Part 5 (2/2)

In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability by _facultas_, that is _facilitas_, we need not for that reason a.s.sume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.

But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly believe, only not that _bos locutus est_, or that an actual utterance lies hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd a.s.serts, nor is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything that belongs to our ego, of the self-conscious Self, which alone really and eternally exists and abides.

So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one the _sine qua non_ of the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.

CHAPTER V.

The Reasonableness Of Religion

The most difficult and at all events the th.o.r.n.i.e.s.t problem that was presented to me by the Horseherd still remains unanswered, and I have long doubted whether I should attempt to answer it in so popular a periodical as the _Deutsche Rundschau_.

There are so many things that have been so long settled among scholars that they are scarcely mentioned, while to a great majority of even well-informed people they are still enveloped in a misty gloom. To this cla.s.s belong especially the so-called articles of faith. We must not forget that with many, even with most men, faith is not faith, but acquired habit. Why otherwise should the son of a Jew be a Jew, the son of a Parsi a Parsi? Moreover, no one likes to be disturbed in his old habits.

There are questions, too, on which mankind as it is now const.i.tuted will never reach a common understanding, because they lie outside the realm of science or the knowable. Concerning such questions it is well to waste no more words. But it is on just such a question, namely, the true nature of revelation, that the Horseherd and his companions particularly wish to know my views. The current theory of revelation is their greatest stumbling block, and they continually direct their princ.i.p.al attack against this ancient stronghold. On the other hand there is nothing so convenient as this theory, and many who have no other support cling fast to this anchor. The Bible is divine revelation, say they, therefore it is infallible and una.s.sailable, and that settles everything.

Now we must, above all things, come to an understanding as to what is meant by revelation before we attribute revelation to the Bible. There are not many now who really believe that an angel in bodily form descended from heaven and whispered into the ear of the apostles, in rather bad Greek, every verse, every word, even every letter of our Gospels. When Peter in his second Epistle (i. 18) a.s.sures us that he heard a voice from heaven, that is a fact that can only be confirmed, or invalidated, by witnesses. But when he immediately after says (i. 21) that ”holy men of G.o.d spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,” he presents to us a view of inspiration that is easily intelligible, the possibility or truth of which must yet be first determined by psychologists. If it be conceded, however, that holy men may partake of such an inspiration, even then it is plain that it requires a much higher inspiration to declare others to be divinely inspired than to make such a claim for oneself alone. This theory, that the Gospels are inspired by G.o.d, and therefore are infallible and una.s.sailable, has gained more and more currency since the time of the Reformation. The Bible was to be the only authority in future for the Christian faith. Pope and ecclesiastical tradition were cast aside, and a greater stress was consequently laid on the _litera scripta_ of the New Testament. This naturally led to a very laborious and detailed criticism of these records, which year by year a.s.sumed a wider scope, and was finally absorbed in so many special investigations that its original purpose of establis.h.i.+ng the authority of the Scriptures of the New Testament seems to have quite pa.s.sed out of sight. These critical investigations concerning the ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament, Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrimus, and Vatica.n.u.s, down to Number 269, Bentley's Q, are probably of less interest to the Horseherd; they are known to those who make a special study of this subject, and are of no interest outside.

If, as might have happened, without any miracle, the original autograph of the Gospels, as they were written by the apostles or some one else with their own hands, had been carefully preserved in the archives of the first popes, our professors would have been spared much labour. But we nowhere read that these successors and heirs of Peter showed any special solicitude for this prime duty of their office, the preservation of this precious jewel of their treasure, the New Testament. What they neglected, had therefore to be recovered by our philologists. Just as those who wished to study the Peloponnesian war resorted to the ma.n.u.scripts of Thucydides, the Christian scholars, to become acquainted with the origins of Christianity, betook themselves to the ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament. And as the ma.n.u.scripts of Thucydides vary widely from one another and in certain pa.s.sages leave us quite helpless, so do the ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament. Bentley speaks of thirty thousand _variae lectiones_ in the New Testament; but since his time their number must have increased fourfold. The ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament are more numerous than those of any cla.s.sic. Two thousand are known and have been described, and more yet may lie buried in libraries. Now while this large number of ma.n.u.scripts and various readings have given the philologists of the New Testament greater difficulties than the cla.s.sical philologist encounters, still on the other hand the New Testament has the advantage over all cla.s.sical texts, in that some of its ma.n.u.scripts are much older than those of the majority of cla.s.sical writers. We have, for instance, no complete ma.n.u.scripts of Homer earlier than the thirteenth century, while the oldest ma.n.u.scripts of the New Testament descend from the fourth and fifth centuries. It is frequently said that all these things are of no importance for the understanding of the New Testament, and that theologians need not trouble themselves about them. But this is saying too much. There are _variae lectiones_, which are certainly not without importance for the facts and the doctrines of Christianity, and in which the last word belongs not to the theologian, but to the philologist. No one would say that it makes no difference if Mark xvi. 9-20 is omitted or not; no one would declare that the authenticity or spuriousness of the section on the adulteress (John vii. 53-viii. 11) was entirely indifferent. When we consider what contention there has been over the seventh verse of the fifth chapter of the first Epistle of John, and how the entire doctrine of the Trinity has been based on that (”For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one”), it will hardly be maintained that the ma.n.u.scripts are of no importance for Christian dogma. Whether in the first Epistle to Timothy iii. 16, we read ?S for TS, that is, ?e??, is also not quite immaterial. Still I admit that in comparison to the problems presented to me by the Horseherd and his comrades, these _variae lectiones_ will not rack our brains nearly so badly. I have been reproached for still owing my friends an answer to the attacks which they directed exclusively against Christian religion. It was, however, impossible to deal thoroughly with these matters, without first taking into consideration their objections against all religion.

I therefore first endeavoured to make clear to my unknown friends two things, which const.i.tute the foundation of all religion: first, that the world is rational, that it is the result of thought, and that in this sense only is it the creation of a being which possesses reason, or is reason itself (the Logos); and secondly, that mind or thought cannot be the outcome of matter, but on the contrary is the _prius_ of all things.

To this end a statement of the results of the philosophy of language was absolutely necessary, partly to establish more clearly the relation of thought to speech, partly to comprehend the true meaning of the Logos or the Word in the New Testament, and understand in how easily intelligible and perfectly reasonable a sense the term ”Word” (Logos) can be applied to the Son of G.o.d.

I am not one of those who pretend to find no difficulties in all these questions. On the contrary, I have wrestled with them for years, and remember well the joy I felt when first the true historical meaning of the opening of the Fourth Gospel, ”In the beginning was the word,” became clear to me. It is true that I turned no somersaults like the Horseherd, but I was well satisfied. I do not therefore consider the objections raised by him as unfounded or without justification; on the contrary, it were better if others would speak with the same freedom as he has done, although a calmer tone in such matters would be more effective than the fortissimo of the Horseherd.

What aided me most in the solution of these religious or theological difficulties, was a comparative study of the religions of mankind. In spite of their differences, they are all afflicted with the same ailments, and when we find that we encounter the same difficulties in other religions as those with which we are ourselves contending, it is safe to consider them as deeply rooted in human nature, and in this same nature, be it weak or strong, to seek their solution. As comparative philology has proved that many of the irregular nouns and verbs are really the most regular and ancient, so it is with the irregular, that is, the miraculous occurrences in the history of religion. Indeed, we may now say that it would be a miracle if there were anywhere any religion without miracles, or if the Scriptures on which any religion is based were not presented by the priests and accepted by the believers as of superhuman, even divine origin, and therefore infallible. In all these matters we must seek for the reasons, and in this manner endeavour to understand their truth as well as error.

Whether or not I have succeeded in proving that the world is rational, and that mind is the _prius_ of matter, I must leave to the decision of the Horseherd and his friends. Fortunately these questions are of that nature that we may entertain different opinions upon them without accusing each other of heresy. Many Darwinians, for instance, Romanes, and even Huxley, have always considered themselves good Christians, although they believed the doctrine of Darwin to be the only way of salvation. If, however, we take up such questions as were propounded to me by the Horseherd, and which have more to do with Christian theology than Christian religion, there is an immediate change of tone, and unfortunately the difference of view becomes at once a difference of aim. The moral element enters immediately, and those who _believe_ otherwise are designated unbelievers, though we do not at once stamp those who _think_ otherwise as incapable of thought. Here lies the great difficulty in considering and treating calmly religious, or rather, theological questions. There is little hope of reaching a mutual understanding when the first attack is characterised by such vigour as was shown by the Horseherd and many of his comrades. He speaks at once of tales of fraud and deceit, and of the fantasies of the Christian religion. He says that he is full of bloodthirstiness against the Jewish idea of G.o.d, and believes that since the writings of Hume and Schopenhauer, positive Christianity has become a sheer impossibility, and more of the same import. This is certainly ”fortissimo,” but not therefore by any means ”verissimo.”

Other correspondents, such as Agnosticus, declare all revelation a chimera; in short, there has been no lack of expressions subversive of Christianity, and, in fact, of all revealed religion.

At this point a glance at the development of the religion of the Hindus may be of great service to us. Nowhere is the idea of revelation worked out so carefully as in their literature. They have a voluminous literature, treating of religion and philosophy, and they draw a very sharp distinction between revealed and unrevealed works (_S_ruti and Sm_ri_ti). Here much depends upon the name. Revealed meant originally nothing more than plain and clear, and when we speak of a revelation, in ordinary life, this is not much more than a communication. But erelong ”reveal” was used in the special sense of a communication from a superhuman to a human being. The question of the possibility of such a communication raised little difficulty. But this possibility depends naturally on the prior conception of superhuman beings and of their relations.h.i.+p to human beings. So long as it was imagined that they occasionally a.s.sumed human form, and could mingle in very human affairs, a communication from a Not-man, I will not say a monster, presents no great difficulties. The Greeks went so far as to ascribe to men of earlier times a closer intercourse with the G.o.ds. But even with them the idea that man should not enter too closely into the presence of the G.o.ds breaks forth here and there, and Semele, who wished to be embraced by Zeus in all his glory, found her destruction in this ecstasy. As soon as the Deity was conceived in less human fas.h.i.+on, as in the Old Testament, intercourse between G.o.d and man became more and more difficult. In Genesis this intercourse is still represented very simply and familiarly, as when G.o.d walks about in the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve are ashamed of their nakedness before Him. Soon, however, a higher conception of G.o.d enters, so that Moses, for example (Exodus x.x.xiii. 23), may not see the face of Jehovah, but still ventures at least to look upon His back. The writer of the Fourth Gospel goes still farther and declares (i. 18), ”No man hath seen G.o.d at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him.” Here we clearly see that the possibility of intercourse between man and G.o.d, and a revelation of G.o.d to man, depends chiefly or exclusively on the conception which man has previously formed of G.o.d and man. In all theological researches we must carefully bear in mind that the idea of G.o.d is _our_ idea, which we have formed in part through tradition, and in part by our own thinking; and we must not forget that existence formed an essential attribute of this idea, whatever opposition may have been raised against the ontological proof in later times. After what we have seen of the true relations.h.i.+p between thought and speech, it follows that the name, and with it the idea of a divine being, can only proceed from man. G.o.d is and remains _our_ G.o.d. We can have a knowledge of Him only through our inner consciousness, not through our senses. G.o.d Himself has no more imparted His name to mankind than the fixed stars and planets to which we have given names, although we only see, but do not hear or touch them. This must be absolutely clear to us before we dare speak of the possibility or impossibility of a revelation.

Now it is very useful, before we treat of our own idea of a revelation emanating from G.o.d, to look round among other nations and see how they reached the idea of a revelation. We see in India that a number of hymns in an ancient dialect and in fixed metres were preserved by oral tradition-the method was wonderful, but is authenticated by history-before there could have been a thought of reducing them to writing. These hymns contain very little that would appear to be too high or too deep for an ordinary human poet. They are of great interest to us because they make known, as clearly as possible, the sound of the oldest Aryan language, and the nature of the oldest Aryan G.o.ds. As Professor Deussen, in his valuable History of Philosophy says, (I, 83), the Vedic religion, which he at the same time calls the oldest philosophy, is richer in disclosures than any other in the world. In this sense he very properly calls the study of the Rigveda the high school of the science of religion, so that as he says no one can discuss these matters without a knowledge of it. This unique distinction rests, as he truly remarks, on the fact, ”That the process on which originally all G.o.ds depend, the personification of the phenomena of nature, while it is more or less obscured by all other religions, in the Rigveda still takes place, so to speak, before our eyes visibly and palpably.” I have long preached this in vain. All who have studied the Rigveda say this, and all who have not studied it say just the contrary, and lay especial stress upon the fact that these hymns contain ideas that once and for all they declare as modern. But no one has ever contended that this is not so. What is historically the oldest, may from a higher point of view be quite modern, and there are scholars who even look upon Adam as a reformer of mankind. Those who best know the Rigveda have often shown that it stands at a tolerably advanced stage, and here and there casts a distant glance into its own past. I myself have often said that I would give much if I could escape from my own proofs of the age of this collection of hymns, and could clearly show that at least some of these Vedic hymns had been added later.

These hymns, therefore, just because, judging from their language and metre, they are older than everything else in India, or even in the entire Aryan world, and because they are mainly concerned with the ancient G.o.ds of nature, appeared to the Hindus themselves as _apaurusheya_, that is, not wrought by man. They were called _S_ruti, (that which was heard), in distinction from other literature, which was designated as Sm_ri_ti, or recollection.

All this is easily intelligible. There followed a period, however, during which the true understanding of the hymns became considerably obscured, and a new series of works, the so-called Brahma_n_as, arose. These were very different from the hymns. They are composed in a younger language and in prose. They treat of the sacrifice, so full of significance in India, at which the hymns were employed, and which seems to me to have been originally designed for measuring time, and thus served to mark the progress of civilisation. They explain the meaning of the hymns, often quite erroneously; but they contain some interesting information upon the condition of India, long after the period when the hymns first appeared, and yet before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century before Christ. It has been supposed that, as the Brahma_n_as were composed in prose, they were originally written, according to the hypothesis of Wolf, that prose everywhere presupposes the knowledge of writing. I cannot admit this in the case of India; at any rate, there is no trace of any acquaintance with writing in the whole of this extensive ma.s.s of literature. It was throughout a mnemonic literature, and just because the art of writing was unknown, the memory was cultivated in a manner of which we have no idea.

At all events, the Brahmans themselves knew nothing of the Brahma_n_as in written form, and included them with the hymns under the names Veda and _S_ruti; that is, they regarded them, in our phraseology, as revealed, and not the work of men.

The remarkable thing, however, is that they did not a.s.sume, like the Romans in the case of Numa and Egeria, a communication from the Vedic G.o.ds of nature to ordinary men, but contented themselves with declaring that the Veda had been seen by the Ris.h.i.+s, whose name Ris.h.i.+ they explained etymologically as ”seer.”

It is clear, therefore, that what the Brahmans understood under _S_ruti was nothing more than literature composed in an ancient language (for the Brahma_n_as are also composed in an ancient language, though not as ancient as that of the hymns), and treating of matters on which apparently man alone can establish no authority. For how could ordinary man take on himself to speak about the G.o.ds or to give directions for the sacrifice, to make promises for the reward of pious works, or even to decide what is morally right or wrong? More than human authority was necessary for this, and so the Brahma_n_as, as well as the hymns, were declared to be _apaurusheya_, that is, not human, though by no means divine, in the sense of having been imparted by one of the Devas.

We see, therefore, that the idea of the _S_ruti, while approaching to our idea of revelation as _apaurusheya_, that is, not human, does not quite coincide with it. What was ancient and incomprehensible, was called superhuman, and soon became infallible and beyond a.s.sault. If we look at other religions, we find that Buddhism denied the Veda every authority, and in conformity with its own character especially excluded every idea of superhuman revelation. In China, too, we look in vain for revelation. In Palestine, however, we find the idea that the Lord Himself spoke with Moses, who delivered His commands to Israel, and the tables of the commandments were even written by G.o.d's own fingers on both sides. But this must not be confounded with written literature. The idea that the entire Old Testament was written or revealed by Jehovah is absolutely not of ancient Jewish origin, whatever respect may have been shown to the holy books as recognised in the Synagogue.

As for Islam, the Koran is looked upon as communicated to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, even as Zoroaster in the Avesta claims to have received certain communications in conversation with Ahuramazda.

In Christianity, in whose history the theory of revelation has played so great a part, there is in fact-and this is frequently overlooked-no declaration on the subject by Christ or the apostles themselves. That the Gospels, as they have come down to us, have been revealed, is nowhere stated in them, nor can it be gathered from the Acts of the Apostles or the Epistles. No one has ever maintained that any New Testament Scripture was known to Christ or even to the apostles.(51) On the contrary, if we take the t.i.tles of the Gospels in their natural meaning, they do not purport to have been written down by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John themselves: they are simply the sacred history as it was recorded by others according to each of these men. Attempts have indeed been made to reason away the meaning of ?at?, ”according to,” and interpret it as ”by,”

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