My Path to Atheism Part 7

It will be conceded, then, on all hands, that the proposition that life is sacred must be accepted with many limitations: the proposition, in fact, amounts only to this, that life must not be voluntarily laid down without grave and sufficient cause. What we have to consider is, whether there are present, in any proposed euthanasia, such conditions as overbear considerations for the acknowledged sanct.i.ty of life. We contend that in the cases in which it is proposed that death should be hastened, these conditions do exist.

We will not touch here on the question of the endurance of pain as a duty, for we will examine that further on. But is it a matter of no importance that a sufferer should condemn his attendants to a prolonged drain on their health and strength, in order to cling to a life which is useless to others, and a burden to himself? The nurse who tends, perhaps for weeks, a bed of agony, for which there is no cure but death--whose senses are strained by intense watchfulness--whose nerves are racked by witnessing torture which she is powerless to alleviate--is, by her self-devotion, sowing in her own const.i.tution the seeds of ill-health--that is to say, she is deliberately shortening her own life.

We have seen that we have a right to shorten life in obedience to a call of duty, and it will at once be said that the nurse is obeying such a call. But has the nurse a right to sacrifice her own life--and an injury to health is a sacrifice of life--for an obviously unequivalent advantage? We are apt to forget, because the injury is partially veiled to us, that we touch the sacredness of life whenever we touch health: every case of over-work, of over-strain, of over-exertion, is, so to speak, a modified case of euthanasia. To poison the spring of life is as real a tampering with the sacredness of life as it is to check its course. The nurse is really committing a slow euthanasia. Either the patient or the nurse must commit an heroic suicide for the sake of the other--which shall it be? Shall the life be sacrificed, which is torture to its possessor, useless to society, and whose bounds are already clearly marked? or shall a strong and healthy life, with all its future possibilities, be undermined and sacrificed _in addition to that which is already doomed?_ But, granting that the sublime generosity of the nurse stays not to balance the gain with the loss, but counts herself as nothing in the face of a human need, then surely it is time to urge then to permit this self-sacrifice is an error, and that to accept it is a crime. If it be granted that the throwing away of life for a manifestly unequivalent gain is wrong, that we ought not to blind ourselves to the fact, that to sacrifice a healthy life in order to lengthen by a few short weeks a doomed life, is a grave moral error, however much it may be redeemed in the individual by the glory of a n.o.ble self-devotion.

Allowing to the full the honour due to the heroism of the nurse, what are we to say to the patient who accepts the sacrifice? What are we to think of the morality of a human being who, in order to preserve the miserable remnant of life left to him, allows another to shorten life?

If we honour the man who sacrifices himself to defend his family, or risks his own life to save theirs, we must surely blame him who, on the contrary, sacrifices those he ought to value most, in order to prolong his own now useless existence. The measure of our admiration for the one, must be the measure of our pity for the weakness and selfishness of the other. If it be true that the man who dies for his dear ones on the battlefield is a hero, he who voluntarily dies for them on his bed of sickness is a hero no less brave. But it is urged that _life is the gift of G.o.d, and must only be taken back by the Giver of life_, I suppose that in any sense in which it can be supposed true that life is the gift of G.o.d, it can only be taken back by the giver--that is to say, that just as life is produced in accordance with certain laws, so it can only be destroyed in accordance with certain other laws. Life is not the direct gift of a superior power: it is the gift of man to man and animal to animal, produced by the voluntary agent, and not by G.o.d, under physical conditions, on the fulfilment of which alone the production of life depends. The physical conditions must be observed if we desire to produce life, and so must they be if we desire to destroy life. In both cases man is the voluntary agent, in both law is the means of his action. If life-giving is G.o.d's doing, then life-destroying is his doing too. But this is not what is intended by the proposers of this aphorism.

If they will pardon me for translating their somewhat vague proposition into more precise language, they say that they find themselves in possession of a certain thing called life, which must have come from _somewhere_; and as in popular language the unknown is always the divine, it must have come from G.o.d: therefore this life must only be taken from them by a cause that also proceeds from _somewhere_--i e., from an unknown cause--i e., from the Divine will. Chloroform comes from a visible agent, from the doctor or nurse, or at least from a bottle, which can be taken up or left alone at our own choice. If we swallow this, the cause of death is known, and is evidently not divine; but if we go into a house where scarlet fever is raging, although we are in that case voluntarily running the chance of taking poison quite as truly as if we swallow a dose of chloroform, yet if we die from the infection, we can imagine the illness to be sent from G.o.d. Wherever we think the element of chance comes in, there we are able to imagine that G.o.d rules directly. We quite overlook the fact that there is no such thing as chance. There is only our ignorance of law, not a break in natural order. If our const.i.tution be susceptible of the particular poison to which we expose it, we take the disease. If we knew the laws of infection as accurately as we know the laws affecting chloroform, we should be able to foresee with like certainty the inevitable consequence; and our ignorance does not make the action of either set of laws less unchangeable or more divine. But in the "happy-go-lucky" style of thought peculiar to ignorance, the Christian disregards the fact that infection is ruled by definite laws, and believes that health and sickness are the direct expressions of the will of his G.o.d, and not the invariable consequence of obscure but probably discoverable antecedents; so he boldly goes into the back slums of London to nurse a family stricken down with fever, and knowingly and deliberately runs "the chance" of infection--i e., knowingly and deliberately runs the chance of taking poison, or rather of having poison poured into his frame.

This he does, trusting that the n.o.bility of his motive will make the act right in G.o.d's sight. Is it more n.o.ble to relieve the sufferings of strangers, than to relieve the sufferings of his family? or is it more heroic to die of voluntarily-contracted fever, than of voluntarily-taken chloroform?

The argument that _life must only be taken back by the life-giver_, would, if thoroughly carried out, entirely prevent all dangerous operations. In the treatment of some diseases there are operations that will either kill or cure: the disease must certainly be fatal if left alone; while the proposed operation may save life, it may equally destroy it, and thus may take life some time before the giver of life wanted to take it back. Evidently, then, such operations should not be performed, since there is risked so grave an interference with the desires of the life-giver. Again, doctors act very wrongly when they allow certain soothing medicines to be taken when all hope is gone, which they refuse so long as a chance of recovery remains: what right have they to _compel_ the life-giver to follow out his apparent intentions? In some cases of painful disease, it is now usual to produce partial or total unconsciousness by the injection of morphia, or by the use of some other anaesthetic. Thus, I have known a patient subjected to this kind of treatment, when dying from a tumour in the aesophagus; he was consequently for some weeks before his death, kept in a state of almost complete unconsciousness, for if he were allowed to become conscious, his agony was so unendurable as to drive him wild. He was thus, although breathing, practically dead for weeks before his death.

We cannot but wonder, in view of such a case as his, what it is that people mean when they talk of "life." Life includes, surely, not only the involuntary animal functions, such as the movements of heart and lungs; but consciousness, thought, feeling, emotion. Of the various const.i.tuents of human life, surely those are not the most "sacred" which we share with the brute, however necessary these may be as the basis on which the rest are built. It is thought, then, that we may rightfully destroy all that const.i.tutes the beauty and n.o.bility of human life, we may kill thought, slay consciousness, deaden emotion, stop feeling, we may do all this, and leave lying on the bed before us a breathing figure, from which we have taken all the n.o.bler possibilities of life; but we may not touch the purely animal existence; we may rightly check the action of the nerves and the brain, but we must not dare to outrage-the Deity by checking the action of the heart and the lungs.

We ask, then, for the legalisation of euthanasia, because it is in accordance with the highest morality yet known, that which teaches the duty of self sacrifice for the greater good of others, because it is sanctioned in principle by every service performed at personal danger and injury, and because-it is already partially practised by modern improvements in medical science.

_Euthanasia is an interference with the course of nature, and its herefore an act of rebellion against G.o.d_. In considering this objection, we are placed in difficulty by not being told what sense our opponents attach to the word "nature"; and we are obliged once more to ask pardon for forcing these vague and high-flown arguments into a humiliating precision of meaning. Nature, in the widest sense of the word, includes all natural laws: and in this sense it is of course impossible to interfere with nature at all. We live, and move, and have our being in nature; and we can no more get outside it than we can get outside everything. With this-nature we cannot interfere: we can study its laws, and learn how to balance one law against another, so as to modify results; but this can only be done by and through nature itself.

The "interference with the course of nature" which is intended in the above objection does not of course mean this impossible proceeding; and it can then only mean an interference with things which would proceed in one course without human agency meddling with them, but which are susceptible of being turned into another course by human agency. If interference with nature's course be a rebellion against G.o.d, we are rebelling against G.o.d every day of our lives. Every achievement of civilisation is an interference with nature. Every artificial comfort we enjoy is an improvement on nature. Everybody professes to approve and admire many great triumphs of art over nature: the junction by bridges of sh.o.r.es which nature had made separate, the draining of nature's marshes, the excavation of her wells, the dragging to light of what she has buried at immense depths in the earth, the turning away of her thunderbolts by lightning-rods, of her inundations by embankments, of her ocean by breakwaters. But to commend these and similar feats, is to acknowledge that the ways of nature are to be conquered, not obeyed; that her powers are often towards man in the position of enemies, from whom he must wrest, by force and ingenuity, what little he can for his own use, and deserves to be applauded when that little is rather more than might be expected from his physical weakness in comparison to those gigantic powers. All praise of civilisation, or art, or contrivance, is so much dispraise of nature; an admission of imperfection, which it is man's business, and merit, to be always endeavouring to correct or mitigate.*

* "Essay on Nature," by John Stuart Mill.

It is difficult to understand how anyone, contemplating the course of nature, can regard it as the expression of a Divine will, which man has no right to improve upon. Natural law is essentially unreasoning and unmoral: gigantic forces clash around us on every side unintelligent, and unvarying in their action. With equal impa.s.siveness these blind forces produce vast benefits and work vast catastrophes. The benefits are ours, if we are able to grasp them; but nature troubles itself not, whether we take them or leave them alone. The catastrophes may rightly be averted, if we can avert them; but nature stays not its grinding wheel for our moans. Even allowing that a Supreme Intelligence gave these forces their being, it is manifest that he never intended man to be their plaything, or to do them homage; for man is dowered with reason to calculate, and with genius to foresee; and into man's hands is given the realm of nature (in this world) to cultivate, to govern, to improve.

So long as men believed that a G.o.d wielded the thunderbolt, so long would a lightning-conductor be an outrage on Jove; so long as a G.o.d guided each force of nature, so long would it be impiety to resist, or to endeavour to regulate the divine volitions. Only as experience gradually proved that no evil consequences followed each amendment of nature, were natural forces withdrawn, one by one, from the sphere of the unknown and the divine. Now, even pain, that used to be G.o.d's scourge, is soothed by chloroform, and death alone is left for nature to inflict, with what lingering agony it may. But why should death, any more than other ills, be left entirely to the clumsy, una.s.sisted processes of nature?--why, after struggling against nature all our lives, should we let it reign unopposed in death? There are some natural evils that we cannot avert. Pain and death are of these; but we can dull pain by dulling feeling, and we can ease by shortening its pangs. Nature kills by slow and protracted torture; we can defy it by choosing a rapid and painless end. It is only the remains of the old superst.i.tion that makes men think that to take life is the special prerogative of the G.o.ds. With marvellous inconsistency, however, the opponents of euthanasia do not scruple to "interfere with the course of nature" on the one hand, while they forbid us to interfere on the other. It is right to prolong pain by art, although it is wrong to shorten it. When a person is smitten down with some fearful and incurable disease, they do not leave him to nature; on the contrary, they check and thwart nature in every possible way; they cherish the life that nature has blasted; they nourish the strength that nature is undermining; they delay each process of decay which nature sows in the disordered frame; they contest every inch of ground with nature to preserve life; and then, when life means torture, and we ask permission to step in and quench it, they cry out that we are interfering with nature. If they would leave nature to itself, the disease would generally kill with tolerable rapidity; but they will not do this. They will only admit the force of their own argument when it tells on the side of what they choose to consider right. "Against nature," is the cry with which many a modern improvement has been howled at; and it will continue to be raised, until it is generally acknowledged that happiness, and not nature, is the true guide to morality, and until men recognises that nature is to be harnessed to his car of triumph, and to bend its mighty forces to fulfil the human will.

_Pain is a spiritual remedial agent, inflicted by G.o.d, and should therefore be patiently endured._ Does anyone, except a self-torturing ascetic, endure any pain which he can get rid of? This might be deemed a sufficient answer to this objection, for common sense always bids us avoid all possible pain, and daily experience tells us that people invariably evade pain, wherever such evasion is possible. The objection ought to run: "pain is a spiritual remedial agent, inflicted by G.o.d, which is to be got rid of as soon as possible, but ought to be patiently endured when unavoidable." Pain as pain has no recommendations, spiritual or otherwise; nor is there the smallest merit in a voluntary and needless submission to pain. As to its remedial and educational advantages, it as often as not sours the temper and hardens the heart; if a person endures great physical or mental pain with unruffled patience, and comes out of it with uninjured tenderness and sweetness, we may rest a.s.sured that we have come across a rare and beautiful nature of exceptional strength. As a general rule, pain, especially if it be mental, hardens and roughens the character. The use of anaesthetics is utterly indefensible, if physical pain is to be regarded as a special tool whereby G.o.d cultivates the human soul. If G.o.d is directly acting on the sufferer's body, and is educating his soul by racking his nerves, by what right does the doctor step between with his impious anaesthetic, and by reducing the patient to unconsciousness, deprive G.o.d of his pupil, and man of his lesson? If pain be a sacred ark, over which hovers the divine glory, surely it must be a sinful act to touch the holy thing. We may be inflicting incalculable spiritual damage by frustrating the divine plan of education, which was corporeal agony as a spiritual agent. Therefore, if this argument be good for anything at all, we must from henceforth eschew all anaesthetics, we must take no steps to alleviate human agony, we must not venture to interfere with this beneficent agent, but must leave nature to torture us it will. But we utterly deny that the unnecessary endurance of pain is even a merit, much less a duty; on the contrary, we believe that it is our duty to war against pain as much as possible, to alleviate it wherever we cannot stop it entirely; and, where continuous and frightful agony can only end in death, then to give to the sufferer the relief he craves for, in the sleep which is mercy. "It is a mercy G.o.d has taken him," is an expression often heard when the racked frame at last lies quiet, and the writhed features settle slowly into the peaceful smile of the dead. That mercy we plead that man should be allowed to give to man, when human skill and human tenderness have done their best, and when they have left within their reach no greater boon than a speedy and painless death.

We are not aware that any objection, which may not be cla.s.sed under one or other of these three heads, has been levelled against the proposition that euthanasia should be legalised. It has, indeed, been suggested that to put into-a doctor's hands this "power of life and death," would be to offer a dangerous temptation to those who have any special object to gain by putting a troublesome person quietly out of the way. But this objection overlooks the fact that the patient himself must _ask_ for the draught, that stringent precautions can be taken to render euthanasia impossible except at the patient's earnestly, or even repeatedly, expressed wish, that any doctor or attendant, neglecting to take these precautions, would then, as now, be liable to all the penalties for murder or for manslaughter; and that an ordinary doctor would no more be ready to face these penalties then, than he is now, although he undoubtedly has now the power of putting the patient to death with but little chance of discovery. Euthanasia would not render murder less dangerous than it is at present, since no one asks that a nurse may be empowered to give a patient a dose which would ensure death, or that she might be allowed to s.h.i.+eld herself from punishment on the plea that the patient desired it. If our opponents would take the trouble to find out what we do ask, before they condemn our propositions, it would greatly simplify public discussion, not alone in this case, but in many proposed reforms.

It may be well, also, to point out the wide line of demarcation which separated euthanasia from what is ordinarily called suicide. Euthanasia, like suicide, is a voluntarily chosen death, but there is a radical difference between the motives which prompt the similar act. Those who commit suicide thereby render themselves useless to society for the future; they deprive society of their services, and selfishly evade the duties which ought to fall to their share; therefore, the social feelings rightly condemn suicide as a crime against society. I do not say that under no stress of circ.u.mstances is suicide justifiable; that is not the question; but I wish to point out that it is justly regarded as a social offence. But the very motive which restrains from suicide, prompts to euthanasia. The sufferer who knows that he is lost to society, that he can never again serve his fellow-men; who knows, also, that he is depriving society of the services of those who uselessly exhaust themselves for him, and is further injuring it by undermining the health of its healthy members, feels urged by the very social instincts which would prevent him from committing suicide while in health, to yield a last service to society by relieving it from a useless burden. Hence it is that Sir Thomas Moore, in the quotation with which he began this essay, makes the _social authorities_ of his ideal state urge euthanasia as the duty of a faithful citizen, while they yet consistently reprobate ordinary suicide as a _lese-majeste_ a crime against the State. The life of the individual is, in a sense, the property of society. The infant is nurtured, the child is educated, the man is protected by others; and, in return for the life thus given, developed, preserved, society has a right to demand from its members a loyal, self-forgetting devotion to the common weal. To serve humanity, to raise the race from which we spring, to dedicate every talent, every power, every energy, to the improvement of, and to the increase of happiness in, society, this is the duty of each individual man and woman. And, when we have given all we can, when strength is sinking, and life is failing, when pain racks our bodies, and the worse agony of seeing our dear ones suffer in our anguish tortures our enfeebled minds, when the only service we can render man is to relieve him of a useless and injurious burden, then we ask that we may be permitted to die voluntarily and painlessly, and so to crown a n.o.ble life with the laurel wreath of a self-sacrificing death.

ON PRAYER.

THE mania for Prayer-meetings has lately been largely on the increase, and the continual efforts being made to

"Move the arm that moves the world,"

naturally draw one's attention strongly to the subject of Prayer; to its reasonableness, propriety, and prospect of success. If Prayer to G.o.d be reverent as towards the Deity, if it be consistent with his immutability, with his foreknowledge, with his wisdom, and with every kind of trust in his goodness--if it be also, as regards man, permissible by science, and approved by experience, then there can be no doubt at all that it should be sedulously practised, and should be of universal obligation. But if it be at once useless and absurd, if it be forbidden by reason and frowned at by common sense, if it weaken man and be irreverent towards the Being to whom it is said to be addressed, then it will be well for all who practise it to reconsider their position, and at least to endeavour to give some solid reason for persisting in a course which is condemned by the intellect and is unneeded by the heart.

The practice of Prayer is generally founded upon the supposed position held by man--first, as a creature towards his Creator, and secondly, as a child towards his Father in heaven. In its first aspect, it is a simple act of homage from the inferior to the superior, parallel to the courtesy shown by the subject to the monarch; it is an acknowledgment of dependence, and a sign of grat.i.tude for the gifts which are supposed to be freely given by G.o.d to man--gifts which man has done nothing to deserve, but which come from the free bounty of the giver. Putting aside the whole question of G.o.d as Creator, which is not the point at issue, we might argue that, since he brought us into this world without our request, and even without our consent, he is in duty bound to see that we have all things necessary for our life and happiness in the world in which he has thus placed us. We might argue that the "blessings" said to be bestowed upon us, such as food, clothing, &c, can only be called "given" by a fiction, for that they are won by our own hard toil, and are never "gifts from G.o.d" in any real sense at all. Further, we might plead that we find "bestowed" upon us many things which are decidedly the reverse of blessings, and that if grat.i.tude be due to G.o.d for some things, the contrary of grat.i.tude is due to him for others; and that if praise be his right for the one, blame must be his desert for the second. We should be thus forced into the logical, but somewhat peculiar, frame of mind of the savage, who caresses his fetish when it hears his prayers, and belabours it heartily when it fails to help him.

But, taking the position that Prayer is due from man by reason of his creaturehood, it must surely be clear that it cannot be a proper way of manifesting a sense of inferiority to degrade the Being to whom the homage is offered. Yet Prayer is essentially degrading to G.o.d, and the character ascribed to him of "a hearer and answerer of Prayer" is a most lowering conception of Deity. For G.o.d to hear and to answer Prayer means that Prayer changes his action, making him do that which he would otherwise have abstained from doing; it means that man is wiser than G.o.d, and is able to instruct him in his duty; and it means that G.o.d is less loving than he ought to be, and will not bestow upon his creature that which is good for him, unless he be importuned into giving it. We are told that G.o.d is immutable, "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever;" "G.o.d is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent." If this be true--and surely immutability of purpose must be a necessary characteristic of an all-wise and all-good Being--how can Prayer be anything more than a childish fretting against the inevitable?

The Changeless One has planned a certain course of action, and is steadily carrying it out; in pa.s.sionless serenity he goes upon his way; then man breaks in with his feeble cries and petulant upbraidings, and actually turns G.o.d from his purpose, and changes the course of his providence. If Prayer does not do this it does nothing at all; either it changes the mind of G.o.d or it does not. If it does, G.o.d is at the disposal of man's whim; if it does not, it is perfectly useless, and might just as well be left undone. The parable told by Christ about the unjust judge (Luke xviii. 1-8) is a most extraordinary representation of G.o.d: "Because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.... And shall not G.o.d avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him?" Verily, the picture of the divine justice is not an attractive one! The judge does his duty, not because it is his duty, not because the widow needs his aid, not because her cause is a just one, but "lest by her continual coming she weary"

him. There is only one moral to be drawn from this, namely, that G.o.d will not care for his "elect," because they are "his own;" that he will not guard them, because it is his duty; but that, if they cry day and night to him, he will attend to them, because the continual cry wearies him, and he desires to silence it. In the same way G.o.d the immutable changes at the sound of Prayer, not because the change will be better or wiser, but because man's cry "wearies" him, and he will be quiet if he obtains his pet.i.tion. Surely the idea is as degrading as it can be; it puts G.o.d on a level with the unwise human parent, who allows himself to be governed by the clamour of his children, and gives any favour to the spoilt child, if only the child be tiresome enough in its petulant persistence.

Is Prayer consistent with the _foreknowledge_ of G.o.d? It is one of the attributes ascribed to G.o.d that he knows all before it happens, and that the future lies mapped out before him as clearly as does the past. If this be so, is it more reasonable to pray about things in the future than things in the past? No one is so utterly irrational as to pray to G.o.d, in so many words, to change the things that are gone, or to alter the record of the past. Yet, is it more rational to ask him to change the things that are coming, and to alter the already-written chart of the future? In reality, man's own eyes being blinded, he deems his G.o.d such an one as himself, and where he cannot _see_, he can allow himself to _hope_. But there is no excuse from the inexorable logic which pierces us with one horn or the other of this dilemma, however we may writhe in our efforts to escape them; either G.o.d knows the future or he knows it not; if he knows it, it cannot be altered, so it is of no use to pray about it, everything being already fixed; if he knows it not, he is not G.o.d, he is no wiser than man. But, then, some Christians argue, he has pre-arranged that he will give this blessing in answer to Prayer, and he foreknows the Prayer as well as its answer. Then, after all, it is pre-determined whether we shall pray or not in any given case, and we have only to follow the course along which we are impelled by an irresistible destiny; so the matter is beyond all discussion, and the power to pray, or not to pray, does not reside in us; if there is a blessing in store for us which needs the arm of Prayer to pluck it from the tree on which it hangs, we shall inevitably pray for it at the right moment, and thus--in his effort to escape from one difficulty--the praying Christian has landed himself in a worse one, for absolute foreknowledge implies complete determinism, and prevents all human responsibility of any kind.

Is Prayer consistent with the _wisdom_ of G.o.d? After all, what does Prayer mean, boldly stated? It means that man thinks that he knows better than G.o.d, and so he tells G.o.d that which ought to happen. Is there any self-conceit so intolerable as that which pretends to bow itself in the dust before him who created and who upholds the infinite worlds which make up the universe, and which then sets itself to correct the ordering of him who traced the orbits of the planets, and who measured the rule of suns? Finite wisdom instructing infinite wisdom; mortal reason laying down the course of immortal reason; low intelligence guiding supreme intelligence; man instructing G.o.d. All this is implied in the fact of Prayer, and every man who has prayed, and who believes in G.o.d, ought to cast himself down in pa.s.sionate humiliation before the wisdom he has insulted and impugned, and ask pardon for the insolent presumption which dared to lay hands on the helm of the Supreme, and to dream that man could be more wise than G.o.d. At least, those who believe in G.o.d might be humble enough to acknowledge his superiority to themselves, and if they demand that homage should be paid to him by their brethren, they should also confess him to be wiser and higher than they are themselves.

Is Prayer consistent with _trust in the goodness_ of G.o.d? Surely Prayer is a distinct refusal to trust, and is a proclamation that we think that we could do better for ourselves than G.o.d will do for us. If G.o.d be "good and loving to every man," it is manifest that, without any pressure being put upon him, he will do for each the best thing that can possibly be done. The people of Madagascar are wiser, in this matter than the people who throng our churches and our chapels, for they say, addressing the good Spirit, "We need not pray to thee, for thou, without our prayers, wilt give us all things that be good for us;" and then they turn to the evil Spirit, saying, that they must pray to _him_ lest, if they do not, he should work them harm, and send troubles in their way.

Prayer implies that G.o.d judges all good gifts, and will withhold them unless they are wrung from his reluctant hands; it denies that he loves his creatures, and is good to all. In addition to this, it also implies that we will not trust him to judge what is best for us; on the contrary, we prefer to judge for ourselves, and to have our own way. If a trouble comes, it is prayed against, and G.o.d is besought "to remove his heavy hand." What does this mean, except that when G.o.d sends sorrow, man clamours for joy, and when G.o.d deems it best that his child should weep, the child demands cause for smiles? If people trusted G.o.d, as they pretend to trust him--if the phrases of the Sunday were the practice of the week--if men believed that G.o.d's ways were higher than man's ways, and his thoughts than their thoughts--then no Prayer would ever ascend from earth to the "Throne of grace," and man would welcome joy and sorrow, peace and care, wealth and poverty, as wise men welcome nature's order, when the rain comes down to swell the seed for the harvest, and the suns.h.i.+ne glows down upon earth to burnish the golden grain.

But, say the praying Christians, even if Prayer be not defensible as homage from the creature to the Creator, in that it lowers our idea of G.o.d, it must surely yet be natural as the instinctive cry from the child to the Father in heaven; and then follow arguments drawn from the family and the home, and the need of communion between parent and child. As a matter of fact,--taking the a.n.a.logy, imperfect as it is--do we find much Prayer, as from child to parent, in the best and the happiest homes; _is not the amount of asking the exact measure of the imperfection of the relations.h.i.+p?_ The wiser and the kinder the parent, the less will the child ask for; rather, it learns from experience to trust the older wisdom, and to be contented with the love which is ever giving, unsolicited, all good things. At the most, the simple expression of the child's wish is all that is needed, if the child desire anything of which the parent have not thought; and even this mere statement of a wish is still the result of _imperfection, i e._, the want of knowledge on the parent's part of the child's mind and heart In this case there is no pleading, no urging; the single request and single answer suffice; there is nothing which corresponds with the idea of the prophet to pray to G.o.d and to "give him no rest" until he grant the pet.i.tion. In a well-ordered home, the child who persisted in pressing his request would receive a rebuke for his want of trust, and for his conceited self-sufficiency; and yet _this_ is the a.n.a.logy on which Prayer to G.o.d is built up, and in this fas.h.i.+on "natural instincts" are dragged in, in order to support supernatural and artificial cravings.

Leaving Prayer, as it affects man's relations.h.i.+p to G.o.d, let us look at it as it regards man's relations.h.i.+p to things around him, and ask if it be permitted by our scientific knowledge, and approved by experience and by history. The chief lesson of science is that all things work by law, that we dwell in a realm of law, and that _nothing_ goes by chance. All science is built up upon this idea; science is not possible unless this primary rule be correct; science is only the codified experience of the race, the observed sequence of to-day marked down for the guidance of to-morrow, the teaching of the past hived up for the improvement of the future. But all this acc.u.mulation and correlation of facts becomes useless if laws can be broken--i e., if this observed sequence of phenomena can be suddenly broken by the interposition of an unknown and incalculable force, acting spasmodically and guided by no discoverable order of action. Science is impossible if these "providential occurrences" may take place at any moment. A physician, in writing his prescription, selects the drugs which experience has pointed out as the suitable remedy for the disease under which his patient is labouring.

These drugs have a certain effect upon the tissues of the human frame, and the physician calculates on this effect being produced; but if Prayer is to come in as a factor, of what use the physician's science?

Here is suddenly introduced--to speak figuratively--a new drug of unknown power, and the effect of medicine plus Prayer can in no way be calculated upon. The prescription is either efficient or non-efficient; if it be efficient, Prayer is unnecessary, as the cure would take place without it; if it be non-efficient, and Prayer makes up the deficiency, then medical science is not needed, for the impotency of the drugs can always be balanced by the potency of the Prayer. This argument may be used as regards every science. Prayer is put up for a s.h.i.+p which goes to sea. The s.h.i.+p is fitted for the perils it encounters, or it is unfit. If fitted, it arrives safely without Prayer; if, though unfit, it arrives, being guarded by Prayer, then Prayer becomes a factor in the s.h.i.+pbuilder's calculations, and sound timbers and strong rivets sink into minor importance. If it be argued that to speak thus is to use Prayer unfairly, because it is our duty to take every proper means to ensure safety, what, is this except to say that, after all, Prayer is only a fiction, and that while we bow our knees to G.o.d, and pretend to look to _him_ for safety, we are really looking to the strong timbers of the s.h.i.+p-builder, and to the skill of the captain?

Science teaches, also, that all phenomena are the results of preceding phenomena, and that an unbroken sequence of cause and effect stretches back further than our poor thoughts can reach. In stately harmony all Nature moves, evolving link after link of the endless chain, each link bound firmly to its predecessor, and affording, in its turn, the same support to its successor. Prayer is put up in the churches for fair weather; but rain and suns.h.i.+ne do not follow each other by chance, they obey a changeless law. To alter the weather of to-day means to alter the weather of countless yesterdays, which have faded away, one after another, "into the infinite azure of the past." The weather of to-day is the result of all those long-past phases of temperature, and, unless they were altered, no change is pos sible to-day. The Prayer that goes up in English churches should really run:--"O G.o.d, we pray thee to change all that thou hast wrought in the past; we, to-day, in this petty corner of thy world, are discontented with thy ordering; we desire of thee, then, that, to pleasure our fancy, thou wilt unroll the record of the past, and change all its order, remoulding its history to suit our convenience here to-day." It is difficult to say which is the worse, the self-conceit which deems its own petty needs worthy of such complaisance of Deity, or the ignorance which forgets the absurdities implied in the request it makes. But, after all, it is the ignorance which is to blame: these Prayers were written when science was scarcely born; in those days G.o.d was the immediate cause of each phenomena, sending rain from heaven when it pleased him, thundering from heaven against his enemies, pouring hailstones from heaven to slay his foes, opening and closing the windows of heaven to punish a wicked king or to pleasure an angry prophet. In those days heaven was very close to earth: so near that when it opened, the dying Stephen could see and recognise the form and features of the Son of Man; so near that, lest man should build a tower which should reach it, G.o.d had himself to descend and discomfit the builders. All these things were true to the writers whose words are repeated in English churches in the nineteenth century, and they naturally believed that what G.o.d wrought in days of old he could work also among themselves. But knowledge has shattered the fairy fabric which fancy had raised up; astronomy built towers--not of Babel--from which men could gauge the heaven, and find that through illimitable ether worlds innumerable rolled, and that where the throne of G.o.d should have been seen, suns and planets sped on their ceaseless rounds. Further and further back, the ancient G.o.d who dwelt among men was pressed back, till now, at last, no room is found for spasmodic divine solutions, but Nature's mighty order rolls on uninterrupted, in a silence unbroken by voice and undisturbed by miraculous volitions, bound by a golden chain of inviolable law. The most learned and the most thoughtful Christian people now acknowledge that prayer is out of place in dealing with "natural order;" but surely it is time that they should make their voices heard plainly, so as to erase from the Prayer-book these obsolete notions, born of an ignorance which the world has now outgrown. Few really _believe_ in the power of Prayer over the weather, but people go on from the sheer force of habit, repeating, parrot-like, phrases which have lost their meaning, because they are too indolent to exert thought, or too fettered by habit to test the Prayer of the Sunday by the standard of the week. When people begin to _think_ of what they repeat so glibly, the battle of Free Thought will have been won.

Many earnest people, however, while recognising the fact that Prayer ought not to be used for rain, fine weather, and the like, yet think that it may be rightly employed to obtain "spiritual benefits." Is not this idea also the product of ignorance? When men knew nothing of natural laws they thought they could gain natural benefits by Prayer; now that people know nothing of "spiritual" laws, they think they can gain "spiritual" benefits by Prayer. In each case the Prayer springs from ignorance. Is it really more reasonable to expect to gain miraculous spiritual strength from Prayer, than to expect to give vigour, by Prayer, to arms enfeebled by fever? Growth, slow and steady, is Nature's law; no sudden leaps are possible; and no Prayer will give that spiritual stature which only develops by continual effort, and by "patient continuance in well-doing." The mind--which is probably what is generally meant by the word "spirit"--has its own laws, according to which it grows and strengthens; it is moulded, formed, developed, as the body is, by the play of the circ.u.mstances around it, and by the organisation with which it comes into the world, and which it has inherited from a long race of ancestors. Here, too, inexorable law surrounds all, and in mind, as in matter, the "reign of law" Is all-embracing, all-compelling.

Is Prayer approved by experience? It seems necessary here to refer to the experience of some, who say that they have found Prayer strengthen them to meet a trouble which they had dreaded, or to accomplish a duty for which their own ability was insufficient. This appears to be very probable, but the reason is not far to seek, and as the explanation of the increased strength may be purely natural, it seems unnecessary to search for a supernatural cause. Prayer, when earnest and heartfelt, appears to exert a kind of reflex action on the person praying, the pet.i.tion not piercing heaven, but falling back upon earth. A duty has to be done or a trouble has to be faced; the person affected prays for help, and by the intense concentration of his thoughts, and by the pa.s.sion of his desire, he naturally gains a strength he had not, when he was less deeply and thoroughly in earnest. Again, the interior conviction that a olivine strength is on his side, nerves his heart and braces his courage: the soldier fights with a tenfold courage when he is sure that endurance will make victory a certainty. But all this is no proof that G.o.d hears and answers Prayer; if it were so, it would prove also that the Virgin Mother, and all the saints, and Buddha, and Brahma, and Vishnu were alike hearers and answerers of Prayer. In all cases the sincere wors.h.i.+pper gains strength and comfort, and finds the same "answer" to his Prayer. Yet surely no one will contend that all these are "Prayer-hearing and Prayer-answering" G.o.ds? This fancied answer is not a proof of the truth of the wors.h.i.+pper's belief, but is only a proof _of his conviction of its truth_; not the soundness of the belief, but the sincerity of the conviction, is proved by the glow and ardour which succeed the act of Prayer. All the dormant energies are aroused; the soul's whole strength is put forth; the wors.h.i.+pper is warmed by the fire struck from his own heart, and is thrilled with the electricity which resides in his own frame. So far, Prayer is found to be answered, just as every strong conviction, however erroneous, is found to confer increased strength and vigour on him who possesses it. But, excepting this, Prayer is not proved to be efficacious when tested by experience.

How many Prayers have gone up to the Father in heaven from his children overwhelmed in the sea, and drowning in floods, and encircled by fire?

How many pa.s.sionate appeals of patriots and martyrs, of exiles and of slaves? How many cries of anguish from beside the beds of the dying, and the fresh graves of the newly-dead? In vain the wife's wail for the husband, the mother's pleading for the only child; no voice has answered "Weep not;" no command has replied, "Rise up;" the Prayers have fallen back on the breaking heart, poor white-winged birds that have tried to fly towards heaven, but have only sunk back to earth, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s bruised and bleeding from striking against the iron bars of a pitiless and relentless fate. So continually has Prayer failed to win an answer, that, in spite of the clearness and the force of the Bible promises in regard to it, Christians have found themselves obliged to limit their extent, and to say that G.o.d judges whether or no it will be beneficial for the wors.h.i.+pper to grant the pet.i.tion, and if the Prayer be a mistaken one he will, in mercy, withhold the implored-for boon. Of course, this prevents Prayer from being ever tested by experience at all, because whenever a Prayer remains unanswered the reply is ready, that "it was not according to the will of G.o.d." This means, that we cannot test the value of Prayer in any way; we must accept its worth wholly as a matter of faith; we must pray because we are bidden to do so, and fulfil an useless form which affords no tangible results. In this melancholy position are we landed by an appeal to experience, by which we are challenged to test the value of Prayer.

The answer of history is even yet more emphatic. The Ages of Prayer are the Dark Ages of the world. When learning was crushed out, and superst.i.tion was rampant, when wisdom was called witchcraft, and priests ruled Europe, then Prayer was always rising up to G.o.d from the countless monasteries where men dwarfed themselves into monks, and from the convents where women shrivelled up into nuns. The sound of the bell that called to Prayer was never silent, and the time that was needed for work was wasted in Prayer, and in the straining to serve G.o.d the service of man was neglected and despised.

There is one obvious fact that throws into bright relief the absurdity of Prayer. Two people pray for exactly opposite things; whose Prayers are to be answered? Two armies ask for victory; which is to be crowned?

Amongst ourselves, now, the Church is divided into two opposing camps, and while the Ritualists appeal to G.o.d for protection, the Evangelical clamour also for his aid. To which is he to bend his ear? which Prayer is he to answer? Both appeal to his promises; both urge that his honour is pledged to them by the word he has given; yet it is simply impossible that he should grant the Prayer of both, because the Prayer of the one is the direct contradiction of the prayer of the other.

Again, none of the believers in Prayer appear to consider, that, if it were true that Prayer is so powerful a weapon--if it were true that by Prayer man can prevail with G.o.d--it would then be madness ever to pray at all. To pray would be as dangerous a thing as to put a cavalry sword into the hands of a child just strong enough to lift it, but unable to control it, or to understand the danger of its blows. Who can tell all the results to himself and to others which might flow from a granted Prayer, a Prayer made in all honesty of purpose, but in ignorance and short-sightedness? If Prayers really brought answers it would be most wickedly reckless ever to pray at all, as wickedly reckless as if a man, to quench a moment's thirst, pierced a hole in a reservoir of water which overhung a town.

But, in spite of all arguments, in spite of all that reason can urge and that logic can prove, it is probable that many will still cling to the practice of Prayer, craving for the relief it gives to the feelings of the heart, however much it may be condemned by the judgment of the intellect. They seem to think that they will lose a great inspiration to work if they give up "communion with G.o.d," and that they will miss the glow of ardour which they deem they have caught from Prayer. But surely it may fairly be urged on them that no real good can arise from continuing a practice which it is impossible to defend when it is carefully a.n.a.lysed. Prayer is as the artificial stimulant which excites, but does not strengthen, and lends a fact.i.tious brightness, which is followed by deeper depression. Those who have prayed most have often stated that "seasons of special blessing" are generally followed by "special temptations of Satan." The reaction follows on the unreal excitation, and the soul that has been flying in heaven grovels upon earth. To the patient who is weak and depressed from long illness, the bright air of the morning seems chill and cold, and he yearns for the warmth of the artificial stimulants to which he has grown accustomed; yet better for him is it to gain health from the morning breezes, and stimulus from the glad clear suns.h.i.+ne, than to yield to the craving which is a relic of his disease. If they who find in communion with G.o.d a sweetness which is lacking when they commune with their brethren--if they who cultivate dependence on G.o.d would learn the true dependence of man on man--if they who yearn for the invisible would concentrate their energies on the visible--then they would soon find a sweetness in labour which would compensate for the languor of Prayer, and they would learn to draw from the joy of serving men, and from the serene strength of an earnest life, a warmth of inspiration, a pa.s.sion of fervour, an exhaustless fount of energy, beside which all Prayer-given ardour would seem dull and nerveless, in the glow of which the fancied warmth of G.o.d-communion would seem as the pale cold moons.h.i.+ne in the glory of the rising sun.

CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM.

IT is a common complaint against the Rationalistic school of thought that they can destroy but cannot construct; that they tear down, but do not build up; that they are armed only with the axe and with the sword, and not with the trowel and the mason's line. "We have had enough of negations," is a common cry; "give us something positive." Much of this feeling is foolish and unreasonable; the negation of error, where error is supreme, is necessary before the a.s.sertion of truth can become possible. Before a piece of ground can be sown with wheat, it must be cleared of the weeds which infest it; before a solid house can be built in the place of a crumbling ruin, the ancient rubbish must be carried off, and the rotten walls must be thoroughly pulled down. Destructive criticism is necessary and wholesome; the heavy battering-ram of science must thunder against the walls of the churches; the swift arrows of logic must rain on the black-robed army; the keen lance-points of irony must pierce through the leather jerkin of superst.i.tion. But the destruction of orthodox Christianity being accomplished, there remains for the Rationalist much more to do. He has to frame a code which shall rule in the place of the code of Moses and of Jesus; he has to found a morality which shall replace the morality of the Bible; he has to construct an ideal which shall be as attractive as the ideal of the Churches; he has to proclaim laws which shall supersede revelation: in a word, he has to build up the religion of humanity.

As the Rationalist looks abroad over the contending armies of faith and of reason, he gradually recognises the fact that his new religion, if it is to serve as a bond of union, must stand on stable ground, apart from the warring hosts. Round the idea of G.o.d rages the hottest din of the battle. The old, popular, and traditional belief is wounded to the death, and is slowly breathing out its life. The philosophical subtleties of the metaphysician are beyond the grasp of folk busied chiefly with common work. The new school of Theists, believers in a "spiritual personal G.o.d," stands on a slippery incline, whereon is no firm foothold. It simply spreads over the abysses of thought a sentimental veil of poetical imaginings, and bows down before a beatified and celestial man, whose image it has sculptured out of the thought-marble of its sublimest aspirations. If the idea of G.o.d be thus warred over, thus changing, thus uncertain, it is plain that the new religion cannot find its foundation on this s.h.i.+fting and disputed ground. While theologians are wrangling about G.o.d, plain men are looking wistfully over the shattered idols to find the ideal to which they can cling. The new religion, then, studying the varying phases of the G.o.d-idea, seizes on its one permanent element, its idealised resemblance to man, its embodiment of the highest humanity; and, grasping this thought, it turns to men and says, "In loving G.o.d you are only loving your own highest selves; in conforming yourselves to the Divine image you are only conforming yourselves to your own highest ideals; the unknown G.o.d whom you ignorantly wors.h.i.+p, him declare I unto you; in serving your family, your neighbours, your country, you serve this unknown G.o.d; this G.o.d is Humanity, the race to which you belong; this is the veiled G.o.d whom all generations have wors.h.i.+pped in heaven, while he trod the world around them in every human form; this is the only G.o.d, the G.o.d who is manifest in the flesh: "--

"There is no G.o.d, O son, If thou be none."

The first great constructive effort of the new religion is thus to transform the idea of G.o.d, and to turn all men's aspirations, all men's hopes, all men's labours, into this channel of devotion to humanity, that so the practical outcome of the new motive power may be a steady flow of loving and energetic work for man, work that begins in the family, and spreads, in ever-widening circles, over the whole race.

This transformation of the central figure necessarily transforms also the whole idea of religion, which must take its colour from that centre.

Revelation from heaven being no longer possible, its place must be supplied by study on earth: revealed laws being no longer attainable, it becomes the duty of the Humanitarian to discover natural laws. This duty is the more cheering from the manifest failure of revealed laws, as exemplified in popular Christianity. "Law," in the mouth of the believer in revelation, means a command issued by G.o.d; the "laws of Nature" are the rules laid down by G.o.d, in accordance with which all things move; they are the behests of the Creator of Nature, the controlling wires of the mechanism, held by the hand of G.o.d. But "law" in the mouth of the Rationalist means nothing more than the observed and registered invariable sequence of events. Thus it is said "a stone falls to the ground in obedience to the law of gravitation." By the "law of gravitation" the Christian would mean that G.o.d had ordered that all stones _should_ so fall. The Rationalist would simply mean that all stones _do_ so fall, and that invariable sequence he calls the "law of gravitation." Obedience to the laws of Nature replaces, in the religion of Humanity, obedience to the laws of G.o.d. As there is no inspired revelation of these laws the student must carefully and patiently ascertain them, either by direct observation, or most often, in the books of those who have devoted their lives to the elucidation of Nature's code. Scientific books will, in fact, replace the Bible, and by the study of the laws of health, both physical, moral, and mental, the Rationalist will ascertain the conditions which surround him to which he must conform himself if he desires to retain physical, moral, and mental vigour. This difference in the authority which is obeyed leads naturally to the difference of morality between the orthodox Christian and the Rationalist. Christian morality consists of obedience to the will of G.o.d, as revealed in the Bible. The grand difficulty regarding this obedience is, that the will of Jehovah, as revealed to the Jews at different times, varies so much from age to age that the most zealous Christian must fail to obey all the conflicting behests prefaced by a "Thus saith the Lord." G.o.d would, of course, never command any one to do a thing which was directly wrong, yet G.o.d distinctly said: "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live;" and G.o.d sanctioned Slavery, and G.o.d commanded Persecution on account of religious convictions: true, Christians plead that all these laws are obsolete, but what is that but to acknowledge that revealed morality is obsolete, _i.e._, that it was never revealed by G.o.d at all. For a command to persecute must be either right or wrong: if right, it is the duty of Christians to obey it, and to raise once more the stakes of Smithfield for heretics and unbelievers; if wrong, it can never have come from G.o.d at all, and must be blasphemously attributed to him. In G.o.d, Christians tell us there is no changeableness, neither shadow of turning; then what pleased him in long past ages would please him still, and what he commanded yesterday would be right to-day. Thus fatally does revealed morality fail when tested, and it becomes impossible to know which particular "will of G.o.d" he desires that we should obey. Now, once more, the Rationalist experiences the advantages of his new motive-power; he has to serve Humanity, and is unenc.u.mbered by the difficulties attendant upon "pleasing G.o.d." Not the pleasure of G.o.d, but the benefit of man, is the basis of his morality. Revealed morality is as a child's garment, into-which one should try to force the limbs of a full-grown man; it is the morality of the past stereotyped for the use of today, and is clumsy, archaic, half-illegible from age. Rational morality, on the other hand, grows with the growth of those who follow its dictates; its errors are corrected by wider experience, its omissions are filled up by the irrefragable arguments of necessity. It is founded upon the needs of man; his happiness is its sole object; not only his physical happiness, not only the fulfilment of the desires of the body for ease and comfort, but the satisfaction also of all the cravings of his intellectual and moral powers, the love of truth, the love of beauty, the love of justice. A morality founded on this basis can never be overthrown; one sure test it affords whereby to decide on the morality or the immorality of any-given action: "Is it useful to man? does it tend to the promotion of human happiness?" The will of G.o.d is doubtful, and is always disputable, and therefore it can never form the foundation of a universal system of morality, a code which shall unite all men in obedience. A code which shall unite all men must needs be founded on those human interests which are common to all men. Such a code is the utilitarian. For man's happiness is on earth, and can be known and understood; the promotion of that happiness is an intelligible aim; the test of morality may be applied by every one; it is a system which everybody can understand, and which the common sense of each must approve, for by it man lives for man, man labours for man, the efforts of each are directed to the good of all, and only in the happiness of the whole can the happiness of each part be perfected and complete.

There is much popular misconception with regard to utilitarianism: "utility" is supposed to include only those material things which are useful to the body, and which tend to increase physical comfort. But utility includes all art; for art cultures the taste and refines the nature. It thus adds a thousand charms to life, deepens, softens, purifies human happiness. Utility includes all study, for study-awakens and trains the intellectual faculties, and therefore increases the sources of happiness possible to man. Utility includes all science; for science is man's true providence, foreseeing the dangers that threaten him, and s.h.i.+elding him against their shock. Science leads man up to those intellectual heights where to stand awhile and breathe in the keen, clear air after dwelling in the turbid atmosphere of daily toils and cares, is as the refreshment of the pure mountain wind to the weary inhabitant of the crowded city streets.. Utility includes all love and search of truth; for the discovery of a truth is the keenest pleasure of which the n.o.blest mind is susceptible. It includes all sublimest virtue; for self-sacrifice and devotion yield the purest forms-of happiness to be found on earth. In a word, utility includes everything which is _useful_ in building up a grander manhood and womanhood, wiser, purer, truer, tenderer than that we have to-day.

Such is the basis of the morality which is to supersede the supernatural morality of the Churches; a morality which is: for this life and for this world, since we have this life, and are in this world; a morality which seeks to ensure human happiness on this side the grave, instead of dreaming of it on the other side; a morality which endeavours to carve solid heavens here, instead of seeing them in distant cloud-lands, white and soft and beautiful, but still only clouds.

One vast advantage of this humanitarian philosophy is that it endeavours to train men into unselfishness, instead of following the popular Christian plan of making self the central thought. Self is appealed to at every step in the New Testament: if we are bidden to rejoice under persecution, it is because "great is your reward in heaven;" if urged to pray, it is because "thy Father, which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly;" if to be charitable, it is because at the judgment it will bring a kingdom as the recompense; if to resign home or wealth, it is because we shall receive "a hundredfold in this present life, and in the world to come life everlasting;" even the giver of a cup of cold water "shall in no wise lose his reward." It is one system of bribes, mingling the thought of personal pain with every effort of human improvement and human happiness, and thereby directly fostering and encouraging selfishness and gilding it over with the name of religion and piety. Humanitarian morality, on the other hand, while utilising the natural and rightful craving for individual happiness as a motive-power, endeavours to accustom each to look to, and to labour for, the happiness of all, making that general happiness the aim of life. Thus it gradually weakens the selfish tendencies and encourages the social, holding up ever the n.o.ble ideal by the very contemplation of its beauty transforming its votaries into its likeness. "Vivre pour au-trui," is the motto of the utilitarian code; and in so living the fullest and happiest life for self is really attained; so closely drawn are the bands that bind men together that happiness and unhappiness re-act from one to another, and as the general standard of happiness rises higher and higher, the wheels of social life run more and more easily, with less of friction, less of jar, and therefore with increased comfort to each individual member. While Christianity developes selfishness by its continual cry of "Save thyself," Utilitarianism gradually developes unselfishness by the n.o.bler whisper, "Save others, and in so doing thou shalt thyself be saved." Delivered from every debasing fear of an unknowable and inscrutable power, Utilitar