Kitabı oku: «Christianity and Modern Thought», sayfa 6

What must we do, we Protestants, in the presence of this fact? Must we exaggerate, must we be unfair in our attacks? No. Must we go to sleep, thinking there is nothing to do? No, not that either. We must work; we must work steadily to give light and instruction to all. We have here, – and I have tried in a very rapid way to give you an idea of it, – we have here history. That is the greatest of weapons in such a case as this. Usurpers never like history, because they know very well that history condemns them. We must make history known, make the facts known, and proclaim liberty and the rights of the human conscience. We must do that over the whole world. I do not believe that Protestantism, as it has often been said, is nothing else but Roman Catholicism stripped of some of its abuses, and without some of its errors. It is something else. If there were time, and I could begin now instead of ending, I would try to show you that in the history of Protestantism, and even before Protestantism appeared, there has always been, next to that stream of power of Roman Catholicism, always becoming stronger and more encroaching up to these last days, another current of protest; there have always been men struggling for faith with liberty, who said, "That cannot be;" who understood better the Gospel, who liked the spirit of the Gospel, the spirit of God in Christ, better than the spirit of Rome. For centuries their mouths may have been closed; their speaking and teaching punished by death; but always they became more and more numerous, and active, and vigorous; and then came the great day of Luther. Protestantism has not been a negation, a remnant of Roman Catholicism, the negative side of Christianity. I cannot adopt that idea in the least. True Protestantism is full of the spirit of the Gospel; it is the living soul of Christ in the Church, it embodies the perfect conviction that there is truth, that there is salvation, that there is liberty, in the Gospel, and nowhere else so completely.

Now, we must consider the Roman Catholic Church as being an organization of power, the most dreadful, the most tyrannical, the most crushing organization of power that ever was. It is the master-piece of Roman genius. It has been preparing during centuries, and it has been complete only since yesterday. It is a great organization against liberty, against man's rights, against man's conscience, for the honor of a church and of a man. And this we must resist, too. In my country, I declare that the cause of all our ills, the fact that is at the basis of all our suffering and all our misfortunes, is nothing else than Roman Catholicism. This is against the conscience of many souls; this throws many people into sheer Atheism, because they see no choice between kissing the shoe of the Pope, as is done in ceremonies, and denying the existence of God. So they deny God rather than submit to the Pope. We must give them sound teaching, religious teaching; we must give them the Gospel. And I came to this country to say these things to you; to ask you to help us with all your might, and with all your heart, to do what is necessary should be done in France to-day; what will be necessary to be done in this country sooner or later, and what will be necessary to be done in all countries, to show more and more that "where is the Spirit of the Lord, there is liberty."

SELFHOOD AND SACRIFICE

By ORVILLE DEWEY

The title which I have chosen for this discourse, is Selfhood and Sacrifice. My purpose is, to consider what place these principles have in human culture. I use the word, selfhood, rather than self-regard or self-interest, because I wish to go back to the original principle – selfhood, according to the analogy of our language, describing the simple and absolute condition in which self exists; as manhood does that of man, or childhood, that of a child. And I say sacrifice, rather than self-sacrifice, because the true principle does not require the sacrifice of our highest self, but only of that which unlawfully hinders outflow from self.

The subject of culture has been brought before the public of late, by Professor Huxley, and Matthew Arnold, and Mr. Shairp. I do not propose to enter into the questions which have engaged their able pens, but to go back to those primary and foundation principles, which I have proposed to consider – the one of which is the centre, and the other, the circumference of human culture, – Selfhood and Sacrifice.

It is the object of this course of lectures, in part at least as I understand it, to discuss this subject – to discuss, i. e. the principles and grounds, on which right reason and rational Christianity propose to build up a good and exalted character. Now with regard to what Christianity teaches, has it never occurred to you, or has it never seemed to you, in reading the Gospels, that they appeal to self-interest, to the desire to be saved, in a way that is at variance with the loftiest motives? But it is appealed to, and therefore is, in some sense, sanctioned. And yet, as if this self-interest were something wrong, the prevalence of it in the world, the world's selfishness in other words, is represented by many preachers, as if it were the sum of all wickedness, the proof indeed, of total depravity. Here then, it seems to me, whether we look at Christianity or at the teachings of the pulpit, there is urgent need of discrimination. And there is another aspect of the same subject, which seems to require attention; and that is what is called, individualism – the mentally living, if not for, yet in and out of ourselves; claiming to find all the springs and forces of faith and culture within ourselves, to the exclusion of the proper influence of society, of Christianity, of the whole great realm of the past, by which we have been trained and formed; individualism, which says, "I belong to myself, and to nobody else, and do not choose to be brought or organized into any system of faith or action with anybody else." This, indeed, is an extreme to which, perhaps, but few minds go; but there is a tendency of this kind, which needs to be looked into.

Now there is a way of thinking, in matters of practical expediency, to which I confess that I am committed by my life-long reflections; and which has always prevented me from going to the extreme with any party, whether in reforms, in politics, in religious systems, or in any thing else; and that is, to look to the mean in things; to look upon human nature and human culture, as held in the balance between opposing principles. With this view, I shall first undertake to show that the principle of self-regard, or of individualism, is right and lawful – is indeed, an essential principle of culture.

There is a remarkable passage in the old "Theologia Germanica," which hits, I think, the very point in this matter of self-regard. Speaking of its highest man, it says, "All thought of self, all self-seeking, self-will, and what cometh thereof, must be utterly lost, surrendered and given over to God, except in so far as they are necessary to make up a person." This personality, this stand-point, we must hold to, go where we will.

But let me state more precisely what it is, that is here conceded, and must be maintained; and why it is important to defend and justify it. I call it selfhood; and the word, I conceive, is philosophically necessary to meet the case. Because it is a principle, that goes behind selfishness; and of which selfishness is the excess and abuse. Selfishness calculates, overreaches, circumvents. But selfhood is simpler. It is the instinctive, instantaneous, uncalculating rush of our faculties, to preserve, protect and help ourselves. Selfishness proposes to take advantage of others; selfhood only to take care of itself. It is not, as a principle of our nature, a depraved instinct; animals possess it. It is not moral, or immoral, but simply unmoral. It is a simple force, necessary to our self-preservation, to our individuality, to our personality. The highest moral natures feel it as well as the lowest. The martyr, who gives up every thing else, holds his integrity fast and dear. It is written of the great Martyr, that, "for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame." No being that is not an idiot, can be divested of all care and regard for himself. And not only does necessity enforce, but justice defends the principle. If happiness is a good, and there are two equal amounts of it, the one of which is mine, and the other my neighbor's, I may in strict justice, value and desire my own as much as his. If I love his more than my own, I go beyond the commandment. It is not worth while to put any Utopian strain upon the bond of virtue; nay, it does positive harm.

Yet this is constantly done; to the injury of virtue, of conscience, and of a proper self-respect. In our theories of culture, we demand of ourselves, what is impossible, what is unjust to ourselves, what repudiates a part of the very nature we would cultivate. We demand of ourselves, and we suppose that Christianity demands of us, a certain unattainable perfection, – or what we call perfection, – a sinking of ourselves out of sight, and an absorption into the love of God and men, quite beyond our reach: and failing of that – thinking it entirely out of our sphere, we give up the proper rational endeavor to be Christians. We make the highest virtue something exceptional, instead of regarding it as a prize for us all. We imagine that some few have attained it; that Jesus did, and that a few persons, denominated saints, have approached him; but that for the common run of men, this is all out of the question. The fact is, that Christianity is regarded by many, as an enigma, a secret of the initiated, as an idle vision or hard exaction – not as a rational culture. Listen to the conversation of the mart or the drawing-room, you will find that the high Christian law is but a mocking dream in their eyes. "Giving to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow, turning not away, and to him that takes from us our coat, giving our cloak also; and turning the other cheek to the smiter;" – what is this, they say, but extravagance and fanaticism? As if they did not know that there is such a figure of speech as hyperbole; and that it was perfectly natural, in a society where the poor and the weak were trodden under foot, for the greatest heart that ever was, thus to pour out itself in pleadings for sympathy, commiseration and kindness. But the same Master said, "It is profitable for thee – it is better for thee," to have some of thy pleasures cut off – thine offending hand or eye; rather that, than to have thy whole being whelmed in misery.

It is really necessary in this matter, not only to vindicate Christianity as a reasonable religion, but to vindicate human nature to itself; to save it from the abjectness of feeling that the necessity of self-help is an ignoble necessity. Men say, "Yes, we are all selfish, we are all bad;" and they sink into discouragement or apathy, under that view.

The conditions of true culture are attracting increased attention at the present time; and it is natural that they should, when men's minds are getting rid of theologic definitions and assumptions, and are coming to take broad and manly views of the subject. I am endeavoring to make my humble contribution to it; and with this view, to show, in the first place, what part our very selfhood, both of right and of necessity, has in it.

This principle lies in the very roots of our being; and it is developed earliest in our nature. Before the love of right, of virtue, of truth, appears this self-regard. Disinterestedness is of later growth. Infancy comes into the world like a royal heir, and takes possession, as if the world were made for itself alone. Itself is all it knows; it will by and by, take a wider range. There is a natural process of improvement in the very progress of life. "You will get better," says a dramatic satirist,⁷ "as you get older; all men do. They are worst in childhood, improve in manhood, and get ready, in old age, for another world. Youth with its beauty and grace, would seem bestowed on us, for some such reason, as to make us partly endurable, till we have time to become so of ourselves, without their aid, when they leave us. The sweetest child we all smile on, for his pleasant want of the whole world to break up, or suck in his mouth, seeing no other good in it – would be roughly handled by that world's inhabitants, if he retained those angelic, infantile desires, when he has grown six feet high, black and bearded; but little by little, he sees fit to forego claim after claim on the world, puts up with a less and less share of its good as his proper portion, and when the octogenarian asks barely for a sup of gruel or a fire of dry sticks, and thanks you as for his full allowance and right in the common good of life, – hoping nobody will murder him – he who began by asking and expecting the whole world to bow down in worship to him – why, I say, he is advanced far onward, very far, nearly out of sight."

This advancement, thus springing out of the very experience of life, I am yet to consider, and have it most at heart to consider. It is of such priceless worth, it so embraces all that is noble in humanity, that the importance of the opposite principle, is liable to be quite overlooked. Selfishness, which is the excess of a just self-regard, is the one form of all evil in the world. The world cries out upon it, and heaps upon it every epithet, expressive of meanness, baseness and guilt. And let it bear the branding scorn; but let us not fail to see, though selfishness be the satirist's mark, and the philosopher's reproach, and the theologian's argument, the real nature and value of the principle, from which it proceeds.

Selfhood I have preferred to call it; self-love, be it, if you please. It is that, which satire and false criticism have misconstrued, when they have said that love of kindred, of friends, of country, of God himself, is but self-love. The mistake arises from that primal and vital part and participation which ourself has in every thing that we enjoy or love or adore. This magnificent I– and I emphasize it, because all meanness is thought to be concentred in that word – this mysterious and magnificent I– this that one means, when he says I – we may utter, but can never explain, nor fully express it. There are great men in the world, whose lives are of far more importance than mine – statesmen, commanders, kings – but I– no being can feel an intenser interest in his individuality than I do in mine; no being can be of more importance to himself than I am to myself; the very poles of thought and being turn upon that slender line; that simple unity, like the unit in figures, swells to infinite multiplication; that one letter, that single stroke of pen or type, may be varied and complicated, till it writes the history of the world. "I think, therefore I am," said the philosopher; but the bare utterance of the word I, yields a vaster inference. No animal ever knew what that word means. It is some time before the little child learns to say, I. It says, "Willy or Ellen wants this or that – will go here or there." What is insanity, but the wreck of this personality? The victim loses himself. And the morally insane, the prodigal, when he returns to reason and virtue, comes to himself.

"A man's self," says Thackeray, "must always be serious to him, under whatever mask or disguise or uniform he presents it to the public." Yes, though it were as mime, harlequin, jester fool almost; nor could there be a more deplorable or desperate condition for a human being, than to account himself nothing, or nothing worth, or worthy only to be the butt of universal scorn and contempt. From this utter ruin, every man is protected by that mysterious and momentous personality that dwells within him. We may be little in comparison with the general mass of interests, little in comparison with kingdoms, little in comparison with the swelling grandeur of thrones and empires, little in comparison with the great orb that rolls round the sun, and bears millions of such; but we are forever great in the sense of individual destiny. This swells beyond kingships, grandeurs, empires, worlds, to infinitude and eternity.

There is another element in this selfhood, to be considered, besides its conscious importance, and that is free will – itself also unmoral, but indispensable. For imagine a rational being to be placed in this world, without free will. He can choose neither wrong nor right. He has a conscience, but no freedom; no power to choose any thing. It is, I think, an incongruous and impossible kind of existence; but imagine it. Evils, troubles, temptations press against this being, and he can do nothing; he cannot even will to resist. Could there be a condition more horrible? No; man is a nobler and happier being than this amounts to. Free will is put in him, on purpose to fight the great battle against evil. He could not fight, if he could not will. He could not choose the right, without being free to choose the wrong; for choosing one path without being at liberty to take the other, would be no choosing. Free will is to fight the battle. It is a glorious prerogative. And man, I believe, is out of all proportion, happier, with this power, all its aberrations included, than he would be without it. I am glad for my part, that I am not passing through this world, like a car on a railroad, or turning round like a wheel in a mill; that I can go, this way or that, take one path or another; that I can read, or write, or study, or labor, or do business; and that when the great trial-hour, between right and wrong, comes, though I may choose the wrong, yet that I can choose the right. What better would there be for me than this – what better constitution of a rational nature? I know of no better possible.

Selfhood, then – this interest in ourselves, being seen to be right, and the play of free will which is a part of it desirable; let us turn finally to the useful working of the principle. You may have said in listening to me thus far, "What need of insisting so much upon self-regard, which we all perfectly well understand?" I doubt whether it is so well understood; and this must be my apology. We have seen that the principle is native and necessary to us; let us look a moment, at its utility.

I am put in charge of myself – of my life, first of all. So strong is the impulse to keep and defend it, that self-preservation has been called the first law of our being. But that argues an antecedent fact – self-appreciation. Why preserve that which we value not? We defend ourself, because we prize ourself. We defend our life, with the instant rush of all our faculties to the rescue. "Very selfish," one may say; "And why does a man care so much for himself; he isn't worth it." He can't help it. He obeys the primal bond; he is a law to himself. Is it not well? Man's life would perish in a thousand ways, if he did not thus care for it. The great, universal and most effective guardianship over human life everywhere, is – not government nor law, not guns nor battlements, not sympathy, not society – but this self-care.

I am put in charge of my own comfort, of my sustenance. I must provide for it. And to provide for it, I must have property – house, land, stores, means – something that must be my own, and not another's. If I were an animal, I might find food and shelter in the common storehouse of nature's bounty. But I have other wants; if I have no provision for them that is my own; if some godless International League, or Agrarian Law, could break down all the rights of property, there would be an end to industry, to order, to comfort, and eventually to life itself. Whatever evils, whatever monstrous crimes come of the love of gain, its extinction would be infinitely worse.

I am put in charge of my good name, my place among men. I must regard it. I am sinking to recklessness about virtue if I cease to value approbation. Even the martyr, looking to God alone, seeks approval. And good men's approbation is the reflection of that. To seek honor from men at the expense of principle, is what the Master condemns – not the desire of honor. It has been made a question whether the love of approbation should be appealed to, in schools. It cannot be kept out, from there, nor from anywhere else. If it could, if the vast network of social regards, in which men are now held, were torn asunder, society would fall to pieces.

Finally, I am put in charge of my virtue – of that above all. And that I must get and keep for myself; no other can do it for me. Another may stretch out the hand to defend me from a fatal blow; another may endow me with wealth; another may give me the praise I do not deserve; but no friendly intervention, no deed of gift, no flattery, no falsity, can give me inward truth and integrity. That solemn point in human experience, that question upon which every thing hangs – shall I do right? – or shall I do wrong? – is shrouded in the secrecy and silence of my own mind. All the power in the world, cannot do for me the thing that I must do for myself. To me, to me, the decision is committed.

Now what I have been saying, is this; it is well that that self-regard, upon which so much is devolved, should be strong; that there should be no apathy, no indifference, upon this point; that if ever a man wanders away into recklessness, into idleness, into disgrace, into utter moral delinquency and lawlessness, he should be brought to a stand, and brought back again, if possible, by this intense and uncontrollable regard for himself – for his own well-being. I do not resolve every thing in human nature, into the desire of well being. I do not say that the love of life, of property, of reputation, still less of virtue, is the same as the love of happiness; but I say that to the pursuit of all these a man is urged, driven, almost forced, by this love of his own well-being; nay more to the pursuit of the highest eventually, and that, by the very laws of his nature.

Let us now turn to the other principle which I propose to discuss – that which opens the whole field of our culture – the principle that carries us out of, and beyond ourselves.

It has been no part of my design, in discussing the principle of selfhood, to show the hinderance to culture, and the evil every way, that come from the abuse of it. That will be sufficiently manifest, if it be made to appear, that all culture and happiness are found in the opposite direction. But if I wanted to put this in the strongest light, I should point to the pain and obstruction which are experienced in a diseased self-consciousness. It would be a powerful argument for that going out of self, which I am about to speak of. Self, if it is a necessary stand-point, is yet liable to be always in our way. A morbid anxiety about our position, our credit with men, the good or ill opinion others have of our talents, tastes or merits, causes more misery, I am inclined to think, than any other form of human selfishness. See a company of persons, inthralled with music, charmed by eloquence, transported by some heroic action set before them; and they forget themselves; they do not think, how they look, how they are dressed, what others think of them, in their common delight.

The sense of this, I believe it was, that lay at the bottom of the old Buddhist doctrine of Nirwana —i. e., self-oblivion. To lose this wearisome, diseased self, seemed to Gautama, the great apostle of Buddhism, to be the chief good. Nirwana has been taken to mean absolute annihilation. I do not believe the Buddhists meant that; for to me, it is incredible, that any great sect, numbering millions, should have so totally given up the natural love of existence, and desire of immortality; and Max Müller and others have brought that construction of the Buddhist creed, into doubt. Individuals may go that length. Unhappy Blanco White, tortured in body and mind, could say that he desired no more of life, here or hereafter. A German naturalist could say, "Blessed be the death hour – the time when I shall cease to be." But this revolt against self and very self-existence, whether ancient or modern, I advert to, only to show the necessity of going out from it, in order to build up the kingdom of God within us. It is notable; it is suggestive; but it is neither healthy, nor true to human nature. Far truer is that admirable little poem of David Wasson's, originally entitled "Bugle Notes," which in unfolding the blessing and joy of existence, touches, I think, the deepest and divinest sense of things.

But let us proceed to consider the law of sacrifice – not sacrifice of happiness nor improvement, but the finding of both, in going out from self, to that which is beyond and above it.

A man's thought starts from himself; but if it stopped there, he would be nothing. All philosophy, science, knowledge presuppose certain original faculties and intuitions; but not to cultivate or carry them out, would leave their possessor to be the mere root or germ of a man. A line in geometry presupposes a point; but unless the point is extended, there can be no geometry; it is a point barren of all science, of all culture.

Every intellectual step is a step out of one's self. The philosopher who studies himself, that he may understand his own mind and nature, is but studying himself objectively; his very self then lies out of himself, and is an abstraction to him. And the mathematician, the astronomer, the naturalist, the poet, the artist, each one goes out of himself. His subject, his theorem, his picture it is, that draws him – not reward, not reputation. Doubtless Newton or Herschel, when he left his diagram or his telescope, and seated himself in the bosom of his family, might say, "We must live; I must have income; and if public or private men offer to remunerate and sustain me, it is right that they should do so." But the moment he plunges into deep philosophic meditation, he forgets all that. Nature has more than a bridal charm, science more than golden treasures, truth more than pontifical authority, to its votaries. Not wooing, but worship, is found at its shrines and altars. In the grand hierarchies of science, of literature, of art, there is a veritable priesthood, as pure, as unworldly, as can be found in any church. It is delightful to look upon its work, upon its calm and loving enthusiasm. The naturalist brings under his microscope, the smallest and most unattractive specimen of organized matter, and goes into ecstasies over it, that might seem ridiculous; but no, this is a piece of holy nature– a link in the chain of its majestic harmonies.

And so every intellectual laborer, when his work is noblest, forgets himself – the lawyer in his case, the preacher in his sermon, the physician in his patient. Is it not true then, and is it not noteworthy, that all the intellectual treasures that are gathered to form the noblest humanity, all the intellectual forces that are bearing it onward, come of self-forgetting?

Equally true is it – more true if possible, in the moral field. The man who is revolving around himself, must move in a very small circle. Vanity, self-conceit, thinking much of one's self, may be the foible of some able and learned men, but never of the greatest men: because the wider is the circle of a man's thought or knowledge, at the more points does he see and feel his limitations. Vanity is always professional, never philosophic. It belongs to a narrow, technical, never to the largest, moral culture. And all the moral forces in the world, are strongest, divinest, when clearest of self. When the public man seeks his own advancement, more than the public weal, he is no more a statesman, but a mere politician; and when the reformer cares more for his own opinion than for the end to be gained, the people will not regard nor respect him. The world may be very selfish, but it will have honesty in those whom it permits to serve it.

The truth is that the whole culture of the world, is built on sacrifice; and all the nobleness in the world lies in that. To show that, it is only necessary to point to those classes of men and spheres of action, which exert the widest influence upon the improvement and welfare of mankind. They will all be found to bear that mark.

Look, first, at the professional teachers of the world – the authors, artists, professors, schoolmasters, clergymen. In returns of worldly goods, their services have been paid less, than any other equal ability and accomplishment in the world. Doubtless there have been exceptions; some English bishops and Roman prelates have been rich; and some authors and artists have gained a modest competence. More are doing it now, and yet more will. But the great body of intellectual laborers, has been poor. The instruction of the world, has been carried on by perpetual sacrifice. A grand army of teachers – authors, artists, schoolmasters, professors, heads of colleges – have been through ages, carrying on the war against ignorance; but no triumphal procession has been decreed to it; no spoils of conquered provinces have come to its coffers; no crown imperial has invested with pomp and power. In lonely watch-towers the fires of genius have burned, but to waste and consume the lamp of life, while they gave light to the world.

It is no answer to say that the victims of intellectual toil, broken down in health or fortune, have counted their work, a privilege and joy. As well deny the martyr's sacrifice, because he has joyed in his integrity. And many of the world's intellectual benefactors, have been martyrs. Socrates died in prison, as a public malefactor; for the healing wisdom he offered his people, deadly poison was the reward. Homer had a lot so obscure, at least, that nobody knew his birthplace; and indeed some modern critics are denying that there ever was any Homer. Plato travelled back and forth from his home in Athens to the court of the Syracusan tyrant, regarded indeed and feared, but persecuted and in peril of life; nay, and once sold for a slave. Cicero shared a worse fate. Dante, all his life knew, as he expressed it, —