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And with the growth of philosophi- tul and psychological study came gradu- ally to light a new world— the world of inner experience. During the last half- century, and especially the last genera- tion, men have been learning to find God withm, rather than without. ^becoming of this change can be traced AN«r in lennyson and Browning. We find it STiS"" fully developed in the profound study of the mystics which has marked the last twenty years. Now we have reached a position in which this inner experience regarded as a revelation of God, has be- come the inspiration of a fresh and poi)u- lar creed. It gives us, we are told, a new and vivid faith in God as the r, nresenta- ive of our race, the captain of our souls, leading us m the conflict with evil, sharing our pains, sympathising with our striv- ings, using our powers of mind and body in the struggle against material forces, and helping us to overcome the difficulties which beset us.- This God is a finite l>emg. He is indeed born of man's spirit- ual experience. He is a synthesis of the best that IS m us all. From man He sprang, and with man He will perish. For 'H. a. Wells. Got the InviMle King. 18 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE Him, as for us, the great encircling uni- verse is an alien, intractable and terribly mysterious power. From this mysterious power we had our origin. There dawned, in the course of natural evolution, by some inexplicable process, that fitful light which we call the mind or soul of man: strong enough to adapt some portion of its material environment to its needs, it was yet not able to gain any true knowl- edge of iis position or secure footing for its existence. But from our imited thoughts and efforts arose a higher soul, uniting and representing us aU, sharing our pains and helping us ; but confronted, as we are, by the same insoluble problems. This stiange but very interesting doc- trine shows what must happen if we give up the revelation of God in Nature. And it is well worthy of note how directly it leads to polytheistic ways of thought. Why should this soul of our souls be One Deity for the whole human race? Why should not every nation, every distinct community, have its own deity? On this theory, the "Old German God" may actu- ally exist. The genius of ancient Athens may actually have hved as the divine Athena. If the League of Nations se- LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 19 cures peace on earth it may also create harmony on Olympus. We are back among the Homeric gods ; and can breathe once more the freshness of an early world. It is specially curious, however, to observe what happens when we let go our beUef in Nature as a revelation of God. We find ourselves on a descending slope, sUd- ing down into paganism. This is espe- cially true in our day. The unity of Na- ture implies the unity of God. When Nature was regarded as the scene in which a multitude of diverse and often opposing spiritual powers operated and competed with one another, polytheistic modes of thought were inevitably suggested. But modern science has been teaching more and more clearly the unity of Nature. Though that anity is not yet fully demon- strated, every advance is a step towards its demonstration. The instructed mind of the modern man cannot look out upon the world and believe that he is witnessing a conflict of capricious finite deities. He knows that the varied scene is the outcome of one vast evolutionary process, and therefore, if he holds it necessary to be- heve at all in a spiritual life in or behind or around the whole, he must beUeve in 20 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE that Jife as possessing a world-embracin/j T^:n^^'.^ ^^^""-^ has no messagf about God if He be but a synthesis ? p ychical elements, a group-soul, arising out of human society, and perishing when the group ,s dissipated, there is no reason why we should believe in His unity. It is Sher^ ^"^°"^"^ "" '^^^'-^ - ^ g^ It is surely somewhat surprising that aeyeaictod? we so .eidom endeavour, in these days, to gather, by a simple observation of Nature and m as undogmatic a manner as possi- ble some ideas concerning the character of the Supreme Power, if such there be. I'erhaps we are influenced still by the im- pressive argument of Herbert Spencer's First Pnnciples. in which, after an elabo- rate demonstration of the contradictions which may be found in the terms used to describe the being and attributes of God he concluded that the "Power which the Universe manifests to us is utterly in- scrutable." This he affirms to be the deepest, widest, and most certain of all tac s. Admitting that behind the mani- fold phenomena of Nature there must be some Supreme Power, he yet holds as a positive creed, and as the most indubitable LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 21 of all assertions, the doctrine that this Fower IS unknowable. Spencer's Agnos- tic creed, thus presented as the result of an irresistible philosophical criticism of the effort to ascend from Nature to God. has had an enormous influence. It puts* in a formal shape the conclusion which so many minds have gathered hastily from the difficulties and perplexities which beset them as they try to adjust their traditional creed to the new ideas of science and to the painful problems of life. The ques- tion with which we are now dealing is an instance^ The omnipotence of God is not only difficult to reconcile with His good- ness, m view of the facts of human experi- ence. It IS itself a conception which involves contradiction. The fact must be admitted. Every effort to think out the idea of omnipotence will be found to end in con- tradiction. We need not pursue the in- vestigation: it ,uld lead into mazes of dialectical discuo^ion. which would but ob- scure the issue and afford no satisfaction. Jiut Herbert Spencer fails to note that the very statement in which he presents his creed is itself contradictory. The "Power which the Universe manifests to us is ut- terly inscrutable." We may well ask If I I 22 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE Difflcultr not Pe- culiar to Theology. the Power is manifested, how is it inscrut- able? It is surely clear that so far as the Power is manifested, it is not inscrutable. The truth is that an acute criticism can always find contradictions in the terms which express the underlying principles of all branches of knowledge. This fact has been amply proved in recent years. There is no department of scienc- whether physical or moral, which cannot be thus undermined. Theology is not in any worse case, in this respect, than other branches of enquiry. But all sciences have to be continually adjusting their concep- tions to advancing experience and the more searching criticism which it brings. Nor does any science let go its old prin- ciples, principles which it has found to work well in the past, until it can success- fully adjust itself to the altered conditions in which it finds itself. We are not, then, to cease to seek God in Nature, because science has given us new views of Nature, or because some of our old conceptions prove difficult. The- ology, like science, must ever be prepared to take up its burden anew, undeterred by the greatness or difficulty of the task which lies before it. LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 23 Suppose then, assuming, like Herbert character Spencer, that there is some great power po5pletely satis- fied, the New Testament sliows, for the 30 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE be revealed. . ! For5hee,S'''T '"'"■^'^ *''»" of the creation waiethT;?.'^^^^^^ of the sons of God For ?h "-^""""^ subjected to vanS^ n . *'i^"«««on was but by reason of W^' u °^ "' °^n will, hope ^hat the cre^t'nt" H^'t''' '*' '" delivered tromZl^ '^'^ '*">" ^e intothelib^i^ofh^S^'^^'l.'^'"'"^ of God." That ;, f\^ L°^ ^'^^ children t'on is a temnorl'ri !.-"^'""«°f "ea- preparation S?»r •*'""^' P*""* "^ the -"' w t; b^Cly ^^^^«- -hen source of liirhf'l •/P'*'"^^-" '* is a Jove. Th t ;:nT;h"'t°° °' ^-- tude is simple and I • '• *"«^ °^ *«'" "npie and obvious: it is the fact of LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE the Cross of Christ. The 31 ^t r< J -— . ^..x. suffering Son of God reveals the greatness of the love of God. God's sharing of man's pain brought home the supreme truth with sav- ing power to the soul. Out of this arose the great Christian Idea of man as a sharer in the Divine suf- fering. St Paul delights in the thought that he can know, not only the power of Christ s resurrection, but also "the feUow- «hip of His sufferings, becoming con- formed unto His death." And. for some centuries, suffering was regarded as the surest mark of holiness, so that a confessor or a martyr attracted the deepest rever- large this cor-ption and think of the 5«>«°P- agony of the world as we have witnessed It. as a great work of redemption, or at east uplifting, bringing about a higher iife for future generations of men and re- sults greater than we can now realise in the heavenly sphere: surely we must be- lieve that the end is worth the sacrifice. The main difficulty is that, in so many ca^s, so far as we can see, the individual suffers horribly without any manifest good result to himself or to others; and is 32 J'OVE AND OMNIPOTENCE S.:^^.:S!r:^77an or innocent that can he sa d ' i '' °'" "'"^^^^y- AH «'""W seem, th^ ;".!'r'' 'r'^'^ '^' '' edge of tJ,e universe to H^^'*" ''"°"'^- enable us to measure tl. "''7''^ '=°"W such sacrifice, m" ^ ^Z''"" ?^ ^^"••^• the "flower in thecrLil' 'T^^' *''«» conscious indivf/u'S -f " - ^^•->' universal scheme of ^l-^^ *f the whole the future Hie, Vso f] O"'" belief in measure the fiell !^f enlarges without difficulty of „ron °^P°^^'bihties and the --th of anj^Sw^ J"dg'»ent on the ing. ^ particular instance of suffer- r?:3;?e„°tLrr^'-"-^-^"- dence to bear out the n . "' ■' '™P'«= ^vi- "»ture of man VdLTlTv *''^*' ^'^^ seiousness, desire, and tilTJ'* '' f-^°»- «--pain is the netrsarvT"';^"''^^ jorkmg of natural fjv!" "^ ,*^ "«™«J d"ee a ^oorf universe but T^S "°* ^ '•°- «entality of sufFer^g I. Hh ^ '"^*™- mean that He ,,r,Vpf ' , ""^ '^°es not He prices beaut R A "''^ ^''^ ^^an "tJ. -Rather, It means that LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 33 I^prfceciirnore. He is willing to make I Zi ^ °' ^''^ ^'''"^ ^h'ch God sets j upon goodness. " i _ It enhances all values. For, when thu<. interpreted, it means that God sTdelights m perfectmg His creation, with all its asTf; 'ir^'J, ^' - complete n^oralt sacHfil ''^"^'' ^^^^ He thinks any SeTon^H"'''" ^°" tremendous! Whether on His own part or on the par If we have reason to believe thnt r^^ . .. shares in every human grief ,'S ^ LSy ^o^' sufferer endures his agony apart from the sympathy and fellowship o^f God tha? every sacrifice made is a sacrifice on Go A* termg, God is calhng on us to join Him m his age-long struggle against evil i™ have a v,ew of the world and of humln Whether pleasurable or painful an in nn^jc worth which canno't be :ttimat 3: krZLlT^Y' ^' P:'"'"^' *h^t there « reason to believe in this co-operation of God with us in the struggle !{ uZ\^ i#3> 34 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE Tnut- worthlness of the Unlvene. Revealed in History of Religion. there is a simple consideration which pro- vides a basis for confidence, and which we must first make clear. All our experiences of the worla, whether gained through our ordinary practical activities, or through advancing scientific research, conspire to prove that the Supreme Power which works in the universe is trustworthy. We carry on all our work and make all our plans for the future on the supposition that there is a fundamental order in things. We know that we can depend on that order, and tliat we shall not be put to con- fusion. We are quite certain that the whole of things is a cosmos and not a chaos: we deal with the world on the un- derstanding that what is true to-day will be true to-morrow, that things do not appear and disappear, combine or dis- integrate, in an utterly aimless, unmean- ing fashion; and we find that, though we are often puzzled, and often reach the limits of our knowledge and power, on the whole we are not disappointed. It is also to be observed that there has been a steadily progressive advance in the banishing of the expectation of the capricious from our thoughts about the LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 35 world around us. Among primitive peo- ples the world is imagined as full of spirit- ual powers, whose influence may be de- tected in every unaccountable event, and whose actions fill human life with uncer- tainty. As civilisation increases, this ani- mistic belief gives place to Polytheism — a change which greatly adds to the sense of security and of elevation, but which still finds a large space for the capricious and discordant. When Monotheism super- venes, life attains a unification, and there- fore a trustworthiness, before impossible. The truth which we thus gather from Revealed in our ordinary experience and from the his- •°'"" tory of religions has found a magnificent justification in the great career of r.odern science. The work of science has been, especially, a progressive reduction to order of the seeming confusion of the physical world. The discovery of the laws of Na- ture, as they have been called, is really the discovery of a fundamental trustworthi- ness in the Universe. It is shown that there is an underlying order in the succes- sion of natural events, when that succes- sion is understood, on which we can abso- lutely depend. The essential point is, that man can understand — that is, that he can "'I ■SI 36 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE Buman Control of Natural ForcM. find in his own mind a measure which he can adjust to the ways in which the things in the natural world act and react upon one another. Science is indeed man find- ing^ himself at home in the Universe, and linding that, within certain limits, he is sate. Thus science may be regarded as a vast demonstration that the Supreme Power which works in the Universe is not only trustworthy, but is not so alien in character from man as to be utterly in- scrutable. If man can by research and experiment make himself so much at home m the Universe, he must surely, to some degree, be able to adjust his thoughts to the Power which works in the Universe. Complete Agnosticism is therefore not justified by the teaching of science. It is because of this trustworthiness in things that man has been able, in so mar- vellous a manner, especially in recent times, to subordinate the material world to his own purposes. When he has dis- covered the ways in which natural forces operate, he can count upon those forces to produce their proper effect, and can use them to modify one another, quite certain that they will not fail him All the won- derful processes of engineering and of ■» LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 37 the various applications of the physical sciences, depend on this principle. They show the power which man gains when he finds that things are not incoherent and capricious, but coherent and therefore trustworthy. It is the very fact of un- varying sequence in natural events which gives to human mind and will their power over natural forces. Man is free and mighty in the world, because the Supreme Power which works in the world is trust- worthy. This is indeed the very charter of human liberty. It is also true that our modern delight commun- m Nature, and the rest and peace which ^^ come to the soul through communion with Nature, are closely related to our sense of an underlying trustworthiness in the Uni- verse. Why do we turn from the worries and sorrows of human life, and from its puzzles and problems, to the beauty and greatness of Nature, and find there a source of consolation and strength? It is, surely, because we have found there a revelation of some power or principle on which we feel we can rely. It is because, in some way or other, we discern in Na- ture an immanent life which is not alien from ourselves, and on whose strength we SumxnaiT- 38 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE can lay hold. Apart from such a convic- tion, there is no source of peace to be found in Nature. "Red in tooth and claw," Nature presents the problem of continual pain in the most obtrusive man- ner. To the primitive animistic mind it io also filled with lurking terrors, even more awful than the tiger or the snake. Wordsworth is right when he traces the joy in Nature to the apprehension of the "presence which disturbs us with the joy of elevated thought, a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused." The reflective mind traces out the source of its joy and finds God. In che light of these thoughts, let us now turn back on our brief examination of the evidence which Nature and experience afford as to the character of the Supreme Power of the Universe. We must think of that Power as one which expresses itself in producing the infinite variety of creation, and also in giving to the forms of creation an extra- ordinary abundance— a superabundance —of beauty. In addition, it seems quite clear that the Power which the Universe manifests to us is essentially trustworthy there is a fundamental certainty on LOVE AND OMNirOTEXCE 39 which both thought and hfe can rest witli confidence. These indications of character seem to point to a certain degree of kin- ship between the soul of man and the Su- preme Power, for man enjoys the exercise of creative power in all the arts which he has learned to practise, and he can endow the products of art with some degree of beauty, and by this experience attain to such an appreciation of the beautiful that at last he awakens to the overwhehiiing beauty of the world about him. Man has also in his experience gained the idea of goodness, and though his own attainment of goodness is very imperfect, he has been able to rise to the belief that goodness is a quality of the Supreme Power. But he finds himself perplexed and dismayed by the monstrous evils which exist in the world, and the doubt intrudes — Can the Power which gives being to the world be indeed good? Or, if He be good, is He in the position of an engineer who has lost control of some great machine which he has made? We have seen that here there enters another consideration. The Su- preme Power cannot n:dke the world good without the co-operation of the intelligent human beings whom He has endowed with Steta- ment of Problem. 40 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE moral spontaneity. Only by a harmony ot all wills can a good Universe be pro- duced. May it not be possible that this element mtroduces a final uncertainty into things and leaves the end open to doubt? Per- haps, too, the trustworthiness of the Su- preme ceases with the physical order. We can depend upon the laws of Nature: we cannot depend on human will 'Why should we hold that the limit which thus applies to ourselves does not also apply to God? Experience seems to show that here Crod is just as much limited as we are We have seen the evil wills of ambitious men plunge the world into a whirlpool of crime and misery. Would not God have pre- vented this if He could? And if He could not prevent it in our time, why should we think that He will be able to prevent similar, or even worse, evils in the future? We have also considered the Christian be- lief that, through suffering, God is work- mg out a great redemption. But, even if we grant this, what security have we that the effort will be successful finally and on the scale of the Universe? It is quite possible that suffering may be the means through which certain limited goods, such LOVE AND OMNIPOTEXCE 41 as we have considered, may be attained; and yet it may be vain to look for any final and complete victory over evil in this way. Our common experience seems to point to such a conclusion. We see many cases in which, after a brave struggle, by which much good is accomplished, the life seems to sink down to death in unhappi- ness or utter misery. Such a life seems a broken thing. We think there must be another half. But, even granting another half, what reason have we to believe that things will be better in a future life than in this? "\Vhat we need to save us from the de- spair to which such questions lead is a principle which will carry the Divine trustworthiness beyond our limited ex- perience, and give us reason to believe that, no matter what happens, the evil must be overcome in the end, the good must ultimately triumph. We have seen that, however we ap- rui.d»- proach the problem, we are confronted by g|!?*»' the same great difficulty— the disorder in- ™*""'" troduced into the world by the diverse and discordant wills of men. There cannot be goodness at all in the world but by the operation of will. Goodness is essentially ' '-31 lis- m 42 LOVK AND OMNIPOTENCE a quality of will. Tiieiefoie, in order to produce a good world, if that indeed was the purpose of the Supreme Power, it was necessary that He should call into exist- ence a multitude of beings endowed with moral faculty— aide, that is, to choose be- tween good and evil. This made possible a good world, but it also made possible tlie existence of evil; and, so far as we can see, there is nothing impossible in the supposi- tion that it also opened the way for the ulti ' .ite triumph ot evil. We can im- agiii„ the terrible force of will let loose in the world, growing in its self-assertion of hostile principles, setting man against man, community against community, na- tion against nation. We can pursue in thought the consequences of such a condi- tion of things and see how directly it would lead to the overthrow of all civilisa- tion and the end of all that makes human lile worth living. We can feel indeed that we have been very near to such a catas- trophe in recent years, and that in the unsettlement of all the accustomed ar- rangements of ordered existence which marks the present time there lurk possi- bilities of social chaos that might easily undo all that has been accomplished Problem. LOVE AND OMMPOTEXCE 43 by the painfui struggles of thousands of years. The condition of Russia to- day stands as an awful example of such a chaos. The centre of the problem with which Centre of we have to deal is now presented to us. If "'"''' evil is to be overcome and the world saved from the unimaginable horror we have just indicated, there must supervene some power which can prevail over the antago- nisms of contending wills and so produce harmony. There are many principles which can do this in a partial way. Rea- son can persuade the intellect and induce those who are in opposition to come to some better understanding. The appeal to Interest will often make men sink other differences and unite in practical co-opera- tion. The bonds arising from that mutual interdependence in the common social order which is created by the fundamental conditions of our life are very strong, p-amily ties, friendships, associations in work and in pleasure, kc-p men from pushing oppositions to an extremity. All these influences work for good against the disruptive power of self-asserting will. But there is a principle which is deeply engaged in all these, and which is yet Powtr of Lot*. 44 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE purer and more powerful than them all when once it is put forth. Love can overcome the opposition of wills, and, m doing so, bring about a higher harmony than any which can result from agreement on the basis of reasonable understanding, common interest, or asso- ciation. All these persuade, Love con- quers. It is like Force in this. But while force conquers and destroys, Love con- quers and fulfils. It is very important to observe that it is only in a world in which there are wills possessed of the power of choice, and in which there is therefore the possibility of evil, that Love can find full scope. For Love must be freely given or it is not l^ove; and, further, it is in overcoming the oppositions which it encounters, and by sacrifice winning its way to victory, that Love enters into full possession of its kingdom. Love finds its true sphere in a world m which are sin and sorrow, loss as well as gain. The possibility of evil is a necessary condition, as we have seen, of all real goodness. It is, we now see, necessary especially for the full exercise of that great spiritual faculty which we call Love. LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 45 What is Love ? The question is not easy wh.t „ to answer. Many partial answers miaht ^^•^ be given Love may be described as an emotion, but it is something more. It is more even than the will to bless. We shall come nearer to its true nature if we define It as the giving of self. Love is self find- ing Itself in another. It is self resting in the other as its end. Love makes complete sacrifice for the other. Thus it annihilates the opposition between self and self It attains a unity which intellect can never attain, for. though reason may demand such a unity, intellect has never been able to think It out. Love, therefore, h a bond of union among souls in a manner which som^ow passes beyond the grasp of Christianity has ventured to affirm that Ood u J-ove IS the essential nature of God, and **"• '. erefore the ultimate truth of the Uni- verse. ''God is love, and he that abideth in t" itS^^"^ «nd God abideth in ftim. If this be true, we have reason to believe that, no matter how gigantic the evils of the world may become, there is a power which will finally overcome them an. 1- or here is a principle which exactly meets the great need of the world. The loneepti (Ood. 46 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE world is not as good as it is beautiful, be- cause goodness requires the willing co- operation of human wills, as well as the will of God, to produce it; and so far human wills have not united wholly with the will of God. But if we believe that God is Love, and that He has all eternity at His disposal, we cannot despair. We must believe that He will finally prevail over all oppositions and bring about a uni- versal harmony, so making His universe as good as it is beautiful. If, further, we learn the lesson of the life and death of Christ, and believe that the Love of God shrinks from no sacrifice in order to prevail over evil, we must feel that the resources of the Divine Love are bound to secure at last overwhelming victory. In taking refuge in this solution of the difl[iculty, we have boldly assumed the truth of the fundamental faith of Chris- tianity. Can we. in any way, link this faith with the thoughts about the Universe and the Supreme Power manifested in it, which we ventured to derive from observa- tion of Nature and of life, and from the discoveries of science? We have now come to the most difficult point of all. LOVE AX n OMNU>OTENCE 47 At one time it was held, almost univer- T»n sally that God may be compared lo a ^^^^. great engineer The world is a vast ma- chme the work of His design and will, i?/ "?i° this view, the Creator Jands outside and apart from His work. The doctrine is therefore described as a doctrine of Transcendence. Crudely pre- sented. It involves endless difficulties It seems to make God the author of evil or, m the endeavour to escape from that consequence, it describes Him as so im- perfect a contriver that He is forced to intervene from time to time to put things r.ght. In the eighteenth century the diV covery of the mechanism of the heavens seemed to give a magnificent picture of a world designed by a great mechan- ician and so dazzled the minds of most thinkers that these difficulties were not fully appreciated. But the reflection of llt""'^^^"* ^^"^"'•y brought them to light, and a crude form of Atheism itri^ K^' 7'''''' ■^*'" ^^'^*^' ^^^ find™ IJT^ n '" ^^'' transcendent Smverse '''" ' '''^'^*"" *° '''' Hi s nn II nuiM. 48 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE The nineteenth century saw also the growth of a great scientific doctrine of Creation as a gradual process. Herbert Spencer taught Evolution as a philosophy of the Universe, and Darwin applied the principle, in the shape of a specific doc- trine, to the whole world of organic life. When interpreted by philosophic theolo- gians these ideas yielded a fresh concep- tion of the relation of the Creator to the ■world. It was indeed an old theory come back again. According to it, God is im- manent in the Universe. He is the Crea- tive Life, or Will, which, working in the vast process, is the source of it all. This grand idea was soon discerned to be in harmony with aspects of Christian teach- ing which had come down from the earliest days. It threw light on much that had been puzzling or obscure t it allowed the religious mind to move freely in the new worlds opened by science. It cannot be pretended, however, that the doctrine of the Immanence of God in Creation solves the problem with which we are now dealing. Whether the world be the work of a transcendent Deity, or of an all-pervading Spirit immanent in the universal process, it remains that the LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 49 Faith. Supreme Power has brought forth a Uni- verse in which the great problem of evil presses with terrific force on every genera- tion, and concerning which there is no ItnTf r7'^'*^> °"^ ^'''^"t'fi« examina- tion of Nature, for beheving that evil will be ultimately eliminated. ''^ ^^" ^»" The faith which holds on to God in unshaken optimism, and trusts in His power and love in spite rf r-ery S- couragement. will here assert itself. This fn'Z '^*'^^!"?Pi"ng soul of the highest deX nf *'°"- • ^* ^P"'^^^ °"t of the ?ts^ fustffi^r ' '^'"* u"^ ^^'°^' «"d finds Its justification m that mystical com- mumon with God which, in some form or other, may be found in all that is"esE m man s spiritual experience. But we fhour?*"" °"f "«""^°* °n this faith, though we must recognise it as a su- premely important fact. a ^hir "' *° *''°'^ °^ *^^ U--- - JS^ni- sysS*;/*"'^ be a perfectly articulated ^A»i system of cause and effect. Every element c*"«»» as to form a complete natural order. In this system there is a perfect connexion throughout, so that every event takes III DiTine Prodaati- natton. 50 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE place as a necessary result of what has gone before. A mind which grasped the Universe with sufficient fullness and ac- curacy at any moment could foretell all the future. Those who hold this view must believe that the will of man is but one among the many causes which direct the course of events, and that, like other causes, the will is strictly determined by preceding events. It is not spontaneous — ^ree. It is but a link in the chain of necessary causes, producing effects with as much inevitableness as any lump of matter when it is moved on being struck by another: only, in the case of mind, some of the causes are accompanied by psychi- cal concomitants. There are feelings at- tached to certain movements of the brain which give us the pleasing illusion of free- dom. Stated in this way, the view of the Uni- verse as a whole which we are now con- sidering may be described as an effort to apply the methods of physical science universally. Those who hold this view exclude, as a rule, all supposition of crea- tive will. They regard the mechanism of cause and effect as the final truth. But there long prevailed among Christian LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 51 theologians a doctrine of the Universe which was essentially the same, though it was expressed in theological languVg God ,t was held, fore-ordained every SLdT *'' 'T""'"«- Some, who S if °,.^^r'° ^^' "^ **>'«• h^Jd that God though He did not fore-ordain al aut this latter view was but a weak vield- mg of the head to the heart. The old ple- they nsisted on the strictest view of the doctrine. ,f held at all. Starting with one sole omnipotent Will and regarding all creation as the outcome of its decJefs i I'uSZttL ^'T"*- ^^«° the human V^U and .> • "^^.*'""™e°t of the Divine VViIl. and It IS vam to try to relieve the Ahmghty of responsibility for every hu! eTellT"' ^'^ T «°°'^- Everything is executed m perfect accord with the original design. The evil man as well a S:r4^^;—-v Which L»d r'^^s"i-s;i^tafr»- f! I? ia In Imper- fect Con- ception of the Univene. 52 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE foundation on which it is built; because n° 'i.r^.''^'" ^^^ supremacy of the Divne W.11, it denies the reality of the human w.U. Gaining our whole idea of wiiJ from our experience of the faculty as It exists in man. we have no right to at- tribute ,t to God in a way which deprives man of it altogether. The theory breaks down philosophically as well as morally. Ihe real problem is, how to combine in one scheme of thought a whole in which the human will retains its freedom of choice between good an^ evil, and at the same time the Divine Will secures the Universe from moral catastrophe, and realises the great purpose for which crea- tion exists. Here is the difficulty which has always confounded the speculative theologian If he affirms the sovereignty of the Divine Will, he annihilates the hu- man will: if he secures human freedom, fte denies the omnipotence of God. This dilemma takes us to the very heart of the great problem before us. Before proceeding to another mode of thinkmg about the Universe, we must consider an imperfection in the modem scientific conception of it as a system of necessarily connected causes and effects LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 53 " the n.„e,»ry „„,™ot fll STl"' own purposes .,=;„ xJ "^^ ^°'' his to man as the Tsu/ofT^^^ certain laws of Nature ''^^'^^^'y of that there is an nr^» • ^'^'^ ''^ ^"^8 which he can SenenH '\°«*"'-«»l events We ,nd iSuH^Sdt^"^^^^^^ - very natural forces for h,/ " " directing ordinary experiences ofT tT^^" • ^" '^^ ;ore no in^nsSy^^'twtrtr'"" formity of natural i„„ T " *"^ "»"- formity of Nature ^r,^-. ' *he uni- power L alt the eTut^fTr*' ^ ^"* his design. It ;, Z? ^.**"'"^ ^o suit ^etermin^edlti^dVSrihtL? 54 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE ment we turn from our abstractions to the concrete facts of our experience, we find natural forces plastic in our hands. So true is this that a recent development of philosophy is able to show very strong reasons for believing that the laws of Na- ture, as we call them, are relative to our mode of grasping our experience of the physical world with a view to the satisfac- tion of our needs. They have, that is, been shaped by the practical aims of hu- man life.' Thus the whole conception of the Universe as a necessitated order of things, in which every event is rigidly fixed from the beginning, breaks down com- pletely. And, it may be added, the ma- terialistic conception of man as an ani- mated automaton, whose movements are accompanied by a series of delusive psychical concomitants, has been dis- credited by all recent investigations into the relation between the mind and the brain.' Having thus cleared the ground we are in a position to survey our problem with more unobstructed vision. 'Bergson. Creative Evolution. Engr. trans., ch. ii. •MDougall, Body and Mind; Bergson, Matter and Memory, Ecg. trans. LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 55 It is possible to think of the wholeness a i*r«r 01 the Universe in another way. Startins c<»«»ptfc)a with the postulate that there is a genuine ' ' spontaneity in every finite will, and gathering from our experience that this freedom of the will is not contravened, but rather subserved, by the uniformity of the physical world, we gain the conception of the Umverse as a spiritual order in which the end is not wholly determined from the begmnmg. According to this view God does not necessitate the activities of His finite spiritual children. The mechanical necessity of the material world belongs to that world when regarded in abstraction from the whole of reality, as in theoretical science. We know in our own experience that, so far as human power extends, the course of Nature is not fixed, because man IS able, within the limits which belong to his finite constitution, to alter it. The whole Universe therefore, including the material world, is subject to change in correspondence with the interplay of the whole multitude of conscious, voluntary agents. And as it is impossible to know beforehand how this interplay of free agencies will work out, we are bound to conclude that there is a real contingency i: 1 ATtiud Vaifloation. 50 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE in things. The history of the Universe is the history of a Great Adventure. Here is a thought to stir us to hope and effort. But there is also the difficulty that the great adventure may end in failure. What reason have we to think that success IS assured? When the outlook on earth IS as black as it has been in recent years, why should we believe that things are going better, or will ever go better, in the whole vast domain of being? The only answer we can give, on philo- sophical grounds, is that we cannot believe in a fundamental contradiction in the ulti- mate nature of things. There must be a final unity. If there is such a thing as meaning, if the indications whit point to an inherent trustworthiness '"., things are not utterly misleading, there must be some great overruling truth which recon- ciles, from the highest point of view, the elements which stand in antagonism to one another from our point of view. This is the faith on which rest all life, all thought, all s uty. It means that the Universe is a whole — a cosmos, not a chaos. Granting this, let us see how it works out m relation to the statement of our problem which we have now reached. LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 67 Every effort at solution based on the prS o? ""' ]""' ^"'^"- '' "e x! HZlZvL" ""?'' °""ipoten: will ends, as we have seen, m complete failure. How are we hen to make any p.oirresi? Bv r'So^ t'"""^ '^ ^-" -- tt ! fu . ^ ""*''' *" enquiry will show hat the term Will is not adequate to thT Su7on1hat"t?' ."""^'"^ '''"-d «* t'e conclusion that the Supreme Power of the Universe ,s no mere unthinking 7orc^ but a Being who expresses Himself in Crta S° ""d ">]he overwhelming beauty of Creation, and who is also revealed T ». • our study of the natural world as fundi" tTtrLri?^"^^ -^ - competd to tmnk of Him m terms of personahtv pLA h'™'"^"''"- WetheS WeThinkSw*' ^t'' ^'^^'y- ^^■ vye rnink of His work as the outcome of conscious, intelligent Will. In th.^^ are certamly correct. But the difficultrs we have so recently encountered in the aoDh cation of the idea of Will tnJTi! K^ ^"st warn us that.^'^tS truVtts^ of"rwSe^:Se^^3sij;s; IS. 58 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE Lot* the Unlllar. of framing any statement which is not open to dialectical criticism, we must become aware that we. in our life in this world, do not stand on any mountain- peak of vision from which we can survey the whole ;! .;2iuin of being. There must be a Reality higher than we are. There must be a Unification beyond the grasp of our thought. We use the best language we have got and find it insufficient. Now when we speak of God as Omnip- otent, we are thinking of Him definitely in terms of Will: we are assuming that the language of Will is able to express with exactness the fullness of Ilis Nature. Is it any wonder that we find ourselves in difficulties? This consideration not only shows why the problem is bound to arise; it also warns us against supposing that by any skilful definition of the word Omnipotence, or by any limitation of its sphere, we can escape trouble. Let us now turn from our philosophical argument to the vision of Love conquer- ing evil which has been given us by our Christian faith. We have seen that Love in its great work of overcoming the antagonism of opposing wills passes be- yond the limits of exact definition. It LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE RO can bring about a unification of sou: .i'.ii soul whi-h nothing else in our experi- ence can accomplish. It can annihilate the opposition between self and self, so that each finds its end in the other. If Love be indeed the best expression we can find of the ultimate nature of God, we have reason to believe that, however powerful evil may be, it cannot finally prevail. Love, supreme and all-embrac- ing, and with all eternity before it, will surely find out a way to overcome every opposition. If we believe that God is Love, we must believe that He cannot fail ,in bringing about a universal reconcilia- tion, and so creating that Kingdom of Love which is the summum bonum of all creation. Love as it is in God is, if this be true, that which brings into unity the multitude of wills. It is the great bond of union in the spiritual world. Here we have an indication of the char- acter of the final truth for which we are seeking. When we keep strictly to the language of personality we are unable to get beyond the antagonism of personal wills : we can find no means of overcoming It. But, we have seen, there must be a Higher Reality in God. What is its 60 LOVE AN1> OMNIPOTENCE of Omn^ tence, ipo- nature? Surely it is now clear that it must be a capacity to gather up into one, in a higher form of life, all the discon- nected warring elements of the spiritual world. The great problem which con- founds us can be, and will be, solved in God. It must be, if there is to be coher- ence, or meaning, anywhere. For every- thing in heaven and earth depends upon its solution. There must be an all-inclu- sive Life in which we and all created things live and move and have our being. We cannot think this out in the form of a consistent philosophy, because we do not stand high enough in the scale of being; but we can feel it in all the experiences of love and sacrifice, we can find it flash- ing on the consciousness of the mystic as he loses himself in the beatific vision, we can hear it in the song of the poet as he discerns the presence which disturbs him with the joy of elevated thought. We can now understand the true mean- ing of the terms Omnipotent and Omnis- cient. They are ways of indicating the all- inclusiveness of the life of God. They use a very imperfect language, the language expressive of personality as it exists in man. They think of God as One who LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 61 knows and wills, and are so far correct, but they omit that higher side of God's nature which passes beyond all defini- tion in terms of knowledge and will. As applied to God these terms are poetic rather than scientific. And all oxn- troubles with them arise from the fact that we insist on using them as if they were scientific. One important consequence of their ir^perfection is that they separate the life of man from the life of God, and give the impression that God is a remote, all- knowing, Ahnighty Sovereign, reigning in solitary glory and vmtroubled happi- •ness in some far-off heaven, while man is toiling and groaning in the labours and sorrows of his hfe on earth. Here is a very great mischief which has, for many, iindone a large part of the good of Chris- tianity. God is not remote from us. We share His life and He shares ours. Truly He is above us, but it is in the order of being, not by reason of any sovereign aloofness. He is Life of our hfe, and Home of our spirits. In all our afilictions, He is a£9icted; and in all our joys. He takes part. His love encircles us, and will never let us go, even though our wilful 62 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE Tha AU- IneluiiTe LUeofCkid. hearts may often rebel. That Love will finally prevail over all rebellions. It would seem, therefore, that the terms Love and Omnipotence point to precisely the same truth, but Love is a higher, more perfect, expression of this truth than Omnipotence. Love is not capable of exact scientific definition for the very same reason that leads us to believe that our thought cannot fully comprehend God. Love is that which overcomes the isolation of souls. It creates a bond of union among selves. It possesses always, in gotne degree, the same kind of inclusive- ness that God possesses in the highest degree. Therefore Love expresses the nature of God as nothing else can ex- press it. How, then, are we to think of the whole — the Universe, included in the all- encircUng life of God? It is not a me- chanical system in which every event is settled beforehand. There is no such thing as fate. It is a multitude of spirits sharing a common life. On the lower side this common life is presented to us as the vast world of Nature. From a higher point of view it is the all-embracing life of God. And God is the All-inclusive, not LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE 63 by virtue of a mere selfhood standing in perpetual antithesis to the natural world, as some idealist theories represent; but because He is higher (properly the High- est) in the Order of Reality, and there- fore more than Personal.^ Possessing all the attributes which constitute person- ality. He yet, as the Supreme All-inclu- sive, passes beyond personality. Within his super-personal life the Universe moves forward to an end which is deter- mined by the Divine Freedom co-operat- ing with the innumerable freedoms of all spiritual beings. The end is not settled beforehand, because it depends on an in- numerable multitude of free decisions. The life of the Universe is a vast adven- ture. All that we can really know about the end is that it will be the triumph of Love. It must be, because God is all- inclusive. Thus we realise the meaning of the term Omnipotence. It means that God's Nature is such that things cannot go finally wrong. It means that all oppos- ing wills must and shall be subjugated by the power of Supreme Love. ' On this cnnoeptinn see the writer's Qod and Freedom in Human Experience. 64 LOVE AND OMNIPOTENCE But to reach the triumph of love in the great final consummation, measureless sufferings may have to be endured, meas- ureless evils overcome. Only by the awful path of sacrifice can the Eternal Love move to victory over the oppositions of perverse wills. Here is the eternal signifi- cance of the Cross of Christ. But for such an end no sacrifice is too great. It is all worth while. Life is worth Lving, and death is worth dying, and every pain is worth enduring; for Love is supreme in the Universe, and the end for which Love is working will surely be attained. Ill THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST bt lily douoall (Author of "Pro Chrlsto et Ecdesla") In the last few years we have all met men and women not without claim to be regarded as thmkers, who asserted that the war, with its unreasoning passions recrudescent superstitions and tyranL^es Its harnessing of so much applied scieice that the evolutionary process is aimless and chaotic and that there is no such S of flX" ^'/^'''''. "'■ '^^^ t^« «°ndition of further advance is frankly to repudiate our present moral values in favLr 5 class- and race-selfishness and the will to dominate our fellow-man. The present paper is an enquiry as to whether a steady tendency tolard any- thing that may be called good can be discovered in the processes of biological development as a whole; and, if so! to tut 66 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST What lithe a«n«r»l COUTM ot H«tunl iTolutton? what further human development that line of tendency points. Whether or no there is any breach in the continuity of development between "star-dust" and the beginning of life it is not my purpose to enquire. For such a breach we have only negative evidence, and it is only romantic persons who build much on negative evidence. Personally I see no more difficulty in expecting to discover the development of life from what we call "the inanimate" than in ac- cepting the fact of some of the subsequent changes within the sphere of animate existence which we know have been brought about by biological development. Be that as it may, we know, at any rate, that there is no real breach of continuity between the most primitive forms of life and humanity. We know, too, that man as an animal, since he reached the human stage, has done far more to alter other forms of life on this earth than has the oak or the rose, the horse or the bee ; indeed, he has even done something to modify the weather conditions of "the great globe it- self and all that it inhabit." We are justi- fied, then, in taking man as Nature's masterpiece, and, having accepted within SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST 67 limits the story science tells of the road he has so far travelled, we shall proceed to enquire whither natural evolution would appear to be taking him. Perfect correspondence with environ- ment ts the aim of Nature for every or- ganism. This is a biological common- place. Adopting this principle as our startmg-point, we may reasonably ask what we may conceive the tendency of human development to be. And if we conceive some powerful intelligence be- hmd Nature, we are still more impelled to ask what, in view of past evolution, should we reasonably assume to be the further purpose of that intelligence with regard to man. Humanity at present corresponds very imperfectly with its en- vironment. From this imperfection arise all those calamities in which humanity hghts a losing battle with the forces of destruction, and succumbs. But if there can be said to be any ascertainable aim in natural evolution, it must be the attain- ment of a more perfect correspondence of man with his whole terrestrial environ- ment. It is of first importance, then, that we should enquire what such correspondence WhstbtiM Goal of Huznui KrolutlonT WhfttOoM luchCom- spondene* (1) Bodily Fitnen. (U) Mental ntiwu. 68 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST would involve. What type of man does our present degree of intelligence tell us the race must produce if humanity is to correspond perfectly with its environ- ment? We shall agree that the most funda- mental requisite is physical health and strength. Any race of plants or animals which succumbs easily to blight or disease fails to persist. By some system of eugenics and hygienic environment it might be possible, in the course of a very few generations, to produce a type larger, stronger, more beautiful and more prolific than man now is — a type also more im- mune from disease. Such a type would mark a fresh stage in development. But physical fitness is not enough. Herd animals roaming fertile plains in the past have exceeded anything that man has attained in health and strength, beauty, fecundity, and immunity from disease, and were yet at the mercy of cold and famine, and, above all, of man ond his weapons. Mere physical fitness m t be developed without increasing inteh. tual power. As it was by reasoning from observation that men learned to overcome difficulties of climate by means of gar- SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 69 ments, huts and fire, to use tools and weapons, and to make the simplest rules of social organisation, it is obvious that the ascendency of the human race on the earth has been due to the development of intel- lect. Man's further correspondence with his physical environment must be by means of applied science — of which it may be here observed that eugenics itself is one of the youngest and crudest branches. We must, as a race, learn not only to com- bat but to prevent disease, not only to reap the fruits of the earth, but to im- prove those fruits and increase their yield. We must learn either so to adapt our industries to the weather, or so to control the weather, that droughts and floods shall no longer bring us destruction. We must learn to make the ocean not only a highway, but a safe highway; and the same must be done for the highway of the air; and many other discoveries we must make. Now all this will mean a high degree of reasoning power and scientific imagina- tion. Therefor J the type of man to which the lines of tendency in Nature point must be not only physically but intellectually superior. If we conceive of such a superior (UDAbflllv toOttBid of Inf trior if 70 SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST class developed in all countries which have now a high civilisation, we shall perceive that they would be markedly different from the majority who either had not been selected for improving, or from vari- ous motives had refused to improve, them- selves. Perhaps most of us would need to think of ourselves as remaining in the inferior grade. Again, before the higher grade of men can be free from peril of disease, false ideas and social ferment, the problem of the more weak, more ignorant and back- ward members of the himian race must be grappled with and solved. The militarist has always a very simple answer to the problem of inferior races — subjugate or else destroy. He is, indeed, a simple per- son, and can give no other sort of answer. But as long as multitudes of the lower type exist anywhere upon the earth they will be a constant source of physical dis- ease and false ideas, which might attack the children of the higher type unless they could be completely segregated from them. Would such segregation be pos- sible? As a matter of fact the strictest barrier the world has been able to set up has been SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST 71 caste. This may prevent intermarriage and social companionship; it cannot pre- vent infection of physical disease or of passions and ideas. When rage or panic seize a populace no caste within it will remain unmoved. Of two classes, either may be the object of the other's rage, but the rage will be infectious. Either may be the object of the other's fear, but the fear will become common to both. Each may express its emotions in its own way, but the emotion, if it be passionate, will surge from class to class. Ideas in the same way leap the barrier of caste. Intellect, which is the eye of the mind, may originate evil as well as good. The unintellectual herd animal is never tempted to take up with either the better or the worse habits of those of another herd. He cannot form attractive pictures of novelty within his mind and brood upon them until they obsess him. But man, the more mentally developed he is, the more is he open, through a lively imagina- tion, to the forces of suggestion, imitation and sympathy. It follows, therefore, that if we had upon the earth a race of beings physically so much superior, and mentally so much nSutarr Heanf. w 72 SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST more active, than we now are, that they were able to dominate the forces of Na- ture, their children would be quick to observe and keen to interest themselves in all humanity. They would discover n thousand reasons for companionship with the rest of us. Through compassion, mere love of novelty, affection, or through lust, contamination with the notions of such civilisations as we now have would take place. The sons of the gods would take to themselves wives of the daughters of men: the daughters of the gods, "divinely tall and most divinely fair," would develop most unaccountable attraction for inferior men. The dream of the eugenist, or in- deed of any other scientist, can never be fully realised until the stupid, weak or un- wholesome human beings harboured by our present civilisation have left the earth. But even supposing a class of supermen could effectively solve this problem of a subjugated race, it appears to be a pure assumption that the quality that enables a man to subjugate and domineer will al- ways be the quality supremely necessary for persistence and development. Even the conquering races of history have, as a matter of fact, passed away. Does his- SURVIVAL OF TUL FITTEST 73 tory show that any people who have so estabh.hed heir dominions by conquest as to have no fear of invasi ,„ ^ revolution, have thereupon settled down to agree among themselves? We all remember toihng m our chil-l(„H,d over the complex conditions that nKuked the internal S ntegration of military states. In the his- tory of Rome., fo.. instance, it was com- para ively easy to render some account of armies; bufw,,:;ir<:^.ot.;::j3 of factions m the vi.tonous State, we re member what a sense came over us of a warrmg world of which we could form nJ satisfymg imaginative picture. If^e look at the matter psychologically we are t "*l*" "^'"it that any fet of peojk trained m habits of warfare will natural^ tend to continue to settle thoir differences by that method. They will ivmam Tnhed S/^r* "'' "*''" '■" '•^"''♦y °^ '" their foe. rake away the foe and you will not give peace to the belligerent. BelliBcr- ence , habit of mind; it is more than that. It IS the outcome of the deep, funda- mental animal instinct of combativeness, 74 SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST which, if turned against mankind and trained into the active habit of killing men, will not subside into quiescence simply because external enemies are vanquished. The soldier who is so trained that skill in arms and strategy are both the game and the purpose of his life has naturally small faith in other methods of dealing with an obstinate opponent. The super- man, if he is to conquer the world by arms, must be such a soldier ; and if he is such a soldier, when he has conquered the world he will not agree with all his fellows as to the best form of government, nor settle down in loyalty and obedience to a gov- ernment he dislikes. Such supermen would inevitably pn- 'lie the noble art of war upon one another. They will indeed have been trained to believe war to be necessary for a man's right correspond- ence with his environment ; it could not be otherwise. But should war once break out betweeu the supermen of the scientist's dream, their end is near. War and eugenics can- not be practised together at any stage of development, for warfare eliminates the most fit, and that usually before they be- come parents. It contributes to the popu- SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 75 lation not only the maimed, the halt, the blind, but the neurasthenic. If the ever fresh discoveries of science are to render men's engines of war more and more de- structive, if the higher vitality and intelli- gence produced by the eugenist are to be exercised in fiercer and fiercer conflict, the race of supermen must soon destroy itself. ' It thus becomes evident that if man is (b) SoeUl to correspond more and more perfectly "•««>»■ with his environment he must outgrow the use of such weapons as will finally be turned upon himself, and learn to get rid of backward humanity by some other method than subjugation or destruction. We have seen that the race which is to mherit the earth must develop superior physique and superior mind. And this is not enough; it must also develop superior social talent. The leaders ol the human family must have social faculties and social skill which will enable them to get rid of the inferior races by getting rid of racial inferiority. To discover what social faculties and what skill would be required to raise the whole human race, let us make a brief survey of the past progress of civihsation. 70 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST Th* Story of BoeUl Progress. Lei us trace this general progress as seen in the case of an apple-grower— a man who devotes a certain bit of ground to apples in order to eat them, barter them, or distribute them over the community in exchange for an income. Historically we first meet this gentleman building his rude hut under a wild apple tree; in fact, he is perhaps at this stage a woman (as an Irishman might say) ; for men are migra- tory and husbands are various. She builds her hut because she must shelter and rear her children; and she throws stones at other women from adjacent huts if they try to take the apples. Perhaps she in- vents the first rude bow or sling. In later generations we find one man settled down with one woman under the tree. He defends the property now from other couples in the same group. These tree people are slow in forming common laws, but by degrees it is found convenient that a number of men with apple trees should agree not ,0 steal from one anotfew, and to join together to defend their property against external foes. At this stage they flie beginning to improve the culture of grams and fruits; but let us talk only of our typical apple. Obvioialy here," for SURVIVAL OF THE FITTK8T 77 the first time, there is a little leisure and Z nn? 'r.'"' '^^""'"g °f bark ana the pruning of branches and the sowing of p.ps. By degrees, as the community becomes more consolidated, and there are onger periods without invasion, the sys- tem of grafting is invented. Tie apples become sweeter and larger, and are o? more value to the community. No grea advance, however, will be made as loL as the owner has to spend a part of his tfme m warlike exercises and a%art in JZ war, and while he still knows that he and his rights of possession are liabL any enemy When, with the next advance in crvihsation, It is decided to set apart ; certain number of men for war, and allow the bit of land becomes more prolific and the owner richer. Ah. richer! Compara ^vx wealth brings in a new set of thfeves. Th. poorer men of his own communitv have now to be guarded against, as well as hostile armies. If he began with a friendf; alhance of men who all had equal wealth, t IS different now. Some have failed- he has prospered: and he .sets up a wall a gun. and a man-trap to defend his goods 78 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST against the vicious poor. This, again, takes part of his time. His cultural operations are not purely scientific luitil another lot of men are set apart to defend the orchards of the rich from the thieving class of their own nation. This gives a security never known before, and what may be called the real science of pomi- culture begins. Science is the accumula- tion and classification of the world's knowledge upon any subject, with fresh observation and experiment on the basis of this tabulated knowledge. Science can only progress when a community has ar- rived at a large degree of security, and when living is no longer a fight for the necessities of life. Perhaps we are inclined to think we have now brought the apple-grower to such a degree of success that nothing fur- ther is to be desired or looked for. Let us consider. He is paying a large tax now for army, navy and police, money which, from the point of view of apple-growing, could be better spent upon scientific appli- ances of all sorts, and investigation into the nature and cure of apple diseases and apple pests. But that is not all. The police, however active, do i.Jt exterminate flSfitVBKmi SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 79 the vicious or careless poor, and to these belong lU-kept apple trees, which are a fruitful source of disease germs and pests, travelling Lghtly on the highway of the air and ever making fresh havoc with the rich man's trees. Much of his time and money is spent upon the war of defence against these invisible marauders. Again a man s mind does its best work when his spirits are tranquil or exhilarated, and this man's spirits are constantly worried not only by these same pests, but by the tact that there is always a certain amount of thieving in his community which the police, however efficient and well paid cannot prevent. The spirit of the thief is infectious. It gets into trade; it gets into labour; and as long as detection and coer- cion are the methods rehed upon for fight- ing It. it will be there to defy them by invisible means-the over-reaching and deception of buyer and seller, thr laziness of the labourer. The man who is really keen to get at .Nature's best secrets con- cerning apples, and to produce the best and he most from any bit of ground, can- not long be either jolly or serene with pests and dishonesty bred at home. We had almost forgotten the national enemies, .48gBas-impwiiiig»i 80 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST but they are still a menace. What is the condition to-day of the apple-orchards of Belgium, of Northern France, of Serbia, of Roumania, of Poland, of south-emst Russia? And yet in all these countries security was supposed to be bought by setting apart a large number of men to defend the national boundaries from hos- tile armies and the orchards from thieves. We are to-day living in the stage of civili- sation to which we have brought our apple- grower. Clearly his plight is not satisfac- tory. If we consider how he could learn to correspond better and better with his environment, it is obvious that without the financial tax on his resources and the men- tal worry caused by the dishonesty of his community he could, even in times of peace, produce a better apple and a better orchard, while in war areas, under present conditions, he and his apples are wholly destroyed. If we go back we shall find that the first security of the primitive apple- grower was procured by his so'ial talent rather than by his belligerence. As long as he defended his apple tree single- handed he had no security, and i*: ])roducetl only small, sour fruit; it was only as his SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST 81 social alliance with a larger and larger number of human beings was secured that the peaceful periods of successful apple- growing became longer and longer It may be urged that this was because the larger community, and then the larger nation, had stronger armies and finally a stronger police force. That is true, but rt IS not the whole truth, because the strength of the large army and the larfje police force depended quite as much upon the development of social virtues in those men u upon their warlike training and equipment If as large an army or police force culd have been got together out of savage tribes, no amount of training in war or of equipment would have kept them trom quarrelling with one another. It IS therefore only by the development of a reasonable temper and a regard for the «>mnir.n interest within the area of the oation that a large measure of security lias been realised. Is it not, then, strictly scientific to assume, as a working hvpoth- e.s.s, that it is by the further develop- ment ot these social virtues, in himself and "1 all other men, that the apple-grower w. ] attain the higher ideal which he is now able to conceive, and that, with perfect Duigwf of 8up- prawton. 82 SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST security and a greater vital energy, he and his fellows may at last succeed so well that there may not be a little child anywhere on this earth's surface that will not have the pleasure of eating a large, juicy apple every day? The upshot of this iiurvey is that if man is to correspond to his environment he must learn io correspond entirely to its chief factor, his fellow-man; and to do tiat he must learn to deal with hostility and dishonesty by some social means more effective than the anti-social way of de- struction or suppression. Psychology has taught us that instinc- tive impulses which are driven imder through fear — i.e. suppressed against the will and emotional tendencies of the sub- ject — produce evil consequences in the subject, and hence in the community. This is equally true whether the impulse be for what the apple-grower, or modern moralist, would call good or evil. The instincts themselves are non-moral, for they grew lusty in the race before those social values we call moral were formed. They are all capable of wholesome {i.e. of social) or unwholesome {i.e. of anti- social) satisfaction. If anti-social satis- SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST 83 faction is sought, it is necessary for the salvation of society either to kill off the seeker or to educate him to find a social satisfaction for his instinctive impulses. Merely to suppress his impulses and save him alive is to keep a plague spot of moral, mental and physical evil in active ferment. We must ultimately find some other way of dealing with objectionable habits and propensities than the way of the sword and the prison. Our only course is so to develop, by education and political arrangements, the social virtues of ourselves and all our neighbours that our natural instincts will find wholesome expression, and the im- pulses arising from them be trained to serve social ends; and this must be done, not by any external authority, bn'. by these persons themselves. We must find some way of persuading and helping every man to reform himself from within. And what is true within the nation will obviously be equally true in international affairs. The impulse to be a criminal nation must be so dealt with by education and example that the nation feeling th« impulse will control and supersede it. In such persuasion of criminal neigh- Han ft nghtlDC 84 SURVIVAL OF TIIK FITTEST hours or criminal nations what part can the sword, the gun and the man-trap play? Or even if all swords are beaten into policemen's batons, what part is the baton to play? We are not here considering ethical values, still less making moral or religious assumptions; we are simply enquiring how the apple-grower may cor- respond with his environment of domestic thieves and hostile nations. If our psy- chological premises be correct, it is evident that the area of the sword and the baton must be gradually reduced until the crimi- nal maniac, among individuals and among nations, is regarded as the only fit subject for their exercise. Many will say, "That might be all very well if it were possible, but it is not. Man has always been a fighting animal and always will be. Without the outlet for his fighting instinct he would never de- velop his other powers." There is both truth and folly in this retort; and first let us consider the element of truth. We have seen that man's combative instinct is one of the deepest in his nature, and that it must always have play. It does not follow that he need always be fighting with his fellow-man. It is man's SURVIVAL OF THE I-'ITTEHT 85 In -iP^ !^ circumstances of any sort. In all adventure, in all enterprise the ™mbat,ve instinct comes into play; or •t .s the desire to overcome rather than possible. If man had more ambition to do and the other sciences, he would get Ml exercise for the combative instinct withou Sfrt^StStter^S t»«k. they .re ,,„, i„ ,„ j^, , J^^'' ti.rp. Jk / ^ ^ "^^" talfen by crea- »»Jopm.nt Ateyty 7tiT^ *° ^''f ^ *° circumLn". "^ ^-• ^t every stage in evolution Nature has "Wante?" ^"* T "" "''-rti^ment :' prepared for adventure at all costs." She W this when all the little life germs in or wait tor it, and those who answered th^ MICROCOPY HESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 21 1.0 I.I 11.25 I «^ IIIIIM 1-4 mil 1.6 A /APPLIED INA4GE Inc 1651 Eoit Main Stre 86 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST advertised for adventurers, some of the water lizards who responded took to the dry land, some, later, to the air, and be- came the parents of the manmial and the bird. Each advance was made at the risk of life, and was always a great adventure, a great achievement. The first mother who went hungry to linger over the care of her child a day longer than necessary had answered the same advertisement ; and the first ape who risked his standing in his tribe for a new idea became the father of men.* Nature is still hanging out a placard with the old advertisement — "Who will make the new adventure? who will risk all for an idea?" When people venture their all for a new ideal, the result is the development of new powers. We have much to do if the use of force upon human beings is to be pushed steadily backward until it is only required for the temporary restraint of the maniac; and if such diplomacy as may be described as the art of getting the better of your * In diMussins man's relation to allied vertebrates and mammalia, Professors J. A. Thomson and P. Geddes, Evolution (Home University Library), p. 09, remark, "The real distinctiveness of man from his nearest allies depends on his power of buildin; up general ideas, and of controlling his conduct in relation to ideals." SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 87 neighbour by veiling some part of the truth is to be considered a disgraceful ex- pedient, except as a last resort in dealing with lunatics. To attain such an end men must learn, by taking the utmost pains and by enduring persecution and mishaps with the greatest hardihood, to acquire new insight into justice, to see with an opponent's eyes as well as with their own, and to believe in the opponent's virtues as well as in their own. It is necessary to convince the leading spirits among the youth of every nation that the welfare of their race depends upon theh- bringing all their powers of reason, humour and endurance to ;he reconciliation of man with man and class with class and nation with nation, and that the sanctions of war and criminal law are, at the best, a tem- porary expedient. It will require all the enthusiasm, the ingenuity, the courage and endurance of the young and the in- telligent to master the problem and be- come eflScient in any branch of conciliatory and remedial work. Here indeed is work enough, risk enough, for all the best facul- ties of anyone who would give his life for the good of his country or of the world. By devotion to such work a new and 88 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST higher faculty of human tact would de- velop. Tact is the power to conduct com- bats of mind with mind on the higher plane of goodwill. Possibly with right eugenic conditions and proper environ- ment, in two or three generations a race might arise who, while approving only right conduct in their neighbours, acid act- ing with entire frankness and sincerity, would yet be able to live on sympa- thetic terms with the unthankful and the evil. If ultimately no such race arise, we shall be pushed off the board by some other and different race. Unless our sun should enter the Milky Way and crash into some other star, astronomers now predict that our earth may turn for some hundreds of millions of years under its genial rays. That would give plenty of time for humanity to decline and for some new kind of monkey to develop a greater social intelligence than ours. If we failed, the push of life would be in that direction, for, as we have seen, the tendency of biological development is toward the pro- duction of some animal who will perfectly correspond with the whole of terrestrial conditions. But the younger and more SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 89 hopeful among us will think twice before abandoning man's claim to inherit the cAITUt We proceed now to consider the falsity involved m the sentimental cry that man has always been a fighting animal and must always fight.' The only reasonable ground for the idea that man's com- bative instinct can only find expression in quarrelling with his fellows lies in the implied assumption that man cannot change his ways. Such an assumption can now only be made by those who think m terms of a past generation, that supposed human history to have begun only four thousand years before Christ and to be nearin .ts end in the nine- teenth century. Since the Eolithic Age is there any c«. th. department oi life in which man has not ^%Si changed his habits? Men did not, in the gS5f "* beginning, wear clothes, yet the habit of wearing clothes is now tolerably well established. Again, man's anatomy proves that he was originally a vegetarian like the apes; yet he became a parasite upon his herds, first drinking their milk and then eating their superfluous young; ' See page 84. 90 SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST in fact, whether for good or evil, he has become carnivorous; and if we reflect on the apparent impossibility of the horse, the cow or the monkey eating flesh, we may realise what an extraordinary power man has of changing his habits. Again, there was a time when man was a migratory creature, changing his abode with the seasons, acquiring no property or sitting lightly to his booth-- and crude plantings. Or, again, there was a time when the idea of each man or woman having only one mate seems scarcely to have been conceived; whereas now it has become quite a prevailing habit. And these changes have involved the regula- tion and training of instincts quite as fundamental as that o' combat. What are we to think about the Palaeo- lithic men who developed the high art of painting animals and of carving in stone and ivory? Where did their civilisation disappear to, with all that their art implies? The men who occupied their place in the Neolithic ages knew nothing of art; their attempts at it were of the crudest. Here was change, but this time for the worse, and that may happen again. And these Neolithic men, whose blood SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 91 may still persist in our veins, what of their habits? We know that between the time when hmnan beings first began to use iron in- struments and to make pottery, and the time, let us say, of written historj', they had in many ways completely changed their social habits. It is mere ignorance of the dawn of history, of folk-lore, and even of the Old Testament, that makes any one say that "history repeats itself," or that man cannot change. And in historic times we can see that, although changes sometimes come so slowly as to be scarcely perceptible in the course of ages, they sometimes proceed with great rapidity. There is the'case of modern Japan; while in China and India we find ideas and customs clearly de- scribed in literature dating before the Christian era, and that have remained unchanged until some twenty years ago, are now in some parts rapidly disap- pearing. Or, again, examine the case of the Negro transplanted from savagery into Christian civilisation. I have seen, in the mountains of North Carolina, small holders of pure African breed living in all respects in a more refined and 92 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST intellectual way than the poor whites beside them. We have changed our habits before, for better or worse, and shall again. At this hour — whether we consider the peace settlement satisfactory or not — the most enthusiastic militarist may well stand appalled at the havoc of war. The following is a conservative estimate of loss, given by one of our most reliable newspapers, and based only on the death returns admitted by the various armies: — "The total losses of the Powers opposed to Germany and Austria during the whole or part of the war were about 5,500,000, excluding the very large number of deaths of French civilians, of which we have no trustworthy estimate at hand. "On the other side, Germany has re- ported 1,611,104 dead; Bulgaria has 201,224; and those of Austria-Hungary and of Turkej' respectively are cautiously estimated at 800,000 and 300,000, giving a total of a little over 2,900,000. Added to the Allies' total this gives some 8,400,- 000. The American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief estimates at 4,000,000 the number c' Armenians, Syrians, Jews, and Greeks massacred by SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 93 the Turks during the war, and it is be- lieved that over 1,000,000 Serbian civilians died through massacre, hunger, or disease caused by the war. Medical experts have more roughly estimated at 4,000,000 the additional mortality from influenza and pneiunonia attributable to war conditions. With the addition of some 7500 neutrals (mostly Norwegians) killed by German submarines, the grand total approaches seventeen millions and a half. But of course it is impossible to calculate the enormous number of other deaths to which the war has contributed.'" And for each one slain we may surely count another who lives on hopelessly maimed or wrecked. Since these facts were pubhshed the medical estimate of human losses by influenza has arisen to more than twice 4,000,000. This pestilence is but one of the diseases that are the camp followers of war; but it is the most notable, not only for the tale of its victims, but because it seems to reflect the very temper of the God of War in choosing for destruction the young and the strong, who ought to be the parents of the coming age. If the 'ManoluMtcr Ouardian, February 27, 1919. M SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST human race is to survive we must some- what change our habits. SluUHan Al" the facts of biological evolution bJS^d«- '^^"'y *''** history repeats itself, or that fuunUT the future shall be like the past. The ages of the process of development axe many and long, but nothing remains the same, not even the hills that we call eternal. Since the time when man was merely a pack animal he has developed individual self-consciousness, which has brought the need for more frequent adji'st^cents of social life. The change going on in hu- manity, as in everything else, must be either toward social development or social degeneration. The Victorian" by the mouth of Tenny- son, ask^d a pertinent question: A monstroua eft was of old the Lord and Mastei of Earth, For him did his high aun flame, and his river billowing ran. And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's crown- ing race. As nine months gs to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man: He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not too base?' •Uew no better." A third will cabnly tell us that he forgives easily "because it is not worth while to worry over offences. Nothing of all this is forgiveness It is quite true, as has been said, that it is well to overlook most of our neighbours an- noying ways on these grounds Just as we cannot forgive a storm or a fire for the iniury it does us, so we cannot forgive a hiunan agent unless we believe him to be responsible. Nor do we forgive if we are passing over offences for the sake of our own peace. We can only forgive when we suffer acutely under an injury and know that the agent was fully responsible. We can only forgive by settmg the we - fare of the offender before our own wel- POWER— HUMAN AND DIVINE 137 fare. Forgiveness is the greatest achieve- ment of human love, and accomplishes more than anger can to elevate both the soul that forgives, the soul forgiven, and the community. If that be so with men, in transferring How Ood the figure of forgiveness to God we must J" j,, believe that His forgiveness is infinitely ' more— more costly, more efficacious. But in our thought of God's forgiveness there is the same confusion, inverted as it were. One says, "I do not see what God has to forgive in human conduct. Man's evil deeds are mostly due to heredity and environment; ignorance, unmanageable passions and ill-balanced nerves account for most of them. Men do not ask to be born; God is responsible for the mess they make of things." Here, again, we suffer from our own armchair or cloistered doc- trinaires, we who in the past have too often talked as if every man carried a rule of ideal conduct and could, if he would, con- form all his conduct to It, so that he must always think of God as displeased with all his shortcomings. Such absurd teaching naturally causes men to blaspheme. We cannot believe that God can forgive the lion for tearing its prey, or the ape for its 138 POWER-HUMAN AND DIVINE chattering mischief, or the don^«=y ^^J '** most distressing lamentations. Whether Sese creatures have or have no developed Song the line of God's ideal, the mdj- Ss are in no way to blame for the.r habits And so with man. The successive 'g^SSatiL bring with them s^upul.t.es and irritabilities innumerable. They per orm millions of horrid actions, for wh^ch no individual is responsible. God, who sustains the fabric of the ages, must look upon all such evils with indulgence and Jfndly excuse, must see an educational nurpose so great that they are related to ras'2sery%tsarerelatedtot^^^^ life But it remains true that just m so Jar as each human person has a reasonabk sL. is in any sense a free «P-f • ^^^^f J^^. •rlimiises of a h gher possibility, his mo S or °t may be hours, of higher oppor- Siv whicK if he would, he could em- b"; e n we consider that God is m sym- pathy with all the pain, as well as a the ?oy, of the long creative proc«s, ^f ^^ have set aside the old, impossible doctrine thit aU is predetermined, we can under- bid somewhat of the disappomtment fi^d must suffer when man rejects his Sio^V^tisthispainofdisappomt- POWER— HUMAN AND DIVINE 139 ment inflicted by man that must evoke either punitive anger or forgiveness. And that it has evoiced forgiveness Proof thu follows from this consideration: forgive- rSlhJS. ness refused would have meant inspiration withheld. And if God had withdrawn His inspiration from unrepentant man be- cause of his free rejection of opportunity, mankind could not have gone on to de- velop more and more freedom of choice. For by our hypothesis— which is that God helps man by indwelling him in so far as man will accept that indwelling— we are driven to believe that all progress in the attainment of truth and beauty and brotherly love comes by the inspiration of God constantly proffered to the develop- ing mind. We must believe that whenever man sees his opportunity and makes the higher choice, he opens, as it were, the doors of his soul to this inspiration, and the result is not only a tendency to develop a good habit, but clearer vision. And if he make the wrong choice, his power to make it involves at least a momentary glimpse of a higher good. He must have perceived the opportunity that he has re- jected. He is therefore on a higher plane of being than if he had not perceived; and Ood'i ChuMter and Han't Conduct. 140 POWER-HUMAN AND DIVINE this advantage must in some way be utilised by God if His purpose is the ele- vation of man's soul. If man's rejection of the good caused this advantage to be entirely lost, by causing the withdrawal of God's friendly environment and in- spiration, there would be no human prog- rLs. If. however, God. by His forgive- ness, transmutes the evil of rejection mto further opportunity, we can understand the progress which has taken place. It would thus seem that the mert^fact of human progress tends to establish the presumption that the true God, so far from being, as man has supposed, m a condition of ahnost incessant anger and constantly engaged in launchmg thunder- bolts, has surrounded His developing creation from first to last with a spiritual atmosphere of gracious friendhness and free forgiveness. _ If we thus conceive of Divme omnip- otence-if we believe that God's character is truly love, and not the amalgani of hostility and love which has so long been accepted-it will naturally have a great effect upon our conception of duty. From the earliest days until now go^hness has always been the attempt to be Godhke. POWER— HUMAN AND DIVINE 141 All human justice has been the mediation of what was supposed to be God's will and God's action. If God's attitude towards men is one of constant helpful- ness in their increasing realisation of truth and beauty and love, then of course that must also be our attitude and our business. If, in this helpfukiess, God excuses men for all the evil-doing they are pushed into by heredity and environ- ment, then we also must find means to excuse them. If He freely forgives them their actual sins, then we also must freely forgive them. What is commonly called man's for- in For- giveness of an offence presupposes felt gj^°»" pain, and hostility to the offender, and SjJ^!, consists in a change of mind involving in- ** stead an outflow of generous sentiment toward him. But when we try to apply the conception to God our difficulty is that though we conceive God as meeting our offences with personal forgiveness, we cannot beUeve in any change of His mind. With God, as with man, forgiveness must imply pain caused by the wrong done, but instead of the hostility felt towards the offender there is, we may humbly believe, a combative determination to overcome the 142 POWER-HUMAN AND DIVINE evil with good-which involves no change of mind, but is compatible with that gen- 7rl outgoing of heart to the offender that we believe to be eternal m God, and which we call His forgiveness. As far as we in our limited way can understand, this is the Godlike reaction to all evil, which we should seek to share, and which, when attained, does not involve in man, any more than in God, that unfixity of pur- pose which is confusing to our sense of right, blinding us to the true righteous- ness of God. . . .i- ■ ™ ^ Now, two objections against this view oblMUoni: of human duty are constantly urged— tne one, that it is contrary to the revelation of God in Christ; the other, that it is subversive of all law .nd order, and con- sequently militates against correspond- ence with environment and fitness to survive • We must all admit that if we have in Christ a final revelation of God, tnat revelation must be patient of Progressive interpretation. Life is never static, and even by the time the Fourth Gospel was Sen it was clearly realised that there was large room for the Spirit to take of the things of Christ and interpret them Suppowd TeMhinC o( Christ. POWER— HUMAN AND DIVINE 143 to the men of that age. If we regard our Lord as the supreme religious genius; if we believe that His spiritual nature was such that, while living under our condi- tions He was aware of Realitj' and saw the actual truth of God's attitude to man and what it involved in man's duty, we must perceive that in mediating this to men he must have been hcjnpered, not only by their preconceived and obstinate notions of God and duty, but by the lan- guage, and still more by the mental pic- tures, which these religious behefs had created. We must therefore expect that in any account of His life we shall find the teaching which was subversive of the religious notions of His time would be that which was most original to Him, and that into the first report of His words and actions, and into all subsequent editings of that report, the shadows of ancestral tendencies of belief and traditional ideas would be sure to press. Such a clue to the interpretation of the Gospels is not sub- jective. It is a legitimate method of criti- cism applicable to any ancient teaching. We know that all down the ages the liiooii«at- conception of God which is set forth in S'tto'Sd the vindictive Psahns— the conception of TertMnent. 144 POWER-HUMAN AND DIVINE the Divine heart as in a constant ferment of righteous indignation— had descendec' from untold generations of primitive men, while such glimpses of Divine love as we find in the 23rd and 103rd Psahns are rare, auu were at the Christian era com- paratively recent. The whole world, therefore, into which Christianity was introduced tended to beheve m the efficacy of Divine wrath and human punishments to bring about the ideal state at which all nations aimed. And as human nature in- variably attempts to produce a «f onable basis for the sentiments it inherits, most rational argument ran on the same hnes. It is, however, also true that spiritual in- sight manifest in a thread of nobler rea- soninK had come down the ages. As he hfavens are high above the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your SougS, saith fhe Lord." "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he re- moved our transgressions from us. ^Like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. The supreme religious genius of Jesus Christ toSc up this theme, and by teaching and living He showed that not to the God^ fearkig alone but to all men was God l«aft-. POWER— HUMAN AND D'VINE 145 gracious. By living and dying, and by giving proof of His continued existence and triumph beyond the grave, He set the Divine seal upon this interpretation of God's ways with men. Such interpreta- tion of God made irresistible appeal to human insight. For the most part, as soon as men have understood it they have accepted it. When "lifted up" before human minds in any intelligible represen- tation. His light has been seen to be light. But the difficulty has been that it has been easier for man to hold two contradictories, to try to live by two incompatible beliefs, than, violating recognised custom, to face the persecution that must come with the breaking of taboo, or to make the adven- ture into unknown seas that is necessary for the discovery of new worlds. God and Nature called for adventurers, and in the Christian Church the adventurers only set out in cockle-shells and hugged the shore. We are very busy yet with the effort to -»nd In interpret the good news of the Kingdom ^^^ so that it will harmonise with the terrors tUmitj. of Mount Sinai. During the war there has been, even on the part of some of our younger and more progressive theologians. Anotbw Intwpre- 146 POW^B-HtMAii AKD Din^t a good deal of writing in praise of the rig1,teous anger which Jesus expressed alainst the scribes and Pharisees of the blaze of manly wrath with which He is supposed to have violently turned the crowds from the Temple courts. All of which is held to sanctify and consecrate our vindictive anger toward our enemies. But. after aU. it is well to recognise that fhis view of Christ makes His character inconsistent with His own tf aching. In Seological circles we caU mconsistency paradox, which sounds -vf -d w^- Serful but does not alter the * act- Or else^ if we desire consistency, we whittle away our Lord's teaching m order to make ^oom for the wrath that we so senti- " bSc w-ds and actions of our Lord are susceptible of quite a different^-*- pretation. Take, for instance, the Temple incident. Anyone who wil patiently woA out the size of the court of the money chlngers and observe from contemporary Ss that it must have been thronged with men of all nations. ^J^ perceive that the physical violence of one man ^c^uldtt 'poLibly have d-ed tje «.iu^^ Again, the reproaches addressed to the POWER— HUMAN AND DIVINE 147 Pharisees, even if not exaggerated and altered by indignant editors, could all have been said in exactly that temper in which He wept over Jerusalem or prayed that His torturers might be forgiven be- cause of their ignorance. A mother whose whole heart's aflFection was centred in a reprobate son, who cherished in her heart nothing but forgiveness toward him, once stood up and with strong emotion told him exactly what she thought was the cause of his evil deeds, exactly what she beheved would be the natural result if they were continued. Her language was modern and not so poetic as that of the Jl-ast two thousand years ago; but it came m substance to very much what our Lord said to the Pharisees. It was the verbal expression of her moral vision when ap- plied to her son's life; it came out of a whu-lwmd of moral aspiration that broke down all reserve, but had in it nothing of the emotion that we caU anger. What she saw was the natural consequences of sin; the expression of her vision was the warn- mg of love, exactly the same sort of love as would have made her fly to his aid had he been walking blindfold over a precipice or mto a furnace. According to our in- (U) The Claims of L»w and Order. 148 POWER— HUMAN AND DIVINE herited sentiments we do not think that sort of thing sufficiently manly for a man. It is all right in a mother, but had it been father or brother we should thmk him "eeble if incapable of rage. Still, it is quite possible that what we yet call manly we shall learn to call brutal. And. that being so, we have no right to lay it down as an established fact that the conception of God as never angry, as always kind to the unthankful and the evil and always forgiving to seventy times seven, is not in harmony with the revelation of Him through Jesus Christ. It is further objected that the concep- tion of Gtd's character and our corre- sponding duty which I am urging, is sub- versive of law and order. The late war has ah-eady proved very nearly subversive of all law and order in Europe. It that order is to be saved from complete col- lapse it cannot be by more militarism and repression, but by those compromises and friendly overtures between class and class and nation and nation which are prompted by forgiveness and brotherhood. But the lite wfr itself is the measure of the failure of centuries of Christian teaching which had been one long effort to harmomse the POWER— HUMAN AND DIVINE 149 cruelties of the God of primitive Israel with the character and teaching of Jesus Christ. The time has come when we must halt no longer between two opinions about God. One chief reason why men suppose that extinction of moral anger would cause the disruption of society is that they have never really grasped the fact that we live in a world in which psychic or spiritual cause and effect is just as calculable and acts just as inevitably as do the laws which govern matter. Even if men do, by loving and forgiving their neighbours, abolish all human punishment, deterrent or disciplinary, they cannot possibly alter the fact that consequences discipline and consequences deter. The system of Na- ture which we believe God by His power upholds is an order majestic and invari- able. This splendid characteristic of Na- ture cannot be abolished by any human effort. Every sin brings its own measure of psychic disturbance and incapacity for pleasure, and psychic disturbance means ultimately physical degeneration, and de- generation in the individual means degen- eration in the community. The only pos- sible way to mitigate "this unfortunate m PrioclplM and PTMStlM. 150 POWER-HUMAN AND DIVINE result is by the practice of a virtue that will bring about a greater good. In only one way can God or m^n save sinners, and that is by persuading them to practise virtues that will bring about a greater corresponding good. If that be so and if the forgiveness that means the continu- ance of friendly help and brotherly affec- tion is in reaUty the quickest and best way of making men good, it cannot be sub- versive of law and order. We have seen that social goodness is necessary for hu- man survival; it is correspondence with human environment. But, of course, to see the truth of this principle and to arrive at the^vplica^" of it are two things separab m time. We learn to walk by fallin.. we solve our problems as we go along, and we on y discover new worlds by setting forth bravely upon uncharted seas. It is im- possible to hold the conception of Gods ?ower. and therefore glory, which we have C Considering, impossible to conceive thus of God's action in the world, without being out of harmony with very much that is of the fabric of our present c.vihsation Possessing such convictions, ;^e «^"'^°t live without contributing something to its POWER— HUMAN AND DIVINE 151 disintegration by initiating the growth of a better. We cannot live well without working consciously to that end. But it is very easy to live very ill indeed if, in order to uphold God's constructive power, we take destructive short cuts. If we believe, as we must, that the progress of life is the manifestation of God's power, we must remember that the method of life is construction, that even when it brings about alterations or terminates other lives, it does so in supplanting what is by calling into existence something fresh. In deciding upon a practical course of action it is necessary also to think much of the nature of life as exhibited in the long biological process — the distinction between evolution and revolution, the long patience of supersession of higher by lower. We have so much to do that we cannot afford to do it other than in a Godlike way, for only thus shall we avoid the imdoing of our own work and toilsome repetition. Just as certain ideas are fruitful in the construction of, let us say, a dwelling or a political constitution, producing what bears the storm and stress of life, so cer- tain ideas are fruitful in bringing eleva- Cnatin mmam 132 POWER— UUMAN AND DIVINE tion and enlargement to the inner life, and consequent harmony between the soul and what is most desirable in domestic and public activity. The study of comparative religion has made it appear that man's spiritual life has developed by trial and observation. By these we have learned that hostility to the evil-doer is not God's method nor a Godlike method — that hos- tile passions do not develop our fullest powers. SrrtMiinc By experience we must also learn how ' >• "•"• to bring this light to the world. We need a true religious science of missionary work. We are only at the very beginning of this; but at least one law of the soul's development in this direction has already been established. We must regard every moral problem as subsumed under the splendour of the whole, and see it set in relation to all the lavish beauty of the Universe, all the gaiety and humour, all the serene joy, all the natural goodness and kindliness of life, as well as in relation to wrong, ugliness and pain. Only by such sweep of thought can we realise the importance of each bit of reformatory work; for the fineness of the whole lends importance to each detail. Only by such POWEK-HUMAN AND DIVINE 153 sweep of thought can we obtain patience and a sufficient sense of power to d' th work magnanimously and magniflct .'iy, with the Divine generosity that God in- spires. It is not true that if God be with us man cannot prevail against us. Those who break with tradition are always con- demned, stoned and often crucified; but It IS true that if God be with us, not only m our aim but in our method, nothing can prevail against the cause for which we work; and if we believe in immortality we must believe that in the triumph of the cause we shall also triumph immor- tally. Tbalndi- tiM FtMtioal Aim of This Chapter. THE DEFEAT OF PAIN By B. HILLMAN STRBBTER The facts and considerations which have been adduced in the earUer chapters of this volume go a long way towards establishing the conclusion that viewed as a whole the tendency which has expressed itself in the course of biological evolution is one "that makes for righteousness It is much to have found grounds for the conviction that a glorious consummation awaits the long struggle «« humamty-but there still remains the problem of the fate of the individual man meanwhile. It is a great thing to know that the column will Jefch its destination-hut what of the many who drop out on the march« In this chapter I approach the problem cf the pain and moral failure of the mdi- vidual. and I do so with an -ter-t not^^o much theoretical as practical. I attempt no explanation of its origin or purpose Pain (whatever its explanation) is part ot THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 155 the environment in which we have to live. I ask how we can adapt ourselves to that environment, or rather how we can adapt the environment to oiu-selves— for to do that is the unique biological distinction of man. Can we, instead of being crushed by the difficulties we have to face, use them rather as a stimulus along the route to individual as well as social progress? I ask whether, in regard to the moral failure «nd the suffering— past, present and to come — which falls within the experience of any ind vidual, we can say, "There is is there", a way out." I suggest that, along lines '^•y <>"»"» indicated in the New Testament and con- firmed by the teaching of modern science, each one of us may find a way in which to cope successfully with that particular share of the world's evil with which he or she personally is brought in contact. In the first part of the chapter I shall treat of pain as such, without any at- tempt to discriminate between pain which, like remorse, is connected with the con- sciousness of moral failure and the pain which is not so caused. Pain can be discussed scientifically as a purely psycho- logical phenomenon; it can also be con- sidered in its bearing on moral values. I 156 THE DEFEAT OP PAIN begin with the simpler, and proceed later to the more complex, problem. Pain Phyileal and Mantil. Pain We are apt to underestimate the extent to which pain is of mental origin. Anxiety and disappointment, fear and regret, humiliation and remorse, the sense of desolation and despair, constitute the main burden of civilised man; and all these are of the mind. In normal times the amourit of suffering due to causes entirely physi- cal—wounds, accident or disease — ^would, for the majority of men, be a relatively small proportion of the whole; for the present generation the war has vastly altered the proportion. But even the pain caused by physical injury is determined by mental conditions more than is com- monly supposed. There are stories from the front of men in the excitement of battle or retreat being for a long while actually unconscious of wounds received. Experiments in hypnosis, by which sensi- bility to pain can be either enhanced, so that the touch of a finger feels like a hot iron, or reduced, so that the patient feels i?othing under the surgeon's knife, point THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 157 in the same direction. Quite apart from these exceptional conditions, every doctor or nurse knows that the extent and acute- ness with which pain is felt varies enor- mously with the mental attitude of the sufferer. That patient feels pain most who most dreads it and who concentrates his or her attention on it most. Again, still more important is the fact that the actual quality of pain and its mental and physical effects differ according as it is borne with cheerfulness or despair, with acceptance or resentment. If, then, most suffering is predomi- nantly mental in origin, and if the mental element so conditions both the amount and the quality of suffering purely physical in origin, it is not enough to attack the problem of the world's suffering from the physical side alone. It must be attacked from that side, but it is far more essential to approach it from the side of mind. And precisely for this reason the indi- vidual may have hope. He may J5nd him- self—he often does find himself— up against hard facts which he cannot alter, or burdened with a physical disability which cannot be cured. But where cir- cumstances cannot be altered it may still Han and Cireum- stanoM. The SufierliK of tlM Put. Th* Spirit and the Letter In the New Tattament. 158 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN be possible to alter one's reaction towards * Especially is this true in regard to the past: this cannot be undone but my re- action to it can be fundamentally changed. I cannot unmake the sins, sorrows and dis- appointments of the past, but may It not b^ possible so to change my attitude towards them as completely to transform their consequences in the hvmg present and thereby, so to speak, to remake the past? Christ taught that this is possible, that the broken-hearted can be healed and that sins can be forgiven. In the foUowing pages I shaU attempt to show that both the experience of everyday hte and the conclusions of modern psychology prove that Christ was right. Parts of the New Testament are umn- tellieible to those who have no special knowledge of the literature of the age m which it was written. Parts, agam, show obscurities and inconsistencies which we must attribute to the fact that its authors were trying to express new conceptions and new intuitions by means of language and modes of thought originaUy adapted to a very different religious outlook— and that one from which they themselves were THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 159 M I only partially emancipated. If we would get at the great ideas which are its essen- tial contrihution to human thought and progress, we must turn aside from that exaggerated respect for the exact exegesis of single texts which still hampers many even of those who think they have out- grown the theory of verbal inspiration; otherwise we shall get an impression dis- tracted and confused. But leave on one side exegetical and archaeological detail, concentrate only on central ideas, and there stands out from its pages a philoso- phy of God and man, and in particular a way of approach to the problem of suffer- ing, as clear as it is simple, adequate and inspiring. In the New Testament, then, so inter- Ooduid preted, I find no attempt to produce a *••• ''<»"• theory of why evil is permitted to exist. Certainly there is no suggestion that this is "the best of all possible worlds." On the contrary, so far from being the best of all possible worlds, it is a world that God meant to be a great deal better than it is. It is a world that has gone awry, and that mainly through the ignorance, the folly, the malice, the greed, and the passions of men. But though the world CreatlTe 160 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN is not now what it should be, God intends to make it so. In fact, He is actually engaged in making it so; for God does not stand outside the world serenely con- templating the misery and the strife. He is no doubt in a sense outside and beyond the world, but He is also inside it, im- manent in it, as the philosophers say; and by the fact of His immanence He takes His share in the suffering; and Gods share is, if I may use the phrase, the lion s cViaT*p But this suffering is not just mere suffering with no end or result beyond itself. It is a means to an end, the means by which the ignorance, folly, malice, greed and evil passions may be overcome, the e\ii wills remade, and the results of evil action transmuted and undone. But it is not all suffering which has this virtue. The suffering which has power is suffer- ing like Christ's— suffering, that is, faced for the sake of causes and ideals like those for which He worked and died, or borne in the spirit in which He bore His. Christ, however, is not merely our leader and our pattern. He is also, as St Paul Put^'t, "The portrait of the invisible God. His attitude both to suffering and to evil is THE DEFEAT OP PAIN 161 ako God's. God shares in the suffering and captains in the fight. And God sum- mons us to assist Him in the task, to enter into partnership with Him— and that not only in the suffering but also in the vic- tory which it brings. This view of the power and possibilities Suffaring of suffering requires analysis. Much cant ToSLoat is talked about the ennobling and purify- ing effect of suffering. To an animal pain may be useful as a warning of danger or a spur to activity, but beyond the limited amount required for that purpose it de- bilitates and depresses. So too with man, the most natiu*al effect of suffering is not to ennoble but to embitter, not to purify but to weaken. Joy is a necessity of life, of the highest life as well as of the lowest. The natural and normal reactions of the organism to suffering are vindictive- ness, degradation, peevishness and de- spair. Where the contrary result is found it is because there is something in man, or in some men, which can counteract these "natural" reactions. And this something does exist. That is the secret, dimly grasped by heroic men and women throughout all the ages, which Christianity first publicly The "Con- venlon" of SuSerinf. 162 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN proclaimed: the natural consequences of suffering can, by the spirit and manner m which it is borne, be not only avoided but actually reversed. Look upon suffermg as a necessary condition of labour for any cause worth working for— whether it be the learning of a lesson, the production of a work of art, the bringmg up of a family or the steering of a ship to Port— and its character is changed. Reahse that the stupidity, the indifference, the mahce, and the selfishness of man have always been such an obstacle to progress that every forward step must be paid for in blood and tears; that, because casualties are the price of victory, sacrifice, pushed at times to the point of martyrdom, though not in itself desirable, is necessary and worth while-and things are seen in a new light. I." it is in this way and in this spirit that the Divinity immanent m the world is suffering, striving ■ -ercom- ing, then to take one's share in = work is to be allowed, as St Pau put. it, to pay part of "the unpaid balance of the sufferings of Christ."' Then, mdeed not perhaps every day and always, but at least in our moments of deeper vision. ' Col. i. 24. THE DEFEAT OP PAIN 163 such pain becomes no longer a burden but a privilege. No great cause has ever lacked its Suflarinc martyrs, and it is not hard to see how SSwUtei. suffering of this kind — suffering volun- tarily risked, or even actually challenged, by the sufferer for the sake of a great work or a great ideal — may ennoble and inspire. But a kind of suffering harder to be borne is that which, whether it comes from accident, disease, or from the negli- gence or malevolence of man, is in no sense connected with, or the direct result of, our efforts for a good work or a great cause. Such suffering, so far from being a price which we pay, and pay willingly, for the sake of the work, is often the greatest of all impediments to it, a knock- out blow which, humanly speaking, makes nugatory all our hopes and our achieve- ments. The old theology said, "Calamity is the CaUmitr will of God: submit." But is calamity wurf' the will of God? The subject is one upon °<^ which there is much confusion of thought. No doubt, since God created and sustains the Universe, He is ultima+^ly respon- sible for everything in it; whatever hap- pens is the result of something He has Ch*not«r •ndOoc- fliet. 104 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN willed. But in that sense sin, quite as much as suffering, is the will of God— yet the very meaning of sin is that it is some- thing contrary to His wiU. But a reason- able solution is not far to seek. God u responsible for making a world which is a connected system— a system m which causes always produce their appropriate eflPects, where good produces good, and evil, evil, and where suffering is one of the effects produced by ignorance and sin. But God is not responsible for the extent to which, by the voluntary choice of created spirits, that system has got out of gear— though, if the conception of His work and character implicit m fhris- tianity be correct. He has made Himself responsible, at bitter cost to Himself, for setting it right again. It is often argued that without some element of strain and conflict the highest type of character could not be produced; and again, that unless the consequences of folly, ignorance or evil choice were reaUy bad, life would be only a game in which, in the last resort, nothing really mattered. But granting this, granted that a world in which suffering and sin are possible is better than one where THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 165 everything were necessarily smooth and easy, and therefore a world better worth while creating, what follows? We may readily admit that this actual world can be a nursery of noble souls while Lotus land could not be, yet it does not follow, either that the total amount of evil in the world or the proportion of suffering which falls to the lot of each particular indi- vidual is an exact expression of God's will. To refuse to accept the view that what- PnmdMiet. ever happens is in accordance with the will of God, does not mean the denial either of God's prescience or of His provi- dence. An Intelligence which itself up- holds the great interconnected system of cause and effect that we call Nature, and to which the secrets of all hearts are open, cannot but know the trend and tendencies of things, cannot but possess an actual foresight of the future which, tho-igh falling short of that absolute forekiiowl- edge which is only compatible with pre- destination, may yet, in comparison with our human foresight, be styled omnis- cience. Again, the experience of all reli- gious men points to the conclusion that "there's a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." Whether Baarinc otTblion Our AbUity to "ton Ood." 160 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN it be individuals or groups, evidence does suggest that those who "wait upon the Lord," who endeavour, that is, to concen- trate their minds upon the Highest in quiet meditation, and act in response to the inspiration which they get, are enabled to overcome difficulty, to escape danger, and, in spite of loss and failure, to achieve high ends. The facts point to a Provi- dence watching over us, guiding us to wise and salutary choice, leading us to the help of others and others to our help; but they also suggest that by reason of deaf- ness and unresponsiveness on our part or on theirs God's plan may temporarily miscarry. The experience of religious people is that they do often, to an extent quite unexpected, actually avoid disaster, they can "tread upon the lion and adder" ; but also, where disaster does come, a way of recovery equally unexpected is in the long run provided. Where God does not prevent. He cures. The conclusion that we ought not to regard the accidents and calamities that come to us as directly sent by God is one of the first importance for practical reli- gion. It is almost if not quite impossible to look upon the loss or the disease which THE DEFEAT OP PAIN 167 crushes or debilitates as a direct expres- sion of the will of God and still whole- heartedly regard Him as our heavenly Father. In the jiisl, and even in the present, there seen^ to be some who have succeeded in this a^jparently impossible endeavour; bul artainly from ordinary human nature it is too mu'h to i,sk for a real and true lovt (,l' God if they are taught to regard dl tie evils that fall upon them as visitations kliberatcly sent by Him as chastisement or discijiline. Of course, if such a doctrine were true we must teach it and take th. consequences, but if, as we have seen reason to btlieve. It IS not true, then to decline fraiikly and emphatically to repudiate it is to take away the key to the kingdom of heaven and hinder those from entering in who otherwise might do so. The explanation of the old theology Th. that sickness or calamity is to be regarded *'»™*"t o* as the will of God we discard; but the Md* practical moral which the old religion "•*• drew from it was, up to a point— though only up to a point— quite sound. To repine or to give way to resentment "Bubmli. in the face of undeserved calamity is fatal ?f?°" ff th III unfortunately either repining or rcsent- •noa.' Tha Positlm Attituda towards Pain. 168 THE DKFEAT OF PAIN ment is the natural instinctive attitude to take up; and in so far as "submit to the will of God" meant "put such feelings right away," it was good advice. But the right attitude to adopt is, to my mind, far better described if instead of "submis- sion" we say "acceptance." Mere sub- mission to the will of an external power is negative, it is a dull, drab thing; but acceptance of a share, still more the will- ing acceptance of more than our full share, in the tragedy of life— a tragedy in which God as weH as man is an actor — is positive, it ha, about it something vitalising. Pain, like other elemental forces in Nature, can be turned to use, but only if the laws of its operation are first under- stood and then conformed to. Natum parendo imperatur, but the "obedience" by which Nature can be mastered is no mere passive submission but an activity which may be called obedience only be- cause it functions always in conformity to laws and principles clearly understood. So it is with pain. Those who meet it clear-eyed and with a positive and active acceptance, who "face the music," as the slang phrase has it, those who are ready THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 169 not only to "do their bit" in the world's war but to "bear their bit" in the world's sorrow, make a strange discovery. They find, not only that they are enabled to bear their sorrow in a way which hurts less— for what hurts most in the bearing is that which is most resented, what is most freely accepted hurts least— but that they achieve an enrichment and a growth of personality which makes them centres of influence and light in ways of which they never suspected the possibility. Few things can so inspire and re-create Heroic the human heart as can the spectacle of ■"*•*«• crushing misfortune cheerfully and heroically borne; and the unconscious influence which those who do this exert is far greater than they or others compre- hend. Here is the element of truth in the common talk about the ennobling and purifying power of suffering; though it is not the suffering but the way it is borne that ennobles. Pain, not just submitted to but willingly accepted, makes the suf- ferer socially creative. A man counts in this world to the extent that he has thought and to the extent that he has felt, provided always that he has thought and felt in the right way. Suffering rightly Whan W«B»n raUad. Battlatal of Put trron. 170 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN borne is constructive work. He wl.o has "borne his bit" has also "done his bit, and pain conquered is power. A few are able to bear their sufferings in this way. Most of us have failed to do so, or have succeeded very partially. We have allowed resentment and depression— which, I must repeat, are after aU the natural consequences, physical and psy- chological, of a severe blow-to enter into, if not to predominate in, our out- look The suffering which, if we had accepted it as a privilege or utilised it as an opportunity (which is Christ s way), would have enriched, ennobled and forti- fied our personalities, we have faced in a way which has had the contrarv- effect. We have let it depress our enthusiasms, dim our ideals, sap our vitality. Is there a remedy for this? ^. , , ^. , There is: but it is one which h*s rather fallen out of sight in Christian teaching. W.' are familiar with the idea— later on I shall attempt to justify it-that sms can be fni^iven. that if we look back upon past errors in the r.ght spirit they can be retrieved. We have all teen taught that the degeneration which is the natural in- evitable consequence of sin can be trans- THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 171 formed, that it need not remain as a standing source of dehility in the soul, and that the repentance following after wrongdoing may actually bring about an enrichment and deepening of the per- sonality — "to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth httle." But in ordinary Chris- tian teaching this idea has only been applied to breaches of certain fundamental moral laws. It is not ordinarily applied to the failure to meet suffering in the right way, though this failure is a moral one as much as any other; it differs from other moral failures only in being less commonly recognised as such. But if it be true that sins of one kind can be, as we say, "forgiven"— that is, if their naturally evil consequences upon oui personalities can be transmuted by a subsequent change in our attitude towards them and God, so that what once was sheer loss may in another way become a form of gain — the same must surely be true of this kind of moral failure also. And experience shows that we can Th« transform the past in this regard. We Sep^"* can bring up clearly into memory the "*' times when we have suffered and have let that suffering fill us with resentment and Lmoi or 8a Mon 172 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN despair. We can realise our error and deplore it, we can say to ourselves: "No; all said and done, I am glad that in the great tragedy of humanity I have borne my part; I am glad that I have tasted of the cup which is the heritage of man." And in proportion as we can say this, and mean it, our whole outlook on life, our attitude to God and man, is changed. We are filled with a new joy— richer by rea- son of what we have endured; we are in- spired with a sense of vitality and inner strength more deeply rooted because of the experience we have passed through. The draught which when first drunk was poison is transformed into w.ne. The past cannot be undone, but the bitterness and weakness which are its living conse- quences in the present are not only can- celled but reversed. Suffering is not man's only teacher, as some have seemed to urge — ^there are things, for instance, which can only be learnt through joy— and it is the teacher whose Icisons are the most difficult of all to learn. If at first we decline to learn them, we suffer more; for then we must endure, not only the original pain, but the growing resentment or the life-draining THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 173 mekncholy which it entails. From this further suffering, consequent on our re- fusal to learn the lesson first offered to us, another and a different lesson can be learnt. But the actual learning of it awaits a fundamental change of attitude and outlook on our part, a litrdvoia, which, like any other form of "conversion," may come to one man by stages slow and im- perceptible, to another with a sudden flash, and to others not at all. There remains the most difficult prob- lem of all. How are we to take the suf- fering of others, especially of those we love, which we are eompel'led to witness but are unable to alleviate, and which in many cases we can see is not being borne —and under the circumstances can hardly be expected to be borne— in a way which can be otherwise than degrading "and de- pressing? What of this? There are times when, though we cannot alleviate, we can h.dp them to bear their suffering in the right way; could we completely succeed in this we might perhaps, though with an effort, be content. But there are also times when, called upon to be spectators of physical agony, crushing calamity, or desolating bereavement, all our theories ThsPaln of Those We Love. p*:;^'^ i^f^'^ Co-opera- tion with Ood. 174 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN about suffering and its uses simply shrivel up, and, if we try and put them into words, we seem to ourselves to be as those that mock. Conquer by accepting. The principle that pain is to be met in this spirit, and not with resentment or despair, needs special reassertion when we thus contem- plate the pain of others. For it may be given to us by an act of penetrating sympathy to enter into their suffering and, so to speak, accept it for them, and there! -y, either at the time or later on, help them to a right acceptance. Still more necessary is it to remind ourselves that God feels this pain as much as we do, in- deed much more, by reason of His more perfect sympathy. This fact points to the solution: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, he shall sustain thee." God, too, is bearing the suffering, but He is bearing it in the right way; and in so far as we can open up o'.ir souls to Him, and through "ommunion and meditation enter into His mind, we also begin to bear it in the right way. God's way of bearing suf- feri.ig. like -ven.-'^hiiig else He docs, is creative and constructive: in so far as we bear it in His \v»\-, the negative attitude THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 175 of repining and resentment will drop away, and we too shall become construc- tive and creative. The right act or the right forbearance, the right word or the right silence, will be given us; and when these are impossible or inappropriate, the right thought, the right feeling and the right prayer. And often these may be the most effective things of all. Men are all bound together by unseen telepathic ties of mutual influence. Each of us, by merely being what he is, contributes, for better or for worse, more than he knows to the mental and moral outlook of these at lives with, and probably of others to ium unknown. He who is trying to bear the suffering of those he loves, with God, for God and in God's way, cannot fail to he^ them, and to help others also, tliwugh he may sometimes have to wait a long while for visible results. And in one respect we can afford to tIi. wait, for what we have found to be true 'w""* in a«r own case must hold good in theirs " ^'^ *"" also. Pain, we have seen, even though wrongly borne at the time, may yet be transformed in retrospect, and "defeat turned into victory in later days. If, then, we believe that the growth of souls con- Burden of th« WoTld'i HL 176 THE DEFEAT OP PAIN tinues after this life, we can in a measure understand how that suffering which, because it was not rightly borne, has been wholly unprofitable and demoralising in this life may one day be changed in quality and made the condition of a richer, deeper, nobler life in the Beyond. Upon many souls the dead-weight bur- den of the world's suflferings acts as a paralysis to thought and eifort. Con- siderations like those just urged may help such to turn from passive desolation to active energy. In the lives of most highly sensitive natures there are moments when the individual feels as if he were an Atlas bearing up alone the burden of the world's ill. It is not so. In the last resort it is borne up by God, and there are always "seven thousand in Israel," unsuspected and unknown, who are helping us and Him to do it. Moral Failure and Its Rethievax In a chapter which is primarily a dis- cussion of pain, it would be out of place to attempt a comprehensive discussion either of the nature of sin or of the mean- ing of forgiveness. So much pain, how- THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 177 ever, is directly the result of sin that it seems necessary, however briefly, at least to indicate some of the main grounds for regarding the forgiveness of sin as a pos- sible and a reasonable idea. And I would ask that what I have written be consid- ered as a contribution merely to this hmited department of the problem. Nothing is more remarkable in human nature than the varying degree to which m diflFerent individuals the moral con- sciousness is awake. You will find men and women who are perfectly unconscious that their lives are one long expression of envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitable- ness. who yet feel paroxysms of contri- tion because they are haunted by impure dreams. You will find others quite easy m their minds about a long course of sexual depravity but burdened with re- morse for an unkind word. We do not see ourselves as others see us," much less as God sees us. Few of us know where our moral weakness really «es. Sin and the consciousness of sin are quite a differ- ent matter. There is a second no less remarkable tact-one, mdeed, which largely explains the former. The guilt of an action is Ml Mid thaCon- •OiOUHlMf of It. Th« MramlSlx- nUIcaiiea otBHrst. 178 THE DEFEAT OP PAIN directly proportionate to the extent to which the doer knows that it is wrong. Its injurious effect, however, upon his moral character is invericly proportionate to the extent that he regrets it. This point is so important that it requires expansion. Every act is the expression of a previous tendency or disposition in the character; the doing of the act stimu- lates that tendency; repeated acts of the same kind rapidly create a habit, which becomes a chain by which we are tied and bound. Not only that; conscience defied becomes less sensitive. An act which on the first occasion was done with shrinking, after constant repetition is performed with equanimity. The "natural" conse- quence of the commission of wrong is not the awakening but the dulling of the sense of sin. But, if this be so, a conclusion of immense importance follows. To feel constant and growing pain at the contem- plation of one's own past guilt is abeady to have begun to reverse its natural conse- quences within the self. The conscious- ness of moral failure— I mean, of course, only when it rises to the height of acute discomfort— is a sign that the old self of whose character the act deplored was a THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 179 natural expression is already dead or dying, and a new self coming to the birth. Repentance is itself an evidence of moral advance already actually achieved. Its smart is the smart of "growing pains." But in order to bring the new self to Ood the birth the individual must firstly gain a ^^ clear perception of the nature and mean- ing of that pain, and secondly, must bring it into relation with the thought of his own value, actual and potential— his actual value being in the last resort what God, in spite of all his failure, thinks of him; his potential value being what God, in spite of all his weakness, can yet make of him. At bottom this is what the tradi- tional Christian doctrine of the forgive- ness of sins was really driving at, though obscured by language derived from the Jewish sacrificial system and by an obso- lete psycholog>'. Christianity has proved to be a "Gospel" just in proportion as it has stressed the idea (shown in the previ- ous chapter to be Christ's most character- istic contribution to our conception of God) that the creative power of the all- pervading Divine stands there ever "de- clining to be estranged," that is, still con- tinuing to regard the offender as a being MCROCOPY nSOlUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No, 2| 1.0 KS 1^ 112.2 I.I i:^ m 1.8 im II u II 1.6 m m m APPLIED IISA^GE In 1653 East Moin 5tfe 180 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN The Sinner and Ood. of priceless value for whom, in spite of all, He feels affection undiminished and hope unlimited. The dawning consciousness of morel failure and of its true nature is itself, as we have seen, the beginning of a new birth, and contains and implies the possi- biUty of further growth. But whether that possibility will be realised or not de- pends largely on the extent to which the individual recognises this attitude of the Divine, and thereby gives God, so to speak, the opportunity of fanning into flame the spark of higher aspiration. This is the profound truth underlying the old evangelical exhortation to "lay hold of the salvation freely offered," or to "rest in the finished work"— phrases which un- fortunately disguise from our generation the truth which to our fathers they made luminous. Let the repentant soul realise that, in spite of all, he still has an infinite value for God, that there is still a work he can do for man, and that because of and by reason of his repentance he has abeady begun to establish a personal con- tact with a Higher Power— then at once the consciousness, and therefore the m- tensity and effectiveness, of that contact IHE DEFEAT OF PAIN 181 is indefinitely enhanced. A stimulation of vitality and moral invigoration begins which cannot but lift him right out of that past which already, by the mere fact that he condemns it and deplores, he has partially outgrown. The forgiveness of sins does not mean The Conw- that either a past act itself or its inevitable «"•'«*« consequences to other people can be im- St4™i«. done. A repentant murderer cannot call his victim to life again; he may be fortu- nate enough to have an opportunity to make some amends, as, for instance, by providing for the orphaned children; but that does not undo the past. Yet, follow- ing upon genuine repentance, a moral re-creation is possible which can reverse the otherwise inevitable consequences upon a man's own life and character, and so make his sum total contribution to mankind beneficent— even if he cannot overtake and make substantial amends to the actual victims he has wronged or rescind the consequences of his folly on his fortunes or his health. More than that, a character so re-created can effect certain things which seem to be outside the range of those who have never fallen and risen again. St Paul's conversion Ofcllx culpa? 182 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN will serve to illustrate both these points. It could not bring Stephen to life again, but it turned the harsh fanatic energy which had found expression in that act of persecution into the passion which made him "labour more abundantly than they all." In addition it gave him an insight into the human heart, .nto the nature of the moral struggle and into the meaning of Christ's life and teaching, which made him, next to his Master, that one who has made the deepest mark on the heart and mind of Europe. And, on a lesser scale, we all know men whose power for good seems to be directly conditioned by the fact that they have known evil and over- come it. Plato says that a physician should not be one who has always enjoyed the best health; and one who has himself failed may sometimes be the better physi- cian to the souls of others. Then, is it better to have sinned and been forgiven than never to have sinned at all? In St Paul's time, too, there were some who drew the same conclusion: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" We may leave the answer where St Paul left it. Logically it may be "Yes"; practically that answer could THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 183 be given only by one who has never felt the experience from the inside. Such know that in all moral failure there is real loss. Some good thing which they might have done will, by reason of their failure, remain eternally undone. And yet they know that but for the power and insight which they derived from the fact that they had failed and been restored, some other good thing would have rema.'ned un- done. It would seem that the task of bringing about the Kingdom of God re- quires the co-operation of very different types. There is one work for Mary Mag- dalene, another for Mary the mother of Christ. We cannot question which of the two wiU <•■ id higher in that Kingdom; but the oti ..-r may still stand high. In current religious teaching there is an a cuirwit Idea directly contrary, as it seems to me, ^^oxu to the teaching of Christ about God, and no less contrary to the lessons of modern psychology. I mean the idea that we should continually contemplate and brood upon our sins and work ourselves up into agonies of contrition about them. If God is just He will estimate a man's HMithy responsibility for his offences, not by the ContriUon, standard of an ideal man, but by the 184 THE DEFEAT OP PAIN UnhMiIthy Contrition. standard which he individually had reached at the time when he committed them.' If he has come to realise that the offence is much worse than he supposed, that is a sign of growth in him; it is there- fore a reason for thankfulness. The con- trition which is the natural consequence of fairly facing up to his responsibility, the recognition of the fact that he not only "ought to iiave known better" but that he did know better, is healthy. It is quite otherwise if he tries to exag- gerate his responsibility, and therefore his contrition, beyond what the facts war- rant. The tendency to do this is partly the result of conceiving God as an offended potentate who is likely to be propitiated by an apology in propoi-tion as the nature of the offence is exaggerated — the precise conception of God which Christ did His best to unteach — it is partly the reflection of wounded self- respect. The humiliation which a man feels at discovering that he was and is a * Particularly in regard to the burden of remembered offences, committed in early youth, often the best advice one can give is to minimise their seriousness — to make the person see the offence as something which, though in a grown man an enormity, in a boy deserved "a flogging and have done with it," THE DEFEAT OF PAIK 185 Sp-eater "rotter" than he had dreamed, is the measure of the Pharisee in him. In so !f/- «*"'* " "^^ *'**«' tl^e endeavour artificially to stimulate contrition is really to stimulate spiritual prid.;. Once a man knows he is a "worm" and cheerfully accepts the fact, he can begin to rise above the worm. So long as he grovels and broods on his "wormanity" he retards the process— for the secret of moral advance IS to transform interest in oneself into interest in the Kingdom of God. Christ taught that God freely forgives but that It IS the publican who most easily avails himself of the fact. To the worm that knows It IS only a worm, God gives wings. But whatever view we take on the reli- a WnUn. gious issue, from the psychological point frprnP^ of view this emphasis on the duty of "' broodmg over the enormity of the past is bound to be disastrous. Indeed, it is largely responsible for the most depress- ing of all facts in the experience of reli- gious people— the incapacity to overcome habitually recurrent sin. So many spend their time bitterly repenting of, and after a brief interval exactly repeating, the same act. Their failure has a simple psychological explanation. To concen- 186 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN trate attention on the enormity of an offence, and upon the blackness of heart and the weakness of will which can con- stantly repeat it, is really to submit one- self to a form of auto-suggestion which can only make the repetition of the act inevitable. The advice given by con- fessors in these cases is often the worst possible. So far from being told to deplore the past and dread its repetition in the future, the penitent should be ad- vised to turn away his attention from the thought of his own weakness and sin, to concentrate on the power and the desire of God to help him, to think no more of past failure but of the possibility of doing useful constructive work in the world. It may take some time to undo the work of long-continued auto-suggestion, and to free the mind completely from the influ- ence of bad advice and wrong conceptions — meanwhile let him cease to bother about this particular weakness.' Psychology ' Bad habits, physical and mental, \ """ co.- eeu rated reflection ou the idea, effects a cure. If not a doctor or a aerve apecialist should be consulted. 188 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN ■'Th» RipraiMd Complo." fundamental importance. There are, how- ever, certain conclusions as to which there is sufficient agreement among those com- petent to pronounce m opinion to justify an outsider in accepting them as at least provisionally established — and among these are some which, once recognised as established, cannot be ignored in any treatment of the subject of this chapter. One point in particular is peculiarly relevant. Man has r, natural instinct to try to hide away from himself and from others, experiences Wi'iich have deeply wounded — in particular acute humilia- tion, undetected moral lapses, occasions of acute terror or long-drawn-out appre- hension. Supposing we succeed in half smothering or even completely obliterat- .'ng the memory of these, so much the worse for us. To suppress all recollection or expression of such inddents is like applying a plaster to a boil. The emotion associated with the original occasion re- mains as a suppressed poison in the mind. It is always seeking to find expression by investing the circumstances of a man's subsequent life with an atmosphere of unnecessary apprehension, difficulty, or pain, thus burdening the personality in THE DEFEAT OP 1'AI.V ly.) the present with the shame, the fear and the agony of the past. The result is de- pression, neurasthenia and. in some cases, physical paralysis, mord breakdown, or loss of reason. If. however, the patient can be induced to remember clearly and to speak about the buried mem, ry-the "repressed com- plex as It IS technically caUed— relief at once begins. It is as if the I>oiI were opened and the poisonous matter let out It becomes possible for the patient, either for himself or with the help of the ^sy 'lo- therapeutist, to begin a process of re- adjustment or "reassociation." i.e. of asso- dating tiie event in his mind with an en>otion of an opposite kind. He can, for instance, see for himself, or be taught by another to see, what was once a legitimate cause of acute terror or anxiety, either as a trifle which he can now look back on with a smi e. or as a real disaster, but yet ,W "^/".f f /? "'"template with a feel- ing of thankfuhiess in that he has some- how won through; or. again, for the de- pression of a vaguely realised disgrace he can substitute the satisfaction of faUure retrieved or of guilt atoned for. Once this is d ne, especially if the patient can "Bmmo- eUUon." Pkiotul KwnoiiM* 190 THE DEFEAT OP PAIN be made to see a clear relation between tlie emotion associated with the past shock or act and that which he experiences in connection with some present anxiety, mental health begins rapidly to accrue.' This lesson of psychology has a very im- portant bearing on everyday life. Aniong men who have served in the fighting line, I notice, on the one hand, an instinctive indisposition to talk about the war. On the other, when speaking among intimates, and especially among men who themselves have seen service, there is a constant tend- ency to recur to it. But in each man's experience there are some things of which he never speaks even to his most intimate friends — things which, when they start up in memory, he strives, sometimes suc- cessfully, more often not, to exorcise from consciousness. And what is true of men who have fought in the trenches is true, ' Is acute caaea of nerroua breakdown it ia aometimea found that hypnotic auggeation is required to complete the neceaaary "reaaaociation." But in many oases even of acute neurasthenia, the mere fact that the "repressed ooDiplex" baa lieen brought into consciousness, and that till' patient can spenic about it clearly and fully, enable! him to put l>ehind him both the memory and the emotiona associated with it, and, as it were, permanently to detach himself from this incident in hia past ; which, until he - 1^ TUE DKt^EAT OF I'AIxX m though to a '^sser extent, of most men and from the past which stab and burn, memorus of things seen, things suP ed th'ngs done, things left undone; m, hk, ies' we trt f "P^°'"*"'^"t. humiliation, .vhieh we try, but try m vain, to bury' The habitual reserve that is character- > .st.e of the English and the Scotch t so »«- ones heart upon one's sleeve for daws to peck • or is unwilling to be for ever wearj-mf one's friends with the recTtal of mmor troubles or petty peccadilK to be commended; in so far as it is he exjress.on of a high ourage which dis! f.r ., ^^ffpate seem to shirk its full share of the burden and the suffering ot the race ,t is to be admired. But psychologj^ bears out the ancient proverb A sorrow shared is a sorrow haVed " And though to be always seeking confi- dants for one's troubles or rne's sins mevitably leads either to morbid int" speetion or to shallowness of character an occwnonal unburdening of the soul is clean, remembered and frankly ,„„k<, ,b«ut it .„ . The TroublM of Youth. 192 The defeat op pain good for most of us. But it must be an "unloading" of fears, worries, sorrows and disappointments, and not only a confes- sion of sins. Accordingly anyone who is haunted by the memory of some fright, some fault, some snub in early life, which he has never confided to a single person, should do so — not to all the world, but to some judicious friend who will listen sym;.athetically to the recital of these things. Once they are expressed in words one can for ever detach oneself from that self of long ago which did, thought and felt these painful things. One can view that old self with the eyes of an outsider and join one's confidant in a smile of sympathy for the misfortunes, or of pardon for sins, of the "poor little devil," upon the stepping- stone of whose dead self the present man has risen to higher things. But — and this is the essential lesson of psychology — ^until the failures of the dead past have been so expressed its putrefying corpse may, though we know it not, be still poisoning the present. It is harder to find the right person to Hatuiity. whom to confide painful incidents of ma- turer years — the moral failures, the slights nia THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 193 of which the most humiliating thing is that we feel them as humiliations at all, the moments of panic, the unworthy fore- bodings and apprehension, the disappoint- ments in love or in ambition, the haunting fear of loss, failure, or detection which hangs above the head like a sword of Damocles; the follies, lapses, agonies of those we love. It is not only more diffi- cult to find the right person to whom to speak of things like these; when found it IS more difficult to bring oneself to use him or her at the critical moment. We are so often withheld from speech by the reflection that even when the cupboard door is opened the skeleton will still re- mam a skeleton. But this reflection is the excuse, partly of our ignorance, partly of our desire to escape the humiliation of confession. The skeleton, it is true, will still remain a skeleton, but once the fresh air IS let in it will— »/ our confidant be one who can give wise advice— become a specimen in the museum instead of the festering remains of a dead self. ^^ Many would do well to avail themselves of some discreet and learned minister of God's Word." and were clergy and minis- ters trained to be "soul doctors" one might The Phyiielan of th« Soul. 1S4 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN universalise this advice. Unfortunately they are rarely so trained, and what train- ing they do receive is based on an obsolete psychology. Spiritual advice will do more harm than good imless it is based on a clear recognition of the distinction be- tween sin and disease, that is, between what is entirely, and what is not entirely, under the control of the conscious wiU. But to ascertain, in any given case, the exact degree to which the individual is responsible is a far more difficult and delicate process than most people seem to think. At least an elementary knowl- edge of pathological psychology is re- quired, and more than an elementary knowledge of human nature. Precisely because his advice is likely to be taken more seriously, an unwise priest, like an ignorant doctor, can do more harm than other men; and whatever else may result from the laying on of hands, it does not in itself convey a knowledge of the human heart. Still, given sympathy, experience and common sense, the pastor, next to the doctor, has unique opportunities of quali- fying in that subject. Again, the ordi- nary man always approaches a minister of religion with the subconscious expecta- THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 195 tion that he is a man easily to be shocked — especiaUy if the burdened soul be unorthodox in his beliefs. And smce it is hard not to live up to what every one expects of one. it may often cost the mmister an effort to free himself from this conventional role. But let him make that effort; the minister of Christ is called upon to be not the Judge but the Physician of the soul. i,Su^^rJ'°^^^^'"' "^ **»o«^ ^J»o from Th. cluldhood have been habituated to cast ■•wu'o. their burden upon the Lord, to give free. '^'"^• frank, and natural expression in confident and spontaneous prayer to contrition, sor- row, fear, on each occasion, great or smaU, M It arises, realising God as the unseen *nend— ready to forgive sins, able and anxious to bind up wounds, a tower of defence m danger. Such find their prayer IS answered by a courage enhanced and an insight sharpened, which enables them to look trouble and failure in the face, and before the bitterness has time to sink into the soul, to effect for themselves whatever reassociation" is required. It is an interesting reflection that the m,, teaching of Christ and His apostles has '•JS?^ in some respects anticipated, in others ^^ 196 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN gone beyond, not, of course, the actual discoveries of recent psychology, but their practical lesson for everyday life. Psy- chology teaches that the first condition of healing is to bring up into the daylight of clear recognition the exact nature and quality of the wound to be healed; the New Testament bids us look suffering in the face, recognise and confess our sins. The next step, says the psychologist, is to reassociate the remembered episode, to re-educate the mind and heart, to change our attitude towards the past; Christ says the same: "Thy sins are forgiven"; "Sorrow shall be turned into joy." Both say, "First face up to the past; then turn your back upon it"; "Believe that power is yours and according to your faith it will be done unto you." So far they seem to say the same thing. But there is this great difference — Christ has behind Him a religion, a reasonably grounded phil- osophy of life.' Hence the reassociation made by Him is more revolutionary and more profound; for He says of the ' In practice successful psychotherapists largely ac- complish their cures by suggesting ideas of hope, con- fidence, and consolation, which is in effect providing the patient with at least the practical deduction of a Chris- THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 197 wounds of the past, not only that they can be healed, but that out of them and by reason of them can be won an actual enrichment of the present; and He gives as the ground of this confidence the love and the power of God. Indeed, one might ahnost say that the essence of Christianity is its peculiar "reassociation" of the idea of suffering. In the New Testament, as has been pointed out in a previous chapter,' suffering is no longer a problem but a source of light, no longer a thing to be avoided, but a privilege to be claimed; and that because it is some- thing shared by God Himself and the means of His accomplishing the sublimest of all ends. The Way and the Powee I have tried to show that, whatever oui- view of the origin and purpose of the suffering and evil in the world, f- is a way out— a way which, for the „idi- tian philosophy of life. Owing, however, to the tragic feud between Science and Eeligi„n-a feud which, it may be hoped, our generation will see hea!ed-few eminent scientific men are in a position conscientiously to make full use of this source of power. ' Cf. pp. 29 ff. Ballsicm M Power. 198 THE DEFEAT OP PAIN vidua!, is at once the most perfect adapta- tion to environment and the line of moral progress. "Granted," some will say, "but 'straight is the gate and narrow is the way.' When the bitterness, the ^gony, and the desolation is on us, or when it comes back to us in vivid memories of the past, it is not enough to be told there is a way out, we lack the power to tread it." Precisely at this point religion is seen to be vital to everyday life. For, in exact proportion to its truth and our sincerity, religion is power. Conceive of God as Christ conceived Him, make a genuine effort to trust Him and to follow Christ, and experience shows that prayer, communion, meditation, will prove to be the road to power. "Salvation" — ^that is, inspiration and deliverance in one — is within our grasp. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find." But, if this be said, in the same breath a warning must be added against an un- questioning submission to the guidance, not only of popular manuals of devotion, but even of the great classics. Even in the best of them, language is occasionally used which cannot but suggest the idea that God is a jealous Potentate needing THE DEFEAT OP PAIN 199 and liking to be placated by ostentatious grovelling. But to the precise extent in which any surviving elements of this pre- Christian conception affect our attitude towards Him, our prayer is hkely to be a source of weakness not of power. A parent or a teacher can do very little for a child who is simply abject, and it is hard for God to speak to us unless we first obey the order, "Son of man, stand upon thy feet." ^ There is another avenue to spiritual power, less important but, because less familiar, needing special emphasis. Modern psychology has shown that TheSub- what I can or cannot do depends not only j^'"'" on the desires and the effort of my con- scious self, but on the hopes, fears and convictions which have sunk deep into my subconscious mind.' If my c, scious mind believes in God but I am lor ever anxious for the morrow, it is because my subconscious mind does not believe. The '1 uae the term "subconacious mind" for its obvious conveaience to describe tliat part of the mind which happens to be for the time being outside the field of full consciouaneaa. Anything, however, or practically any- thing, in the aubconacious area of the mind can on occa- sion come into the field of consciousness, and anything in the conscioua mind may be withdrawn from consciousness. Its Diraetion. 200 THE DEFEAT OF PAIN subconscious mind is always learning from the conscious, but it both leams and for- gets more slowly. And the lessons it takes to heart most deeply are not the purely intellectual notions of the conscious mind, but the values and emotions associated with them. A man, for instance, may believe with his conscious mind that God is good and men are brothers, but only if he plans and acts towards the I "^niverse and man as if these things were true will his subconscious mind believe it also. If his conscious mind affirms the princij-le of love but he schemes injurj- to the brother whom he hath seen, it is the attitude of hate that the subconscious mind v II learn. It is, therefore, not enough to assent with the mind to a philosophy that proves that the Power behind the Universe is one that works for righteousness; it is not enough to recognise with the intellect that for the individual suflferer there is a way out; we must so realise the meaning and the implications of these beliefs for feel- mg, thought and conduct, that they be- come part of our inmost being. But for this to happen, the values and emotions dominant in our conscious mind must dominate the subconscious also. Con- Ceitlon." THE DEFEAT OF PAIN 201 scijus and subconscious act and react on one another; but the conscious, if it knows and wills, can in the long run direct the whole by selecting the ideas and values upon which to ponder deepest in moments of quiet meditation. You may call this "auto-suggestion" if "Auto-iu«. you like, auto-suggestion is only a ba' '""""" thing if the idea suggested is evil or un- true, and it is often of the utmost value. But in any case a certain amount of it is a psychological necessity. Do what we will, we cannot keep our minds a vacancy. The conscious mind is ever brooding, ever dwelling on thoughts, hopes and fears which mevitably act as "suggestions" to the subconscious. We cannot avoid some form of auto-suggestion; we can choose the form. Let us, then, select what our intellect at its keenest sees to be most true, what our insight at its acutest sees to be Liost beautiful or best, and meditate on t>-ts. "Whatsoever things are true, what- soever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, what- soever things are of a<^nA report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, thmk on these things." Above all, as we Bmoob Lifht. 202 THE DEFEAT OP PAIN compose ourselves to rest at night, let us remember to govern mind and thought. We cannot but "suggest" to ourselves $ome thoughts, the effect of which will follow us next day. We have got to make a choice between thoughts of confidence or despair, of power or weaknes»i, of love or hate. One way or the other, we cannot but decide whether our attitude to life and to the Universe — and that means to (Jod — is one of doubt or trust, and in regard to pain, one of acceptance or resentment. Then let the choice made reflect, not the mood of the moment, but the conviction of a life. In the perplexities, the anxieties, the smarting pains of life, such self-control, such government and direction of our thoughts is hard. We need some focal point round which to centre our philoso- phy of power and help; we seek some beacon light upon the cliflf — visible how- ever dark the night. And this we have. Direction, inspiration, strength can all be had from one source. Only let the needle of life's compass be magnetised and free to move, so that it points always towards the Pole. Steer boldly straight THE DEFEAT OP PAIN 203 ahead, "looking Jinto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross" — courage victorious and love triumphant. Let prayer and meditation centre always round the thought of the Love and Power of that infinite and all- pervading Spirit of whom Christ is the portrait, and it will be possible to rise above the natural consequences of evil happenings, to make of suffering an opportunity, of loss a si 'pping-stone to gain, and to find in failure retrieved and pain conquered the secret of power.