sleep. Dr. Bramwell tells me that the best time is on first waking in the morning, before dozing off again.

(5) “Many cases of functional nervous disorder have recovered under hypnotic treatment after the continued failure of other methods.... Further, the diseases which frequently respond to hypnotic treatment are often those in which drugs are of little or no avail. For example, what medicine would one prescribe for a man who, in the midst of mental and physical health, had suddenly become the prey of an obsession?” (see p. 435 of Hypnotism: Its History, Practice, and Theory).

(6) “The volition is increased and the moral standard raised” (see p. 437 of Hypnotism, etc.). “Experience proves that ‘principles’ instilled into anyone while in the hypnotic condition become irrevocably [?] fixed in the mind” (p. 3 of Richard Harte’s Hypnotism and the Doctors). Thus degenerates, dipsomaniacs, morphinomaniacs, kleptomaniacs, sexual perverts, and other unfortunates, may be reclaimed.

(7) “‘Suggestion’ is of universal application, and of incalculable power for good in almost every department of human life.... The three principal ways in which suggestion (which has been called ‘the active principle’ of hypnotism) affects human beings beneficially, in addition to curing diseases, are: By facilitating education; by preventing crime, and reforming the criminal; and by raising the general standard of manliness—of courage, of independence of character, and of respect for self and others” (ibid, pp. 2–4).

Note.—“The Medical Society for the Study of Suggestive Therapeutics” was constituted at the close of 1906. Let us hope that it will soon rival the flourishing French Société d’Hypnotisme et de Psychologie.

P. 337, lines 5–6.—It is the quality, not the quantity, of our children that we have to keep to the forefront.

“This is the great problem in a nutshell: to improve the quality and diminish the quantity of mankind—that is, in proportion to the means of securing for each a truly human life.” “Is not the quality rather than the quantity of children the thing to be aimed at?” (Mona Caird and Lady Grove on “The Position of Women,” see pp. 118 and 128 of the Fortnightly Review for July, 1905). Besides, “if we continued to maintain the high birth-rate of the mid-Victorian epoch, it is certain that, in the course of a few generations, there would be no elbow-room left in our little islands. Already, indeed, Great Britain is, from many points of view, over-populated. If all the people who are now crowded together in the slums of our great towns were scattered over the country, there would be practically no country left. England would have become a vast suburb. That is not an ideal to which any patriotic Englishman would care to look forward. Space and quiet are essential for the development of some of the best qualities of human beings, and those persons who too hastily regret a decline in the birth-rate must explain how they propose to reconcile these essentials with an unlimited increase of our present population” (The Daily Graphic, August 7th, 1905, art. “A Declining Birth-rate”).

Over-population spells strife, squalor, vice, crime—misery. Dr. Barnardos and “General” Booths may get over the “unemployed” difficulty by schemes for emigration to Canada and elsewhere; but this is, at best, only a very temporary remedy. As it is, thousands of white men are living and dying in climates for which they are unadapted; while in some cases—in certain portions of Africa, for example—they are ousting and making life a burthen to the races that are adapted. We have only to look far enough ahead to discover that the time must come when the world would so teem with human-kind that even a Bishop of London or a President Roosevelt would have to cry “Hold! Enough!”

At the present moment this problem presses for a very early solution in India. For many months in the year, as I have again and again seen with my own eyes, masses of the agricultural population are entirely without employment. Hence the constantly recurring famines, or partial famines, in years of bad or indifferent rainfall. The population problem, being intimately connected with many another problem, is one of the utmost gravity; but, so long as men hold that to increase and multiply is the command of God and a duty we owe to the State, it will never be rightly, never be sensibly, solved. P.S.—Millions are starving in China now (February, 1907).

P. 345, line 3.—The Moral Instruction League.

The object of the Moral Instruction League (19, Buckingham Street, Strand, London, W.C.) is to introduce systematic non-theological moral instruction into all schools, and to make the formation of character the chief aim of school life. Their contention is—and it seems a wise one—that ethical principles on which we all agree should not be associated in the schools of the State with theological principles on which we all differ. Already certain education authorities are providing for systematic moral instruction of a purely secular nature. In the West Riding scheme it is expressly stated that it is to be “part of the secular instruction,” while the Cheshire scheme emphatically lays down that the moral instruction must be non-theological. The authorities of Groton, Blackpool, Norwich, York, and elsewhere, have supplied all the teachers of their schools with copies of the Moral Instruction League’s Graduated Syllabus of Moral Instruction for Elementary Schools. The West Riding Education Authority has adopted the Syllabus, and it is now in use in the 1,270 schools, Provided and Non-Provided, of that authority. In addition to these, numerous education authorities have decided to make provision for moral instruction a part of the secular instruction in their schools.

So much that is untrue has been said about the results of a purely secular education by its strenuous opponents that it is high time for the real truth to be known. This my readers will find in Mr. Joseph McCabe’s tractate, The Truth About Secular Education: Its History and Results (Watts & Co., 1906, paper covers, 6d.).

Among some excellent works intended to assist parents and teachers in the non-theological character-training of children, I may mention F. J. Gould’s The Children’s Book of Moral Lessons, in three series (Watts & Co.), Hackwood’s Notes of Lessons on Moral Subjects, Alice Chesterton’s The Garden of Childhood (Sonnenschein), Dr. Felix Adler’s The Moral Instruction of Children (Edward Arnold), the Moral Instruction League and also the Leicester Syllabus, and A. J. Waldegrave’s A Teacher’s Handbook of Moral Lessons (Sonnenschein). Dr. F. H. Hayward’s Secret of Herbart, a powerful appeal to the teacher on the scope and urgency of his moral mission, is now re-issued at 6d. (Watts). The translation of Dr. F. W. Förster’s Lebenskunde, a book replete with illustrative matter for the teacher, has been undertaken by the Moral Instruction League. Mr. W. M. Salter’s essay, “Why Live a Moral Life?” is of exceptional merit. This and other ethical essays may be obtained from the Secretary of the Union of Ethical Societies, 19, Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C.; price one penny each. One of the most important contributions to ethical sociology that has appeared for many years is a work in two vols. entitled Morals in Evolution (Chapman & Hall; 1906), by Mr. L. T. Hobhouse. I venture to predict that it will ere long be recognised as the standard work on the subject. Mr. Hobhouse, it should be noted, never wavers in his assertion of the supremacy of ethics over all phases of religion.

P. 350, line 15.—The practices of the Latin and Greek Churches.

Diaries recounting the sights seen by a lord of high degree in 1465 were published in 1851 by the Literary Society of Stuttgart. They include an interesting account of all the shrines and relics seen during his travels through Western Europe. The account of the relics which he saw in our own Canterbury Cathedral admits of no curtailment: “First we saw the head-band of the Blessed Virgin, a piece of Christ’s garment, and three thorns from His Crown; then we saw the bedstead of St. Thomas and his brain, and the blood of St. Thomas and of St. John the Apostles. We saw also the sword with which St. Thomas of Canterbury was beheaded; the hair of the Mother of God, and a part of the Sepulchre. There was also shown to us a part of the shoulder of the Blessed Simeon, who bore Christ in his arms; the head of the blessed Lustrabena; one leg of St. George; a piece of the body and the bones of St. Lawrence; a leg of the Bishop of St. Romanus; a cup of St. Thomas, which he had been accustomed to use in administering the Sacrament at Canterbury; a leg of the Virgin Milda; a leg of the Virgin Eduarda. We also saw a tooth and a finger of St. Stephen the Martyr; bones of the Virgin Catherine, and oil from her sepulchre, which is said to flow to this day; hair of the blessed Virgin [sic!] Magdalene; a tooth of St. Benedict; a finger of St. Urban; the lips of one of the infants slain by Herod; bones of the blessed Clement; bones of St. Vincent. Very many other things were also shown to us, which are not set down by me in this place.” Very many other things have also been shown to me during my travels abroad (from St. Anne de Beaupré in Quebec to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) which are not set down by me in this place, and I may say that the grotesqueness of the frauds that are perpetrated is only equalled by the gross ignorance and credulity of the worshippers. The number of these “relics” scattered over Christendom must amount to thousands upon thousands. To stop the traffic in them, there is now a regulation that if you buy a relic you commit mortal sin. The relics are still sold, however; only the price is said to be for the frame or for the trouble, or something to that effect. For a description of La Bottega del Papa (the Pope’s shop) or La Santa Bottega (the Holy Shop) see Dr. Robertson’s book, The Roman Catholic Church in Italy. Regarding the early Church, see Bible Myths, pp. 434–40.