# The Modern Social Religion

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Horace Holley, The Modern Social Religion, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> THE MODERN
> SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> BY
> 
> HORACE HOLLEY
> 
> LONDON AND TORONTO
> SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
> 19 1 3
> TO
> 
> FRANCIS NEWMAN HOLLEY
> IN LOCO PARENTIS
> INTRODUCTION
> 
> UNKNOWN as yet to the many, the historical
> phenomenon of Christianity is repeating itself in
> our age. Once more, at a time when the
> established order, both social and spiritual. has
> lost its original vitalizing principle, and ordinary
> experience, bewildered by the clash of tradition
> with new tendencies, is compelled to look outside
> itself for the creative vision, a master personality
> has appeared, whose experience gathered from
> society all that is essential and permanent, gave
> it a new unity, definition, and significance, and
> thus restored a universal religious currency to
> men. The Bahai movement presents many reá
> markable parallels with Christianity. In place
> of John the Baptist, the discerning and articulate
> element within orthodoxy able to feel the new
> birth about to take place from the old body, we
> have Mohammed Ali, the famous" Bab," who
> announced the prophetic manifestation nineteen
> years before the event; then the tremendous
> figure of Baha'01Iah, centralizing and universalvii
> viii             INTRODUCTION
> 
> izing the movement; meanwhile the inevitable
> accompaniment of persecution, a marvellous outburst of pure faith; and last (this circumstance
> unique in the world's religious history), the
> propagation of Baha'o'llah's teaching by his
> eldest son, Abdul Baha, insuring its integrity.
> Originating in Persia only a generation ago,
> the movement has already penetrated far to
> the East and West, its followers numbering
> millions of men and women, who represent every
> religion, philosophy, race, class, and colour.
> I have devoted a chapter to this dramatic
> story, covering the period from the Bab's
> declaration down to Abdul Baha's memorable
> visit to Europe and America during the years
> 1912-13. It is with the Bahai teaching, which
> extends religion so as to include modern science,
> and morality so as to coincide with modern
> economic and political conditions, that I have
> been chiefly concerned. But I have endeavoured
> to present it as a system inevitable in terms of
> our social evolution, and therefore approached
> Bahaism step by step, working gradually toward
> it through familiar types and problems, I preferred, in short, to derive Baha'o'llah's unique
> relation to the modern world from the sheer logic
> and advantage of his teaching, rather than to
> derive the logic and advantage of his teaching
> INTRODUCTION                IX
> 
> from any authority arbitrarily attached, even by
> reverent love, to his person or to his relation to
> the modem world. I t seemed to me that in
> this way a wider and more enduring interest
> in and for the movement could be secured. So
> it is that I have begun this book as though
> Bahaism, its founders, its teaching, and its
> believers did not exist, but have summoned, as
> it were, a convention of all men and women
> of goodwill, reverence, and natural though often
> bewildered faith-a convention which, out of its
> own experience, comes to agree upon certain
> fundamental conclusions concerning society and
> the spiritual life, and certain methods by which
> these conclusions can best be realized in action.
> These conclusions are no other than the Bahai
> teaching; the method is no other than the
> relation of Baha'o'llah to social evolution. For
> the deeper interest arising from unprejudiced
> personal agreement, I willingly forewent the
> advantage I possessed in the fact that Bahaism
> has already established itself throughout the
> world.
> HORACE HOLLEY.
> 
> PARIS,
> Mag 2, 19]8.
> CONTENTS
> 
> PART I                uos
> THE OUTLOOK                                    1
> 
> PART II
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE                  19
> PART III
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS •                    79
> PART IV
> THE DIVINE TEACHER                       • 1~
> PART V
> HISTORY OF THE BAHAI MOVEMENT •              155
> 
> PART VI
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SmlMARIZED    -       • 186
> APPENDIX I
> A PILGRIMAGE TO THONON   •               á   ~09
> 
> APPENDIX II
> A PRAYER FOR UNITY                       •   218
> 
> APPENDIX III
> BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BAHAI LITERATURE     .
> 
> xi
> It I believe that at this very hour the great
> 
> revolution is beginning which has been preparing for two thousand years in the religious
> world-the revolution which will substitute for
> corrupted religion, and the system of domination which proceeds therefrom, the true
> Religion, the basis of equality between men,
> and of the true liberty to which all beings endowed with reason aspire." -TOLSTOY.
> PART I
> THE OUTLOOK
> I
> 
> THE intellectual despair     of the past generation,
> best represented, perhaps, by the poetry of
> Matthew Arnold, has become an unnecessary if
> not impossible condition. We can accept the
> agnostic attitude as a splendid display of
> courageous sincerity, as a tradition of sympathetic tolerance not lightly to be forgotten,
> but we need assume neither its conclusion nor its
> pain. Within two decades, enlightened European sentiment has gone over from intelligent
> scepticism to intelligent mysticism, from manly
> denial to manly affirmation and activity. Religion, in fact, with its eternal power to intensify
> the inward life, has swept back into human
> experience. It offers once more the possession
> of a great happiness independent of outward
> circumstances; it restores again an ennobling
> admiration, a renewmg activity, to the most
> 4        THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> indifferent life. Its latest return, however, is
> made notable by the phenomenon that its origin
> does not exist in the deep, undisciplined heart of
> the people, but in the scientific and philosophic
> mind; that it has not appeared as a popular
> excitement, overwhelming by its very intensity
> and volume, whatever condemnation or denial
> a highly-educated minority might pronounce
> against it, but rather, derived from the development of knowledge by that same minority, it has
> actually been carried by them to the people.
> The scientist, compelled to realize the presence
> of psychic forces in the universe, admits to the
> shepherd that his hope of immortality is founded
> in reason; the philosopher, becoming aware of
> sources of knowledge beyond reason, and functions of activity above intellect, constitutes himself the willing priest of prophetic Revelation.
> By some mysterious fertilizing process, some
> slow but effectual fermentation, the human mind
> seems to have attained a new condition of health.
> Enriched by generations of discovery and investigation, it finds itself no longer divided, but
> whole. To the shepherd's and fisherman's passion
> for personal holiness, the modern man can ally,
> as an added factor of enjoyment and power, the
> THE OUTLOOK                    5
> 
> treasures of knowledge accumulated since the
> passing of Christ. That precious secret of great
> souls throughout history, that a man may be
> both wise and mystical, both profoundly learned
> and simply, even tenderly faithful, has at last
> been whispered abroad to our common inspiration. After so much doubt, so much restlessness~
> so much confusion, so much agony both individual ~nd social, we know-for ever and
> unchangeably know-that our intellectual and
> spiritual natures can not only be reconciled from
> their long attitude of mutual opposition and
> stultification, but fused into one eager, throbbing
> instrument of purpose and power. Man is no
> longer cleft in two, his courage severed from his.
> happiness, his initiative parted from his virtue.
> No. He is a wonderful, complex unity, an
> eternal equilibrium of soul, sense, and reason~
> fitted to draw pleasure from the three worlds of
> spirit, body, and mind, at home in each, and given
> some authority in all. All the old sources of
> happiness are restored, with an added faculty of
> discrimination and creative receptivity. The old
> neglected gardens of faith open before us, to
> enter if we will. vVhether we study St. Augustine to learn the beginning and process of faith,
> 6       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> or meditate upon the life of St. Francis to enter
> the mystery of adoration, by the sure token of
> the universality of spiritual experience, we shall
> find them more modern than Haeckel. even as
> they are more profound than Taine.
> Another phenomenon, however, even more
> remarkable and significant than the intellectual
> origin of modern faith, is the coeval appearance
> in our civilization of another source and centre
> of loyal devotion. Indeed, this contemporary
> movement, the movement for social reform
> throughout all the phases of human endeavour,
> possesses a far broader social basis and an infinitely more extended following. 'Vithin its
> scope must be included, even though they share
> no common organization, the search for a truer
> democracy than any yet attained, manifested in
> every government on earth as a progressive
> instability, a falling forward, so to speak, from
> adjustment to adjustment; the Socialist propaganda, which means a similar need for economic
> justice; the splendid fight for women's rights,
> in which are held suspended consequences
> vastly more important to human welfare than
> either Democracy or Socialism; ":Modernism"
> in the Catholic Church, which represents a
> THE OUTLOOK                   7
> determined effort to unite ecclesiasticism with
> modem science; the rise of scientific charity ;
> the foundations for international peace, with
> which logically must be associated the development of a universal language for secondary use;
> the concentration of capital into great corporations, which makes possible a future economic
> efficiency not wholly removed from economic
> justice; while neither last nor least, perhaps, we
> may add the almost imperceptible yet radical
> changes at work modifying both the ideals and
> methods of education. I have no need to mention the numerous other social activities now
> going forward, nor to discuss at any length those
> already included, to exhibit the incredible extent
> of this modern insistence upon social regeneration
> and reform. Each activity stamps its own clear,
> stem impression of power and significance,
> evoking a response which, whether sympathetic
> or hostile, invariably connotes a deep recognition
> of that power. Not one movement but drives
> to the heart of some unendurable agony or
> shame; not one but reveals the unhealed stab
> of some social inequality or the rusted chains
> of some social sin. These movements have
> gathered to themselves most of our positive
> 8       THE l\IODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> idealism as well as most of our collective will.
> Like so many crusades, they hurl themselves
> against traditional authority with self-forgetful
> passion, knowing only too well that in privilege,
> grown powerful and presumptuous, lies, insulted
> or ignored, the true cross of redress. This common necessity and indignation drives them all,
> and one other fundamental identity unites the
> limbs of this otherwise unco-ordinated social
> body.
> The revival of religious faith and mysticism
> among philosophers and scientists I have remarked as a modern phenomenon. I have stated
> that they are constituting themselves the
> voluntary apostles of Divine Revelation, carrying that message of spiritual renewal and intensification to the people, instead of receiving, as in
> the past, a spiritual regeneration from them.
> But what response are these enlightened missionaries able to arouse? What is the answer given
> by the people to this invitation to re-enter the
> inner garden of mysticism and faith? They
> return no answer at all, since from the nature of
> things they canilot understand the appeal. I t is
> explicable only to the few possessing the
> academic training or sheer intellectual power
> THE OUTI.OOK                    9
> 
> necessary to follow the new argument throughout its psychological and biological evolution.
> Simple, essential as the final conclusion may be,
> it has been strained through an intellectual
> medium unknown and unknowable to the many,
> with the result that the scientists and philosophers find themselves shut off from men by the
> wall of thcir own specialized training. To the
> majority, religion is still enveloped in a traditional theology and ecclesiasticism, and they
> cannot imagine a spiritual activity without their
> old enemy, the priest. We might wonder,
> therefore, if the old exaltation had for ever fled
> our social consciousness; if the great heart of
> Europe were at last broken by its new burden of
> mechanical industry; if materialism had utterly
> blighted both the memory and the desire of that
> inward assur,ance which recovered, for each
> generation, from the scorching heat of war or the
> desolate winter of famine, the first, fine, careless
> rapture of human life. We might wonder
> whether even spirituality, the presence of God in
> His children, were not to become an aristocratic
> privilege, dependent upon the possession of a
> trained mind, or at least upon immunity from
> the de-spiritualizing process of factory and tene-
> 10      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> ment. To the Christian ideal of personal salvation, at all events, men seem increasingly
> indifferent. In losing their reverence for the
> cloistered saint as the highest human ideal, the
> majority have also put away all interest in the
> psychological or religious method and evolution
> by which the ascetic and celibate types are produced. The healthiest modern conscience, in
> short, has rejected for ever the once-adored
> Christian mystery. That is, neither publicly
> nor privately will it announce its own utter
> sinfulness and depravity, with its consequent
> dependence upon gospel or priest. It will not
> imitate nor readily admire Augustine's confession and self-crucifixion as the indispensable
> beginning of a new life in God. By his denial
> of such confessions, therefore, the modern man
> shatters for all time the solemn gothic splendour
> of the Christian tradition.
> But must such denial and indifference shatter
> also the possibility of divine manhood; must it
> destroy all religious mystery, all spiritual consciousness and growth; must it, in a word,
> prevent the co-operation of God in the human
> soul? Before answering this ultimate and allimportant question, or permitting any authority
> THE OUTLOOK                    11
> 
> whatever to answer it for us, let us ask a further
> question of the facts we have combined. Among
> what social elements is derived this second
> activity I have touched upon, this determined
> passion for social purity and equality, this
> devoted, tireless effort to bring about a better,
> fairer world? Surely, among those very types
> and classes who most vigorously oppose the
> Christian tradition I To the enlightened mysticism offered by philosophy as, after all, the truest
> possible personal ideal, the people, self-reliant and
> confident, oppose the ideal of social service. In
> some blind, unconscious, intuitive manner, the
> masses feel a subtle danger inevitably latent
> within the old religious experience-an unknown,
> decentralizing force to which they must never
> again yield if they hope to carry out their programme of reform. They know that once
> entered upon, the religious path will lead them
> away, one by one, from the world and its wrongs,
> leaving those wrongs as a heritage to their
> children's children and in their children's children
> for ever. Unconsciously, intuitively also, they
> feel that religion should not contain such a
> danger, should not threaten the success of their
> cause-that this of itself constitutes part of the
> 12       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> complex injustice by which they suffer-yet, if
> Christianity and Socialism be inalterably opposed,
> so much the worse for Christianity. In vain,
> therefore, the preacher points out the fact that
> this nameless force they resist is the Divine
> Presence; that. if they yield entirely to this
> directing power, they will find a great inward
> happiness more than compensating for all oppression, a delight in pain itself, and, at last, a
> passionately triumphant acquiescence in humility
> and obedience. I t is in vain. Somehow the
> ancient appeal has lost its intoxication, the great
> challenge its compelling reality. . The modern
> man is not concerned with his own possible
> damnation. He is too much concerned with the
> actual damnation of the world.
> In this condition of affairs we have two sets of
> opposing forces-the opposition of classes and
> the opposition of ideas. This mutual hostility
> has served to make each movement more definite
> and self-conscious, compelling each to look to the
> truth and the human desirability of its claim; but
> it has served also to divide and weaken our available social power. To all intents and purposes
> the Western world has two camps-the Christian
> and the Socialist. All men and women belong
> THE OUTLOOK                    13
> 
> to one or the other, either by reason of disposition
> and belief, of environment, or social and economic
> necessity. Yet already there is an increasing
> number who detest the confinement imposed
> upon them by adherence to one cause, with the
> involved hostility to the other. Many an earnest
> Christian has gone over to the Socialists, carrying
> his religious faith into the other camp. Reform,
> they say, is only the extension of the Golden
> Rule; and thus we see a third division arising,
> including those Christians who accept the
> Socialist ideal and those Socialists who feel the
> need of the religious life. It is the purpose of
> this book to follow each line of advance-the
> advance of Christianity toward Socialism, and
> the advance of Socialism toward Christianityendeavouring thereby to make as clear as possible
> the exact nature of that ideal, Christian-Socialism,
> which undoubtedly represents the future faith;
> and then to connect these social tendencies with
> a teaching recently given the world, whose influence has come to be the most powerful existing
> impetus towards rational and helpful religion .
> . Meanwhile, to arrive at the point which permits
> a true perspective on the ideal of Christian-
> Socialism, and permits a sympathetic appreciation
> 14       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> of the tremendous differences raising it above
> either Christianity, so-called, or above mere
> Socialism, we must once more briefly consider
> the two centres of activity at work in society.
> First, then, there is the revitalization of personal
> spirituality made possible by the final agreement
> of philosophy and religion, science and faith, with
> its attendant recovery of a long-lost possesion of
> joy and steadfastness independent of outward circumstances. Second, the accumulating inst~nct
> and passion for social reform, indicated by
> the change in the centres of popular admiration from the saint to the plainer but more
> useful public man, this second source of activity
> attracting the majority with far greater authority and power than religion, even in its modern
> adaptation. Like two mighty currents, they
> flow through our time. \Ve can neither deny
> their power nor ignore their effect. We can
> only stand silent between them and reverently
> ponder how they will influence each other and
> how both will influence mankind. \Ve remember that the one river rises from the unchanging throne of God; that in it are the divine
> attributes of joy, steadfastness, peace; while
> the other rises only from the agony and need
> THE OUTLOOK                   15
> 
> of men, containing the despised gifts of political
> equality, economic independence, and the universal opportunity for education and self-development.    Both, however, share one common
> property-that of making us forget, if we stoop
> and drink deeply from one, the existence of the
> other. No man can behold in pure ecstasy the
> attributes of God within his own soul without
> straightway losing concern for the world. The
> invariable effect of this divine possession, this
> " God-intoxication," is to intensify the importance
> of all personality and magnify into a new proportion the selves of men. Henceforth the possessor sees in every man an object of transcendent
> intrinsic importance, to be partially identified
> with God Himself and brought to a similar state
> of spiritual consciousness by individual treatment
> -to be saved, in other words, at all costs. Inward spiritual happiness impels men to share
> their experience with others by a tireless energy
> more unselfish than motherhood. Likewise no
> man can ever completely realize the inherent injustice and diabolical unreasonableness of the
> social structure, burning at the same time with
> an inward visio~ of what humanity should and
> could be, without straightway flinging down,
> 16       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> once and for ever, his former desire for personal
> salvation. He sees the world as a vast, illadjusted machine, menacing the physical, mental,
> and moral health of all its inhabitants at all times.
> In people he sees only the accidental favourable
> or unfavourable effect of environment. He has,
> therefore, only a scant concern for the individual
> with whom he comes in contact-the individual
> is already stamped with the trade-mark of the
> machine-but his whole being writhes with a
> fierce passion to change the machine itself, before
> countless other lives are marred by its gigantic
> inefficiency. The single flowers he leaves to the
> sweet devotion of a St. Francis; but the garden
> itself, those conditions of earth and air which
> determine all future plants, this he takes as his
> Arch-Fiend and Tempter, the annihilating Satan
> which he must resist and overcome with every
> breath and muscle and thought within him,
> whether the gods aid and reward him or not.
> o  These two types of men are diametrically
> opposed. The one cannot understand why the
> other neglects the opportunity of infinite beatitude for the sake of material, transient things;
> the latter cannot understand why the relig~ous
> man devotes himself to a handful of people, when
> THE OUTLOOK                   17
> 
> the whole future race is mathematically doomed
> to imperfection and pain. 'fhe compromise, the
> temperate drinking of these waters should be
> impossible, since it argues either the inability or
> disinclination to live our human life deeply and
> rightly. In such a case, to choose wrongly is
> wiser than to compromise and abstain. Yet
> before giving ourselves irrevocably to either
> movement, we should see where and how these
> two currents meet, that we may not condemn
> ourselves to the fatal inadequacy of the opposed
> types just considered. 'Ve have every right to
> insist that our personal spirituality prove serviceable to men and that our service, whether
> political or social, contain that religious motive
> which makes men clean and glad and strong.
> PART II
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE
> II
> 
> LEAVING our ideas in      this balanced opposition
> for a moment, let us turn to the world itself and
> learn how the two forces are really working
> themselves out in terms of history and finding
> expression in human nature. For of one fact we
> can be always and wholly certain: that life
> itself, rightly or wrongly, blindly or intelligently,
> must push forward through the generations.
> Nature's activity is independent of our will, even
> our spiritual passion; and whether the few or
> the many prosper or fail, as we have learned to
> estimate prosperity and failure, humanity diligently replenishes its stock, and the story is told
> somehow to the end. Nature cannot distinguish
> or prefer: she is concerned with toothache more
> than poetry; weeds flourish brazenly in our
> neglected garden, and where we have lost the
> rose we shall find the broom. Indeed, this sense
> of a primitive, t~iumphant vitality in life throws
> 2)
> 22       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> a tragic shadow over every individual experience.
> OUl" own happiness, after all, means so little to
> 
> others; and our most desperate agony of failure
> or remorse creeps hopelessly into the outer darkness of the world's oblivion.
> Yet, what is this unconscious humanity?
> What is this social juggernaut which, by some
> inexplicable wrongness in things, has the power
> to make us at once its high priests and its
> sacrifices, its executioners, and its victims? 'Ve
> need ask for no ideal motive whatever; it is
> more than enough if we ask from selfishness,
> so-called, and from fear. Each may look out of
> his own window at the world-the view, after
> all, is much the same.
> I t being our first purpose to understand the
> point of view of the type which despises the
> power of religion and trusts to social science for
> the cure of those structural errors which limit
> and repress our human life, we can surely do so
> most fairly and adequately by entering into those
> experiences which tend to produce such a standpoint in ordinary men and women. Before
> collecting material for analysis, however, I wish
> to introduce a short digression, in prder that my
> analyses will be followed with greater sympathy,
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE             23
> 
> and my final deduction be received with deeper
> comprehension of its real importance.
> History, or the annals of mankind, being
> necessarily written from an impersonal, extrahuman point of view, the historian is compelled
> to establish his perspective outside and beyond
> any individual man or woman. There being, on
> the one hand, no individual who possesses the
> attribute either of immortality or ubiquity, both
> of which are demanded to make possible a history
> with an individual perspective and continuity;
> and, on the other hand, the fact being evident
> that even could such an individual be supplied "to
> the historian, the resulting history would most
> certainly be, if not incomprehensible, yet unsympathetic to the rest of us-all this being the
> case, the historian compromises by establishing
> his perspective either within an institution or an
> idea, since institutions and ideas are, comparatively speaking, both ubiquitous and immortal.
> Instead of writing history in terms of personal
> experience, therefore, the historian writes his
> records of human life in terms of churches,
> nations, races, art, science, or some such abstract
> idea as the evolution of political liberty. Supplied with such an impersonal point of view, he
> 24       THE ::\WDERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> can collect all his facts into unity and clearness.
> He can present a story intelligible and of more
> OJ: less concern to all. If he creates an historical
> n~rrative from the national perspective, for
> example, he establishes in the past a certain
> importance and personal interest for all inhabitants of that nation or those deriving from those
> inhabitants; if he discusses a Church, he
> establishes in the past an importance and
> personal interest for all members of that particular ecclesiastical division. Likewise with
> economics or the evolution of political freedom,
> by selecting from the past the elements that
> enter into our own present economic or political
> situation, he endows the past with meaning and
> moment to all men in proportion as all men are
> affected by finance "and government. But we
> do not lose sight of the fact that this method is
> a compromise. In securing for his narrative a
> relative interest and importance, the historian
> sacrifices the particular interest and importance.
> He sinks the individual citizen into the nation,
> the individual soul into the Church. 1\Jagnifying
> institutions, he minimizes personality; emphasizing ideas and things, he weakens men. But
> institutions, whether great or small, transient or
> A DEFINITION OF HIDIAN NATURE            25
> 
> enduring, have absolutely no importance nor
> even existence except in so far as they affect the
> consciousness of men and women. After all,
> humanity is nothing more than you and I, the
> butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, their
> wives and children, associated into a badlyunderstood and badly-conducted partnership,
> whose only conceivable object is to attain and
> secure our own best welfare. Of what possible
> human avail is a powerful institution if its
> members, taken separately, remain pusillanimous; of what possible meaning is the propagation of a Divine Ideal if the contributed human
> lives remain worldly and base? By uniting the
> efforts of a thousand comparatively ineffectual
> people, we can doubtless create an organization
> which shall exhibit remarkable effectiveness.
> The Great Pyramid, we recall, was built by a
> horde of wretched slaves. If the object of this
> human existence consist in the erection of an
> impressive tomb, then by concentrating our
> attention upon the completed pyramid we can
> easily overlook the servitude it required, or even
> more easily we can reconcile the chained bodies
> and the chained souls with the heap of unfeeling
> stone those bodies and souls were spent for.
> 26       THE ':\IODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> But the fact remains that to the slaves themselves, most of whom not only perished before
> the pyramid was completed, but suffered physical
> agony and spiritual suffocation during every
> hour of their enforced activity upon it, its
> ultimate significance, architectural or symbolical,
> must have proved not merely an unsatisfactory
> compensation, but an inhuman, an unspeakable
> insult. While admitting the fact in this particular instance, the reader will add that it is our
> very weakness and helplessness which makes any
> institution necessary; that we are not slaves
> fulfilling a tyrant's caprice, but free men and
> women, deriving a more than adequate return in
> safety, efficiency or happiness from the institutions we support; and that our allegiance, being
> voluntary, can be broken, renewed, or transferred
> at our own discretion. The institution, indeed,
> when subordinated to personality, contributes to
> both our need and our well-being; but I cannot
> insist too strongly that every institution possesses
> a subtle, centripetally-operating force which,
> unless eternally resisted, transfers our consciousness from men to things, from human experience
> to mere numbers and size. .
> Though institutions are both powerful and
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE               27
> enduring, while all men are weak and mortal,
> yet it is not the record of any institution, however ideal its purpose, by which you and I must
> measure life and determine its true value. No.
> The value of life is its worth to individual men
> and women at single successive instants. If all
> the flags in the world are flaunted to the bright
> sun, if all the Masses are being loudly chanted,
> all the prayers grandiloquently read, yet, while
> the majority of men and women are wretched,
> life is a wretched business, and the glory of'
> nations and sanctity of religions is either an
> angel's aspiration or a devil's lie. Do not be
> deceived in this matter. Let us not find our
> security in statistics, but in our own ability.
> Let us not submissively drag out a useless,
> hampered existence, and then to our dimming
> eyes and chilling heart hug the illusion either
> of flag, cross, or our own still hopeful, still eager
> children. Whatever tlley are, we are broken
> and inglorious, a worn-out hypocrite creeping
> into his shameful, but restful, grave. Our
> institution deserts us then; our wife and children
> remain isolated and independent personalities;
> we have only our naked soul at that hour, built
> inexorably up from the successive experiences
> 28       THE .MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> we ourselves have undergone, and may God
> keep' us all from discovering too late the spiritual
> impotence of the world.
> So much for the digression. I hope I have
> transferred the scale by which we should measure
> life from its false position in the institution to
> its true position in the soul. I hope I have
> scotched, for a few men and women, the head
> of Eden's eternal serpent, a blind trust in
> material things. We can now return to the
> task of collecting material for analysis.
> Your neighbour, for example, awakes some
> morning to find his business threatened by
> unforeseen commercial readjustments-his very
> economic existence, as it were, abruptly, brutally
> summoned before a blind, capricious judge to
> be tried for life and death. As a modern man,
> he will defend his economic self with almost the
> same desperation that he would summon up to
> resist an assault upon his physical being, since
> at our stage of social progress the two are wellnigh identical; and he suddenly realizes how
> vitally all that is superior, enjoyable, comfortable,
> or even decent has become entangled in this
> question of wealth. He feels the same blind,
> instinctive terror, followed instantly by a shock
> A DE~'INITION OF HUMAN NATURE           29
> 
> of supremely-wrathful indignation against the
> hostile force, whether personal or impersonal,
> individual or organized, that he feels against the
> bully who leaps upon him from the dark, or the
> enormous, pitiless army, slowly, but irresistibly,
> approaching his native town.
> As to the man seized by the plague, the whole
> world is changed. He has become aware of an
> outer darkness just beyond our busy, electriclighted thoroughfares, which holds in ambush
> an eternal, relentless foe. He knows that it is
> only incidental that he is the present victim-.
> that this enemy is the enemy of all men, but
> can strike only those who wander or are thrust
> too near the fatal line. He wonders how men
> and women can laugh or quarrel about trifles
> in the neighbourhood of such a foe. He wants
> aid, sympathy, fellowship, and turns to society
> as the exhausted swimmer looks yearningly at
> the .shore. There, however, he finds a great
> indifference to his personal fate, but an equal
> indifference to its own danger. In the public
> parks, though, he may notice certain shabby,
> silent men sitting meaninglessly on the benches
> in the sun. Beneath their squalor he sees, with
> a new and poignant penetration, the all but
> 30       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> obliterated marks of respectability; beneath their
> ineffectual, empty apathy, he discerns an old
> vigour and intelligence; beneath their turgid
> despair he rediscovers the throbbing heart of
> man's holy sorrow and delight. These men,
> he whispers to himself, these men were once
> what I am; these men are what I may be;
> and at the thought his soul seems to stand at
> the edge of some burning desert of tribulation,
> too vast for terror, too awful for grief. In these
> broken old men he realizes that there is neither
> sympathy nor help; they have lost the power
> to understand or feel another's misfortune, even
> when it mirrors back their own, while broken
> and socially impotent as they have become,
> they can no longer raise a hand to point out
> or stay the common tragedy. In them, however,
> he sees the ghastly warnings which time and
> destiny have raised to prevent the recurrence
> of such misery in other lives-the skeletons
> strewn along the sand of that desert to frighten
> away the social caravan-but, as he turns away,
> he knows that not until now has the warning
> been legible, and that had he not faced their ruin
> in himself he would have remained completely
> indifferent, or, which is no better, in the ordinary
> A DE~'INITION OF HUMAN NATURE           31
> 
> state of personal sympathy, which cares for the
> wounded and buries the dead without knowing
> just where the battlefield lies or just who is the
> enemy.
> Your neighbour, however, knows both. From
> that day he knows that the battlefield extends
> over our whole social life, and includes every
> phase of human activity; that economics proper
> is only the front line of that army of defence
> in which every science has its own peculiar and
> important part. But he knows more. In a
> vague, yet decided and terrible way, he knows
> that the enemy is not a superhuman power,
> vested in the processes of wind and tide, nor
> even a distinct, definable class of society. No.
> Friend and foe wear the same uniform, employ
> the same weapons, stand side by side, face to
> face, and back to back in one awful, frantic chaos
> and desolation. Lifelong friends unwittingly
> contribute to one another's downfall; fathers
> pass or approve laws which in the future may
> wound their own children's well-being. Nay,
> even more; for your neighbour finds that he
> himself has proudly and resolutely held views
> which he now sees opening like deadly mines
> underfoot. As in some tremendous Old 'l'esta-
> 32       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> ment vision he beholds our modern unregulated
> competitive industrialism like a vast, unimpeachable conspiracy, in which every man, employer,
> or workman, rich or poor, necessarily is a
> member, and of which all men are potentially
> the victims.
> Yet, to his great comfort, he discovers that he
> is not utterly alone in this realization. Great
> spirits of the past, who possessed the power of
> social observation, have laid the foundation of
> a cleaner, sweeter labouring humanity. Round
> these names, as round undaunted banners which
> no selfishness and no blindness can pull down,
> rally an increasing number of individuals and
> groups, each aware of the common danger, and
> intent only upon destroying the cause. Your
> neighbour, therefore,lif he luckily avoids financial
> ruin, or, having failed, retains means enough to
> secure a little leisure, allies himself with some
> such society as being the only tool available to
> his purpose and need. The Church offers him
> no leverage, for its business is the saving of
> souls; like the State, it is worse than useless,
> for its roots draw their nourishment from the
> very soil he hopes to plough over and resow.
> Private societies, accordingly, little States witbin
> A DEFINITIO~ OF HUMAN NATURE            H3
> 
> the national State, offer him a footing; and
> thankful for even a fqothold in ground he has
> learned to fear like quicksand, he takes up the
> task of reform.
> Henceforth, his life consists of one revelation
> upon another. First, he learns the impotence
> of the individual. A leaf might have more
> possibility of controlling the tree than one man
> this monstrous organism; a drop of water could
> easier stop the tide than one man the fluctuations
> of this social sea. Through organization, on the
> other hand, he can reasonably hope to prove
> effective, since the organization supplies a lever
> whose working force multiplies by membership.
> 'ro render the organization powerful, however,
> he next learns that the individual must subject
> his own opinion to the general will. In his
> present state of mind, this demands no sacrifice.
> Indeed, he wonders how any man can cling to
> his own whims and prejudices in the face of such
> overwhelming necessity. Like a soldier to his
> captain, he looks only to the official head for
> command, and does not so much obey a personal
> authority as the compelling spirit of battle.
> His next discovery is the presence of countless
> other societies, a thousand little states jealously
> 34      THE :MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> carved from the national body. Each is fundamentally like his own, an organization composed
> of men who, either by rare sympathy or bitter
> experience, have grown aware of certain unnecessary evils preventing humanity from its full
> flower and springtime, certain sicknesses, as it
> were, within the social frame which irritate,
> perplex, and discourage the mind of man.
> 'Vhile all the world is busy with its walnuts
> and wine, these devoted, intelligent few live
> only for their cause, their self-imposed trust and
> responsibility. But these other organizations,
> while not hostile to his own, but, on the contrary,
> equally consecrated to the general welfare, prove,
> nevertheless, a resisting, deterring influence to
> its beneficial effects, and an unconscious brake
> upon its triumphant progress. This is not
> only because the other organizations have
> amassed a certain number of valuable men and
> women into one compact body against which
> his ideas vainly strike; not only because the
> social river is thereby crowded with shipping
> which impedes his own free navigation; but
> rather because each organization has become the
> centre of an ideal. and by its very intensifying
> and spiritualizing power has separated certain
> A DEFINITION OF HU:MAN NATURE            35
> 
> human hopes into an isolated, self-conscious
> virtue. That is, producing a distinct ideal, each
> organization sets up a new tendency among the
> unorganized majority, a new direction for the
> unguided efforts of the race. But the average
> man, the man who has only a limited social
> energy to expend after fulfilling the daily
> demands of his own family, but who, being the
> average man, therefore supplies the source of all
> social energy, this man, confronted by a multitude of organizations, finds his interest divided
> and his energy scattered into as many different
> channels. Concerned rather with social welfare
> in general than with any particular phase of it,
> he would naturally prefer to see the results of
> his activity count immediately and directly for
> the general benefit. Instead, he must give a
> pemly here, a half-hour there; he must read
> a mere paragraph or two from each chapter if
> he hopes to cover the book; or he must concentrate upon one ideal and neglect the rest.
> In either event, the result in terms of society
> is the same-division and loss of energy, or
> concentration and sacrifice of the broad, effective,
> statesmanlike vision. And he learns only too
> soon that the efficiency of these social organiza-
> 36        THE MODERN SOCIAl. RELIGION
> 
> tions is not more than 10 per cent. His contributions of time and money are largely wasted
> on mere organization expense.
> But the breadth of outlook and consequent
> co-ordination of energy usually sacrificed is
> precisely the one essential social virtue. Your
> neighbour, who by this time has become a wiser
> and sadder, if not discouraged man, accepts this
> fact as the very heart of his experience. He
> knows that scientific investigation, international
> peace, and other admirable activities are often
> made possible only by funds contributed by
> interests inherently opposed to the result such
> activities supremely desire; he knows that the
> resources of a Christian church in N ew York
> were for a long time invested in a manner that
> would make an Iago blush for shame. Everywhere he sees a division more fatal than the
> chasm between rich and poor, white and black,
> Oriental and Occidental-the division in man's
> own nature. Within us all the economic man
> --
> strangles the spiritual man, the patriot manacles
> the Christian, the husband and father outvote
> the philanthropist. This division is absolutely
> fatal, since it brings an enfeebled, cowardly
> human nature to the task of its own regeneration.
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE               37
> By making it impossible for the Christian clergyman . to preach the real Christ, and equally
> impossible for the layman to live the real Christ,
> we appoint a desperately sick man his own
> physician.
> Now, to prevent anyone from objecting that I
> insist too strongly on the economic sit?-ation-to
> prevent any of those excellent people who, never
> having lain awake in the cold sweat of poverty,
> think that wealth, or ~t least a competence, is
> God's own Who's lVho of righteousness-to
> prevent these sound sleepers from believing that
> such insistence is only unbalanced demagogy-I
> shall give one more example of our social wrongness and stupidity, selecting one that will have
> upon it no taint. Your other neighbour is a
> successful professional man, happily married,
> public spIrited, energetic, and sane. Of his three
> children, he instinctively loves best his youngest,
> a daughter of fourteen. She is a slight, sensitive
> little spirit, exceptionally receptive, yet not at all
> abnormal. Pioneer ancestors have contributed a
> vitality and elasticity tempered and refined by
> the blood of scholars. She gives every promise
> of rich, noble womanhood, conspicuous and
> valuable by its possession of spiritual significance.
> 38       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> All this. be it understood, is appreciated by your
> neighbour and his wife. One day the child
> seems dull and silent, the next she asks permission
> to remain at home, and by evening lies under
> medical attention, a feverish, overwrought little
> nervous system. She has been over-conscientious
> in her studies and over-sensitive in her relations
> with her mates, and, being the stock and fibre she
> is, has driven herself unnoticed to the verge of
> the last precipice, responding with every delicate
> nerve and sense both to the presence of an illassorted group of children, and to the pressure of
> a heavy, impersonal educational machine. 'Vhile
> her mother, consequently, gives twenty hours
> daily to the crushed flower, wondering if those
> little bruised petals will ever again unfold to the
> sun, her father, not less devoted though removed,
> nor less anxious though busy with his own
> routine-her father may well wonder what provision society makes for its exceptions, its superior
> types, and whether much deviation from the
> hearty, undiscriminating average is desirable in
> our world.
> A fierce resentment comes over him as he
> learns the systematized, inelastic trust-company
> methods of modern public instruction, which
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE            39
> 
> operates upon the mind with no heed of the
> body from which it derives and reacts, and, like
> a wild, arcadian dream, he begins to picture a
> truer education. He seesá in every boy and girl
> an ideal possibility-an embryonic manhood and
> womanhood compounded less of information than
> of aspiration, less of learning accurately than
> feeling deeply, less of systematized brain-cells
> than a harmonious co-ordination between spirit,
> mind, and body. He recalls his own school-days,
> and his matured experience reviews his childhood
> and youth, when, with every other boy, he "did
> what he was told, as well as he could." He
> traces his progress through school, college, and
> business; and at every successful period of his
> career, every point where he rose to the full tide
> of power and accomplishment, he distinctly
> recognizes that the elements directly responsible
> for success had been the enthusiasm and imagination that entered into his work, not the information.    l\:[oreover, he recognizes that the
> country life general during his boyhood had
> unconsciously effected a natural relationship
> between thought-circulation and blood-circulation which has never been replaced for the
> children of towns and cities, although the
> 40       THE MODERN SOCIAl. RELIGION
> 
> intellectual demands made upon adolescence are
> at least double those made a generation ago.
> Information, he observes, is only the paid serva~t
> of education; and he resolves the whole conflict
> between classics and sciences, Greek and economics, into one simple, luminous rule; that those
> subjects only should be offered which release
> the child's latent enthusiasm: that Greek is more
> valuable than book-keeping in this respect,
> merely because it contains those elements of
> idealism and magnanimity which do so unfold
> the eager wings of youth; that Greek itself is
> usually spoiled because it is presented as discipline rather than as opportunity for admiration;
> and finally, that, after all, the poetic tradition of
> one's own language and race is by far the best
> educational agency. Enthusiasm and admiration
> once aroused, the rest is easy, and the vocational
> training obligatory to all social existence will be
> eagerly undergone as the necessary means to a
> highly. desirable end. The acquisition of detail
> to one really in love with his subject is as rapid
> and easy as the study of topography by an
> aviator. While the men beneath him are
> stopped by every hedge and lost in every wood,
> he sails freely, magnificently on, picking out a
> A DEFINITION OF HU;\IAN NATURE          41
> 
> river here and a mountain there, making serene
> use of details instead of being confused and
> baffled by them. Jurisprudence, therefore, is a
> passion to the born lawyer, just as metre is a
> divine sport to the born poet; though if we were
> to believe the ordinary advocate and scribbler,
> these are worse confounded than the streets of
> Constantinople. Facility in the use of detail is
> entirely a matter of perspective, which in turn is
> a matter of enthusiasm and ambition derived
> from natural fitness. This enthusiasm in himself,
> he knows, had contributed a romance and magic
> to the obscurest points of his profession; and
> that without such spontaneity he would never
> have risen beyond a clerkship. The music and
> gymnastics of the Greeks, accordingly, assume
> not only an idealistic, but a very practical value
> in human life, and your neighbour passes a brick
> school-house with a shudder as from a prison.
> Reaching these conclusions, your neighbour
> feels a strong impulse to stop people on the street
> and tell them.. He feels like the Columbus of
> some new, fallow, opulent America, and the joy
> of discovery is so intense that he is eager to give
> away square miles of virgin soil to all who stand
> in need. He looks about and undertakes an
> 42       THE MODERN SOCIAl. RELIGION
> 
> investigation into the whole problem of education.
> It makes no difference to this purpose that his
> daughter recovered after a year in the calm,
> renewing country-the iron of wrong has entered
> his soul, he sees the outer darkness of inefficiency
> and failure crouching imminent beyond the
> world's small candle of intellectual manhood and
> womanhood, and his public life henceforth is consecrated to its ultimate extinction. But he enters
> upon the same round of discoveries concerning
> the propagation of a superior ideal in education
> that has already daunted your first neighbour
> concerning the propagation of a superior ideal in
> economics, so that hereafter, their problems being
> identical, we can identify the two cases and consider them as one.
> From whatever angle, obviously, the earnest
> man enters this labyrinth, from whatever class or
> creed he starts, whatever purpose he has in view,
> he is certain to learn about society the facts
> already mentioned, with as many more as his
> patience and capacity entitle him to receive.
> Like the owner of a very large tree in a very
> small garden, he finds the roots of his cherished
> problem running out into many other people's
> territory. He digs about the trunk first, follow-
> A DEFINITION OF HUlIAN NATURE            43
> 
> ing each tap-root in its sinuous and extensive
> progress, but in every instance he is stopped short
> by his own limiting wall. Beyond this he cannot
> go. And while the tree is slowly blasted before
> his eyes he wonders which of his neighbours, or
> what process, intentional or otherwise, has
> poisoned the plant. All the societies founded,
> like his own, for social amelioration, raise their
> boundaries and confine him on every side. It
> might be possible, he sees, by some extraordinary
> general convention, to arrange a constructive
> compromise whereby these walls could be provided with a friendly gate of mutual intercourse
> and co-operation; but two walls loom up over
> these lower barriers which seem for ever and
> inevitably fixed-the frontiers of nations and the
> hostile antagonism of religions. By the time that
> he has worked out to these conclusions, your
> neighbour knows too clearly that anyone nation
> and anyone religion represents too small a
> section of humanity in which or by which to effect
> permanent social reform. The roots of all the
> important human problems, in short, are hopelessly intertwined and involved without respect
> to any religious, racial, or national boundaryline. By this time, if he is anything more than
> 44       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> a village official excited about the speed of automobiles, he has come to regard the nations, the
> races, and the religions as so many adjacent
> gardens grouped about the single tree of humanity. Weare all neighbours, he knows, and the
> cultivation of each soil-area has its direct influence upon that tree. Some of us are advanced
> and conscientious; some of us are conscientious
> but ignorant; some are both ignorant and selfish;
> some have already begun to dream of a nobler
> tree and fairer fruit; others scarcely realize that
> there is a tree, but lie drowsily in the sun, eating
> such fruit as falls, contented when it chances to
> be wholesome, and disgustingly, pusillanimously
> sick when the fruit is bad.
> Fixed as he must be in his own particular
> social latitude and longitude, your neighbour
> has nevertheless a new and abiding sense of
> human things. Society seems to him like a vast
> painting worked out by thousands of artists, to
> each of whom a small section of the canvas has
> been given without order of merit. If there was
> any original cartoon, moreover, this has apparently been lost or destroyed, and consequently
> each artist has been compelled to fill his allotted
> space according to his own ideas. As the natural
> A DEFDHTION OF HUMAN NATURE               45
> 
> result t the whole canvas represents an ordered
> confusion, a mathematical distortion, a divine
> inconsequence that strikes the beholder like the
> supreme triumph of inspired nightmare. Of
> course, if one looks at only one space at a time,
> concentrating upon the successive environments
> one by one, he always finds more or less harmony
> and perfection. If you speak of confusion, he
> takes you close to the painting, points out his
> favourite section, and refutes you by a triumphant
> silence; if you suggest distortion, inconsequence,
> he will offer to take you over the whole canvas,
> proving by a profound critical study of each
> section the highly admirable finality of Art.
> Objecting to this method, however, and requesting him to step back and view the work as a
> whole, it is very likely áthat he will consider you
> a vandal capable of stealing ~fona Lisa, or a
> harmless fool who really never deserved a critic's
> serious attention.
> But we have not thought, suffered, or dreamed
> our way to this point to accept the inconclusive
> conclusion of the environment-mind. \Ve cherish
> the fearless, unchanging faith that, if order is not
> now an attribute of human society, it is not inherently impossible to it; if there is not now an
> 46       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> international equity, an inter-religious fraternity,
> the human race has received no divine fiat
> making them for ever unattainable. It was not
> written on the stone tablets, nor spoken from the
> Mount of Olives. Nor did Buddha authorize
> any such negation in the philosophic East. By
> the manhood and womanhood within us interá
> preting human life according to its own creative
> instinct, we insist that there must be some true
> perspective for the social picture; some point of
> view from which these numberless self-contradictory, self-stultifying scenes already melt into a
> perfect unity; and that unity, we know, shall not
> only contain a holy beauty, yet unimaginable, all
> its own, but by some easy and natural metaphysics will endow each of its component parts
> with a vigour and delight totally unfelt by those
> who see the parts unrelated to the whole. This we
> know, and in our faith exulting beyond the reach
> of discouragement, we seek this unique point of
> view, this centre of unity, throughout the length
> and breadth of the world.
> Some experience-at least, some emotional
> reaction-corresponding to this is responsible for
> the Socialistic standpoint. I t is a point of view
> far more inclusive than that of religion as
> A DEFINITION OF HIDIAN NATURE             47
> 
> traditionally conceived, and certainly more firmly
> based. It is the bitter or contemptuous foe of
> orthodoxy, and its demands are too forceful to
> be set aside, just as its influence is too general to
> be resisted. To be quite beyond discouragement,
> however, we must either have attained some
> positive bliss which dares laugh at reason, or have
> acquired some truth which no criticism can ever
> refute or impair. Unreasonable happiness is a
> state we have no desire to realize. Our happiness
> must be more reasonable than reason itself, or we
> want none of it. As all social evils have a
> known cause which science and law conceivably
> can remedy, we need only put into operation
> the requisite agencies, and slowly but surely
> the whole demoralizing tangle will straighten
> out. Have we evolved a saving truth, then,
> which is inexpugnable to experience?               .
> The method of this study, as already expressed,
> consists in comparing two diametrically opposite
> values in order to derive a third value reconciling
> and including both. No philosophy can be exploded or modified until it has been permitted
> complete opportunity of self-expression. As
> long as either contestant in a debate retains part
> of his argument unformulated he holds open a
> 48       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> road to victory; but with the whole argument
> once delivered he has no further opportunity of
> dealing with new facts, and has very likely thus
> succeeded in controverting his own conclusions.
> Passing to the other point of view, therefore,
> does the religious type agree with the ideas just
> expressed? Is he daunted or baffled by them ?
> Not in the least. He says that. this philosophy
> begins at the wrong end of life. He says that
> man is not a helpless slave to material environment, not a lump of clay to be thumped and
> moulded by the blind potters of the world; but
> by divine right the creator of his own destiny,
> endowed with will-power to resist all material
> and physical catastrophe, just as he possesses an
> instinctive faith which, when called upon, can
> elevate him above the reach of failure and pain.
> He says that by laying our emphasis upon
> environment we stupify our power to conquer
> environment, and by transferring our efforts from
> the soul to society we weaken that inward
> spiritual activity which alone makes life worth
> living, whose development, in fact, is the end
> and aim of existence. While your Socialists and
> agitators, he continues, are groaning about
> poverty, consider the stern, sweet triumph many
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE           49
> 
> a weak man and woman has already achieved ,in
> far more terrible adversity. Which is more
> admirable ? One has only to examine the
> results gained by so much restless running to
> and fro. What is the end of it all? The more
> that is given the poor, the more they want.
> Gaining an unexpected bodily comfort, they
> have lost their old simplicity and poise. Gaining a little of this world, they have lost their
> own souls! And the others too, the rich and
> educated, are suffering from the same disease.
> 'Ye are all worshipping at the strange shrines of
> physical and intellectual perfection; we raise an
> altar to the unknown god-whom we might as
> well openly call the God of Pleasure-while we
> desert the ark of the covenant and raise impious
> hands against the Crucified. Weare winding a
> rope of sand; we are writing our eternal names
> in water. \Ye stoop over the world's dirty
> carpet, pulling out the rotten threads and
> weaving with them a new rug. How can the
> new rug be any better than the old? That
> which was dark in the former will be dark in the
> latter; what was red will be red, and what was
> pure white shall ever be pure-all the strands
> inherently unchanged by the mere process of
> 50       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> changing the design in which they are tied. A
> weak man must be weak however buttressed
> about by social regulations; a vicious woman
> will be vicious under democracy as under
> monarchy; while a pure soul can remain undismayed in the lowest circle of blasphemous
> hell-the soul of man under Socialism, in short,
> will continue to be-the soul of man. But must
> we be discouraged? Must we resign ourselves
> to an alternative either hopeless or unworthy?
> No! And the religious man speaks from the
> great faith within him-No I We must simply
> and utterly begin at the other end of life. \Ve
> must begin with the soul itself, and discipline it
> to acquire or reveal powers over which the world
> has no control. We must admit no compromise
> between spirit and matter, between the man
> and his environment. Once accepting Chrir.t's
> revelation of the soul's supreme sufficiency and
> the world's supreme helplessness, once consecrating ourselves to the inward life of God,
> and all our fears and vexations will cease. Aye,
> the world shall have no more authority over us,
> but this life will take its proper proportion in the
> great eternal scheme as the training school of
> souls, the battleground of right and wrollg-prep-
> A DEIá'INITION OF HUMAN NATURE          51
> 
> aration, not finality; possibility, not consummation. In a word, he concludes with the lingering
> smile of wisdom-in a word, that which makes
> the social ideal both impossible and unworthy of
> man is men-is human nature.
> The force of his conviction brings us his point
> of view. Have we indeed begun at the wrong
> end of life 1á Are we really beyond discouragement 1 For already this philosophy has thrown
> its disturbing shadow across our steady resolve.
> We have met this revolutionizing factor before,
> this human nature. In our efforts toward social
> wellá being, we have been thrown back time after
> time by exasperating and apparently fatal questions of personality and disposition. 'Ve have
> encountered a certain cross-grained contrariness
> in men which resisted our sharpest saw of progress. Our combination of ideas could be relied
> upon, but our association of men soon scattered
> like autumn leaves. The ideal remained firm as
> Gibraltar, but the individual
> followers dashed
> blindly against one another in the stormy
> Mediterranean of prejudice and jealousy below.
> The religious man, therefore, merely gives a
> definite form to a tendency we ourselves have
> often observed in society; has only allied to an
> 52       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> ancient ecclesiastical tradition an undoubted
> instinct of the human soul. Certainly, if this
> everyday flux of passions truly represents
> human nature, we shall find it difficult to resist
> the progress of that militant tradition across our
> lives and institutions. We shall find it impossible not to exchange, and gladly exchange, our
> troubled vision of men for the calm purpose of
> God. Little by little, as we follow our own
> souls toward divine perfection, we shall first
> relax, then release, our grasp upon outward
> things; and as eternity develops within us, like
> a new body to cast off the old flesh, a new mind .
> to cast off the old thoughts, we shall hear the
> mingled curses and cries of humanity as revealing their passion for inward liberty, not political
> equality, for spiritual intensity, not material
> opportunity; and full of our own new happiness
> and peace we shall leave the untroubled, gloryfilled cathedral of meditation for the roaring,
> brutal market, bearing a simple story of love,
> meekness, and sacrifice as balm for the broken
> heart and the aching mind of man.
> Here, then, we have the religious point of
> view. Comparing it with. the point of view
> previously expressed, we see that neither is
> A DEFINITIO'N OF HUMAN NATURE            53
> 
> wrong in the sense that it can be successfully
> denied or neglected. But, on the other hand,
> both are wrong in the sense that both are so
> narrow that they exclude as much truth as they
> contain. It is the excluded truth that finally
> damns a system, not the admixture of error the
> system contains; and from now on we must
> endeavour to break down the fatal opposition
> that sunders religion and social science. Will
> Christianity absorb Socialism? '","ill Socialism
> (I use the term in the broadest sense as meaning
> the whole movement for social amelioration)-
> will Socialism make use of Christianity? What
> will be the character of the new thing, "Christian-
> Socialism" (or" Socialized-Christianity") ?
> The common point at which they are compelJed
> to meet is human nature. If human nature
> were what the saints and confessors say it is, and
> be no more than tltey say it is, we should have to
> reconcile ourselves to the eternal opposition of
> world and spirit, with life necessarily unhappy,
> and its only hope in the next world. Fortunately
> for us, the orthodox definitions of human nature
> are strict, narrow, and precise. The Church has
> a definite psychology, while the modern psychology only exists as the unformulated impressions
> 54       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> of most men and women. I t has not yet
> brought forth a St. Augustine or Thomas a
> Kempis to focus these various impressions into
> one intense personal experience, and we accordingly possess no authoritative psychology to
> oppose to the orthodox definitions of human
> nature. I t will go hard with us, however, if, as
> living men and women, we cannot evolve a few
> definitions more acceptable to our reason. For
> ourselves, we are conscious of helpless good far
> more than triumphant evil, an~ unsuccessful
> impulses toward self-control or self-expression, far
> more than desperate but voluntary compacts
> with hell.
> What is human nature viewed in the clear
> light of facts and events? Is it an element
> for ever fixed in relation to its own resources of
> good and evil, or is it a substance socially capable
> of gradual refinement and purification? If only
> a blunt yes or no be permitted, we should absolutely accept the former estimate, and resolutely
> reject the latter. That is, in seeking for the
> ultimate point of responsibility, we had better
> locate it, at all costs, in the individual soul rather
> than in the environment. For we can find the
> same dreary types of sin and shame repeated
> A DEFINITION OF HUlIAN NATURE              55
> 
> throughout every social arrangement from the
> beginning of time. \Ve can find, likewise, the
> same inspiring types of truth, courage, and fidelity
> exemplified in every conceivable political and
> ecclesiastical order. The constructive mother
> and the destructive harlot dwell side by side in
> London as they dwelt in Athens; the miser and
> his brother the spendthrift save and scatter our
> paper currency as they used the shell money of
> the Indians. There is apparently no spiritual
> improvement in society as a whole, but only one
> same inevitable and fateful drama which Everyman must play to the end. For, could we effect
> a real social amelioration, we should eliminate
> the destructive and vicious types, retaining only
> the superior stock. We ourselves, in other
> words, should be appreciably better than our
> grandparents, which we certainly are not. But
> now I suddenly recollect my objection to the
> historical estimate of life. I suddenly recollect
> that all human existence has been created in the
> form of individual men and women; and that our
> only fair test qf life and standard qf the universe
> is tlte experience of each man and 'Woman, taken
> separately, as a series of personal impressions lasting, with varying degrees qf intensity, from hirtlt
> 56       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> to death. I refused to be duped by the universal
> deception we practise upon ourselves, of looking
> out from our personal experience to some institution such as Church or State, and trying to
> identify our own helplessness with its strength,
> our own shame with its glory. Yet the first
> time that the historical method was employed
> as an argument I was temporarily convinced!
> No, instead of watching the reappearance of
> any type, good or bad, in the interminable process of the generations, let us rather take one
> type and follow its inward experience and fate.
> ",.e can choose any type or any number of
> types, provided always that we take them one
> at a time and study life through their own eyes.
> In this way we shall learn human nature as it
> actually exists in men and women like ourselves,
> not as it is classified iná the historical museum.
> Take the harlot type. Emotional or economic
> necessity compels a woman to give or sell herself
> to men. As we see her, she is a creature sunken
> or sinking into the slough of physical and mental
> ruin, feverish or dull, desperate or apathetic, but
> always approaching one terrible climax of disso]ution. ,;ye might ask what she had been as
> a child; whether the harlot bears any distinctive
> A DE}<'INITION OF HUMAN NATURE           57
> 
> temperamental indication by which she can be
> recognized as potentially and necessarily a harlot,
> even before actually becoming such. It would
> be a reckless thinker who stated that there is
> any indication of the kind. Among a thousand
> ten-year-old girls which, or how many, will
> become harlots 1 \;Y e can agree, however, that
> temptation will come to all, whether as unreasonable emotion or compelling want, and that only
> those few who cannot resist their particular
> temptation will become harlots; the great
> majority will attain an unchallenged womanhood.
> Comparing the former with each other, we may
> find some common temperamental liIL'eness
> suggested between them all, an emotional
> intensity bordering upon hysteria, an emotional
> apathy approaching insensibility, some fundamental perversion of reason and will, or some
> anremia of mind and nerve. Can we accept any
> or all of these conditions as unfailing indices of
> prostitution 1 If we do construct an index, we
> must be prepared to find that every other woman
> among the thousand will be indicated by it to
> a greater or less degree. We will also find
> among the acknowledged prostitutes some who
> scarcely respond to our scale, but by the un-
> 58      THE MODERN SOCIAl. RELIGION
> 
> answerable authority of nature were intended
> to be happy wives and mothers. 'V'hat contradiction is this 1 The reply is easy: that
> society brings a greater pressure to bear upon
> some women than upon others; that many
> respected women would have succumbed had
> they been exposed to the same early environment as the unfortunates; and, conversely, that
> many and many a prostitute would have realized
> a useful and happy life had she received a little
> more sympathetic attention or a little more
> wholesome food.       The" human nature" of
> women, then, while differing according to
> personality, sustains a general likeness which
> authorizes us to derive a few conclusions. We
> may compare it to an elastic, all-pervading substance continually subject to strain, which by
> virtue of its strength and elasticity can resist
> terrific pressure, but after receiving a certain
> amount will recover no more, and will break or
> assume a new, distorted form. That is, there
> exists a temptation-point for womanhood, a combination cif poverty, loneliness, discouragement,
> and desperation at wldch tlte individual must
> choose between deatlt and shame. I think that
> such an analysis, far from making anyone think
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE            59
> 
> worse of human nature, fills one with reverent
> awe, darkened by an overshadowing sorrow that
> such a point should be allowed to exist. If only
> a partial vindication for the individual woman
> (yet vindicatory to an extent known only to the
> few devoted and fearless students of the subject),
> yet it is an absolute and eternal conviction of
> society itself. It should create a deep sympathy
> between women - that earnest, constructive
> sympathy which surviving soldiers feel for the
> fallen, knowing that in such a hell of bullets
> some must perish, and grateful that it was not
> themselves.
> I have selected one type, and suggested the
> resemblances by which it is knit close to the
> rest of humanity. In choosing the harlot type,
> moreover, I have deliberately taken the form
> of temptation which, while as common as any
> and far severer than most, is nevertheless yielded
> to proportionately less than any other. I have
> deliberately taken the one so-called vicious type
> whose viciousness to become operative must
> stifle the most powerful natural instinct, and,
> having done so, receives the least compensation
> in return. In the compulsory sterilization of one
> woman's passion the whole world is blackly
> 60       THE l\IODF~RN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> damned. But I have not yet touched the heart
> of this matter, I have only cut a cross-section
> of human nature, as it were, and pointed out the
> fact that all its rings are concentric. I have
> only suggested a similarity between people of
> different and even antagonistic temperament,
> but I shall now reveal a tremendous dissimilarity, a sheer self-estrangement which exists
> in every individual cleaving him from himself
> like daylight and darkness, or like east and west.
> 'V-ho was that proud and hateful man, that
> selfish ruffian round whom suddenly there shined
> a light from heaven, and who after three days of
> fasting and blindness received a new sight and
> a new nature? The question carries us to the
> very watch-tower of human nature; it carries
> us to religion and Christ; the answer, that it
> was the Saul who became St. Paul, brings Christ
> and religion directly to us. For there could be
> no better proof of Saul's desperate and vicious
> nature than that even after conversioh he was
> feared by the Apostles; there can be no better
> proof of Paul's spiritual nature than his own
> later life and influence. In seeking for this
> religious or spiritual nature as a fact in our
> human life, I need not confine myself to the
> A DEFINITIOS OF HUMAN NATURE          61
> 
> strange environment Christ created about Himself in the men and women He passed among,
> for our civilization has never lacked saints and
> mystics, even in its darkest hour. We can discover this saintship and mysticism to-day, often
> in those who have no knowledge of its ecclesiastical relation. But no man need accept for the
> purposes of this discussion a condition of being
> in which other men have lived and are living
> to-day. He need only look within himself and
> acknowledge the presence of two natures-that
> which he is, and that which he would sometimes
> prefer to be. He knows more about the first
> than the second; it is thrust upon him, happily
> or unhappily, every day of his life, and seems
> as much more present and actual and inevitable
> as his own home seems more present, actual,
> and inevitable than the sunset hidden behind
> a city's smoke. \Ve need push the question no
> further: it is enough to admit that' ordinary
> human nature is not a unity, but a division; not
> a simple, controllable substance, but two substances, each complex, interwoven and involvedone firm and unchangeable, like the trees in
> a forest; the other soft and ephemeral, like the
> light mist which the wind blows among the
> trees.
> 62       THE MODERN SOCIAL REUGION
> 
> Though most of us are thus divided, some
> men have been united. ~Tithout discussing
> the how and why of' the fact, let us merely
> examine these men after this inward unity, and
> learn some idea of the new substance, so to
> speak, which in them human nature has suddenly
> become. Undoubtedly the first unusual attribute
> we notice is joy, and, not like our happiness,
> derived from unstable, ever-passing combinations
> of health, environment, self-gratification, success,
> and the weather-not at all like this, but something assured, self-deriving, or self-renewing,
> independent of all outward circumstances, and
> as integral a part of the possessor as his heart
> or brain. How can this be? How can it be
> that whereas with our happiness familiarity
> breeds contempt and taste leads to repletion
> and antipathy, this other happiness falls in love
> with itself, as it were, and by self-consumption
> is ever increased and intensified? Yet there
> is no doubt of its existence. no question of its
> actual possession of these strange qualities. What
> other attribute can we discover in such men?
> ~Thy surely, a faith and stedfastness unalterable,
> and a burning desire to influence the personal
> lives of other men. Now, are we going to resign
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE              63
> 
> ourselves for ever to our own unsatisfactory
> nature, or rather natures, while witness to so
> desirable a nature in men originally no better
> than we? At least, let us form a working
> hypothesis and then apply it to our own case.
> In some people there seems to exist, or be
> acquired, another set of organs, a different centre
> of activity. A spiritual nature seems to be born
> within them like a butterfly in its chrysalis, as
> different from mind as mind is from body; and
> this does not always come about through the influence of a greater personality, but through the
> man's own desire to reconcile the two natures
> within him. From all evidence and from our
> own experience or instinct we are convinced that
> spirituality comes from our ideal and unattained
> self. But is it merely a superior physical health
> or a clearer intelligence 1 Is it one or both of
> these, or something quite new and dissimilar 1
> As an athlete might cast a glance of pity on
> the invalid sitting motionless in the sun, or as the
> eager scholar might turn unhappily away from a
> dullard having no thought of the universe beyond
> his little environment and his brief day-like
> these, but with far deeper and broader compassion
> the spiritual man sees the weakness and blindness
> 64       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> of the spiritually invalid. To him, his spirituality
> is the source of all his existence. It courses
> through his body like a torrent of warm, vitalizing blood, rousing the tired heart to youthful
> exuberance and his limbs to the lightness of a
> fawn. It steeps his mind like the sun in Italian
> gardens, drawing a radiant colour and lingering
> perfume from each thought, and inspiring
> emotions jubilant as the thrush among the trees.
> He knows-and he knows by the same unanswerable conviction of the athlete who knows his own
> strength, or the scholar who knows his own
> intelligence-he k'nows that he has come into
> possession of a new nature. He knows that this
> new nature, this spiritual self, far from being the
> }'eaction from clean blood or clear brain, is the
> source of their richest energy. He feels his
> sluggish, unhealing blood demanding new, vital
> nourishment, his tired brain suddenly calling for
> more and profounder materials. A new centre
> of sensation has developed within him, at once
> swifter and more responsive than the old-the
> conflux of mind and body with a new current.
> The joy that he had in physical activity becomes
> tenfold, as if he were hurrying to greet a friend;
> and his thoughts grow passionately interesting,
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE               65
> 
> each one the key to a supreme secret. But
> deeper and stronger dawns the realization that
> body and mind have found their purpose and
> their sustenance. The body carries him from
> bower to bower of Nature's paradise; the mind
> brings him glimpse after glimpse of a holy adorable Presence.
> But is this new activity accidental, intermittent,
> contingent 1 Far otherwise. He knows at last
> that always, even in.his most painful or unhappy
> day, it had been spirit which he had really prayed
> for, not health, will-power, or good fortune. In so
> far as spirit had been present within him, he had
> ever found comfort in weakness and courage in
> despair; but to the degree that soul had been
> wanting, stifled by the ignorant or unready mind,
> he had been both hopeless and condemned,
> judged and punished. But now, attaining
> spiritual activity, his life has become one strong
> current of power, joy and accomplishment.
> Trials 1 misfortunes 1-so many wheels the river
> turns as it flows, undelayed and unweakened.
> Sickness 1 death 1 Oh yes, but the bird sings
> elsewhere when this wood hears it no more-the
> poet's creative power seizes upon a new subject
> when the completed poem has been sent abroad.
> 66       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> Had Shakespeare felt this radiant, self-assured
> spirituality, he would have left us great impulses
> toward happiness instead of eternal phrases of
> regret; had Milton's faith been undarkened by
> the perverted moral consciousness of his generation, we should have looked upon no " Paradise
> Lost," but the primal Eden sown eternally for all
> men and women; and Napoleon would have
> bequeathed no Waterloo to breed the all-poisoning snake of modern armed peace, but a united,
> inspired France, like another Athens, to inflame
> the world.
> One might grant so much yet remain unsatisfied. 'l'he acquisition of this spiritual nature
> may be dependent on temperament? Practical,
> everyday people are excluded? Only he is excluded from this attainment who never felt a
> different nature hovering over his common nature,
> a new desire bursting like a strange flower within
> the garden of his dreams. For the soul's predominance acts like the authority of a captain,
> bringing obedience to many rebellious impulses
> and unity to many discordant powers. It gathers
> all the physical and intellectual faculties into a
> beautiful, efficient ásynthesis. It realizes all the
> occasional aspirations by one symmetrical, poised
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE               67
> faith. It makes every personality a rare possession, valuable to the world. The fisherman's
> simplicity it makes Peter's reverence, and from
> Saul's rancour it moulds the ardour of Paul. It
> removes the cause for jealousy and hate by transferring desire from the flux of people and things
> to the steadfast mountain of holiness. Personality becomes a delight, which had been a burden;
> individuality becomes a treasure, which had been
> a curse.
> But, if attainable, is spirituality socially desirable 1 Does it not deprive humanity of a man,
> and the State of a citizen 1 Can a man serve two
> masters 1 This indictment is apparently warranted
> by the world's experience with holy men and
> mystics. Spiritual activity has driven men into
> deserts and monasteries. And the men of greatest
> faith have ever attempted to tum our minds from
> this world to another. Once again, however,
> history will provide argument for one side as
> potent as for the other, and we must here trust
> to our own increasing knowledge of the soul.
> Yet what inner truth or instinct can reconcile
> the useless self-torture of St. Simon with the
> devoted public ministry of St. Catherine of Siena?
> Does the spiritual life effect one temperament
> 68       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> one way, but another temperament the opposite
> way 1 Surely not I And by comparing the
> activity of the two natures within ourselves, we
> can interpret every apparent contradiction and
> exception. The brutish hermit, the fierce ascetic,
> have been deceived by the overwhelming moral
> perversity of their age, or (which is more likely),
> have not really attained the spiritual life. For
> the desire for this inward sanctification and
> happiness will drive to madness or to ethical
> crime those who are aware of their soul's possibility, but who are tortured by their apparent
> inability to realize it. Ignorant of the true
> method of operation, they gladly scarify the
> physical and intellectual being in the conviction
> that passion and reason negate or destroy
> spirituality. Should spirituality come to them,
> by reason of their intense desire and despite their
> desperate error, they realize too late how uselessly
> they have deprived the soul of its faithful servants
> and messengers. But even at such cost they
> never regret. On the other hand, when spiritual
> activity is fully awakened in a man, he approaches
> society more closely, and serves the State with
> greater zeal. He finds his true happiness in
> service, and will not solicit from men the reCOID-
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE              69
> 
> pense already abundantly bestowed by his
> Creator. He does not crave celibacy nor require
> it, but if the divine accident of love reveal to him
> the mate his psychic and physical incompleteness
> has awaited, he discovers in marriage the primal
> mystery and sacrament of life. Nakedness and
> innocence become identified as one indivisible
> quality, and love the mutual rendering of one
> divine gift. The flaming sword of shame lowers
> for these two; they find Eden everywhere about
> them, and in parenthood restore to their children
> the golden age. And stronger even than this
> sacrament is the sacrament of the forgiveness of
> sm. All the long-festering centres of hateful,
> shameful thought and memory, spreading a
> subtle and paralyzing infection through his
> consciousness, instantly heal and disappear. The
> mind receives them back into its own cosmic
> infinity, and the individual returns to sin no
> more. Then, as a strong man recovering from
> wasting sickness feels returning his rightful
> mastery over the limbs; as, gradually but surely,
> his body loses its terrible weight, and he no longer
> need exert a reluctant willá power to raise head
> and arm; so increase of spiritual health gives
> complete control over the moral nature. The 50-
> 70      TIlE MODERN SOCIAl. RELIGION
> 
> called virtues, once onerous, are become easy;
> morality reveals itself as opportunity, not duty.
> Spiritualized human nature expresses its natural
> power and joy through the virtues, as the athlete
> expresses his strength by means of exercises and
> games. Each virtue and grace of life becomes
> in its turn a means for self-expression-goblets
> in which the soul may pour its rare and fragrant
> wme.
> The grimly conscientious and the sceptical
> have probably long ago thrown down this exulting page; yet if curiosity, not approval, retain
> their attention still, I shall gladly answer the
> indignant question that now breaks from their,
> lips. If this be true, they say (it should be
> remarked that puritan and freethinker put the
> same question). if such joy, steadfastness, and
> power can be derived from a spiritual activity
> free to all men and women, how about them?
> And they point to the passing crowd. Y es~ I
> repeat, what about them? Are they essentially
> different from those multitudes who heard
> Christ, and believed, and went on their way
> rejoicing? Have they less inherent capacity for
> spiritual living? I firmly believe that they
> possess far more. Then why do they not believe
> A DEFINITION OJ<' HUMAN NATURE             7]
> also, and rejoice? The reply is easier and
> simpler than might be thought possible. 'Ve
> have only to pause, however, each in his own
> place, and for a moment seriously consider the
> social order, its ide~l, its operation, and its effect
> upon the individual. But since, if we consider it
> from no special point of view, with .1l0 special
> inquiry in our minds, the world will seem merely
> a great spectacle which, including all kinds and
> conditions, apparently emphasizes no particular
> kind and condition, nor apparently authorizes
> any deduction from facts which cannot be
> sterilized by a diametrically opposite deduction,
> also from facts-since this is so, let us deliberately take one point of view for our outlook upon
> society, and let us formulate one particular question which society must answer. Our point of
> view must be supremely vital; therefore it shall
> be that of the relations of the individual, whoever and wherever he is-the point of view, that
> is, of you and me and every other man and
> woman ta"h:en separately and one at a time. This
> is the only natural point of view, since it is the
> one that life itself thrusts equally upon all. But
> our question. also, must be supremely and
> universally important; therefore it shall be this :
> 72        THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> TVltat tdJect does the present social order inherently
> and inevitably have upon our spiritual development?
> Spiritual attainment, as we have seen, consists
> in the transference of our centre of consciousness
> from one being-this common being which
> others think ofá when they think of us-to
> another being; that ideal nature we sometimes
> think of all alone, when our solitude is inspired
> by some uncontrollable passion of love or sorrow.
> I t consists in hurling ourselves across an inward
> chasm and becoming different men. It consists
> in effecting a change in ourselves so radical and
> permanent, that after the change we can look
> upon our former nature as the bird looks upon
> the broken shell from which it came, as the
> butterfly looks upon the chrysalis to which it
> need never return. But society tolerates no
> such changes. Whatever the optimist say, or
> the glorious exceptions seem to prove, our social
> arrangement is inherently, inevitably and altogether opposed to the spiritualization of human
> nature. Its opposition may not be conscious or
> intentional, but none the less it is diabolically
> effective. People, as men and women, may not
> hinder, but encourage us to attain our ideal
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE              73
> nature; but people as society fling over every
> soul the confining chains of duty and habit, even
> as the gods bound the aspiring Titon (" Foresight ") to the sheer rock and laid open his breast
> to the vulture. Spiritual attainment is not the
> mysterious nor tremendously difficult task its
> rareness would seem to imply. It is not so
> difficult as the development of an athlete from
> the ordinary lover of sports; it is not so
> mysterious as the development of a scholar from
> the ordinary lover of knowledge. The process is
> simpler and swifter, its apparatus less expensive.
> ~fen have only to realize that the tidal wave
> of power rolling momentarily across their characters in the presence of a great event like battle,
> a grcat personality like the orator, a great emotion like love-that this power is not lent to
> them by the outward event or personality, but
> is the effect of their own spiritual nature recognizing its own attributes in the mirror of the
> world's glory. It is they who bring greatness to
> the event, not the event which brings greatness
> to them. rrhey must realize, moreover, that
> such power, steadfastness, and joy is a transient
> climax, like the crest of the wave, only when
> registered and considered by their lesser nature;
> 74       THE MODERN SOCIAL REUGION
> 
> but that when registered by their spiritual nature
> it is known to be an attribute of self, and therefore a permanent state of being. One has only
> to go back and recollect as clearly as possible
> what passed through his mind at such a time;
> he will perceive, like a faded map, a character
> totally superior to his present character, a world
> of labour and men quite different from this
> world. That map or chart of the spiritual self is
> faded now, and it will continue to grow dimmer
> and less believable as he leaves the great crisis
> behind; yet in that hour it was outlined more
> clearly than the constellations, in figures more
> intensely brilliant than the sun. Every conscious being can draw from his own memory at
> least one impulse which, if followed, would have
> led him to the spiritual life. No human soil is
> so unhallowed that it does not contain at least
> one fragment of self-perfection. By this fragment, though it be broken and marred like the
> statue of some ancient divinity, the god is recovered to the imagination and the will.
> But what blots out the map of attainment?
> what barbarism overthrows the shining acropolis
> of perfection? Once more I seriously desire
> every man to answer for himself, out of his own
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE            75
> convincing experience. Let him return to the
> momentary vision and impulse and learn what
> malignant demon of commonplaceness stole it,
> like a sunrise, for ever away. He will perceive
> that some social duty too quickly intervened
> between himself and his creative passion. distracting him into attention of outward things,
> and that he saw nothing in these outward things
> to correspond to the necessity of his dream, so
> that gradually he came to doubt its existence or
> at least its practicability. But if he be more
> tenacious, if he will not yield so easily to outer
> influence, he will also perceive that society has
> made no available provision for this new nature,
> either to produce or develop it, and hence he, too,
> like the iron heated and then neglected by the
> smith, will cool once more, his form and temper
> unchanged. Here, indeed, lies the dark secret
> of the world's unhappiness: that in neglecting to
> provide for the soul, society has not made the
> mistake of the jeweller who substitutes alloy for
> gold; it makes the far more consequential error
> of the sword-maker who tries to fashion a blade
> of cold iron. The exceptional personality, moreover, who derives his course of action from inner
> necessity and not from outer suggestion, on
> 76       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION'
> 
> cherishing this new, mysterious impulse and
> releasing its activity to its culmination in the
> successful spiritualization of his nature, he must
> then undergo the ultimate tragedy, the Golgotha
> of the religious life, realizing at last that our
> social order, the prematurely-lauded arrangement
> of a "free Church within a free State," effectively
> prevents him from expressing himself adequately
> in terms of service to his fellow-men.
> Here, in fact, lies the truth excluded by the
> religious psychology. It has not at all taken
> into account the soul's need of self-expression
> through mind and body, with all the social complications which that involves. The Christian psychology, in other words, takes it for granted that
> the soul expresses itself only through prayer and
> praise, or through other means equally personal
> and innocuous. I t is only when the modern
> Christian, who differs from the monk and priest
> by his sense of human fellowship-it is only when
> the modem Christian attempts to carry his
> vision into practice, that he sees the fatal error
> religion has made in permitting or compelling
> society to develop its governmental activity apart
> from its spiritual life. For government, by which
> I mean the social structure in its broadest sense,
> A DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE             77
> must be realized to be the collective expression
> of human souls~' and as such to possess an allpowerful influence over our spiritual life. Human
> nature, then, is too complex and inclusive a
> substance to be independent either of religion or
> social science. In the daily experience of every
> man and woman they meet and blend, though
> society itself is organized upon their intense
> hostility. But since our human nature can, and
> must, reconcile them, it will not be long before
> society reconciles them also. Part III., accordingly, will study this latter aspect of the problem,
> and show how society is already instinctively
> attempting to unite them, with an inquiry into
> the nature of the social structure that will result.
> PART III
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS
> III
> OUR nature, broadly speaking, maintains social
> self-expression through two different sets of
> institutions-the Church and the State. While
> Church and State truly represent the ideas of their
> members; while they truly are a projection of
> our natures upon the material world, like a wellfitting garment, they are either unfelt or felt only
> as a source of comfort and pleasure. Grounding
> ourselves upon the firm basis that Church and
> State no longer fulfil our needs and desires, we
> can readily perceive wherein each one is a misfit,
> and how both are rapidly altering so as to
> conform to that mould and pattern every man
> bears ,vithin himselt
> Of our social existence, we have stated one
> unchallenged fact, that it is a constant defence
> against personal calamity-a truceless warfare
> and a peril unremoved. Every man and woman,
> in every environment, at all times, banquets (or
> 82       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> starves I) at the world's table under an impendings word. Virtue secures a man only partial
> immunity; health and wealth are mighty shields
> that protect only a little of one's individual
> integrity. 'Vith a rapidity that leaves us indifferent, a multiformity that leaves us resigned,
> disaster and misfortune-sickness, poverty, gI'ief,
> helplessness-make out their daily bulletins of
> defeat; and we, the lucky survivors of to-day's
> proscription, may well wonder what sentence the
> morrow will pass upon our lives. We know too
> clearly that it is neither our virtue nor intelligence
> which has given us such respite, for more admirable unselfishness, courage, and wit fell among
> the earliest victims. No. Standing one story
> higher than the superstitious or passionate mob
> which attributes every catastrophe either to
> implacable fate or to some wanton human tyrant
> -now propitiating Moloch, now beheading King
> 
> -
> Louis-standing one story higher than the
> crowded streets, we have long ago discovered
> the comparative impotence of any individual to
> accomplish good, and the comparative innocence
> of any individual in accomplishing evil. We see
> that evil and misfortune are inherent in the
> inequable social structure; that the streets of
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS              83
> 
> our political and economic order are too narrow
> and tortuous to pass the human population
> without crushing many, without bruising, disturbing, and endangering all. Slowly, like the
> features of a landscape under a lifting fog, appear
> to us the true direction and extent of this peril
> to which we are exposed, and, for a fundamental
> axiom of social life, a law applicable to every
> environment and to any age, we derive this
> statement of fact: the danger to which any man
> is exposed at any moment is a danger to all men
> at tltat same point of time.
> What does this solemn warning mean? It
> does not at all mean that when one house catches
> fire the whole town must be consumed; it does
> not at all mean that when an epidemic breaks
> out, or a financial panic ensues, every citizen
> will be infected or every business destroyed.
> But it means this: that the possibility of fire
> lurks over every building alike, and that just
> previous to any conflagration, all owners share
> potentially in the risk of loss-the fact which
> every insurance company is firmly established
> upon; and it means that when typhoid poisons
> the public water or milk supply, your family and
> your neighbours suffer the same peril of death.
> 84       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> If he dies, you have no special merit, and have
> survived this ordeal, perhaps, only to sink with
> an overloaded pleasure steamer the next summer,
> or perish in a railroad accident the next week.
> That is its meaning, and the proof of the
> axiom can be further derived by every man from
> his own experience. But immediately upon
> stating the law and taking its implication to
> our own existence-immediately upon recognizing and naming the implacable foe by which
> all men are threatened ruin-a new hope, sane
> and sweet and strong as a :May morning, rises
> over this desperate darkness and uncovers a
> garden in the very arctics of seedless snow. For
> the fact that one fire no longer involves a city
> implies that a successful system of prevention
> has been devised. It implies, moreover. that
> the system is public and free, never withheld
> from any man's need on account of his poverty,
> his politics. his race, or his morals. It implies
> that in this matter of fire men recognize and
> act upon the fac~ that the safety of all is tbe
> safety if eacll. The fanatic cannot prevent the
> fire department from saving an atheist's office
> building, nor the Conservative divert the water
> from the Liberal's barn. Above all, they would
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS            85
> 
> not if they could. Likewise, the fact than an
> epidemic no longer destroys the entire population argues an active scientific system of prevention and cure.     A few cases reveal the
> disease; the alarm goes abroad, our modern
> machinery of hygiene is put into operation, and
> beyond a few victims the epidemic has no power
> to interrupt our social continuity. This fact
> in itself is too commonplace to arouse our
> enthusiasm or gratitude now; yet it suggests
> much, for even as I write I can turn to my
> window and see the towers of a medieval city,
> where, in the year 1348, the plague carried off
> . nearly 80,000 members of a population numbering not more than 100,000 souls. The modern
> man, I am sure, if confronted by a similar
> catastrophe, would prefer death to survival with
> such a melancholy or desperate fraction. Life
> would become too terrible, far more contemptible
> than death, given or withdrawn, nourished or
> denied, according to a blind chance, with all
> God's privilege of existence apparently subject
> to a fortune more hateful than the gambler's
> wheel. But our comparative immunity from
> epidemic supplies the same deduction as our
> comparative immunity from fire-that society
> 86       THE l\IODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> has come to acknowledge and act upon the fact
> that the safety of all is the safety of each.
> I have chosen obvious examples; I might as
> easily have selected cases of intellectual or
> spiritual misfortune. The shaft of this inquiry
> can be driven into a man's most personal and
> (so-considered) private relations, those relations
> even more important in their effect upon
> efficiency and well-being than his economic and
> political relations; and each typical example,
> on every plane of human existence, would repeat
> and further emphasize the inexpugnable social
> law: tltat the danger to one is a danger for all ;
> that the only safety eflectual for the one is the
> safety available for all. For there are many
> terrible misfortunes happening but seldom, that
> are seldom mentioned when known, which exist
> in the structure of society, nevertheless, like a
> virulent serpent hidden under a stone. Are
> there women to whom marriage brings an
> indescribable horror of agony and shame;
> children to whom life can only mean the slow
> punishment for crimes committed long before
> they were born? Are there productive intelligences neglected, willing labourers denied work?
> Are there children overworked or starved into
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             87
> viciousness by nasty food? Is there anywhere,
> in any person's experience, one damnable social
> injustice or calamity, then as surely as the one
> sun lights us all it threatens you and me. Every
> man and woman ought at least once to face
> squarely and intelligently the more apparent
> facts about our social life. Every fool's paradise
> of shallow optimism, ignorance, or sloth, will be
> destroyed and its dwellers thrust miserably forth.
> And since this is so, we discover a new relationship binding every man to his fellows. It can
> best be explained by analogy:
> The human body is equipped with nerves in
> every part, whose function is to register every
> danger to the central intelligence. The organism
> as a whole depends upon each minutest nerve for
> its information about environment. The fingertip in detecting heat and cold may be the means
> of saving the body. It is not a matter of the
> relative importance of finger-tip and brain; it
> is a matter of their absolute interdependence.
> The greatest harm that the eye could bring to
> the body would be merely to omit its warning;
> and if the hands cannot or will not register pain
> the arms may be broken. But so it is with
> society; each man's experience of life is a test
> 88        TIlE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> by which we can tell whether the social environment is favourable or adverse to human existence. Each man is a nerve which must register
> its sensations within the central controlling
> intelligence. For as one nerve or one sense
> cannot serve to adjust body to environment,
> neither can one man or set of men legislate for
> society. "\i\T e must each study our personal experience in the light of a great ideal, and then
> demand as our right from society the immediate
> alleviation of shameful, confining, and despiritualizillg conditions.
> Another axiom may now be laid down: that
> every class and group mltst be fairly represented
> in legislation to insure the social integrity on which
> tlte well-being qf all classes and groups depend.
> For the misrepresentation or unrepresentation of
> any social element is merely a drugging of the
> nerves that register the condition of some vital
> organ. To inconvenience and oppress labour,
> accordingly, is equivalent to burdening the social
> heart; and likewise to neglect our poets and
> altists is equivalent to distorting our social vision.
> Rebellion on the part of any class, accordingly,
> reveals the presence of an ill by which the whole
> organism is infected. It is not a desperate and
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS               89
> 
> dangerous attempt to subvert" law and order,"
> but the holy and invaluable attempt to secure the
> general health. There are no inherently opposed
> classes, but only classes unadjusted to the social
> equilibrium. With these facts in mind, we
> possess the only fair criterion with which to judge
> all contemporary social wars, especially the daily
> contest between capital and labour.
> Within the traditional State organization for
> establishing and confirming the rights of men
> there have arisen a thousand lesser instruments,
> as we have seen, each smaller yet sharper than
> the sword of State. We have found that the
> national organization does very well for vast
> operations like war, but for minor injuries-for
> child-labour, for sweated women, for the propagation of a universal language, for tax reform and
> scores of revolutionary activities more-the
> private or semi-official association provides a
> surgeon's knife better adapted to the purpose.
> All the more severe existing social evils, as we
> have seen, are inspiring determined propaganda of
> reform. In other words, the drugged and long
> stupefied nerves of society have begun finally to
> register their agony within the central intelligence,
> and body and mind to co-operate at last for their
> 90       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> mutual balance and health. The life-blood pouring out to every atrophied member is this same
> passion for rights-the intelligence directing the
> operation of social revitalization is our growing
> recognition of the fact that immunity can be
> secured for one man only by securing it for all.
> '''hat is most needed now, therefore, as we
> plainly see, is a better co-ordination between
> the various agencies of reform, and some closer
> and more active sympathy between politics and
> social science. A man can be wholeheartedly
> loyal to only one organization; he demands,
> accordingly, that the energy he supplies to this
> particular movement shall not prove hostile and
> nugatory to the energy his neighbour is supplying
> to another movement equally necessary for the
> common weal. He does not want, by founding
> or supporting a society for tax revision, for
> example, to set in motion some devious political
> reaction which shall affect opposition to women's
> suffrage. At the present time, unfortunately, he
> is certain to create some such reaction; and he
> finds every public service an alley in a labyrinth of
> politics and class jealousy, intentionally complex
> to hold that much-dreaded minotaur, human
> nature.
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS              91
> 
> But we know that men have assembled a mass
> of social information undreamed of a century
> ago-a body of facts and working theories, driven
> by a great ideal, which transcends the information
> at the disposal of the authors of the American
> Constitution as completely as their information
> transcends the social science of an African village.
> We know that all the elements needed for a new
> political synthesis have been assembled and put
> into solution; and that, half-felt by the ordinary
> man, a new public ideal is undergoing the travail
> of definition and conscious acceptance.
> It will readily be granted that institutions
> survive only by continuing to prove advantageous
> to men. If the American Constitution, for
> example, should ever become as useless as the
> feudal system, it will pass into respectable but
> unlamented oblivion. The only question consists
> in whether, under any circumstances, a national
> organization such as England, Germany, or the
> United States, as we now understand them, could
> ever lose its utility.
> 'Vhen the intra-national societies-such as
> those for tax reform or the prevention of childlabour-have accomplished their purpose, they
> automatically go out of existence, and their
> 92       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> members are freed for their original allegiance to
> Church and State. The lesser synthesis merges
> naturally into the greater, and the driving force
> impelling the smaller organization is quietly
> liberated for the service of the greater. Is there
> any larger synthesis, now nameless and undefined,
> into which the national States could similarly
> melt, thus releasing their tremendous forces to
> the use of a more efficient machine? Perhaps
> we are developing the argument too rapidly.
> To return to the original point of departure,
> then, let us inquire once more whether a national
> organization could ever conceivably lose its reason
> for existence-a fair question, surely, to which not
> even a crown prince could object. A very large
> part of its reason for existence unquestionably
> consists in the power to protect its population.
> Does the modern State really protect? How
> foolish I The question, however, is only too well
> advised. At this very moment the natives of
> Berlin and the natives of London more than
> vaguely believe that they may suddenly find themselves in open and deadly war. Are those people
> so hostile, those two cities so violently and inherently opposed, that war is necessary and
> unavoidable? Not at all. The danger of war
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             93
> 
> does not exist in the individuals of either race
> (taken separately), nor in the political synthesis
> we call a city; it exists only in the larger synthesis we call the State. That is, whereas the
> Germans and the English are sympathetic on the
> personal basis, and are mutually tolerant when
> taken city by city, they are prepared, as Germany
> and England, to shock and injure the whole
> civilized world. Or, to carry the deduction one
> step further, some two hundred millions of people
> are thrust to the utter verge of unnecessary,
> undesired warfare by that same political organization by which each citizen implicitly ~elieves
> his life and property are defended.
> Could England and Germany be dissolved
> into a synthesis larger than either and including
> both, this fateful war-cloud would instantly
> become a very harmless mass of smoke and
> vapour. Could they be united in some larger
> political unit, as London and Chester or Massachusetts and Virginia are united, they would
> incur as little risk of war as two cities of one
> kingdom or two states in one federation. Is
> such a larger unit impossible; such a new
> synthesis incredible 1 But sixty years ago
> Massachusetts and Virginia were at desperate
> 94       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> war; and only a few centuries farther back
> London and Chester were capitals of rival
> kingdoms! Prophecy always seems so otherworldly and unpractical until it is recognized to
> be merely this common old highway of human
> history laid out a few miles ahead I On the
> other hand, the determined patriot (the man who
> will be loyal and brave, and never give up the
> ship though he sink the crew)-the determined
> nationalist may argue that international peace
> may be secured without altering our present
> political syntheses. For he can truly assert that
> since in every civilized country there exists a
> strong peace movement, its effects will be gained
> for humanity by working separately upon each
> State; by merely passing a few new laws through
> each Senate, Parliament, Reichstag, or whatever
> the national legislative assembly may be called.
> But let us extend this apparently innocent process a little further, and then see what effect it
> has upon the present political situation. I
> objected to a government a moment ago because,
> instead of protecting life and property, it actually
> threatens both by a terrible international warby a war, moreover, against a people who hate
> neither its individuals nor have any desire to
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS              95
> 
> control their property, but who only hate
> (because they have good reason to fear) that
> particular political unit in which these lives and
> their property cohere. Suppose that I object to
> the present form of representative government
> on the grounds that it does not represent, that it
> voluntarily subjects half the population to
> political serfdom and impotence? This objection is valid as can be. Civil war has been
> reaped a thousand times from a far smaller field!
> But which half? the patriot stammers, somewhat
> daunted. The feminine half, the mother half, I
> answer. And before the unconvinced Adam in
> him recovers sufficiently to grumble about a
> paradise the women once lost for us all, I
> continue 'with my reasons for desiring women's
> suffrage.
> The fact that women hold property and pay
> taxes, and should therefore have some control
> over its political status, I pass over as for Anglo-
> Saxons, at least, too patent for insistence. I
> omit all discussion, also, of the fact that since
> women, as workers, have been drawn perilously
> near the economic buzz saw, they should be
> given the same power as men to regulate its
> mutilating activity. I put the question on its
> 96       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> broadest human basis: that in women society
> possesses a magnificent creative and conservative
> force, never so necessary for our common wellbeing as now, but wantonly wasted for lack of
> the adequate means for self-expression. l\Iore
> than half the educative, the spiritualizing, even
> the directive instinct of the human race belongs
> to the feminine, not the masculine, nature.
> Being more important than the individual man
> for the propagation and rearing of the species,
> the individual woman is by nature endowed with
> a greater momentum of vitality and energy. In
> every environment where more work must be
> done than can be accomplished by the men,
> women reveal this inherent power. The pioneer's
> wife labours as hard, and as efficiently, as the
> pioneer. But modern society, having attempted
> to relieve the woman's burden of drudgery by
> invention, has succeeded so well as to deprive a
> large class of every duty and responsibility save
> those pertaining to sex. The woman's vast store
> of initiative and energy has been crowded into
> that one narrow, confining channel, so that
> instead of Andromache, mate and begetter of
> heroes, we are doing our best to evolve a
> passionate, irresponsible and destructive being.
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS              97
> dependent, useless, unhappy, hunted, and flattered
> while despised by men.
> The woman's movement, then, whatever its
> immediate goal, for its ultimate purpose has no
> less an ideal than the re-establishment of a free,
> noble, constructive womanhood, a state of being,
> not merely a political and economic condition.
> But this womanhood can be recovered from the
> vitiating influence of Paris fashions and the
> confining influence of household service only by
> first recovering for the individual woman her
> social responsibility, then her economic freedom,
> and last of all her particular public task, whether
> educative, legislative, judicial, or professional.
> The modern woman must do a so-called man's
> work in the world as the only alternative to
> doing a servant's work or a doll's work. But
> this is no hardship; in intelligent activity, in
> equal responsibility lies the free, glad use of her
> natural power; and the professional woman of
> to-day is restoring not only the old, profound
> happiness of women, but also their constructive
> vision of human life, their deliberate, conscious
> and effective reaction from adverse social conditions, and consequently their real fitness for
> motherhood. Otto Weiniger's cry, hysterical
> 98       TIlE MODRRN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> but intenset insane but sincere, against the
> destructive influence of women on the intellectual and spiritual life t must assume its
> proper place as a protest against the doll-woman
> and her eternal mate, the licentious man. For
> men do not strongly enough appreciate this fact
> about sex; that the more it is emphasized in the
> destiny of women, the more it must be emphasized in the destiny of men. A distorted
> sexual self-consciousness in either sex provo~es
> a like self-consciousness in the other. W omanhood is the only mirror in which manhood can
> discover its own most heroic stature and divinest
> features; a true, entire man, likewise is the only
> t
> 
> measure by which a proud and aspiring woman
> can estimate her own worth. By freeing the
> woman, therefore, we will free the man; and it
> must be understood that in this matter of sex
> the ideal for which humanity should strive is not
> that its activity should merely be controllable, as
> if it were a bad temper or an expensive indulgence, but that it should be 1lnconscio1tst like the
> clean, powerful impulse for food and sleep.
> As men our attitude toward the subject is
> t
> 
> neither unpractically idealistic nor disinterestedly
> heroic, but both utilitarian and selfish. As
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             99
> 
> citizens of a government whose social necessities
> exceed its political control, we should object to
> the perpetual irresponsibility of half the population, especially when we learn from history that
> this half is essentially helpful and constructive
> when made responsible, but essentially destructive and dangerous when allowed-or compelled
> -to relapse into barbarous individualism. We
> should demand, for the common good, that
> women be civilized as rapidly as possible-that
> each one be compelled to stand outside her
> prehistoric cave of home, and to train herself
> for public service and public duty. As human
> beings of the masculine gender, moreover, we
> should strongly object to being surrounded by
> women who look to men for a mere living, not
> for a glorious life.Já who for board and lodging
> are willing to accept men as they are, without
> daring insist upon their transformation into
> superior, knightly beings; but, like needy servants, feel themselves very often obliged to
> endure their position at all costs. Let us demand
> for our own good as well as the common welfare,
> that women be compelled to realize how degrading to both members, and to their children, such
> a marriage must be. The women must learn
> 100      TIlE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> to insist upon some heroic test, to be expressed
> either in action or in personality, as the one sure
> proof of love in men, and by exalting and
> purifying their nature, lead them to require that
> the women correspondingly exalt and purify
> their own. A marriage without such mutuallyinspiring and mutually-revering influence is, to
> say the least, a mistake; but to speak plainly, it
> is a hideous degradation and sin.
> When we refer the feminist propaganda to the
> national form of government, we observe that
> the modern political unit is far too small to
> control the movement. It is more important for
> a rich woman in New York to assist the political
> agitation of her fellow-women in London than
> to contribute in any way to a government which,
> by continuing as long as possible the tradition of
> war for men and domesticity for woman, constitutes a potent hostility to human advance; it
> is more important for an intelligent woman in
> "Vashington to educate the girls of Persia than
> to help the poor of her own neighbourhood.
> Realizing these facts at the same time that she
> realizes the n~cessity for a nobler womanhood
> and manhood, she perceives that her highest
> social loyalty absolutely transcends the State,
> and belongs to her sex all over the world.
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS              101
> 
> But we admit that in time even the blind and
> obstructive political organization will legalize the
> new status of women. Does this prove that
> the national State is a permanent political synthesis 1 Let us carry the same reasoning through
> all modern activities for reform. The Socialists
> of Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, similarly
> find their interests opposed by the national
> government, but defended and furthered by an
> international organization. They know that the
> national boundary-line does not confine class any
> more that it confines sex; but that the ramifications of their economic inequality extend over
> all Europe. The weight of the Socialistic
> influence, accordingly, is thrown for the international, not the national organization, and their
> influence unquestionably constitutes the greatest
> modern impetus for arbitration and peace. Admitting as before, however, that the better part
> of Socialism will eventually pass into national
> legislation, nevertheless, since justice and equality
> are conditions that cannot be copyrighted nor
> taxed, the legal status of the working man in
> I taly will become practically the same as that of
> an English or German labourer; and the legal
> status of the American woman, likewise, will
> 102      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> become practically the same as that of the
> women in Europe.
> But what must be the obvious result upon the
> different national organizations? Just this: that
> eaclt government, in 1-esponding to tlte common
> inte'rnal irresistible popzda'r pressure for 'riform,
> will gradually approaclt eve'ry otlteT national
> govC'rnment, until, when that pressure has worked
> itself out in terms of law, the States will have
> become so nearly identical in spirit and purpose,
> if not in detail of operation, that all will have
> been absorbed into a greater State and a more
> controlling government. That is, a g'reate'r
> political synthesis will have been attained, by
> natural evolution, not by perilous revolution.
> Such an international synthesis is hardly a
> matter for objection or approval, any more than
> is gravitation or the light of the sun. It represents the logical end of the world's political
> evolution; and Socialism, Women's Suffrage,
> Arbitration, exhibit only the more obvious
> examples of those myriad ties already knitting
> the broken bones of nationalism into one healthy
> humanity.
> Considering the world in its material aspect,
> we see the supreme futility of individualism as
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             103
> 
> an end or even motive of action. It is merely
> the jungle instinct asserting itself anew in our
> wrongly-termed civilization. It is only the old
> brute terror of pain and annihilation, impelling
> the individual to skulk from tree to tree, fearing
> every other individual, thus incurring hostility
> from all. How unsafe that armed peace really
> was! But after a little, the savage learns to
> ally himself with a little group of brothers, sons,
> and cousins, born in his own particular cave, and
> thus sharing a bit of that redeeming virtue which
> makes ltis cave, his spear, and ltis woman so much
> more superior and "distinctive" than those of
> any other man; he learns, that is, to create a
> new political synthesis, in which the original law
> of self-preservation gives way to the law that the
> real safety of the individual derives from the
> safety of the tribe, not because the second law
> is more idealistic, but plainly because it is more
> effective. But the new synthesis adopts precisely
> the same law of self-preservation for the tribe
> unit, and consequently that particular jungle
> becomes merely a series of mutually-fearful and
> destructive tribes instead of a series of mutuallyfearful, destructive individuals. In time, however, by a further transfusion of that mystic
> 104      THE ~IODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> essence of egoism which first made the individual's own cave superior to his neighbour's,
> then his own tribe superior to the tribe across
> the river-in time, the tribes in that neighbourhood dissolve into a greater synthesis, the clan;
> and by their mere dissolution render for ever
> impossible the old interminable tribal feuds.
> But the tribal feud merely gives way to the
> clan war, which is an advance in civilization
> simply because it renders fighting more unfrequent, and removes it farther and farther
> from the home, where the women are engaged
> in their constructive occupations, and the clan
> war, to all intents and purposes, constitutes that
> particular misinterpretation of the law of selfpreservation by which we are all burdened with
> taxes, armaments, and discouraging rumours today. But we are witness to an increasing fellowship between the nations, their increasing need
> for an alliance against the common foe of ignorance, sickness, poverty, and crime, and we know
> that before long this common necessity will
> overflow the jealous political confines of State
> and merge all the States into a greater synthesis
> -a social organization more idealistic than the
> present order only because it is more productive
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             105
> 
> and effective. And gazing down at the aimless,
> hurrying crowds below, we realize that the new
> synthesis will come as soon as it has been
> sanctified in the old orthodox manner by a
> symbol and an immediate personal advantage,
> sufficiently permeated, that is, by the enduring
> egoism of men.
> By the vital necessity inherent in our social
> development, therefore, we are driven forward
> to an order in which every present isolated
> political unit shall be co-ordinated with every
> other; an order, moreover, which can and shall
> take advantage of powerful social principles by
> securing a closer relationship between economics
> and law. ~rhe individual is now only occasionally the unit of social responsibiJity; the far
> greater part of our social existence depends upon
> the responsibility of larger units, such as parties,
> corporations, and unions. Our legislative problem, accordingly, consists in developing a legal
> status for the institution to correspond with the
> legal status of the individual under a simpler
> social order. If the results were not so tragic,
> it would be ridiculous to consider the futility
> of modern law in the presence of powerful
> institutions.
> 106      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> But such a social order would be a political
> synthesis merely, a synthesis affecting only part
> of our nature and daily life. There would still
> remain unprovided for that immense and allimportant activity and life we call religion; and
> being unprovided for in the political synthesis,
> it would not be merely neutral to our political
> existence, but necessarily and continually hostile.
> Unrelated social elements possess no neutrality,
> and can never be endowed with the irresponsibility which neutrality contains. They are either
> for us or against us, and as long as they remain
> unrelated to the general scheme they will prove
> a terrible foe to our daily welfare.
> Our religious history is merely the projection
> of our political growth upon another plane-the
> continual re-interpretation, on terms ever more
> inclusive and efficient, of the instinct of spiritual
> self-preservation. The savage, and the uncivilized
> individual in every environment, guards his soul
> from the world as zealously as he guards his
> body, and with as little success. 'Vithout
> pausing to duplicate, with slightly differing
> phrases. the process from lesser to greater synthesis in religion similar to that we have just
> observed in politics, we must admit that the
> THE NEW SOCIAl, SYNTHESIS          107
> 
> present religious situation is the contemporary
> stage of a development beginning ages ago, and
> still far from its termination.
> Just as we have the mutually opposing and
> stultifying States, so we have the mutually
> opposing Churches and religions. Episcopal,
> Congregational, Nonconformist, are merely cities
> in the province of Protestantism; Protestant,
> Catholic, and Greek Church are only provinces
> in the Christian state; Christianity and l\lohammedanism are merely Europe and Asia written
> in terms of religion. But many a person who
> will admit the possibility of a larger political
> synthesis, will either deny the possibility of a
> complete synthesis in religion, or vigorously
> discount its vital necessity. For why, as the
> argument runs, why should we bother about
> a man's inner belief so long as his actions
> correspond with our ethic and our politic? In
> this one sphere, at least, every man has a right
> to his own opinion I l\Ioreover, he might insist,
> we have fought our bloodiest battles to secure
> this very tolerance. Is it so poor an acquisition
> that we must despise it as soon as gained?
> Though fanaticism is only a more intense expression of that partisan feeling which arms one
> 108      THE MODERN SOCIAL REUGION
> 
> nation against all nations, our present so-called
> religious tolerance is not the sympathetic reconciliation of deep wisdom; it is rather the laissezfaire of complete indifference. Indifference,
> however, constitutes the one unforgivable sin
> in religion as in marriage. What form of tolerance, then, shares earnestness with wisdom;
> what tolerance is both creative and neutral?
> By the development of comparative religion
> into a philosophy, if not a science, we have
> learned to express every revelation in terms
> of personal experience. The essence of Christianity, for example, is unselfish love, a doctrine
> which has absolutely nothing to do with our
> European ecclesiastical evolution, but derives
> at first hand from Christ, an Oriental. Applied
> as a test to our numerous forms of Protestantism,
> it violently impeaches their long severance, while
> it demands their immediate union. 'Ve have
> only to stand within our own particular sect
> and study its points of difference from other
> sects in the light of pure Christianity. 'Ve.
> find that the difference js either historical,
> theological, or social; spirit1tal it certainly is
> not, and by the same token it is unnecessary.
> A synthesis of the Protestant sects, then, it
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             109
> 
> follows, is not only possible, but inevitable. It
> may be difficult or even undesirable to merge
> two social clubs whose membership draws from
> different classes or interests; it may be difficult
> or even undesirable to unite two conflicting
> philosophies into one reconciling system of
> thought; but I hope no one can be found who
> will assert that Christianity in its enduring,
> essential aspect as spiritual activity, shares the
> limitations either of social clubs or intellectual
> schemes. Without bringing any new or foreign
> element into the discussion, but applying to each
> sect the test of its own faith, we can dissolve
> all Protestantism into a new, glorious synthesis,
> can unite all these scuffling religious tribes into
> one potent nation.
> But Christianity itself would still remain
> fatally divided. Proceeding by the same method,
> however, and undeterred either by the glamour
> of the organization or the apparent authority of
> the priestly army arrayed before both camps, we
> can impose the same stern spiritual test, derived
> from Him whom both alike acknowledge as their
> Origin and Head, and by the resulting success,
> or failure, of its operation, can discover how
> much, or how little real Cltristianity enters into
> 110     THE l\IODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> either Church. We perceive, on a larger scale,
> the same source of discord which has prevented
> the alliance of Protestant sects, that the essential
> spiritual activity of men has been perverted,
> repressed, debased, and obscured by social and
> intellectual considerations.      Those of either
> camp who refuse to meet upon the common
> spiritual basis, which is neither Protestantism nor
> Catholicism, but the ideal of both, those we
> know-and know by the authority of Christ
> Himself-are like unto the rich young man who
> would not leave his goods to follow the spiritual
> impulse. They are mere partisans, materialists,
> and slaves to the dehumanizing, despiritualizing
> ecclesiastical machine.
> But having established a firm basis common to
> all so-called Christians-a spiritual and religious
> synthesis into which all creeds, sects, and schisms
> can be dissolved, reconciled, and allied-we find
> that we have merely come to the frontier
> between Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and other
> Oriental religions. Is this soul-strewn frontier
> inevitable and permanent 1 Let us approach
> the problem from our own religious point of
> view, and work forward on lines already familiar
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS            III
> 
> to our thought. Imagine a sincere, spiritual
> man who felt an intense desire to bridge this
> dismal gulf between the races, a man bred in the
> Christian tradition, but fitted by his own intelligence to perceive the difference between the
> essential and the accidental, between the eternal
> spirit and the local manifestation. Going to the
> East, he would find a religious situation strik-
> 
> ingly like our own, a philosophic system and an
> ecclesiastical organization grown up about some
> Prophet-l\lohammed, Buddha, or another. He
> would find also that, just as in the \Vest, each
> religion possessed two kinds of adherents-those
> who merely wore the orthodox badge, so to
> speak, and those who gained true spiritual
> activity through a loyal, vital faith. Engaging
> in conversation with one of the latter (devoutly
> wishing meanwhile that every race had learned
> a secondary, universal language in addition to its
> local mother-tongue), he would quickly make
> two discoveries: first, that the Oriental and
> himself had a strong ground for sympathy and
> union in their mutual love for God and
> humanity; second, that they possessed a strong
> ground for bitterness and contention in their
> adherence to separate ecclesiastical organizations
> 112      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> and to unrelated theological traditions. In proportion as they spoke of the religious life in
> terms of personal experience-faith, joy, vision,
> love, prayer-they would feel a mutual fellowship and respect; but in proportion as they spoke
> of the religious life in terms of Churches, priests,
> and propaganda, they would fall into mutual
> hatred and contempt. But each would realize
> that this very hatred and contempt destroyed his
> own spiritual activity, and under penalty of
> losing his joy and power, each must emphasize
> the reasons for mutual sympathy and union, and
> resolutely thrust away the reasons for discord.
> In other words, the Occidental and the Oriental
> must confine their intercourse entirely to man's
> common love for God and man's common need
> for a better social order. It would not take long
> under these circumstances to convince the
> average man that a union between the racial
> religions is possible, but only by merging each
> religion into a new, greater Religion-a religion
> of personal spirituality and social service, a
> Religion of God and humanity. In his conversations with the Oriental, moreover, the Occidental
> would incidentally make other discoveries, if
> indeed he had not already learned the facts by
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS               113
> 
> his studies in comparative religion. He would
> discover that the prophet's relation to society is
> that of teacher-that the prophet creates a new
> synthesis in the spiritual world just as the
> statesman creates a new synthesis in the world
> of politics. And just as every nation has its
> founder, the hero whose vision and power made
> possible the national existence, so has each religion
> its founder, the hero whose vision and power
> united the jealous tribes of superstition and
> ignorance into racial consciousness.
> But even when a people receives its political
> consciousness from one source, and its religious
> consciousness from another, the two become
> inextricably fused and involved, so that the
> political activity gains a kind of sanctity and
> awe, while the religious activity waxes bold on a
> hearty fare of racial egotism. Moreover, as in
> looking back to our Romulus, our King Alfred,
> our Washington, we feel more intensely the
> limits of the synthesis they created, and feel
> more bitterly the opposition of similar syntheses;
> so in proportion as we consider it proper and
> obligatory to look back to Christ, to Buddha, to
> Mohammed, we feel the terrible grip of our own
> religious organization and the threatening fanati-
> 114     THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> cism of all others. On the other hand, when we
> tum our gaze forward-when we face the same
> way they did-we feel these limits less and less,
> this mutually-destructive hostility less and less,
> and find ourselves in the sweep of a great
> evolution carrying all nationalities onward into
> one Confederation, all religious organizations'
> forward to one Religion. The truth even occurs
> to us that our Christ, our Alfred, or ,,,ashington,
> would advise us to do that very thing.
> The Western student in the East would learn
> another fact even less appreciated by society:
> that each hemisphere, in developing along totally
> different lines, has acquired the one essential
> aspect of truth which the other most needs at
> the present crisis. The East contains a great
> store of the spiritual wisdom which Europe and
> America are starving for; while the West
> possesses a practical knowledge, a social science,
> without which Oriental civilization is helpless as
> a child. In other words, Occident and Orient,
> viewed at large, are the masculine and feminine
> elements, so to speak, whose union makes human
> nature harmonious; powerful and productive.
> 'rhe hostility apparently fundamental between
> them is therefore merely the friction that
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             115
> 
> naturally arises when a vigorous young barbarian
> has stolen a beautiful, sensitive aristocrat for his
> wife. His strength she admires, but its unrestrained and crude impulsiveness offends her-her
> refined beauty, ever somewhat aloof, charms his
> imagination, but with it he meets a physical
> scrupulousness and a moral elasticity which seem
> artificial and debasing. However, a greater
> power than either's personal opinion holds them
> together. Little by little the man acquires
> penetration and tact, little by little the woman
> grows more sympathetic and practical; and if at
> their death both still feel a gulf between their
> natures, they have survived long enough to see
> the two natures united in their children. The
> descendants, combining and establishing the
> superiority of both parents, reveal a human
> nature more capable that either stock alone.
> But when the spiritual Occidental and the
> spiritual Oriental have agreed upon the new
> religious synthesis in which both can dissolve
> their separate traditions into a common tradition,
> looking about to see what obstacle actually
> prevents such a synthesis becoming an immediate fact, they perceive that the organization
> itself, whether Eastern or 'Vestern, tends to
> 116      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> prevent the operation of the laws that are
> striving to merge the races. For, strange as
> it may sound at first, the only purpose of
> Christianity is to make Cltristians-that is, to
> bring all men and women into the circle of one
> Revelation, and. by making the whole world (if
> possible), look backward toward Christ, see the
> divine love in Him, and consequently feel a
> unity. But most unfortunately for the purpose,
> Mohammedanism possesses an organization even
> more vigorous and effective. And the whole
> purpose of l\'lohammedanism is to make Mohammedans-to bring all men and women into the
> circle of another Revelation, and by making the
> whole world look backward toward Mohammed,
> see the divine love in him, and consequently
> come into a different unity. These rival organizations constitute a dead centre which no human
> effort can overcome. One might as reasonably
> attempt to make all the English Germans, or all
> the Germans English. It is in the new synthesis,
> the religion which transcends each by including
> all-it is in the looking and going forward that
> mankind will unite in one faith and adoration.
> The prophets are moons that reflect the light of
> God; we must use the moon as a guide to
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             1]7
> 
> reveal the sun, not as itself the source of heat
> and illumination.
> It is very clear, at this stage of the argument,
> that a vital relationship exists between spiritual
> and political truth.. It must be more than blind
> chance which has paralleled the economic with
> the religious necessity. For the virtue, Unity,
> most essential to modern government is the
> virtue most essential to modem religion. We
> have arrived at a plane upon which social science
> and Revelation say exactly the same thing; and
> we have arrived there by routes traversing both
> politics and religion, finding the outlook startlingly similar in both cases. How is this?
> The answer lies in the essential unity of
> personality. In himself, a man combines all the
> factors of society-Church and State merely
> express different phases of the one integral life
> of men. But since there exists this eternal
> personal unity, it is very evident that the
> separation of Church and State threatens the
> welfare of every individual; and indeed this is
> so. Weare all divorced. We carryon daily
> activity, which our religious advisers criticize or
> sadly condone. The true religious impulse,
> which ought to thrust our lives forward easily
> 118      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> and happily through the day's work, has been
> trained to resist that work; and consequently
> t,he spiritual necessity is opposed to the material
> necessity, the moral code to the business code,
> and we bring a sundered nature both to religion
> and to our task.
> But this divorce cannot long endure. The
> unity that is within us demands a unity without.
> A political synthesis is very well by itself, and a
> religious synthesis is very well by itself; but
> their unco-ordination on such a vast scale
> would bring about such terrible results that the
> situation would be unendurable.     ';Ye need, then,
> a new social synthesis, in which the world-States
> and the world-Churches are united and allied;
> and happily for the race, the same development
> working in nations and Churches to secure their
> respective unity, is also working in both to secure
> their common unity.
> The alienation of religion from government,
> then, is directly responsible for a world which,
> collectively, is weak, inefficient and cowardly;
> and, individually, contains men and women
> absolutely prevented from realizing their best
> selves-joined, as the Creator intended, slowly
> but surely will arise a civilized, civilizing
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS            119
> 
> Humanity, and a powerful, serene manhood
> and womanhood. For we have not yet realized
> the most vital change that will occur in human
> life. The union of spiritual activity with
> practical intelligence involves and renders possible-no, renders necessary-a social organization increasingly simple. For the first effect
> of spiritual activity upon the individual is to
> make his life simple and sweet. The orgy of
> organizedá pleasure-hunting, which wastes more
> than half our social energy as well as our natural
> resources, nauseates him from the moment that
> he discovers a keener, more enduring joy within
> his own being. All that dehumanizing burden
> of obligation and expenditure implied in the
> word "establishment" he throws off with an
> exhilarating and grateful sense of freedom. His
> home takes on a new meaning, because it reveals
> a new use; and without growing austere and
> ascetic-on the contrary, finding a strange,
> exciting enjoyment in material things-he rearranges his social life on an entirely new basis.
> He does not surrender unnecessary luxury with
> the desperation of a society woman doing Lenten
> penance-he throws it from him with the unconscious vigour of a traveller who awakes in a
> 120      THE :MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> wonderfully mild tropical climate, after having
> lain down shivering under a padded quilt. This
> necessity for lightness and freedom of personal
> activity, this new obligation to respond to
> spiritual pressure', penetrating like a milder
> climate into every human relationship, will
> naturally, inevitably render our present economic
> and political vestment vastly too oppressive.
> For the ultimate, intoxicating secret of human
> life will then little by little disclose itself; that
> the whole purpose of society is to develop and
> maintain spiritual activity in all its members
> -not to develop institutions and maintain
> property. This i~ the ultimatum of our own
> natures-we cannot disobey if w~ would, nor go
> on doubting and denying. All that obstructs,
> sterilizes, and delays our spiritual development, must gradually disappear from the social
> structure; and our children's children will consider the nineteenth century as the climax of some
> dream whose very horror smote the sleeper to
> consciousness and the dawning day.
> Our generation, then, stands at the beginning
> of a supreme expansive social phase. I have
> employed the term "the new social synthesis"
> to express that order toward which we move.
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS           121
> 
> 'rhe phrase has been indirectly defined; I wish
> to make it as clear as possible, however, and will
> accordingly summarize its aspect from the point
> of view of the individual member of society and
> the individual social institution, whether Church
> or State.
> There is in us that series of impulses toward
> physical, mental, and moral activity which we
> recognize as the religious life. Their activity
> is so involved and interdependent that we cannot
> separate and distinguish out the moral life as
> being religious, while the physical and the intellectual are non-religious. It is rather their
> complex, as expressed in the various inward
> necessities of the passing moment, which deserves
> the name religious. But this series of impulses
> comes into contact with the outer world at every
> moment, or is itself affected by the outer world.
> The individual, accordingly, makes one allimportant demand upon society-that his own
> positive, life-driven impulses be given opportunity of expression; and that society do not
> so affect him through the activity of others that
> his impulses are stunted or perverted. The
> society in which this demand is fulfilled can
> only be constructed by the co-operation of
> 122      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> spiritual necessity, as driving and directing force,
> with social science as agent and tool. In otrer
> words, the individual must seize upon erery
> material factor and lever, and employ them for
> the ultimate benefit of the inward life. Religion
> must be expressed as efficient, wisely directed
> service; and, indeed, the history of every superior
> man and woman illustrates a hitherto ineffectual
> but earnest attempt to ameliorate the social
> condition.
> Of the separate institutions existing to-day,
> one necessary virtue must be demanded: that
> they benefit the inner life, and not destroy it by
> insistence upon mere material things. The scope
> of their vision must be extended. The State
> which attempts to serve its citizens by resisting
> the needs of other States, really and vitally
> injures the well-being of its citizens, and does not
> at all accomplish the purpose of its own existence.
> Likewise the Church whose code is confined to
> the salvation of its own members, damns those
> members to the very negation of spiritual activity.
> Last of all, institutions must cease splitting up
> acts into" religious" and" secular," and dividing
> man's necessity to be from man's necessity to do.
> In Part VI. this subject will be treated more fully.
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS              123
> 
> But it is not enough to describe a superior
> social order; it is not enough even to point out
> the elements existing in the present order from
> which the new order can be constructed. As I
> have tried to emphasize, all social authority and
> power derive from individual consciousness; and
> hampered as we all are, how can we exert
> sufficient pressure to mould governments and
> Churches to a new form? The individual citizen
> and the individual Church-member is weak; it
> would seem that we should have access to some
> force as powerful as life itself to make the task
> possible. If it could be brought about as the
> harvests come-by co-operation with Nature-we
> might dare believe. What seeds have we whose
> harvest shall be the new social synthesis? In
> what field, and by what sun and rain will they
> grow and be fruitful? Let us look more closely
> into the sources of social activity.
> Not the busy efforts of public men, but evolution itself, throwing all things into a world-wide
> interminable flux, its momentum derived quite
> apart from human interference, bears the race forward by its universal gravitation. Even when
> men resist, they and their institutions, ineffectively
> struggling, are swept along from the lesser to the
> 124      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> greater synthesis, from wasteful and repressive
> division to unity increasingly productive and
> liberating. The force of peoples lies not in their
> troops and taxes, but in their alignment with
> evolution. When evolution has passed the point
> of competing, hostile nations, as it has now passed
> it, our troops and taxes no longer represent nor
> produce power, but weakness. We of to-day are
> no longer defended by our navies; we are constantly threatened by them. All this machinery
> of Church and State works against social evolution, and therefore expends our time and labour
> for no return. The ship of State is trying to sail
> upstream. But whether we know it or not, like
> it or not, assist it or not, our institutions are
> slipping with the stream toward a new synthesis.
> "\\re have only to discover the true direction of
> social evolution, yield ourselves um'eservedly to
> its power, and we shall find ourselves quietly
> arrived among better conditions of life. The
> sublimest social ideal any man is capable of
> imagining is merely the revelation, for the immediate future, of the direction and force of this
> transcendent power. The greatest man is he who
> avails himself of its activity, deriving his politics
> from the needs and conditions of a people, not
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS            125
> 
> from his own insinuating egotism. And the
> least of men is he who blindly attempts to resist
> or pervert evolution, whether he be a private
> citizen voting for vicious candidates, or an expresident opposing international arbitration for
> the sake of an absolutely non-existing chimera
> called national honour. Both, to the best of
> their personal ability, are delaying the design of
> the Creator-both will fail, but in their attempt
> will drag others down.
> There is no better example of such blindness
> and consequent failure than Napoleon. In himself he possessed a mind supremely directive, a
> will supremely strong, a personality supremely
> able to gather men to his devoted support. In
> France he possessed a people whom centuries of
> accumulating indignation had kindled to the
> point of social fusion. But he knew not the
> direction along which evolution was urging the
> nation; he threw himself blindly into the universal stream and thought to divert its course so
> as to further his personal ambition. His greatness, consequently, dazzles and astounds only
> when compared with common men. He merely
> exaggerated our own selfishness to a colossal
> stature. Compared with the opportunity France
> 126      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> offered him, he seems a mere puppet, a frantic
> doll thrust out of the game into a comer, his tin
> sword broken, and his bright uniform sadly tom.
> His tragedy is the tragedy inevitable to the personality which uses men for self, not for society.
> But we are not thereby compelled to accept the
> traditional" good" man as our ideal. No wellmeaning Dr. Primrose, but the far-sighted,
> constructive Harriman represents the type to
> which our praise is due; but the Harriman conscious of his true relationship to society, and by
> that consciousness enabled to make his own
> greatness a social agency beneficial, therefore
> effectual, beyond the maddest dream of the
> ambition exiled upon the prison isle of self.
> Evolutionary also, as we now realize, is that
> other stream of force which rolls through every
> individual, bearing the conscious soul to ever
> broader and deeper states of being. Evolutionary,
> it is impersonal, transcendent, irresistible. All
> the ignorance and malice of which a human s,oul
> is capable at its worst hour can, by continual
> exertion, merely hold back the individual from
> the universal progression to which humanity was
> dedicated by the fiat of creation. I t can merely
> hold back, as a savage can hold his canoe steadfast
> THE NEW SOCIAL SYNTHESIS             127
> 
> in a swift river-it cannot change the course of
> the current nor withdraw itself from the river's
> pressure. All men, at all times, live their lives
> in the full rush of elemental and eternal powers.
> All the unhappiness and ruin implied in sin, that
> word of oldest awe, result from the effort to
> resist, evade, or divert spiritual evolution; all
> happiness, all power, all harmqny, all peace,
> derive automatically from the mere act of yielding to the inner stream.
> In evolution, therefore, we possess the force
> of nature whose co-operation offers us what
> harvest we will. Our individual characters and
> desires are the seed; and as the seeds fall so the
> harvest must appear. Undeveloped characters
> and selfish desires were sown for the social order
> we now reap; but character and desire are undergoing a tremendous educational process in our
> generation. The immediate task before all men
> and women is to understand for themselves, and
> teach to others, the nature of personal and social
> evolution, and how they are essentially reciprocal.
> For co-operation with evolution is brought about
> by conscious individual adaptation to spiritual
> and social law. The law operates beneficially only
> upon conscious minds. Each man and woman
> 128     THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> comes under the control of spirit when he accepts
> the law; and society will come under the control
> of evolution when the law is accepted by all
> III common.     How, then, to propagate the
> teaching? The most effective social momentum
> -the supreme thrust by which individuals are
> flung forward into a superior social order-is that
> derived from the union of statesman and prophet
> III one man.    From no other source can the
> world acquire the enthusiastic faith out of which
> unselfish acts are done, and the social vision
> caught and renewed. For the teaching, in other
> words, we must have a divine Teacher.
> PART IV
> THE DIVINE TEACHER
> IV
> A GALILEAN shepherd or fisherman, whom good
> fortune or the sure intuition of divine curiosity
> had permitted to hear the Sermon on the
> Mount, on returning to his neighbours filled
> with intense joy and conviction, might conceivably have told them of this teaching without
> mentioning the Christ who uttered it; but however thoroughly he understood the new gospel,
> however clearly he repeated it in his native
> village, the completeness and power of his story
> would have been fatally broken without an
> expressed personal attitude toward the Prophet,
> and a lifelong, lifedeep consciousness of the divinehuman presence. For the Prophet's relation to
> his teaching utterly transcends its mere formulation into written or spoken words. He is not
> merely the creator of a new body of spiritual
> truth, in the manner that-- a poet creates a ne~
> interpretation of life in terms of a dramatic or
> 132     THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> epical reaction. Homer attains personality
> through the Iliad; Shakespeare's presence defines itself in the presence of his characters; but
> a revelation exists only to the extent that its
> Prophet continues to exist in the consciousness
> of men, and apart from his existence in human
> consciousness it has no being. For a revelation
> is essentially personality, human life, character,
> destiny. Printed, it remains only a philosophy
> or dream until, somehow, by an overwhelming,
> passionate desire for spiritual excellence, the
> Prophet Himself is felt as a living, immediate
> presence and being, when the words leap out as
> from moving lips, and become evcr afterward
> Ids words, wherever, however met. No man,
> it can be stated, ever actually found Christ in
> his message, but always his message in the
> Christ.
> The secret of this lies in the fact that the
> spiritual life, as we understand and desire it, is
> Christ. The two have become identified, and in
> the person of the man Jesus the spiritual life has
> its eternal type and reality. The spiritual life,
> we must realize, is the expression of an inner
> activity which renders the individual a perfect
> harmony. All morality, all virtue, all spiritual
> THE DIVINE TEACHER                133
> 
> conduct derive from the individual, as leaves
> derive from the activity of a tree. Without the
> inner balance and unity, there can be no morality,
> virtue, nor spiritual conduct, or, as the personality
> is partly and incompletely spiritual, life expresses
> itself in spasmodic and fragmentary morality and
> action. Christ the Prophet, and Christ the
> inner balance, are a perfect whole-a man. The
> rest of the world are only parts of a perfect whole
> and fractions of men. But this perfection of
> manhood, the conscious or unconscious passion
> of every life, can never be realized apart from its
> perfect type. Thus, in proportion as men have
> from time to time recovered his presence as an
> actual, palpable existence in their conscious souls.
> they have recovered for themselves the manhood
> he expressed to the world. At other times,
> when the presence is lost, the type of perfect manhood disappears, and men become unable to rise
> above their weak and sundered natures. They
> become desperately virtuous without sympathy.
> moral without joy. or theological without vision
> -subject always to disastrous readjustments,
> plunging them into frank bestiality or critical
> atheism. The Prophet, then, has this supr~mely
> important relationship to the world: he is the
> 134      THE MODERN SOCIAl. RELIGION
> 
> eternal point of recovery for the vision of self,
> and in the Prophet's station all men exist
> potentially perfect. No other man can effect
> this recovery - perfection is unique for the
> civilization it represents-and for us, accordingly,
> the ideal of human nature has been for ever set
> apart and sanctified in the person of the Jew,
> Jesus Christ.
> For all that the Prophet was human nature
> made perfect, and for all that men in every age,
> of all classes and kinds, have recovered their own
> innate perfection in him, yet Christianity, as a
> civilization, is completely, conspicuously a failure.
> It has worked out for individuals, but not for
> society. Why should that be 1 \Vhy should it
> be that the Church, in the vigour of its youth,
> could not retain its unity, but split into Roman
> and Greek 1 Why is it that this Holy Catholic
> Church is neither holy nor catholic 1 "\Vhy is it
> that under the very shadow of the Cross, the
> national instinct of Europe developed into an
> overwhelming racial egotism and State selfishness 1 While Europeans all professed themselves
> Christians, why did they divide themselves into
> Germans, Italians, French 1 Why is the national
> government to-day, even in Catholic countries,
> THE DIVINE TEACHER                  135
> 
> far stronger and more popular than the ecclesiastical organization? The facile reply to this
> indictment, throwing the fault upon human
> nature itself, or e\"en upon" external irresistible
> forces," involves the deduction that either the
> Christian ideal is essentially impracticable and
> obsolete, or that religion itself really has no concern with daily life. But Christianity has always
> worked out for individuals, and is still working
> out for individuals with undiminished success.
> Its failu1'e evidently consists in its lack qf a social
> control.
> Christianity, indeed, as all men dimly recognize, is religion in terms of the individual, not in
> terms of society. To understand the distinction
> fully, we must go back to Christ's ministry and
> study its method. He met people singly, in
> groups, or in assembled multitudes. But the
> groups and the multitudes were only the individual man and woman multiplied. That is,
> the multitude who heard the Sermon on the
> Mount came and heard it in their simple capacity
> of human beings. Like any casual multitude
> which our civilization contributes to a public
> speech or exhibition, they threw aside for the
> time their accidental class distinctions, their
> 136      THE MODERN SOCIAL REI.IGION
> 
> political opinions and connections, their trades
> and professions, and entered heartily into the
> spirit of the occasion. The same man-to-man
> unity and simplicity takes place to-day, 1tnder
> one condition, at every public meeting, whether
> it be the church, the theatre, or the athletic field,
> and that condition is that the occasion offer
> interest enough to divest the individual of his
> accidental social attributes. Christ's conversations and addresses offered this interest in the
> most abundant measure. His personality possessed, and still possesses, the unique property of
> desocializing the individual and making him, for
> the time being, an elemental and eternal soul.
> He addressed himself to that elemental and
> eternal soul-thing inherent in every man and
> woman, summoning it from its inactive immaturity or controlling it in its often violent and
> misdirected maturity-always and for ever devoting himself to the task of intensifying the
> spiritual activity of men. He found human
> nature a misunderstood, uncorrelated form of
> existence, and he gave our civilization the type
> of personality at its best. But it is only for the
> time that the individual man and woman can be
> desocialized. \Vhen the sermon is spoken, the
> THE DIVINE TEACHER                137
> 
> drama played, the multitude separates, each man
> his own way to his own duty. Little by little
> the charm is broken; slowly but surely the
> fisherman find himself a fisherman once more,
> the banker becomes the banker, the democrat the
> democrat, the philosopher the philosopher, and
> the fool the fool. Within less than a day the
> common social necessity has seized inexorably
> upon each man and woman, and all fall back
> into their former races, classes, occupations, and
> temperaments.
> Yet all alike may carry away the Christ-given
> vision of his own perfection with the desire to
> attain that perfection in terms of daily life. But
> what happens? What did happen, historically?
> The individual found that the new gospel taught
> him precisely his proper attitude t~ward every
> other individual, but it said absolutely nothing as
> to his proper attitude toward other men and
> women as society. The Christian thus found,
> and finds to-day, that his religion succeeds
> wherever he deals with individuals, but fails
> wherever he deals with numbers. He is equipped
> to treat properly his father, his mother, his
> brother and sister, his wife, his children, his
> servants, and his neighbours-in other words, he
> 138      THE MODERN SOCIAL REUGION
> 
> is equipped for life in the simplest of all societies;
> but in any society even by a little more extended
> and complex, he must depend upon the experience of men. That is, he goes to religion to
> solve Ids personal relations, but he goes to science
> to solve ltis social relations. When it comes to a
> matter of law-making, the beatitudes are less
> useful than a child's primer of economics; and
> the Golden Rule is mute in the presence of the
> vote. We have in Christianity, then, a man-to-
> God and a man-to-man revelation, but not a
> man-to-men revelation, by reason of Christ's
> method of ministry. For our modern life, therefore, Christianity is not only incidentally or
> accidentally a failure; it is inherently, absolutely,
> and permanently a failure. It does not fail to
> work in the same way that a child's tin sword
> would fail to work in a desperate battle-it fails
> to work as the microscope fails to work when
> directed against the stars. The focus lies in the
> individual consciousness, while the whole world
> travaileth for a religion whose focus is projected
> into the consciousness of society.
> If any doubt of these conclusions exists, we
> have only to conside! the case of Tolstoy. Tolstoy
> was so great a man that by his individual spiritual
> THE DIVINE TEACHER                 139
> efforts he recovered the soul of a departed age.
> The " Bible times," with their tremendous background and atmosphere palpitant with divine
> things, seemed to return as the environment of
> his life, and through one personality to be
> imposed upon our modern civilization. The
> Hebrew tradition, created in the Eden of some
> ancient popular joy, thrust into unhappiness for
> disobedience to the spiritual impulse; populating
> the earth; accumulating the dynamic experience
> of Cain, Noah, Abraham, Job; enriched by the
> visions of Ezekiel and Isaiah; socialized and
> civilized by the IVIosaic law; consummated in the
> revelations of Christ and Mohammed; vitalized
> thereby with eternal authority and power, but
> diverted into the consciousness of two hostile
> races; for us continuing through the Apostles,
> the evangelists, and martyrs, to the doctors and
> mystics of the Roman Church; broken again
> into two hostile currents by the Heformation;
> now feebly and ineffectually diffused through
> our social consciousness by the rills of a thousand
> sects-that tradition, the world's most imposing
> synthesis of socialized spiritual experience, flashed
> like an archangel'S sword in this man's hand, and
> clave in two the rotten shield of civilization.
> 140     THE MODERN SOCIAl, RELIGION
> 
> He tried the world by the eternal test of
> personal experience, and found beneath its
> heavy vestments a heart dried by grief or fouled
> by joyless passion. He held Europe before the
> divine, sear~ing mirror of the soul, and Europe
> leered back a harlot and a knave. Tolstoy is
> apostolic. Our dialects have no word for him
> -we must make use of the speech of peoples
> who walked with God. King David, who
> was also Warrior-David and Poet-David, could
> understand this Russian better than the Russians;
> Job and St. Peter are nearer akin to his nature
> than his own children. But what was the effect
> upon society of this greatest of Christians?
> What did the Christian ideal accomplish through
> this best of modern believers? Tolstoy'S influence
> is a ferment whose activity has only just begun.
> Nevertheless, judging his life by its results upon
> social abuse - upon the really fundamental,
> inherent injustice of society-it is fair to say
> that the governor of Tolstoy's province, or the
> mayor of any western city, could accomplish
> more public benefit in six months than Tolstoy
> brought about in a lifetime. Moreover, the
> governor or mayor could do so without possessing more than a fraction of Tolstoy'S personal
> THE DIVINE TEACHER                 141
> 
> spirituality, and without paying the penalty of
> his mental pain. Why? Because the public
> official has under his hands a few levers which
> control the operation of the social machinebecause he can affect a multitude of people of
> both sexes, all ages, classes, religions, intellects,
> and temperaments, without coming into direct
> contact with a single one, or being diverted
> from his purposes by maddening personal
> questions; while Tolstoy, working apart from
> the social organization, had to influence people
> one by one, through his example, his conversation, his literature, and his daily acts. That is,
> he dealt with the world as if it were merely an
> extensive but homogeneous group, like a Highland clan or an Aftáican village. He used the
> microscope of personal salvation instead of the
> telescope of social salvation. His life, therefore,
> was shut off from all other lives by an invisible
> but impassable line; he was a lone patriarch, an
> austere apostle moving among his fellow men,
> loving all, consecrated to the service of all, yet
> unable to do more than clothe a few naked, visit
> a few sick, and comfort a few broken-hearted.
> Yet this merely implies inadaptability of the
> Christian revelation to modern conditions; it
> 142      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> does not expose any weakness in Christianity
> when working in its own sphere. The microscope is not to be broken because it will not
> reveal the stars. No. Christianity remains' a
> perfect revelation for the personal life. I t is
> not an old, romantic dream, a hopeless effort to
> spiritualize men, an almost abandoned faith in
> God and heaven. Nor is religion merely a
> function of primitive races and homogeneous
> peoples, a refuge from the world and a cloistered
> immunity from war, taxes, and children; but if
> really divine, it is evolutional, and will show
> itself more administrative than government, more
> authoritative than economics. Can it be so 1
> I t is very evident that we need a religion in
> terms of society-a revelation, that is, which will
> not attempt to displace and deny the essential
> truth of Christianity, but fulfil it for the modern
> world. We need, in other words, the additional
> lens which transforms the microscope into an
> instrument for long distances. This religion
> must not be a new religion, in the sense of being
> an exotic, but a renewal of the existing religions
> and their translation into a modern code and
> gospel. Broadly speaking, it must be an identification of social science with individual initiative
> THE DIVINE TEACHER              143
> 
> and spiritual passion. The religious personality
> must express itself socially, in public service,
> allying itself with every available instrument for
> reform. The old passion for self-salvation must
> be recovered, invigorated, and intensified by
> every possible means, but diverted, once for all,
> into the channel of human service. Self-salvation
> as a tradition'al psychology must be absolutely
> stamped from the human consciousness; as an
> end for religious organizations it must be fought
> as the true enemy of welfare, the only successful
> opponent of the very self-spiritualization it is
> supposed to bring about. The whole wretched
> tradition of "self" and "heaven" must be reinterpreted and re-expressed. From the servantmaid who betrays her instincts to a priest lurking
> in his dark confessional, to the Hamlet who
> laments his weakness to the stars, the modern
> world is infected by a diabolical perversion of
> Christ's teaching. Instead of turning inward to
> that fatal misadjustment by which most men and
> women at some period of their lives are rendered
> miserable and erring, instead of magnifying our
> evil by concentrating upon its power to affect our
> lives, we must resolutely tum all hope and
> interest outward, fixing our thoughts 011 any
> 144      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> external-a friend, a great social movement, or
> God-endeavouring by prayer and activity to
> put ourselves into the stream of faith and enthusiasm constantly flowing across the world.
> For the joyous and "free" man-that is, the
> man who has found salvation-is he whose consciousness has burst the bonds of self and become
> identified with an outside thing. For him" self"
> no longer exists; and by entering his new state
> of self-forgetfulness he transfers his spiritual
> habitation, as it were, from a low, mean, smokeoppressed city to the vision-lapped mountain of
> God.
> But I need no more than suggest the new
> theology, which has already received the attention
> of modern minds. 'iV e are concerned here rather
> with the origins of the religious movement which
> alone can bring about the consummation we have
> learned so devoutly to desire. It exists as the
> best aspiration of earnest men, and as an aspiration it has long existed. So also the aspiration
> for a divine manhood and womanhood existed in
> the racial consciousness long before the birth of
> Christ. 'Ve yearn for a divine social order as
> the Hebrews yearned for a divine personality;
> but our passion is not at all a sign that we have
> THE DIVINE TEACHER               145
> 
> transferred our faith from the soul to the machine.
> It indicates, rather, as every man's experience
> too clearly shows, that personality depends vitally
> upon the social environment, and therefore that
> in order to obtain men we must first obtain
> means. An English clergyman voiced the common opinion when he said that it is unfair to
> expect a man to meditate on heaven while he
> owes the butcher; but we must not overlook the
> fact that our civilization renders it equally unfair
> to the butcher. All the prophets since Christand there have been many-have pointed the
> popular consciousness toward social salvation; and
> the popular instinct, sometimes daring to believe
> in the second coming of Christ, believes that His
> modern message will contain hope for this world
> as well as the next.
> At all events, we are certain that religion cannot be re-established except through the medium
> of a Prophet, a "Messiah." As all the elements
> that enter into a perfect personality had to be
> united in one being and expressed in one life in
> order to set before every man and woman the
> type of his or her perfection, so must the elements
> of the perfect social order be gathered and
> synthesized in one mind in order to set before
> 146      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> ~ach social concomitant the type of its own perfection. Before we can accomplish anything with
> village, city, province, and nation, we must know
> what the ideal village, city, province, and nation
> are-which in each case involves a knowledge of
> what a perfect ILU11lanity would be-or, better
> still (since every social organization is in a continual state of flux, and perfection in each must
> consist of a sliding scale of efficiency, a balance
> undisturbed by mere change in number of
> population or size of community)-better still,
> we must know what each person's attitude and
> course of action must be in order to release the
> evolutional tendencies toward efficiency in the
> social order. For since society is an increasingly
> complex system of men, women, and children,
> its structure automatically undergoes constant
> readjustment to the changing attitude and activity of its members. The Prophet of society,
> accordingly, must first possess the divine personality of the Christ, and then express this
> personality in terms of social unity. 'l'hat is, he
> must take to himself the relation of all men and
> women to their environments, throughout tlte
> wllole extent qf that relation, from its immediate
> contact with the town organization to its remote,
> THE DIVINE TEACHER               147
> 
> yet equally important contact with State, with
> other States, and with other races; and uniting
> all these complex, mutually opposing, and
> stultifying relations into one harmonious synthesis by the creative vision of his own soul, give
> them all out again to the world as an ideal social
> relationship in which every man, woman, and
> child can find his own proper attitude and activity
> clearly, eternally expressed. And this ideal type
> must be able to serve for every nation alike, every
> race alike, and every religion alike. I t must be
> more English than .Magna Charta, more American than the Constitution, more Catholic than
> Catholicism. It must be a universal synthesis,
> that is, to insure the right evolutional adjustment
> in the individual relationship derived therefrom.
> By universal is not meant uniform, but that synthetic comprehensiveness which permits to every
> personality the sanctity of its differentiation, and
> to every race the sanctity of its peculiar temperament.
> The Prophet, then, must be the world's
> saviour; not the representative of any na.tion,
> race, or class. He must possess the unimpeachable authority of the divine personality and the
> universal soul. He must actually be that human
> 148     THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> unity of which all other men and women are the
> essential parts. By that power of absolute selfeffacement which only the Divine Personality
> acquires, he must send out his soul to all
> places and peoples, infusing his divinity like an
> essence throughout the world, gathering as upon
> one sensitive plate the experience of every man
> and woman; then within his intelligence refining from all the ideal, typical experience in
> which we may discover our own lives potentially perfect. No less a result will serve; for
> we have already seen how national, racial,
> and ecclesiastical egotism, far from insuring
> superiority or even safety to the nation, the race
> or the religion, necessarily surrounds it with
> implacable foes and an inevitable fate. The
> existence of any social fragment, in other words,
> depends upon the unity and co-operation of the
> whole society. The method by which this
> Prophet would express his message, accordingly, would differ from the method of Christ.
> Reacting from society as a perfect organization
> instead of from the individual man or woman
> -as a perfect personality, he would direct his
> teaching so as to concern our social rather
> than our personal relations. Re-establishing
> THE DIVINE TEACHER              149
> 
> the authority of all existing authentic revelations, he would not be confined to their mere
> repetition nor even to their comparison and
> reconciliation. The modern prophet, therefore,
> on taking up the task differentiating him
> from all previous prophets-the task of extending Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism,
> Hinduism, to their evolutionally logical consummation-could not secure his purpose by the
> spoken word and the sermon alone. The spoken
> word is limited by the capacity of the hearers
> and the opportunity of the occasion j but the
> written word suffers no limitation, since it is
> available to all men at all times. The Newest
> Testament, that is, would be written by the
> Prophet Himself.
> Without such a Prophet, we know only
> too thoroughly the helplessness of the world.
> Liberalizing influences are everywhere at work,
> but at most these can only raise existing institutions to a higher efficiency, each within its own
> compass j they cannot transform the purpose for
> which each institution was originally founded,
> aligning it with the modern vision, nor can they
> co-ordinate them. Only the synthesis of all
> influences into one definite movement can free
> 150      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> men and women from this tangle of things.
> Yet, as we have seen, the Prophet would bring
> no message essentially new, in the sense that it
> was unheard of. His message would consist of
> all the aspirations of East as well as 'Yest, of
> women as wen as men. Its newness, therefore,
> would appear in its supreme capacity to assimulate spiritual passion and social science into one
> human synthesis. No man could receive such
> a message and say that he himself had already
> thought and desired its whole content; yet all
> men could hear it and say that it realized their
> highest personal and social ideal. In him the
> true Christian would be compelled to recognize
> the Christ personality, and in him the atheistic
> humanitarian must acknowledge a social zeal
> and wisdom deeper than his own. Resistance to
> him, and hatred of his followers, could derive
> only from obvious and despicable motives; prejudice, ignorance, selfishness, snobbery, bigotry.
> Discounting the temporary opposition of privileged or official classes who feared for their own
> private prosperity, we can admit one fertile course
> of obstruction in the very general characteristic
> of men, which after centuries of social development, after we have all learned not too
> THE DIVINE TEACHER               151
> 
> grudgingly to share our food~ our education~ and
> our vote~ still makes us painfully loath to share
> our God.
> But this raises the question of the relationship
> between such a prophet and Christ, Mohammed,
> Buddha~ and Zoroaster. The orthodox of all
> races believe that God and his Prophet are a
> natural and inalterable duality; and that the
> existence of any other prophet is a challenge to
> the constancy of the Creator. Very happily~ it
> does challenge our conception of His constancy
> as especial consideration for any palticular race.
> Each people has had its prophet; but the
> message of all has been essentially the same-the
> possibility of a perfect personality for every man
> and woman. The new prophet would fulfil all the
> prophets accordingly, by his interpretation of personality in terms of social service. Once admitting the existence of an authentic revelation to
> every race~ we realize that each people has produced not one prophet only~ but a succession of
> prophets, the later revealing ever more and loftier
> truth; and that this fact depends upon a race's
> increasing capacity to absorb teaching. The relationship of a modern prophet, such as we have
> imagined~ to Christ or to Mohammed~ may well
> 152      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> be expressed in the poetic figure of the East, as
> the full moon rising on the fourteenth night,
> which. while the same planet as the new moon,
> can reflect more light than the new moon by
> virtue of its more advantageous position.
> If such a prophet should appear, his effect
> upon the ordinary man and woman would be
> immediate and immense. As religious natures
> who felt sorrow at their inability to become
> more than amateur, occasional, self-conscious,
> and inefficient social workers, he would give
> them an activity which increased their spirituality
> at the same time that it accomplished results in
> human lives; as practical natures devoted to
> some social or political reform without benefiting
> by spiritual powers in themselves or in others,
> he would set them an ideal which increased
> their public efficiency at the same time that it
> initiated ~heir spiritual evolution; and as for the
> majority, who are neither very spiritual nor very
> public-minded, he would rouse their lives from
> negative adjustment to environmental pressure
> as by the bugle of defensive war. For his
> supreme influence would consist in restoring the
> individual conscience to its proper relationship
> toward self and others. To those confined in
> THE DIVINE TEACHER              153
> 
> the dark prison of sickness or indifference, he
> would fling the keys of joyful, invigorating
> freedom; and the over-conscientious he would
> release from their atlas-burden of the world's
> wrong. For, after all, the individual is limited
> as to his social usefulness, and consequently as
> to his responsibility. Whatever he can accomplish must be done outside the regular course of
> business, yet inside the compass of the twentyfour hours. Yet the new revelation would
> provide him with an attitude which automatically, by the momentum of social evolution,
> must turn all his activity into public service,
> thus preserving his self-respect without hardening
> his sensibility, and releasing his natural impulses
> toward joy without insulting the unfortunate
> and weak. The ordinary person is not only a
> temperament, which is a limitation in itself, but
> also a member of one class, one nation, one
> religion, and one race. These limitations are
> inherent and eternal, but the new teaching
> would turn the limitation of temperament into
> the opportunity of personality, and would provide
> every social position with a straight path toward
> human unity and co-operation. As every being
> can learn his own perfection in the station of
> 154      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> Christ, so could the world learn its unity in the
> station of the new prophet; which once given
> mankind could never be lost, but would serve
> every environment and every age as the point
> of recovery for its perfect relationship to the
> whole human society.
> But now, after dealing with truth in the ideal
> or spiritual world, I shall deal with truth in the
> material or historical world. There are these
> two orders of truth, both eternal and both
> incontrovertible; as when we say that the pure
> in heart shall see God, and that Columbus
> discovered America. United, these two orders
> of truth are not only incontrovertible, but
> irresistible; and it is in the deepest consciousness
> of the import of both words that I tell the life
> and teaching of him whose presence has realized
> for men this new Pl'ophet-Baha'o'llah.
> PART V
> HISTORY OF THE BAHAI MOVEMENT
> v
> ON beginning a brief history of lJaha'o'llah, I
> suggest that those startling parallels be noted
> which exist between this prophetic manifestation
> and the manifestation of Christ, to secure that
> reverence without which places, people, and even
> events, possess little of their true human value.
> The differences, also, should be remarked no less
> thoughtfully, for there are none without vital and
> logical significance. I t requires all our power of
> concentration, comparison, and interpretation to
> enter even partially into this divine life and works.
> As one reads, moreover, passing from one city to
> another, from one date to another, one should
> raise a clear background of daily life and common
> things, to throw into proper relief the Prophet's
> tremendous figure.
> In the year 1819, at Shiraz, Persia, was born
> Mirza Ali Mohammed, the son of a prosperous
> wool merchant. Upon his father's death, the
> 158      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> child was reared by an uncle, and given the
> education of all Persian boys of his class. A t the
> age of twenty-four years, after a youth conspicuous for its reverence and beautiful character,
> he announced to the principal scholars and holy
> men of l">ersia that he bore a message from God,
> which it was his destiny to give his country.
> The J>ersia of that time was an autocratic government, from which a great class of public officials
> derived social position and wealth, while inextricably involved in this political labyrinth ran
> the orthodox :Mohammedan faith. The priests,
> or "mullahs," constituted a class as powerful and
> severe as the aristocracy, and the interests of
> both united in supporting religious orthodoxy and
> political inflexibility. At the occasion of his
> public announcement, Mirza Ali :Mohammed
> adopted the name of " Bab," which signifies door
> or gate, and by this title has been called ever
> since. His message, which he began to propagate
> immediately, was clear and simple: that the
> Mohammedan religion had been corrupted and
> abused by ignorant, often vicious clergy, and
> must be restored to its original purity; that the
> Koran was not the final revelation to l\lohammedans, but preparatory to another and greater
> HISTORY OF THE RAHAl MOVEMENT           159
> 
> revelation; and that after nineteen years would
> appear the Great One, ., He whom God would
> make manifest." The Bab taught also the
> spiritual equality of women with men.
> His influence was powerful and immediate,
> creating among the people a spirit of dissatisfaction with existing conditions, fomented by a
> new and passionate hope for better. The mullahs,
> alarmed at a movement which impeached their
> infallibility and threatened their supremacy and
> emoluments, intrigued with the official class to
> secure the Bab's imprisonment on the charge
> of hostility to the State religion. After a mock
> trial, this modern John the Baptist was shot
> in a public square at Tabriz, in July, 1850. He
> left eighteen disciples, one of whom, a woman
> called Kurru-t'uI'Ayn (" Consolation of the
> Eyes "), a poet, leader, and teacher, ranks among
> the most powerful personalities of our time. She
> also was executed for the faith two years later.
> In 1852, a young Babi, his mind affected by the
> execution of his master, made an unsupported and
> unauthorized attempt upon the Shah's life. The
> mullahs, who hitherto had been able to prove no
> political connection in the Babi movement, now
> gave it an indelible political complexion, and the
> 160      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> government transferred to its legal machinery the
> trouble of exterminating the new sect. Leading
> Babis were imprisoned and many prominent men
> executed. Amid the frenzied persecution now
> following, more than 30,000 men, women, and
> children suffered martyrdom. In the worst
> persecutions inflicted upon the early Christians
> we find a parallel, but not a more terrible situation.
> The suddenly awakened inhumanity of the
> orthodox clergy and the official aristocracy, however, only emphasizes the stern joy with which
> the Rabis met doom. Execution was inflicted in
> the most barbarous manner, and under the most
> heartrending circumstances. I t is unnecessary
> to give details here-the important fact for us is
> that religious faith, in our own times, once more
> revealed its secret power to triumph over the
> agony of fire and steel, and so to elevate th~ soul
> that parents could find joy in seeing their children
> slain for the truth of God.
> Among the most influential Rabis was .MIrza
> Husain Ali Nuri, born at Nur, in .Mazandaran,
> on November 12, 1817. His family was
> eminently noble, and had contributed viziers and
> councillors to the royal court. In the natural
> course of events, therefore, this child would have
> HISTORY OF THE RAHAl l\WVE:\IENT         161
> 
> become a courtier and official, but from his early
> youth he turned toward his own spiritual development. and refused to enter upon a public
> career. He was imprisoned for four months
> during these persecutions, confined in a dungeon,
> heavily chained to five other Babis. When no
> political conspiracy could be proved in his conduct or implied in his religious convictions, his
> property was confiscated and he himself, with
> his family, banished to Baghdad, beyond the
> Persian border and under the jurisdiction of the
> Sultan of Turkey. A great number of Babis,
> feeling in him the intelligence, sympathy, and
> courage necessary to guide them through such
> trying times, followed with their families in
> voluntary banishment. This took place in 1852.
> The condition of the Babi community on its
> arrival at Baghdad represented economic chaos,
> complicated by the various opinions, social
> positions, and temperaments of the individual
> members. Mirza Ali, however, arranged their
> lives and activities, constructing from these helpless but willing emigrants an efficient, happy
> settlement. As soon as the foundations had been
> laid for their order and prosperity, he withdrew
> to the mountains north of Sulaimanziah, where
> 162      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> for two years he lived in solitude, continually
> meditating and drawing freely from the source of
> all human inspiration and power. His presence
> even there became known, and holy men from
> near and far visited the hermit to discuss spiritual
> problems and experience. After two years, the
> Babi community at Baghdad urgently begged his
> return, as their circumstances had become difficult
> during his absence. Returning to Baghdad,
> Mirza Ali gradually created so prosperous a
> settlement that Babis and -others from all parts of
> Asia began to join themselves to the community.
> 'fheir increasing numbers and influence frightened
> the clergy, and the Persian Government treated'
> with the Sultan for the surrender of the religious
> leader. Preferring to retain him on Turkish
> territory, the Sultan summoned Mirza Ali to
> Constantinople. Outside Baghdad, on his way
> to Constantinople, he stopped his first day's
> journey at an estate called the" Garden of Rizwan," where he was joined by his followers,
> nearly all having preferred to attend him in his
> new exile. Twelve days were spent in the
> Garden of Rizwan, during which time Mirza Ali
> Nuri, by the authority of his own personality,
> gave an eternal, world-wide significance to this
> HISTORY OF THE BAIIAI MOVEMENT        163
> 
> religious movement, and transferred its scope
> from Persia and Mohammedanism to humanity
> and religion. In this garden he announced to his
> followers that he was the supreme manifestation
> of God foretold by the Bab, and publicly assumed
> the name of "Baha'o'llah," the Glory qf God.
> He commanded the Babis to look no more to
> the Bab for their prophet, but to himself, whose
> revelation would fulfil the Bab's prophecy and
> dissolve their Mohammedan sect in the larger
> synthesis of Bahaism. His announcement included the declaration of the essential unity of
> men, the common bond between the religions,
> and the final reconcilement of Churches and
> States in him. With the consciousness of their
> new human significance, the Bahai exiles proceeded on their journey, and arrived at Constantinople in 1864.
> Their reception by the population was unexpectedly friendly. The government placed
> houses at the disposal of Baha'o'llah and his
> family, while the followers found occupations in
> the various bazaars. Converts to the cause were
> made so rapidly that once more the orthodox
> ecclesiastical organization set itself in motion
> against Baha'o'llah, with the result that after
> 164     THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> only four months in the capital, he was transfen'ed to Adrianople, on the northern frontiers
> of the Empire. Constantinople, we remember,
> most conspicuously emphasizes the failure of
> Christianity to control the political necessity
> of men. The effect of residence at Adrianople
> was to bring Baha'ollah into relationship with
> European civilization, thus uniting his intuithre
> wisdom with that stock of scientific and sociological experience which so completely differentiates the personal problem of life in VVest
> and East. Without this contact and assimilation, Baha'o'llah's revelation might have remained Oriental in its 'statement and expression,
> and, conditioned by the incomplete social experience which that implies, might have reached
> our Western consciousness only through the
> medium of an intervening personality - a
> St. Paul, that is, whose interpretation would
> have lessened fatally the prophet's power to
> unite. Happily for both hemispheres alike, this
> contact of intuition and social experience did
> take place, and, as a result, Europe and America
> enter equally with the Orient into this prophetic
> station. The most conspicuous public action
> of Baha'o'llah at Adrianople was to send letters
> HISTORY OF THE BAHAI MOVEMENT                    165
> 
> to the authorities of every Western nation, calling
> for their co-operation in his purpose to unite
> mankind. Noone requires to be told how
> nega.tive a.n effect these letters apparently had
> upon our history. In such a case, however,
> we are not to judge the prophet's seeming
> impotence from the official silence his letters
> received; we are to judge his authority and
> irresistible power by the increasing development,
> among the people themselves, of the same passion
> for unity and reform. For a prophet is not
> a commander, having armies and treasuries to
> carry out his orders; he is the expression of
> those very inward impulses which all men will
> learn in themselves to reverence and obey. In
> these letters, moreover, Baha'o'llah uttered predictions which make them notable even on the
> material plane. In 1868, for example, he foretold to Napoleon III. the fall of his empire, and
> to the Pope the loss of his temporal power. * A
> cross section of European and American history
> in that year would render the letters their true
> and awful significance as the utterance of the
> world's own conscience, awakening to its de-
> * Baha' o'llah also foretold the loss of Adrianople to the
> Turks. His imprisonment in that city is most interesting
> to recall at the present time.
> 166     THE MODERN SOCIAl. RELIGION
> 
> humanizing social conditions. A petty sectarian
> agitation, semi - religious and semi - political,
> aroused by a rival among the Babis, again
> brought the Bahai movement before the political
> authorities, and in 1868 Baha'o'llah's enforced
> pilgrimage began once more, taking him this
> time, with about seventy followers, to the lowest
> and meanest of Turkish penal settlements, the
> prison of Akka in Palestine.
> The ins~ructions concerning their treatment
> sent to the prison officials were most severe.
> For two years these seventy people were confined in two rooms and allotted an unspeakably
> miserable fare. Severe epidemics broke out
> among them, yet thanks to the common faith,
> the common joy in the midst of desolation, and
> to the devoted nursing given the sick by their
> unstricken fellows, the ill-treatment carried off
> only six members. The ecclesiastical and political
> hatred aroused by the Bahai teaching penetrated
> to the prophet's little company in many forms.
> Their dead were left uncared for among them
> until the burial expenses were paid and repaid
> time and again, and communications made by
> Baha'o'llah to the Sultan, protesting against the
> despicable treatment inflicted upon women and
> HISTORY OF THE nAHAl MOVEl\IENT           167
> 
> children remained undelivered. Yet by the
> uniform kindness and fairness the Bahais displayed toward each other and toward their
> keepers, the military discipline little by little was
> relaxed, and Baha'o'llah was finally permitted to
> take a house in town, though still within the
> fortifications. Even there, however, he was
> confined in one room for seven years. Gradually
> the Bahais were released on parole, and permitted
> to form a settlement of their own in the town.
> The world has no community like the Bahai
> community at Akka. The colony was continually recruited from the East, by men whose
> spiritual sympathy drew them to this point and
> centre of religious life. The community, accordingly, has been composed of individuals belonging to religions inherently opposed and fanatic,
> to nations and castes historically hostile, to
> environments which had necessitated totally
> different ideas and customs; but within the new
> spiritual and social synthesis of Bahaism they
> found their interests mutual and interdependent.
> For forty years no judge has had to settle disputes between them. The American and Euro-,
> pean visitors there have found themselves
> surrounded by a truer fraternity, a deeper sym-
> 168      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> pathy, a more vigorous religious spirit than they
> can experience in their own towns. I t is a
> projection of Baha'o'llah's revelation upon the
> actual world.
> From 1869 to 1892, the prophet was chiefly
> concerned with writing his doctrinal works.
> Hitherto, his teaching had spread by means of
> letters written to his distant disciples and to
> those who applied for the resolution of metaphysical and ethical problems. From 1869 until
> his death, Baha'01lah revealed the moral and
> sociological principles which control the world's
> development. Sometimes in the language and
> symbolism of orthodox Christianity or l\fohammedanism, sometimes in the style of Sufi, or
> free thinker, he brought to light those mysterious
> laws which, hidden from the ordinary being in
> the vast operation of social evolution, contain
> the true and creative relationship of individual
> and society. On .May 28, 1892, at the age of
> seventy-five, his work entirely done, Baha'o'llah
> died, in full enjoyment of his powers and faculties
> to the end. I t was our own conscience, our
> own aspiration and pure passion for human
> betterment, which those prison walls confined
> and insulted, but could not destroy.
> HISTORY OF THE BAHAI l\IOVE:\1ENT       169
> 
> The confusion, the reaction, and spiritual
> division usually attendant upon a prophet's
> death were in this case happily prevented.
> Baha'o'llah's revelation was literary, not word
> of mouth; and not only does the written word
> endure, but it remains free from those variations
> of interpretation which memory and changes of
> personal mood inevitably throw upon human
> speech. Moreover, Baha'o'llah possessed a spiritual as well as natural heir in the person of his
> eldest son Abdul Baha, whom shortly before
> death he had designated the leader of the Bahai
> movement, the" Greatest Branch," who was one -
> with himself.      This succession was entirely
> spiritual, since not only does the Bahai teaching
> permit no ecclesiastical organization, but Abdul
> Baha was so designated for his power and merit,
> not his relationship. Our historical outline,
> accordingly, continues without interruption down
> the life and activity of Baha'o'llah's son.
> Abdul Baha (" Servant of Baha") was born at
> Teheran on May 23, 1844, the day that the Bab
> declared his mission. His personality I can best
> describe by quoting from the work * of a French
> * "The Universal Religion: Bahaism," by Hippolyte
> Dreyfus. London,1909. Cope and Fenwick.
> 170      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> author among the Europeans best informed on
> the whole subject of Bahaism. "He had constantly been with his father, sharing his suffering
> since earliest childhood, also profiting more than
> all the others by the marvellous power which
> emanated from Baha'o'llah's person. Endowed
> with a captivating charm, with an eloquence
> which made his conversation sought after by his
> most irreducible adversaries, he joined to the indomitable energy inherited from his father quite
> a personal gentleness, combined with that particular tact sometimes possessed by Orientals,
> which straightway makes them equal to any
> situation. With the son of Baha'o'llah, these
> qualities, united to the power of self-mastery
> which. . . can alone render us master of others,
> have made of him one of the strongest and at
> the same time most seductive mentalities which
> can be imagined. His unique intelligence is
> capable of seizing at the first glance all the
> aspects of a question, and without hesitation
> seeing its solution; his heart attracts all the
> disinterested of life, who feel themselves instinctively drawn towards him."
> After forty years of imprisonment, Abdul
> Baha was released by the action of the Sultan,
> HISTORY OF THE nAHAl MOVEMENT             171
> Abdul Hamid, who re-established the Constitution of 1876 and freed all the political prisoners
> of the empire. Since Baha'o'llah's death in
> 1892, Abdul Baha, the perfect Bahai, has not
> only personified Bahaism as the new relationship
> of man to society, as well as its emphasis of the
> Christian relationship of man to God, but he has
> effectively spread the Bahai message through
> Asia, Europe, and America.
> I t is difficult to realize at first how this could
> be done by a prisoner without money, political
> influence, or an ecclesiastical organization.
> Abdul Baha's imprisonment was not like that of
> the "prisoner of the Vatican," it was like the
> apostle's incarceration, whom Heaven itself unchained to promote the divine purpose. Slowly.
> yet effectively, like the movement of a mighty
> glacier down the valley, or like the waves showing the tide's turning, this revelation went out
> from the dungeon into the eager hearts and
> minds o()f men. To Abdul Baha, as to a teacher
> and fri~nd, came men and women from every
> race, religion, and nation, to sit at his table like
> favoured guests, questioning him about the
> social, spiritual, or moral problem each had most
> at heart; and after a stay lasting from a few
> 172      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> hours to many months, returning home inspired,
> renewed, and enlightened. The world surely
> never possessed such a guest-house as this.
> Within its doors the rigid castes of India melted
> away, the racial prejudice of Jew, Christian, and
> ~lohammedan . became less than a memory;
> every convention save the essential law of warm
> hearts and aspiring minds broke down, banned
> and forbidden by the unifying sympathy of the
> master of the house. It was like a King Arthur
> and the Round Table, to compare it with the
> traditional social ideal best known in our civilization; but an Arthur who knighted women as
> well as men, and sent them away not with the
> sword, but the Word. A few thousands, perhaps, from Europe and America; a few
> thousands from the East; but these form a
> company bound by a great enthusiasm, a great
> faith, and a great gratitude. And while the
> visitors were spreading the teaching among
> friends by word of mouth, by pamphlet, by
> volume, Abdul Baha answered the myriad letters
> written by those unable to come. For years he
> has made use of six or more interpreters and
> secretaries, rising soon after midnight to begin
> his long dictation; holding in his mind, like a
> HISTORY OF THE RAHAl MOVEMENT           173
> 
> great chess player, the continuity of many letters,
> addressing now one secretary, now another,
> always responsive to his own inward necessity
> for meditation and prayer. 'rhus are composed
> the letters-" tablets," as they are called among
> the Bahais-which have gone out through the
> world, each one containing the solution of a
> personal problem together with a strong impulse
> toward that spiritual activity wherein all personal
> difficulties adjust themselves. In every response,
> Abdul Baha assumes the point of view of his
> correspondent, and employs the religious and
> philosophical terminology most familiar to his environment, answering, that is, as the questioner's
> own spirit would answer if it possessed more conscious activity. By his power to penetrate to
> that centre of personality at which every man's
> nature is open to conviction, Abdul Baha treats
> with all men on a plane apart, and convinces
> doubt or removes prejudice by making the mind
> work through to its own solution.
> His life passed in this continually increasing
> activity of speech and correspondence, with
> merely the change from Akka to Haifa and
> from Haifa to Alexandria, until the month of
> August, 1911, when he travelled westward to
> 174     THE MODERN SOCIAL REI.IGION
> 
> visit London and Paris. He had been officially
> invited to represent the Bahai movement at the
> Universal Races Congress, held at London in
> July, 1911, but was unable to attend. A paper
> on the Bahai revelation, however, written by
> Abdul Baha, was delivered during the session
> devoted to "General Conditions of Progress"j
> and a reviewer afterward pointed out that this
> paper was the only one which presented a
> spiritual solution of racial problems, offering
> spiritual unity as the greatest human ideal, to
> be attained by using economic and political
> factors merely as the means for that end. In all
> other papers these factors were treated as ends
> in themselves. After a short stay at Thonon, *
> on Lake Leman, Abdul Baha continued his
> journey to London, arriving there during the
> first week in September. It is unnecessary to
> detail his manifold activities during the month
> spent there, or during the following months
> spent at Paris. l\Iost conspicuous were his
> meeting with .Mr. R. J. Campbell, when both
> men displayed complete sympathy and understanding; his address to Mr. Campbell's congregation from the pulpit of the People's
> * See Appendix I.
> HISTORY OF THE BAHAI MOVEMENT           175
> 
> Temple; his address to the congregation of
> Archdeacon Wilberforce at St. .John's, Westminster; and a breakfast with the Lord Mayor.
> Daily he was visited by scores of men and
> women; frequent meetings were held at which
> was abundantly released that impelling spirit
> ever felt when religion is realized as a social
> virtue; and he continued his correspondence
> with Bahais in other countries. The one important fact underlying this London visit is that
> all the modern sociological activity expressed by
> the Universal Races Congress, and all the
> modern passion for spiritual being expressed
> by the liberal Christianity of Mr. Campbell,
> 1\11'. Lewis, and Dr. Orchard, unite once and for
> all in Bahaism and focus perfectly in the person
> of Abdul Baha. In Paris, as would be expected,
> the meetings at his apartment were more cosmopolitan, including Hindus, Parsees, Persians,
> Arabs, Germans, Russians, English, French, and
> Americans. As London emphasized the social
> and spiritual aspects of Bahaism, so Paris
> revealed its intellectual content and unparalleled
> power of definition. It is this inclusiveness, of
> course, this sheer synthetic impulse vibrating
> from the Bahai teaching which enables Abdul
> 176      THE MODERN SOCIAL REUGION
> 
> Baha to speak with equal authority to members
> of the French Academy and the Sorbonne
> Faculty as to an inter-racial congress, or the
> congregation of an active Christian church.
> After meeting more than one hundred and fifty
> persons daily for two months, besides lecturing
> before the Theosophical Society, at the Union
> des Spiritualistes, and at Pasteur 'Vagner's
> Church, he returned to Egypt in December,
> 1911, promising to spend the following year in
> travel throughout the United States.
> Meanwhile the Persian-American Educational
> Society, founded at Washington, D.C., as the
> result of Bahai influence to bring about closer
> and more sympathetic relations between East
> and 'Vest, made every effort to give this journey
> a deep and widespread effect. When Abdul
> Baha arrived at New York in April, 1912, more
> than thirty public addresses had already been
> arranged for various cities throughout the Union.
> The first speech was delivered at the Church of
> the Ascension at New York City, and inspired
> a series of favourable articles in the metropolitan
> press. From N ew York he proceeded to '''ashá
> ington, from thence to Chicago, and during the
> following seven months visited a score of cities
> HISTORY OF THE BAHAI MOVEMENT        177
> from coast to coast. At one centre he gave the
> Message to a slum audience; at another he spoke
> on equal suffrage before a national meeting of
> the Daughters of the American Revolution; at a
> third interpreted the real meaning of the coming
> of Christ to the congregation of a .Jewish synagogue. He spoke on peace to the N ew York
> Peace Society, on international arbitration at
> the Lake .Mohonk Conference, on the philosophy
> of religion to New Thought Clubs. 1'0 Freemasons, University students, Esperantists, Mormons, he made addresses suited to the audience
> and the occasion, using each meeting as a local
> fulcrum to further the universal cause. Among
> the incidents standing qut in deeper relief are
> the laying of the cornerstone for the Bahai
> Temple of Unity at Chicago, and a visit made
> to Mr. \V. J. Bryan, the present Secretary of
> State, at Lincoln, Nebraska, returning the visit
> Mr. Bryan paid Abdul Baha in Akka during
> the former's journey around the world. It is a
> matter of record that the Secretary afterwards
> wrote that the Bahai Movement is the only,
> power able to revive the Islamic world, little
> imagining how soon that power would penetrate
> his own civilization.
> 178      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> On December 5 Abdul Baha sailed for
> England, where he passed six weeks in London,
> Liverpool, and Edinburgh. After two months
> in Paris, spent as before in daily interviews and
> conferences, he proceeded to Stuttgart, and held
> a number of very successful meetings among the
> loyal Bahais of Germany; thence to Buda Pesth
> and Vienna, founding new centres in these places.
> During l\1ay, 1913, he will return to his home at
> Haifa, to leave it, in all probability, no more.
> Future historians will give Abdul Baha's journey
> the detail and the reflection it deserves; but a
> mere outline, in relation to the preceding study,
> reveals even now something of its unique im-
> 'portance. "Ambassador to Humanity" was the
> expression used by one present at an address in
> \Vashington, and this title is perhaps as descriptive as any to hand. But how different the
> mission, how different the method, how different the man I If any generation could distinguish out, while still living, the nature most
> richly and most potently endowed with its best
> forces, ours has that privilege. In Abdul Baha
> we have a mirror focusing all that is most significant, suppressing all that is irrelevant, of our time.
> Thus briefly I have traced the Bahai revela-
> HISTORY OF THE BAHAI MOVEMENT            179
> 
> tion from its origin in the prophecy of the Bab,
> its manifestation by the Prophet Baha'o'llah,
> through its propagation by Abdul Baha. B::thaism is now by no means confined to one
> personality or one region. The relation of
> the local reform movement in Persia to this
> world - wide teaching is simply that of the
> bent bow, which shoots abroad the penetrating
> arrow of truth. A cross-section of the human
> tree, tentatively made on May 1, 1913, shows
> that the Bahai influence has been felt in all the
> chief branches. The result of such an analysis
> will be approximate only, since the Bahais
> possess no ecclesiastical organization, and have no
> desire for census and display. Persia itself, to its
> eternal credit, contains more than a million
> believers. Adherence to the cause nowhere else
> implies so much courage and steadfastness.
> Though tolerating neither priesthood nor ecclesiasticism, the Bahai revelation makes ample
> provision for social control of its teaching. For
> every city it defines a special organization to
> unite the followers, instruct them in practical
> social work, concentrate their activity, and renew
> their vision. A typical Bahai assembly, then,
> consists of a House of .J ustice-a body of nine
> 180      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> men, elected by men and women alike, to counsel
> and advise in all matters of doubt and urgency
> -a reading-room, open to the public, containing the works of Raha'o'llah, Abdul Raha, and
> literature relating to the cause; classes of
> instruction, held freely for all desiring to learn
> the meaning and importance of this revelation ;
> meetings for Bahais, at which are read tablets
> from Abdul Baha, new Bahai literature, communications from other assemblies, and at which
> speeches are delivered, especially by Bahai
> travellers; and finally those meetings - the
> essential Bahai religious service-where are read
> the words of Baha'o'llah. No order nor precedent
> between persons or the sexes is observed, and
> the Bahai services resemble those of the Quakers
> more than any other religious gathering known
> to our environment. The cause is propagated
> in the natural manner, by those who are moved
> to serve by their own impulse. Baha'o'llah
> taught the spiritual responsibility of every being,
> which renders the intervention of a paid mediating
> clergy not only unnecessary and impertinent, but
> essentially corruptive; and he taught that every
> man and woman, becoming filled by true faith
> and love, are naturally empowered to communi-
> HISTORY OF THE BAHAI MOVEMENT           181
> 
> cate their new being to others; and that every
> type, class, and environment, can only be reached
> by its own kind. Every man carries ,vithin him
> the seeds of his own springtime; and every
> environment contains all the tools required for
> its own reform. In the case of both individuals
> and environments, the outside world can only
> provide the essential preliminary instruction.
> Such assemblies or centres, deviating from
> type according to local circumstances, exist in
> great numbers throughout Persia, Southern
> Russia, India, Burma, and Egypt, where their
> membership includes every class, people, and
> sect. In the West, Bahai centres have been
> established in Germany, France, and England,
> with unorganized but increasing sentiment in
> Italy and Russia; while in America, as the
> history of the development of religious freedom
> would have foretold, Bahaism is especially strong.
> No other race has evolved so far from the
> deadening influence of dogma and orthodoxy,
> thanks to the westward impulse of popular
> liberty; yet, on the other hand, no people have
> so completely lost the clue to mysticism and
> personal religious vision. Opportunity and need,
> therefore, meet in particularly close contact
> 182      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> throughout the United States and Canada-the
> rapid spread of the Bahai teaching proves its
> capacity to satisfy the Western hunger for the
> spiritual life. In the United States more than
> thirty cities possess assemblies, and a constant
> stream of liberalizing and invigorating thought
> circulates from city to city and from State to
> State. To summarize, we find that Bahaism has
> taken active root from California eastward to
> Japan, and from Edinburgh south to Cape Town.
> Considering the ties which bind all the
> assemblies into one firm and devoted cause,
> we realize that they are not ecclesiastical, like
> those which enclose Catholic parishes within one
> empire of religious absolutism, neither are they
> ritualistic, like the Masonic fraternity, but in the
> fullest sense of the word they are social, including both political and spiritual necessities. Each
> assembly, that is, constitutes a centre where
> men and women engage actively in releasing
> the soc~ological forces which tend to unite
> nations, races, and religions into one humanity,
> and by learning to serve evolution they are
> hastening the divine civilization of the world.
> For Bahaism is not an isolated social fragment,
> badly adjusted to the myriad fragments pulling
> HISTORY OF THE DAHAI MOVEMENT           183
> 
> mankind in every direction at once; it is a
> ferment actively at work within the fragments
> themselves, the expression of our modern passion
> for unity and reform. Every assembly is like an
> atlas, which in little space represents the world.
> '.rhe question arises whether, since the Bahai
> revelation excludes a clergy, it thereby excludes
> the Church. That an inspiring Church can
> exist without priesthood we know from the
> experience of the Quakers; and from their
> history also we know that a Church of some
> kind is a positive necessity to secure communal
> firmness and power. Realizing all the advantages the Church offers its people, Baha'o'llah
> left full instructions for the foundation of a
> temple in every community. The idea underlying the Bahai temple is so simple, yet so profound, that well-informed readers will at once
> perceive that the temple, like every other manifestation of the Bahai teaching, represents the
> climax of a social evolution perceptible in every
> phase of contemporary thought. In the beautiful Persian imagery, which even translation
> cannot obscure, Baha'o'Uah named this temple
> the ~:1ashrah - el- Azkar (" Dawning-place of
> Prayer "). The building itself is a nine-sided
> 184      TIlE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> structure, surmounted by a lofty dome, and
> enclosed by gardens. The place of worship
> occupies the heart of the temple, underneath
> the dome, and is to be open at all hours, to
> all people, for meditation and silent prayer. rl'he
> holy words of Baha'o'llah are chanted at intervals,
> but no other form of worship, and no more
> extensive ritual is permitted. About the hall
> of worship are grouped various institutions of
> public service, all an integral part of the temple.
> These consist of a college, a hospital, a hospice,
> and other organizations of public social benefit.
> rrhe inner significance of such a temple can be
> gratefully appreciated by all. It means, first,
> the recoyery and development of spiritual
> activity by the individual man and woman,
> independent of the traditional tyrannies of priest,
> Church, or book; it means, next, the translation
> of personal holiness and aspiration into social
> service, the instruction and participation of men
> and women in the common task of reform-tlte
> union, that is to say, after their long estrangement, qf Church and State, upon tlte basis cif true
> democracy.
> A temple completely carrying out these ideas
> has recently been erected at Echkabad, in Russian
> HISTORY OF THE BARiU l\IOVE:MENT         185
> 
> Turkistan. In the West, Bahai activity has
> concentrated upon the construction of a similar
> holy place in Chicago. At the date of writing,
> a site has been secured overlooking Lake
> Michigan, and preliminary work is going forward upon the grounds. Once again, as in
> estimating the power of the Bahai revelation
> by the reception officially accorded Baha'o'llah's
> proclamation to the governments in 1868, we
> must not consider the material, but the spiritual
> content for our standard of judgment. I t means
> nothing derogatory to the cause, therefore, that
> this temple has not arisen with the inconsequential
> ease of a Carnegie Library. On the contrary,
> we are forced to realize how relatively little control the \Vestern conscience has retained upon its
> economic activity, and gratefully acknowledge
> the presence of even so much disinterestedness
> in our civilization. It is a matter for public
> record that the Bahai temple at Chicago has
> received the first contribution ever made by the
> East to a Western activity; and no thoughtful
> man or woman need be told that by its construction will be released a uniting and creative
> social force such as flows from no other institution
> of our time.
> PART VI
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SUMMARIZED
> VI
> BAHAISM, then, is a religious movement;      but it
> cannot be compared with any previous movement, either in its purpose, its method, or its
> result. It had a local origin-in Mohammedan
> Persia; it was a reaction, first of all, against an
> immediate condition; and in so much it is like
> other religious movements-like Luther's Reformation, for example. But if we once perceive
> the essential difference between Bahaism and the
> Reformation, in purpose, method, and results, we
> shall have entered into the very heart of this
> modern revelation. The Protestant Reformation
> implied the breaking away from an old order and
> the setting up of a new. The old order, however,
> had enough both of truth and vitality to persist,
> with the result that Europe is divided into two
> hostile religions. No man can be both Catholic
> and Protestant without withdrawing from both
> 188      THE MODERN SOCIAL REI.IGION
> 
> organizations and, for all practicable social purposes, becoming neither Protestant nor Catholic.
> This alternative, then, is presented to every Ulan:
> that he must accept one Church and consequently
> reject the other, or reject both and consequently
> lose all the advantages of co-operation with
> men. The alternative is hateful, vicious, and
> destructive, for it prevents society from enjoying
> the advantages of a united Church, and the
> individual from sharing in that deeper and more
> valuable truth which is now broken and divided
> into two ineffective parts; yet the alternative
> is as inevitable as it is hateful, and no man
> can elect a compromise and retain his religion on
> a social basis.
> If Bahaism represented any such tendency
> toward disruption and division, it would be no
> more than another sect struggling for existence
> and survival in the merciless jungle of society;
> but its purpose and method of operation combine
> to render further disintegration impossible. Its
> purpose is to effect the complete ultimate reconciliation of every existing social fragment,
> both religious and political, and its method of
> operation consists in taking its stand within the
> institution, not outside, and pointing out the true
> THE BAIlAI TEACHING SUMMARIZED              189
> 
> road of development along which the institution,
> by its own doctrines, if religious, or responsibility,
> if political, is committed to go. It is, therefore,
> not hostile to any creed, sect, or nation; but is
> hostile only to that fatal prejudice, bigotry, and
> blindness which prevent creeds, sects, and nations
> from realizing the purpose of their own origin.
> Bahaism is not the enemy of any Church, for its
> ideal of human unity and co-operation places its
> hostages in every race, Church, and nation on
> earth; but Bahaism is the determined and enlightened foe of anti-evolutional forces. This
> must be understood first of all. To the Christian,
> accordingly, the Bahai teaching brings an obligation to remain within the Church and to obey
> more fully, not less fully, the Gospel of Christ.
> But it does not leave him the same man as he
> was. It reinterprets the Christian mysteries and
> morals in the light of evolution and unity. The
> eternal virtue-love, for example-it strips of its
> local and confining manifestation, showing how
> that form of spiritual activity cannot be' directed
> to members of one class, Church, or race alone,
> but must be directed to all men in equal measure.
> The existing religious situatioIl attempts to COIlfine eternal forces to narrow social areas; but
> 190      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> Bahaism breaks down the frontiers that cut off
> one area from another.
> The Bahai teaching has what may be termed
> three moralities. It has, first, a personal mOl'ality,
> then a morality for institutions, and last of all
> a morality for society as a whole. We may take
> up these moralities (or, rather, these three expressions of the same morality) one by one.
> 
> THE INDIVIDUAL.
> 
> We might define the Bahai teaching as to the
> personal life by stating that it is the Christian
> ideal, emphasized and vitalized hy the purity of
> another prophet's vision; but this would necessitate a common agreement as to what Christianity really is. We have too many kinds of
> Christianity, unfortunately, to trust the general
> opinion on this matter; yet beyond and outside
> the traditional Churches there exists a very enlightened attitude, which represents the modern
> social conscience.
> Bahaism insists upon the sanctity of the individual, the personal right and duty to disallow
> any vicarious spiritual agency. Each man and
> woman constitutes a divine creation, and possesses
> a potential worth not impeached, denied, nor
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SUMMARIZED              191
> 
> humbled by that of any other human being.
> Self-expression, accordingly, represents the supreme obligation and privilege; and God has not
> given His precious marble of opportunity to the
> Michael Angelo alone. Life offers every personality the means of beautiful expression, in noble
> conduct, great thought, or inspiring art. In this
> individual potentiality and impulse toward self-expression, all men are created free and equal. It is
> not too much to aver that the greater the mind and
> spirit, the greater the tendency to respect and
> admire other personalities, however they may be
> rated by the world; and the inability to recognize
> a transcendent and incomparable possibility in
> every person, must be accepted as the stigma of
> spiritual insufficiency. Those distinctions, classifications, andjudgments which separate society into
> unsympathetic fragments, proceed from the intellect alone; but intellect itself, when enlightened
> and vitalized by spirit, gladly perceives and adores
> the personality latent within all.
> Upon the individual, then, Bahaism enjoins
> his spiritual development as the purpose, and
> hence the supreme obligation, of life. For
> Baha'o'llah, also, came not to destroy but to
> fulfil; and while his life is a scourge terribly
> 192      THE :MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> uplifted against those who pollute the temple,
> the essential redemptory spirit of religion, as
> contained in pure Christianity, he reveals anew,
> with added intensity and clearness. Bahaism
> teaches that without spiritual activity all personal
> and social effort is sterile or self-destructive.
> Legislation not derived from religious vision,
> laws unfounded upon unselfish wisdom, merely
> obstruct our social evolution, and must be revised
> continually at uncountable vexation and expense.
> In his private life, moreover, the individual meets
> with ultimate failure if his physical and intellectual faculties are uncontrolled by the conscious
> soul. The brute-world of mere flesh and blood,
> and the intellectual world of mere atheism, however brilliant and effective they may appear,
> have upon the spiritual plane no reality, and
> hence neither significance nor permanence.
> Body and mind serve only as environment
> agencies to soul, which has no need of them
> beyond this life. The immortality of soul and
> the omnipotent love of God constitute the
> foundations of the Bahai theology. Inasmuch
> as health and education affect the soul's usefulness and power of development, they must be
> sought, in their highest possible state, by every
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SUl\DIARIZED          193
> 
> man and woman. Spirituality without physical
> or intellectual force is like the swordless warrior
> or a light without atmosphere. All that is
> requisite for self-development must be obtained
> and made use of. There is no essential virtue in
> poverty-the rich man who employs his resources
> for health, education, and cultivation through
> travel and the intercourse which leisure makes
> possible, so long as he submits his talents to the
> directing control of spiritual activity, receives
> the assurance of Bahaism that his life is lived
> wisely and well. For society may confidently
> reckon upon this fact, that when the soul
> assumes authority over any human being, his
> personality and social advantages will thenceforth be put to public service. The greater he
> is in himself, and the richer he is in the world,
> the more power and responsibility accrue to the
> disposal of evolution. The point at which
> wealth either stupefies the soul or ceases to be
> serviceable to its needs, must be determined by
> the individual. Here again may society take
> confidence; for the soul that once awakens to
> self-consciousness will feel more concern over its
> material possession than even the bitterest
> Socialist. The other point, the point at which
> 194      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> poverty deprives the man of opportunity and
> influence, this point, also, must be determined
> each for himself.
> 'rhe phenomenon underlying these facts is
> that spiritual activity transfers the centre of consciousness from self-that is, from the empire of
> body and mind, to an outside point. This
> transfer automatically changes egoism into service, releasing the world-old human passion for
> self-preservation and happiness. and turning its
> power along unselfish channels. The Bahai
> teaching, therefore, in its reference to the
> personal relationships of life, only defines and
> explains the operation of spiritual evolution.
> Authorized by its truth to eternal forces it
> demands, on the part of' the believer, the utmost
> sympathy for others. It is for no man or
> woman to insult and despise the creations of
> Almighty God. The sanctity of the individual,
> as a spiritual fact, has its obvious counterpart
> in daily life, since, as we have already seen,
> the wretched maladjustments of our political and
> economic necessity derive directly from the
> mutual prejudice or indifference of men.
> Bahaism is equally explicit concerning the
> relationship of the individual to society. He
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SUMMARIZED             195
> 
> must sunder every tie inherently selfish, destructive, or useless; butá he must bring new
> enthusiasm and faith to every necessary or constructive relationship, and to existing responsibilities bring a deeper vision of their significance.
> He must not withdraw from present religious
> organizations, but reinterpreting their function
> in the light of evolution, endeavour to vitalize
> their activity, and remove the prejudice and
> ignorance walling them off from the social unity.
> As a citizen, he is bound to obey the laws of
> his country, whether just or foolish, labouring
> always, by constitutional means, to align the
> civil organization with creative forces and social
> evolution. He must labour to unite minor
> organizations in order to make them effective;
> and to transfer the circumference of social consciousness from the city to the province, the
> province to the State, the State to the continent,
> and from the continent to the world. To render
> himself effective, he must study the social
> problem through the most advanced ideas in
> science, economics, and government; and no
> duty is so important for the believer as to create
> for his own mind a living, passionate social ideal
> -a picture of the divine civilization described
> 196      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> by Baha'o'llah and Abdul Baha-toward which
> his purpose may direct its activity, and from
> which his will may be strengthened and revived.
> 
> THE INSTITUTION
> 
> Ethics have progressed steadily in modern
> times from personal morality to morality on a
> larger scale. With increasing resentment men
> perceive the futility of private morality, maintained under terrible pressure, allied with frank
> immorality on the part of institutions. Honesty
> in Church members represents a spectacle of
> tragic ludicrousness, when the Churches are
> guilty of dishonesty as institutions. What avail,
> likewise, is peaceableness in citizens if nations
> cannot refrain from war? If Bahaism were
> confined to mere personal problems, it would for
> the most part be offering kindergarten instruction
> to grown men; for the ideal of personal virtue
> has become our racial inheritance, and has passed
> into our unconscious natures as a continual
> impulse; while the failure to achieve personal
> integrity reveals an unfavourable social environment, not an unwilling or untaught individual.
> The Bahai teaching, then, takes up the more
> pressing moral problem, and directs itself to a
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SUMMARIZED            ] 97
> 
> great extent toward the larger social unit, the
> institution. Social ethics possess the same
> foundation as personal morality-enlightened
> self-interest. Its method is to re-direct the
> instinct of self-preservation, which is as strong
> in institutions as in individuals. Every religious
> and political unit, in fighting desperately for its
> own maintenance and prosperity, insures a hostile
> reaction from all the rest of society. The bow
> and arrows which involve continual danger are
> no longer carried by the individual, but by the
> institution. Bahaism makes the same appeal to
> the institution that Christ made to the man-to
> drop its offensive and defensive weapons, and
> enteltain absolutely no thought of itself. Let
> Churches exert themselves to assist the religious
> life in men and women, without any effort to
> stamp that religious life with the parochial and
> sectarian label. It is not enough to be a
> Protestant-one must be a Christian; and it is
> not enough to be a Christian-one must be a
> religious man or woman, unlabelled, unconfined.
> The unselfish attitude toward society insures a
> creative and co-operative reaction from every
> other social unit. No man except the outlaw
> plots against the unarmed man; no institution
> 198      THE :MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> except the outlawed institution plots against
> the organization whose purpose and activity
> is inherently and wholly expressed in human
> service. The Red Cross Society and the Salvation Army, hospitably received by every civilized
> nation, prove this point.
> The political units are controlled by the same
> laws. Fortified frontiers insure hostility and
> danger from the world; international peace
> insures co-operation. U n1ike the Churches,
> however, the nations are justified in maintaining
> the machinery of defence until disarmament has
> become a general movement. Our most powerful social forces, fortunately, are already devoted
> to disarmament as an international ethic; and
> the Bahai teaching assists such efforts by its
> unparalleled effectiveness in presenting the solution clearly and irresistibly, and in uniting under
> one head the yet unco-ordinated institutions
> reflecting the common desire.
> To sum up what I have termed its morality
> for institutions, Bahaism teaches that the prosperity and permanence of any religious or
> political organization is not the end for our
> personal loyalty; that we should be indifferent
> to the welfare of mere institutions, creeds, stone
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SU.}!MAItIZED         199
> 
> walls, and iron conventions; but that our most
> vigorous and devoted loyalty belongs to the
> cause of humanity as represented by the needs
> of every environment. We owe a kind of
> loyalty, then, to institutions; but only to the
> extent to which they serve men and women.
> To selfish institutions, to outworn organizations,
> we owe no loyalty; but must learn to distinguish
> between the constructive and the obstructive,
> and resolutely leave the dead to bury their dead.
> 
> SOCIETY
> 
> The Bahai teaching goes far beyond the code
> of ethics already formulated by our civilization.
> Did its message stop here, it would have value,
> and great value, by aligning the religious impulse
> with the most advanced social morality; but it
> would not merit consideration as the modern
> revelation. Its claim to this all-important title is
> based upon the morality Baha'o'llah formulated
> for society as a whole.
> The advance toward civilization is marked by
> the ever-expanding field of consciousness set up
> in the average mind. The frontiers of morality
> are not bounded by the amount of possible good
> or evil in men, but by the area included within
> 200      THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> the daily workings of intelligence. This fact
> should be realized to its full value, for without
> social consciousness-the consciousness, that is,
> whose visible expression is law, as the visible
> expression of personal consciousness is characterthere can be no more community between men
> than the interminable and paralyzing hostility of
> rank vegetation in a jungle. This area can be
> increased in two directions, by intensifying the
> individual's consciousness of his own soul, and
> by enriching his consciousness of other lives and
> other environments. In the past, religion took
> upon itself only the first method, which operating
> by itself isolates men by situating each one in
> a Holy of Holies. Most social forces are now
> working in the other direction, and the modern
> world brings the greater pressure to develop our
> social rather than our personal consciousness.
> While social consciousness, however, was confined to the individual's immediate environment,
> none of the disastrous effects caused by mere
> perso~al morality were apparent, and ethics
> accordingly remained limited and confined.
> Probably the greatest force available to pierce
> the social consciousness and reveal the play of
> society on a larger scale has been the Church.
> THE nAHAl TEACHING SUl\Il\IARIZED         201
> 
> The Church, however, broke through the frontiers
> of experience in only one direction; and while
> teaching a broader morality, which linked men of
> the same faith in widely different environments,
> it set up even stricter boundaries than before
> between men of different faith living in the same
> environment. The civilizing work, however,
> was initiated; men began to think in terms of
> more than one environment; and nationalization,
> that social force alone surpassing the ecclesiastical
> influence, operated in a manner tending to shatter
> the localizing frontiers flung up by the Church.
> Our experience, that is, learned clearly that men
> of the same natural geographical or racial division
> owe a loyalty to that division, transcending
> religious considerations, under constraint of the
> common necessity for self-defence. Thus men
> were compelled to realize, in times of crisis, that
> the social area created by Christianity was not
> inclusive enough to permit the establishment and
> maintenance of the necessary political machinery.
> The army, accordingly, served to introduce into
> our racial consciousness just those elements of
> experience which the Church would willingly
> have destroyed; and the continual stress exerted
> by the inevitable rivalry of these two civilizing
> 202      TIlE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> agencies has given the modern man a social
> consciousness whose area increases yearly with
> tremendous velocity, yet which is still broken in
> two by a certain loyalty to the contradictory
> claims of Church and State.
> Yet the point has been reached where the evil
> effe~ts of institutional immorality are more and
> more painfully felt in our daily life, and where
> the correspondence between personal morality,
> as formulated by Christ, and social necessity,
> as being formulated by economics, is declaring
> itself to all. At this transitional condition, the
> Bahai teaching offers, fully developed, that
> universal social consciousness in which a new
> social morality can develop. To enter into the
> revelation of Baha'o'llah is to discard for ever
> the old parochial consciousness and absorb a
> consciousness race-wide and world-deep. In this
> field of experience the last conflicting element
> is done away. Co-operation displaces competition, and the eternal impulse toward love
> is supplied its ethical definition in the modern
> ideal of unity. Baha'o'llah created a common
> circumference for the local consciousness of
> every nation, race, and religion. He created
> the experience whose visible expression is a self-
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SU:\Il\IARIZED      203
> 
> conscious human society. For the first time,
> men from every environment can enter into one
> faith and identify themselves with a movement
> including all men and women.
> Hand in hand with its self-consciousness goes
> the new social morality. With experience is
> born responsibility, and the practical form our
> common responsibility must take is stated in
> Baha'o'llah's works. Every step from the present
> competitive order to the future order of co-operation has been provided for; existing institutions
> and actual tendencies are merely employed with
> one conscious purpose, and no man is precipitated
> over the edge of an ideal impossible to realize
> in daily life. The supreme manifestation of
> social morality is always government, and in
> formulating a politic, Baha'o'llah most clearly
> earned our reverence as the prophet of modem
> society.
> By uniting the aristocratic spirit with the
> democratic form of government, he insured a
> politic at once equable and effective. It was
> long ago realized by Western historians that
> under a democratic State, inspired by the aristocratic spirit, society has revealed its noblest
> attributes. Democracy alone tends to vulgarize
> 204      THE l\:IODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> personal values, as the United States proves,
> while aristocracy alone tends not only to oppress
> the productive classes, but to sterilize the ruling
> caste itself. The principle of representation
> insures justice to each and to all, and likewise
> the personal authority of superior men insures
> the precious leaven of magnanimity and idealism.
> Universal su:ffi:age and personal superiority meet
> in the Bahai House of Justice. Every town
> elects as its local House of Justice the nine men
> best qualified for legislative, judicial, and executive labour. The government of the county or
> province will be administered by a county or
> provincial House of Justice, and a national
> House of Justice, composed of abler men as
> its scope of operation increases, will preside over
> the State, with an international House of Justice,
> most important of all, to act upon those increasing problems which transcend the function of the
> national government. The House of Justice,
> indeed, whether "intended for town or State,
> represents the outcome of our present political
> evolution, and Baha'o'llah has only defined and
> sanctified for men the idea already strongly
> though bewilderingly felt, that senates and parliaments are breaking down under the pressure
> THE BAHAI TEACHING SIDIMARIZRD           205
> 
> of modem social necessity, and that public control is best secured by board or commission
> government.
> In the flux of social evolution, while populations, environments, and institutions continually
> change, there exists only one steadfast and
> enduring point of contact between the individual
> man and woman, and this impersonal, irresistible
> force we call society. This point is not the
> institution, whether political or religious, for the
> introduction of new economic factors into the
> social stream during every generation necessitates
> a new personal need, and consequently a new
> balance of forces. The institution is too inelastic; it imprisons our growth as much as it
> benefits us. The one factor which is both
> permanent and elastic is ojfice, and the supreme
> adequacy represented by the Bahai House of
> Justice cannot be realized until this fact is understood. Political divisions change, but humanity
> remains, and the link between the generations
> is maintained only by the integrity and responsibility of public office. Office transcends the
> individual, yet when properly established it uses
> him to the full extent of his ability. Authority.
> therefore, which is the most important attribute
> 206     THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> in the possession of society, must be intelligently
> spent, for an adequate return, by each generation, and the election of superior men, to offices
> whose integrity is a matter of universal concern,
> insures vitality in government, and consequently
> a social morality which shall invigorate the
> individual.
> Bahaism desires a new social order in which
> the development of spiritualized men and women
> shall be the primary purpose; not supermen,
> whose nature is essentially hostile to the many,
> but that order of free beings representing our
> own ideals achieved in daily life and common
> things. To such an order we already potentially
> belong, and the highest human fellowship the
> earth will ever contain will not be otherwise
> than our own kind, released and inspired by
> participation in a co-operative society.
> This summary of the Bahai teaching is
> altogether too brief, yet in a work designed
> only to draw lines of connection between the
> present political and religious situation and this
> divine revelation, I have succeeded, I hope, in
> preparing the mind for a sympathetic study of
> its rich and fruitful message, and in offering an
> outline to be filled in by further investigation.
> TIlE BAHAI TEACHING SUMMARIZED           207
> 
> The Bahai attitude is so creative that proofs of
> its teaching are visible everywhere in the activity
> of men. A special literature, however, is accessible, and I have prepared a bibliography, given
> as Appendix III., which may advantageously be
> followed, both in its sequence and extent, with a
> briefer list of references for those who desire the
> essential facts without their historical, philosophical, and religious background.
> APPENDICES
> APPENDIX I
> A PILGRIMAGE TO THONON
> 
> "ABDUL BAHA at Thonon, on Lake Leman (" This unexpected news, telegraphed through the courtesy of
> M. Dreyfus, brought my wife and me to the determination
> we had long agreed upon of making a pilgrimage to the
> Master at our earliest opportunity. With only a few days
> intervening before his journey to London, we set out
> immediately from our home in Siena, and arrived at
> Thonon in the afternoon of August ~9. Prepared in some
> measure for the meeting by the noble mountain scenery
> through which we had passed, we approached the hotel
> feeling ourselves strangely aloof from the tourist world. If
> I could but look upon Abdul Baha from a distance I considered that I should fulfil a pilgrim's most earnest desire.
> The Hotel du Pare lies in the midst of sweeping lawns.
> Groups of people were walking quietly about under the
> trees or seated at small tables in the open air. An
> orchestra played from a near-by pavilion. My wife caught
> sight of M. Dreyfus conversing with others, and pressed
> my arm. I looked up quickly. M. Dreyfus had recognized us at the same time, and as the party rose I saw
> among them a stately old man, robed in a cream-coloured
> gown, his white hair and beard shining in the sun. He
> displayed a beauty of stature, an inevitable harmony of
> attitude and dress I had never seen nor thought of ill men.
> 212        THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> Without having ever visualized the Master, I knew that
> this was he. My whole body underwent a shock. My
> heart leaped, my knees weakened, a thrill of acute, receptive feeling flowed from head to foot. I seemed to have
> turned into.some most sensitive sense-organ, as if eyes and
> ears were not enough for this sublime impression. In every
> part of me I stood aware of Abdul Baha's presence. From
> sheer happiness I wanted to cry-it seemed the most
> suitable form of self-expression at my command. While
> my own personality was flowing away, even while I exhibited a state of complete humility, a new being, not my
> own, assumed its place. A glory, as it were, from the
> summits of human nature poured into me, and I was
> conscious of a most intense impulse to admire. In Abdul
> Baha I felt the awful presence of Baha'o'llah, and, as my
> thoughts returned to activity, I realized that I had thus
> drawn as near as man now may to pure spirit and pure
> being. This wonderful experience came to me beyond my
> own volition. I had entered the Master's presence and
> become the servant of a, higher will for its own purpose.
> Even my memory of that temporary change of being bears
> strange authority over me. I know what men can become;
> and that single overcharged moment, shining out from the
> dark mountain-mass of all past time, reflects like a mirror
> I can turn upon all circumstances to consider their worth
> by an intelligence purer than my own.
> After what seemed a cycle of existence, this state passed
> with a deep sigh, and I advanced to accept Abdul Baha's
> hearty welcome. During our two days' 'visit, we were
> given unusual opportunity of questioning the Master, but
> I soon realized that such was not the highest or most
> productive plane on which I could meet him. My questions answered themselves. I yielded to a feeling of
> reverence which contained more than'the solution of in-
> APPENDIX I                       213
> 
> tellectual or moral problems. To look upon so wonderful
> a human being, to respond utterly to the charm of his
> presence-this brought me continual happiness. I had no
> fear that its effects would pass away. and leave me unchanged. I was content to remain in the background.
> The tribute which poets have offered our human nature in
> its noblest manifestations came naturally to mind as I
> watched his gestures and listened to his stately, rhythmic
> speech; and every ideal environment which philosophers
> have dreamed to solicit and confirm those manifestations
> in him seemed realized. Patriarchal, majestic, strong, yet
> infinitely kind, he appeared like some just king that very
> moment descended from his throne to mingle with a
> devoted people. How fortunate the nation that had such
> a ruler! My personal reverence, a mood unfortunately
> rare for a 'Vestern man, revealed to me as by an inspiration what even now could be wrought for justice and peace
> were reverence made a general virtue; for among us many
> possess the attributes of government would only the
> electors recognize and summon them to their rightful
> station.
> At dinner I had further opportunity of observing Abdul
> Baha in his relation to our civilization. The test which
> the Orient passes upon the servant of a prophet is spiritual
> wisdom; we concern ourselves more with questions of
> power and effectiveness. From their alliance-from wisdom made effectual, from power grown wise...,-we must
> derive the future cosmopolitan virtue. Only now, while
> the East and West are exchanging their ideals, is this
> consummation becoming possible. Filled with these ideas,
> I followed the party of Bahais through the crowded diningroom. Abdul Baha, even more impressive walking than
> seated, led the way. I studied the other guests as we passed.
> On no face did I observe idle curiosity or amusement; on
> 214        THE MODERN SOCIAl, RELIGION
> 
> the contrary, every glance turned respectfully upon the
> Master, and not a few bowed their heads. Our party at
> this time included eighteen, of whom some were Orientals.
> I could not help remarking the bearing of these
> splendid men. A sense of well-being, of keen zest in
> the various activities of life-without doubt the effect of
> their manly faith emanated from all. With this superiority, moreover, they combined a rare grace and social ease.
> All were natives of countries in which Bahaism has not
> only been a capital offence in the eyes of the law, but the
> object of constant popular hatred and persecution; yet not
> one, by the slightest trace of weariness or bitterness,
> showed the effects of hardship and wrong upon the soul.
> Toward Abdul Baha their attitude was beautifully reverent.
> It was the relationship of disciple to master, that association more truly educative than any relation our civili7.ation
> possesses, since it educates the spirit as well as the intelligence, the heart as well as the mind. Our party took seats
> at two adjoining tables. The dinner was throughout cheerful and animated. Abdul Baha answered questions and
> made frequent observations on religion in the 'Vest. He
> laughed heartily from time to time-indeed, the idea of
> asceticism or useless misery of any kind cannot attach
> itself to this fully-developed personality. The divine
> element in him does not feed at the expense of the human
> element, but appears rather to vitalize and enrich the
> human element by its own abundance, as if he had attained
> his spiritual development by fulfilling his social relations
> with the utmost ardour. Yet, as he paused in profound
> meditation, or raised his right hand in that compelling
> gesture with which he emphasizes speech, I: thought
> vividly once more of Baha'o'llah, whose servant he is, and
> could not refrain from com paling this with that other
> table at which a prophet broke bread. A deep awe fell
> APPENDIX I                        215
> 
> upon me, and I looked with a sudden pang of compassion
> at my fellow-Bahais, for only s few hours before Abdul
> Baha had said that even in the West martyrs will be found
> for the Cause.
> After dinner we gathered in the drawing-room. The
> Master's approaching visit to London was mentioned. I
> recoiled momentarily as I pictured him surrounded by
> the terrible dehumanizing machinery of a modem city.
> Nevertheless, I am confident that nowhere else will
> Daha'o'llah's presence in him, as well as the principle of
> Bahaism, so conspicuously triumph. Precisely where our
> scientific industry has organized .s mechanism so powerful
> that we have become its slaves; precisely where men have
> become less than things, and in so dwarfing ourselves have
> lost a certain spiritual insistence, a certain necessity to be,
> without which our slavery stands lamentably confirmedprecisely there will the essential contrast between spirit
> and matter strike the observer most sharply. The true
> explanation of our unjust social arrangement does not
> consist in the subjection of poor to rich, but the subjection
> of all men alike to a pitiless mechanism; for to become
> rich, at least in America, implies merely a readier adaptation to the workings of the machine, a completer adjustment to the revolving wheel. But Abdul Daba rises
> superior to every aggregation of material particles. He is
> greater than railroads, than skyscrapers, than trusts; he
> dominates finance in its brutalist manifestation. His
> spiritual sufficiency, by which our human nature feels
> itself vindicated in its acutest agony, convinces one that
> the West can free itself from materialism without a social
> cataclysm, without civil war, without jealous and intrusive
> legislation, by that simplest, most ancient of revolutions,
> a change of heart. When by the influx of a new ideal
> we withdraw our obedience from the machine, its demoniac
> 216       THE :MODERN SOCIAl. REUGION
> 
> energy will frighten no more, like a whirlwind that passes
> into the open sea. Abdul Daha restores man to his state
> a little lower than the angels. Through him we recover
> the soul's eternal triumph-chant I Am.
> Next day the Bahais, increased by other pilgrims from
> various parts of Europe, met again at tea. On this
> occasion we new-comers were presented with a Bahai stone
> marked with Baha'o'llah's name. Rightly considered,
> such objects contain a spiritual influence quite apart from
> the belief of superstition-a suggestive value, which,
> recalling the circumstances under which the objects are
> given and received, actually retain and set free something
> of the holy man's personality. Superstition errs in
> reckoning their power apart from the receiver's worth or
> his power of receptivity. At my request, Abdul Daha
> graciously took back the stone I had received, and returned
> it with a blessing for my baby girl who thus, as it were,
> accompanied us on our pilgrimage and shares its benefits.
> I had spent the morning walking about Thonon. Following so closely upon my first meeting with the Master and
> the unique impression this made upon me, my walk
> invested the commonplace of our community life with a
> new significance. So much that we accept as inevitable,
> both in people and their surroundings, is not only avoidable, but to the believer even unendurable! Yet while
> inwardly rebelling against the idle and vicious types, the
> disgusting conditions in which our cities abound, I was
> conscious of a new sympathy for individuals and a new
> series of ties by which all men are joined in one common
> destiny. Perhaps the most enduring advantage humanity
> derives from its prophets is that in their vision the broken
> and misapplied fragments of society are gathered into one
> harmony and design. 'Vhat the historian ignores, what
> the economist gives up, the prophet both interprets and
> APPENDIX I                     217
> employs. The least of those who enter into a prophet's
> vision become thereafter for ever conscious of the invincible unity of men. Not himself only, but all men
> seem to undergo a new birth, a spiritual regenesis.
> I have not yet mentioned the presence of Murza Asoud
> Ullah. I suffered the good fortune to be seated beside
> him at dinner, and was irresistibly attracted by his gentle
> and tender spirit. Clothed in the same beautiful Persian
> style of garments as Abdul Baha, he represented a striking contrast with the Master, as if two wines of different
> fragrance had been poured into similar glasses. Without
> Abdul Baha's majestic qualities, his nature is nevertheles.~
> infinitely sweet and lovable, inspiring a regard not exalted
> into impersonal awe, but fuU of that devotion which
> unites the members of a happy family. As we parted
> from the Bahais on this last evening, after an impressive
> benedictory farewell by Abdul Baha, Murza Asoud Ullah.
> with the most touching sweetness, approached my wife
> and said that he wanted to be her father; that if she
> ever needed a father's help she must tum to him. Of all
> the heartá renewing incidents with which our little pilgrimage was brimmed, this was the most affecting, the most
> significant; for it is an example of that religious fellowship, deeper than race, broader than language, which
> Bahaism has awakened in both hemispheres, and a
> prophecy for the earnest days when Abdul Baha is no
> more, and we men and women, heirs of Baha'o'Uah's
> manifestation, labour to erect the House of Justice amid
> the increasing charity and enthusiasm of the world.
> QUATTRO TORRI, SIENA,
> September 3, 1911.
> APPENDIX II
> A PRAYER FOR UNITY
> 
> o BAHA'CYLLAH, may men no ronger act and hope and suJfer
> apart from one another! May men no lOnger be separated
> by fear and jealousy and shame, as nations are separated by
> .~trongholds andfortresses! In our supreme aJfliction, when
> we are utterly betcildered and desolate, may we lament no
> more for the loneliness if lifo but rf(joice in its Unity,
> learning with simplicit.1J, 7cithfaith, tcith earnestness to look
> for help and consolaticm in all men, even our enemies. lJIay
> we tntZY.foel that every personality overlaps by a little every
> other personalit1J. and to that extent i" identical with it;
> that every experience O'l,erlaps by a little every other experience, thereby bringing all lives into sympath.1J; that
> men are not so many complete and separate existences, but
> are only members Qf one Body and loves of one Spirit.
> Thy maniftstation if Unity, 0 Baha'o'llah, opens the
> Divine Garden to all men, even to the least and nameless
> outcast. He who enters by thy Gate thereqfter shares every
> good aml beautiful thing. Whoever are rich, this man
> benefits equally by their riches; whoever are happy, he
> enters into their well-being; whoever are wise or power:ful,
> he truly shares that power and wisdom. !f a lover whispers
> a sweet 7cord to his beloved, this man will hear and be glad.
> If a philosopher unveils a new manifestaticm if God, thi"
> API)ENDIX II                       219
> 
> man will belwld and worship. No blessing qf earth can be
> hidden or withheld from him.
> o Baha'o'llah! teach fiS that it is better to be C1'U8hed
> and know Unity than befortunate and take 110 heed. Teach
> ltS that the invalid who attains Unity is more capable than
> a strong man relying only upon himself; that he who S1.tlfers
> great pain continually, and learns Unity, is happier than the
> ga.1Jest o/'men who knOlCIs it not.
> ThOll art Unity, 0 Baha'o'llah!      Ma,/f we love Thee
> more than oursel'l'es! For S1.lrely we are not here at all, but
> 'aJe are in Thee.
> APPENDIX III
> BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR FURTHER STUDY
> 
> I
> A Traveller's Narrative, Written to Illustrate the Episode
> of the Bab. E. G. Browne, Cambridge, 189l.
> The author, Professor of Oriental Languages at
> Cambridge University, became aware through his reading
> of a new spirit animating contemporary Persian literature,
> and obtained leave of absence for the purpose of studying,
> at first hand, the sources of this influx of imagination
> and power. This volume is his authoritative and disinterested account of the Babi movement which, as we
> have seen, furnished the social impetus culminating in
> Bahaism. Professor Browne, it is interesting to record, is
> the only European having had personal intercourse with
> Baha'o'llah.
> II
> The Universal Religion: Bahaism. Hippolyte Dreyfus.
> Cope and Fenwick, London, 1909.
> M. Dreyfus, Docteur en Droit, Orientalist, and student
> of religious philosophy, has presented a brief but profound
> history of Bahaism, with a discussion of its social import.
> He presents his subject from the point of view of the most
> APPENDIX III                      221
> enlightened modern knowledge. In his treatment and
> conclusions we see reflected that rational acceptance of
> religious truth which, as in the case of M. Bergson and
> others, is transforming the logical Gallic intellect into an
> instrument of ampler scope and influence.
> 
> III
> Some Answered Que8tial/,s. Laura Clifford Barney. Kegan
> Paul, Trench, 'l'riibner and Co. London, 1908.
> This book is perhaps the most valuable of all works on
> the Bahai teaching. The author spent many months at
> Akka, having daily access to Abdul Baha, whom she
> questioned concerning the Bahai interpretation of religious
> problems. The questions and answers cover important
> aspects of the following topics: The Influence of the
> Prophets in the Evolution of Humanity; Christian
> Subjects; the Powers and Manifestations of God; the
> Origin, Powers, and Conditions of Man; and miscellaneous
> subjects of a metaphysical nature. Some Answered
> Questions, being the Bahai teaching interpretated for a
> Christian inquirer, translates this revelation into our
> medium of thought and feeling. It brings the Europeanized Christian tradition in touch with Bahaism, and thus
> offers to Christians a line of logical advance within their
> own doctrines.
> IV
> The Hidden Words. Haha'o'llah. Chicago, 1905; Paris,
> 1905; London, 1911.
> "This is that which descended from the Source of
> Majesty through the Tongue of Power and Strength upon
> the prophets of the past. We have taken its Essences and
> clothed them with the Garment of Brevity, as a favour to the
> 222       THE MODERN SOCIAL RELIGION
> 
> beloved, that they may fulfil the Covenant of God; that
> they may perform in themselves that which He has
> entrusted to them, and attain the victory by virtue of
> devotion in the land of spirit."
> Eighty-three short sayings, with communes andá prayers,
> which form a book of devotion ever full of impulse and
> revelation.
> v
> The Seven Valleys. Baha'o'llah. Chicago, London, Paris.
> In the vivid imagery of travel, Baha'o'llah has revealed
> the successive stages of spiritual evolution; the Valley of
> search, the Valley of love, the Valley of wisdom, etc. It is
> the pure psychology, expressed by the prophet from his
> own discernment.
> VI
> Kitabu'l Aqda.t.  Baha'o'llah. Bombay.
> The" Most Holy Book," the chief work of Baha'o'llah,
> dealing with society.
> VII
> Kita!Ju'l 19han.  Baha'o'nah. Chicago.
> The "Book of Certainty," with explanations of the
> scriptures and the argument of Baha'o'llah. Nos. VI.
> and VII. include the most important elements of Bahaism.
> Other works of Baha'o'llah, however, are accessible, explaining the relation of religion and science, religion and
> the Orthodox Church, etc.
> VIII
> The Rahai Proofi.    Mirza Abul :Fazl.    New York, 190fl.
> A most lucid and satisfying work for advanced students.
> APPENDIX III                         223
> 
> The Mysterious Forces Qf Civilization. Abdul Baha.
> Cope and Fenwick, London.
> The work which most definitely marks the advance
> Bahaism represents over existing revelations. It is spiritual insight turned upon society in its permanent and
> transcendent capacity; and formulates for the West its
> own modern social tendency.
> 
> x
> Tablets if' Abdul Baha. Vol. i. Chicago, 1912.
> This volume, a collection of letters written by Abdul
> Baha in answer to questions on every aspect of religious
> and philosophical speculation, contains the most authoritative and illuminating interpretation of Bahai thought.
> Until Baha'o'llah's works are fully translated, the various
> tablets of Abdul Baha constitute our most valuable
> reference.
> 
> Nos. III., V., and X., compose a shorter list of references,
> which will reveal much of the power of the Bahai teaching_
> It must be understood, however, that Bahaism requires
> instruction and study, since all its conclusions are rationally
> derived and presented.
> 
> BILLING AND SONB. LTD.) PRUiTERS, QUILDI'OBD.
>
> — *The Modern Social Religion (Used by permission of the curator)*