Part 6 (2/2)

Surely the obvious inference is that, if he does-really exist, he desires to conceal himself from the inhabitants of our world. I repeat, that if the Deity exist, he does-not wish us to know of his existence.

There may be, in the very nature of things, an impossibility of his revealing himself to men; we may have no faculties with which to apprehend him; can we reveal the stars and the rippling expanse of ocean to the sightless limpet on the rock? Whether this be so or not, certain is it that the Deity does not reveal himself; either he cannot or he will not. And the reason--I am granting for the moment, for argument's sake, his personal existence--is not far to seek; it is blazed upon the face of history. For what has been the result of theology upon the whole? It has turned men's eyes from earth, to fix them on heaven; it has bid them be careless of the temporal, while luring them to grasp at the eternal; it has induced mult.i.tudes to lavish fervent sentiment upon a conception framed by Priests of an incomprehensible G.o.d, while diverting their strength from the plain duties which Humanity has before it; it has taught them to live for the world to come, when they should live for the world around them; it has made earth's wrongs endurable with the hope of the glory to be revealed. Wisely indeed would the Deity hide himself, when even a phantom of him has wrought such fatal mischief; and never will real and steady progress be secured until men acquiesce in this beneficent law of their nature, which draws a stern circle of the ”limits of Religious Thought” and bids them concentrate their attention on the work they have to do in this world, instead of being ”for ever peering into and brooding over the world beyond the grave.” ”What is to be our conception of morality, is it to base itself on obedience to G.o.d, or is it to be sought for itself and its effects?”

When we admit that G.o.d is beyond our knowing, morality becomes at once necessarily grounded on utility, or the natural adaptation of certain feelings and actions to promote the general welfare of society. As no revelation is given to us as one ”infallible standard of right and wrong,” we must form our morality for ourselves from thought and from experience. For example, our moral nature, as educated under the highest civilisation, tells us that lying is wrong;* with this hypothesis in our minds we study facts, and discover that lying causes mistrust, anarchy, and ruin; thence we lay down as a moral law, ”Lie not at all.” The science of morality must be content to grow like other sciences; first an hypothesis, round which to group our facts, then from the collected and collated facts reasoning up to a solid law. Scientific morality has this great advantage over revealed, that it stands on firm, una.s.sailable ground; new facts will alter its details, but can never touch its method; like all other sciences, it is at once positive and progressive.

* All men do not think lying wrong, e g.. Thugs and old Spartans. Therefore it is not our moral nature that intuitively tells us thus, but our moral nature as instructed by the moral ideas prevailing in the society in which we happen to be living.--Note by the Editor.

”_Is our mental att.i.tude to be kneeling or standing?_” When we admit that the Deity is veiled from us, how can we pray? When we see that that law is inexorable, of what use to protest against its absolute sway?

When we feel that all, including ourselves, are but modes of Being which is one and universal, and in which we ”live and move,” how shall we pray to that which is close to us as our own souls, part of our very selves, inseparable from our thoughts, sharing our consciousness? As well talk aloud to ourselves as pray to the universal Essence. Children _cry_ for what they want; men and women _work_ for it. There are two points of view from which we may regard prayer: from the one it is a piece of childishness only, from the other it is sheer impertinence. Regarding Nature's mighty order, her grand, silent, unvarying march,--the importunity which frets against her changeless progress is a mark of the most extreme childishness of mind; it shows that complete irreverence of spirit which cannot conceive the idea of a greatness before which the individual existence is as nothing, and that infantile conceit which imagines that its own plans and playthings rival in importance the struggles of nations and the interests of distant worlds. Regarding Nature's laws as wiser than our own whims, the idea which finds its outlet in prayer is a gross impertinence; who are we that we should take it on ourselves to remind Nature of her work, G.o.d of his duty? Is there any impertinence so extreme as the prayer which ”pleads” with the Deity? There is only one kind of ”prayer” which is reasonable, and that is the deep, silent, adoration of the greatness and beauty and order around us, as revealed in the realms of non-rational life and in Humanity; as we bow our heads before the laws of the universe and mould our lives into obedience to their voice, we find a strong, calm peace steal over our hearts, a perfect trust in the ultimate triumph of the right, a quiet determination to ”make our lives sublime.” Before our own high ideals, before those lives which show us ”how high the tides of divine life have risen in the human world,” we stand with hushed voice and veiled face; from them we draw strength to emulate, and even dare struggle to excel. The contemplation of the ideal is true prayer; it inspires, it strengthens, it enn.o.bles. The other part of prayer is work: from contemplation to labour, from the forest to the street. Study Nature's laws, conform to them, work in harmony with them, and work becomes a prayer and a thanksgiving, an adoration of the universal wisdom, and a true obedience to the universal law.

”_Is the mainspring of our actions to be the idea of duty to G.o.d, or the of loyalty to law and to man's well-being?_” We cannot serve G.o.d in any real sense; we are awed before the Unknown, but we cannot _serve_ it.

For the Mighty, for the Incomprehensible, what can we do? But we can serve man, ay, and he needs our service; service of brain and hand, service untiring and unceasing, service through life and unto-death.

The race to which we belong (our own families and kinsfolk, and then the community at large) has the first claim on our allegiance, a claim from which nothing can release us until death drops a veil over our work.

Surely I may claim that my subject is not an unpractical one, and that our ideas of the Nature and Existence of G.o.d influence our lives in a very real way. If I have subst.i.tuted a different basis of morality for that on which it now stands, if I have suggested a different theory of prayer, and offered a different motive for duty, surely these changes affect the whole of human life And if one by one these theories ate denied by the orthodox, and they reject them because they sever human life from that which is called revealed religion, is not my position justified, that the ideas we hold of G.o.d are the ruling forces of our lives? that it is of primary importance to the welfare of mankind that a false theory on this point should be destroyed and a more reasonable faith accepted?

Will any one exclaim, ”You are taking all beauty out of human life, all hope, all warmth, all inspiration; you give us cold duty for filial obedience, and inexorable law in the place of G.o.d?” All beauty from life? Is there, then, no beauty in the idea of forming part of the great life of the universe, no beauty in conscious harmony with Nature, no beauty in faithful service, no beauty in ideals of every virtue? ”All hope?” Why, I give you more than hope, I give you certainty: if I bid you labour for this world, it is with the knowledge that this world will repay you a thousandfold, because society will grow purer, freedom more settled, law more honoured, life more full and glad. What is your hope?

A heaven in the clouds. I point to a heaven attainable on earth. ”All warmth?” What! You serve warmly a G.o.d unknown and invisible, in a sense the projected shadow of your own imaginings, and can only serve coldly your brother whom you see at your side? There is no warmth in brightening the lot of the sad, in reforming abuses, in establis.h.i.+ng equal justice for rich and poor? You find warmth in the church, but none in the home? Warmth in imagining the cloud-glories of heaven, but none in creating substantial glories on earth? ”All inspiration?” If you want inspiration to feeling, to sentiment, perhaps you had better keep to your Bible and your creeds; if you want inspiration to work, go and walk through the east of London, or the back streets of Manchester. You are inspired to tenderness as you gaze at the wounds of Jesus, dead in Judaea long ago, and find no inspiration in the wounds of men and women dying in the England of to-day? You ”have tears to shed for him,”

but none for the sufferer at your doors? His pa.s.sion arouses your sympathies, but you see no pathos in the pa.s.sion of the poor? Duty is colder than ”filial obedience?” What do you mean by filial obedience?

Obedience to your ideal of goodness and love, is it not so? Then how is duty cold? I offer you ideals for your homage: here is Truth for your Mistress, to whose exaltation you shall devote your intellect; here is Freedom for your General, for whose triumph you shall fight; here is Love for your Inspirer, who shall influence your every thought; here is Man for your Master--not in heaven but on earth--to whose service you shall consecrate every faculty of your being. Inexorable law in the place of G.o.d? Yes: a stern certainty that you shall not waste your life, yet gather a rich reward at the close; that you shall not sow misery, yet reap gladness; that you shall not be selfish, yet be crowned with love, nor shall you sin, yet find safety in repentance. True, our creed is a stern one, stern with the beautiful sternness of Nature. But if we be in the right, look to yourselves: laws do not check their action for your ignorance; fire will not cease to scorch, because ”you did not know.”

We know nothing beyond Nature; we judge of the future by the present and the past; we are content to work now, and let the work to come wait until it appears as the work to do; we find that our faculties are sufficient for fulfilling the tasks within our reach, and we cannot waste time and strength in gazing into impenetrable darkness. We must needs fight against superst.i.tions, because they hinder the advancement of the race, but we will not fall into the error of opponents and try to define the Undefinable.

EUTHANASIA.

I HAVE already related to you with what care they look after their sick, so that nothing is left undone which may contribute either to their health or ease. And as for those who are afflicted with incurable disorders, they use all possible means of cheris.h.i.+ng them, and of making their lives as comfortable as possible; they visit them often, and take great pains to make their time pa.s.s easily. But if any have torturing, lingering pain, without hope of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates repair to them and exhort them, since they are unable to proceed with the business of life, are become a burden to themselves and all about them, and have in reality outlived themselves, they should no longer cherish a rooted disease, but choose to die since they cannot but live in great misery; being persuaded, if they thus deliver themselves from torture, or allow others to do it, they shall be happy after death.

Since they forfeit none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life by this, they think they not only act reasonably, but consistently with religion; for they follow the advice of their priests, the expounders of G.o.d's will. Those who are wrought upon by these persuasions, either starve themselves or take laudanum. But no one is compelled to end his life thus; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, the former care and attendance on it is continued. And though they esteem a voluntary death, when chosen on such authority, to be very honourable, on the contrary, if any one commit suicide without the concurrence of the priest and senate, they honour not the body with a decent funeral, but throw into a ditch.*

* Memoirs. A translation of the Utopia, &c, of Sir Thomas Moore, Lord High Chancellor of England. By A. Cayley the Younger, pp. 102,103. (Edition of 1808.)

In pleading for the morality of Euthanasia, it seems not unwise to show that so thoroughly religious a man as Sir Thomas Moore deemed that practice so consonant with a sound morality as to make it one of the customs of his ideal state, and to place it under the sanction of the priesthood. As a devout Roman Catholic, the great Chancellor would naturally imagine that any beneficial innovation would be sure to obtain the support of the priesthood; and although we may differ from him on this head, since our daily experience teaches _us_ that the priest may be counted upon as the steady opponent of all reform, it is yet not uninstructive to note that the deep religious feeling which distinguished this truly good man, did not shrink from this idea of euthanasia as from a breach of morality, nor did he apparently dream that any opposition would (or could) be offered to it on religious grounds. The last sentence of the extract is specially important; in discussing the morality of euthanasia we are not discussing the moral lawfulness or unlawfulness of suicide in general; we may protest against suicide, and yet uphold euthanasia, and we may even protest against the one and uphold the other, on exactly the same principle, as we shall see further on. As the greater includes the less, those who consider that a man has a right to choose whether he will live or not, and who therefore regard all suicide as lawful, will, of course, approve of euthanasia; but it is by no means necessary to hold this doctrine because we contend for the other. _On the general question of the morality of suicide, this paper expresses no opinion whatever_. This is not the point, and we do not deal with it here. This essay is simply and solely directed to prove that there are circ.u.mstances under which a human being has a moral right to hasten the inevitable approach of death. The subject is one which is surrounded by a thick fog of popular prejudice, and the arguments in its favour are generally dismissed unheard. I would therefore crave the reader's generous patience, while laying before him the reasons which dispose many religious and social reformers to regard it as of importance that euthanasia should be legalised.

In the fourth Edition of an essay on Euthanasia, by P. D. Williams, jun.,--an essay which powerfully sums up what is to be said for and against the practice in question, and which treats the whole subject exhaustively--we find the proposition for which we contend laid down in the following explicit terms:

”That in all cases of hopeless and painful illness, it should be the recognised duty of the medical attendant, whenever so desired by the patient, to administer chloroform, or such other anaesthetic as may by-and-by supersede chloroform, so as to destroy consciousness at once, and to put the sufferer to a quick and painless death; all needful precautions being adopted to prevent any abuse of such duty; and means being taken to establish, beyond the possibility of doubt or question, that the remedy was applied at the express wish of the patient.”

It is very important, at the outset, to lay down clearly the limitations of the proposed medical reform. It is, sometimes, thoughtlessly stated that the supporters of euthanasia propose to put to death all persons suffering from incurable disorders; no a.s.sertion can be more inaccurate or more calculated to mislead. We propose only, that where an incurable disorder is accompanied with extreme pain--pain, which nothing can alleviate except death--pain, which only grows worse as the inevitable doom approaches--pain, which drives almost to madness, and which must end in the intensified torture in the death agony--that pain should be at once soothed by the administration of an anaesthetic, which should not only produce unconsciousness, but should be sufficiently powerful to end a life, in which the renewal of consciousness can only be simultaneous with the renewal of pain. So long as life has some sweetness left in it, so long the offered mercy is not needed; euthanasia is a relief from unendurable agony, not an enforced extinguisher of a still desired existence. Besides, no one proposes to make it obligatory on anybody; it is only urged that where the patient asks for the mercy of a speedy death, instead of a protracted one, his prayer may be granted without any danger of the penalties of murder or manslaughter being inflicted on the doctors and nurses in attendance. I will lay before the reader a case which is within my own knowledge,--and which can be probably supplemented by the sad experience of almost every individual,--in which the legality of euthanasia would have been a boon equally to the sufferer and to her family. A widow lady was suffering from cancer in the breast, and as the case was too far advanced for the ordinary remedy of the knife, and as the leading London surgeons refused to risk an operation which might hasten, but could not r.e.t.a.r.d, death, she resolved, for the sake of her orphan children, to allow a medical pract.i.tioner to perform a terrible operation, whereby he hoped to prolong her life for some years. Its details are too-painful to enter into unnecessarily; it will suffice to say that it was performed by means of quick-lime, and that the use of chloroform was impossible.

When the operation, which extended over days, was but half over, the sufferer's strength gave way, and the doctor was compelled to acknowledge that even a prolongation of life was impossible, and that to complete the operation could only hasten death. So the patient had to linger on in almost unimaginable torture, knowing that the pain could only end in death, seeing her relatives worn out by watching, and agonised at the sight of her sufferings, and yet compelled to live on from hour to hour, till at last the anguish culminated in death. Is it possible for any one to believe that it would have been wrong to have hastened the inevitable end, and thus to have shortened the agony of the sufferer herself, and to have also-spared her nurses months of subsequent ill-health. It is in such cases as this that euthanasia would be useful. It is, however, probable that all will agree that the benefit conferred by the legalisation of euthanasia would, in many instances, be very great; but many feel that the objections to it, on moral grounds, are so weighty, that no physical benefit could countervail the moral wrong. These objections, so far as I can gather them, are as follows:--

Life is the gift of G.o.d, and is therefore sacred, and must only be taken back by the giver of life.*

* We, of course, here, have no concern with theological questions touching the existence or non-existence of Deity, and express no opinion about them.

Euthanasia is an interference with the course of nature, and is therefore an act of rebellion against G.o.d.

Pain is a spiritual remedial agent inflicted by G.o.d, and should therefore be patiently endured.

_Life is the gift of G.o.d, and is therefore sacred, and must only be taken back by the Giver of life_. This objection is one of those high-sounding phrases which impose on the careless and thoughtless hearer, by catching up a form of words which is generally accepted as an unquestionable axiom, and by hanging thereupon an unfair corollary.

The ordinary man or woman, on hearing this a.s.sertion, would probably answer--”Life sacred? Yes, of course; on the sacredness of life depends the safety of society; anything which tampers with this principle must be both wrong and dangerous.” And yet, such is the inconsistency of the thoughtless, that, five minutes afterwards, the same person will glow with pa.s.sionate admiration at some n.o.ble deed, in which the sacredness of life has been cast to the winds at the call of honour or of humanity, or will utter words ot indignant contempt at the baseness which counted life more sacred than duty or principle. That life is sacred is an undeniable proposition; every natural gift is sacred, _i e._, is valuable, and is not to be lightly destroyed; life, as summing up all natural gifts, and as containing within itself all possibilities of usefulness and happiness, is the most sacred physical possession which we own. But it is _not_ the most sacred thing on earth. Martyrs slain for the sake of principles which they could not truthfully deny; patriots who have died for their country; heroes who have sacrificed themselves for others' good;--the very flower and glory of humanity rise up in a vast crowd to protest that conscience, honour, love, self-devotion, are more precious to the race than is the life of the individual. Life is sacred, but it may be laid down in a n.o.ble cause; life is sacred, but it must bend before the holier sacredness of principle; life which, though sacred, can be destroyed, is as nothing before the indestructible ideals which claim from every n.o.ble soul the sacrifice of personal happiness, of personal greatness, yea, of personal life.*

* The word ”life” is here used in the sense of ”personal existence in this world.” It is, of course, not intended to be a.s.serted that life is really destructible, but only that personal existence, or ident.i.ty, may be destroyed. And further, no opinion is given on the possibility of life otherwhere than on this globe; nothing is spoken of except life on earth, under the conditions of human existence.

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