A MODERN u SYMPOSIUM." 



55 



presence it never quits, and thus supplies the 

 true conditions of humility, of aspiration, and of 

 felt equality of moral trust for all men before 

 God. These moods of thought are specifically 

 induced by the contact of higher excellence and 

 a more capacious rule of righteousness ; and they 

 are but poorly simulated by the mere sense of 

 personal insignificance amid the immensity -of 

 Nature, and the awe of the unknown, and the 

 conscious partnership of us all in the human lia- 

 bilities. The moral characteristics of the Chris- 

 tian temper are nothing but the natural posture 

 of a mind standing face to face with the invisible 

 reality of the highest ideals of its conscience 

 and its love. If that presence departs, they 

 cannot survive. 



Mr. FREDERIC HARRISON.— And all this, 

 to me, describes the moral characteristics, not 

 of the Christian, but of the religious temper. 

 With what has been so finely said in the preced- 

 ing discourse we ought, I think, most cordially 

 to join. Only for the words " theology " and 

 " Christian " we must put the wider and more 

 ancient terms " religion " and " human ; " and 

 again, for the intrinsic consciousness and emo- 

 tional intuitions, whereby these are said to prove 

 themselves, we must substitute the reasonable 

 proof of science, philosophy, and positive psy- 

 chology. 



We have had before us three distinctive 

 views as to the relations of religion and moral- 

 ity. Each of the three has pressed on us a very 

 powerful thought. The reconciliation is obscure, 

 yet I hold on to the hope that it may one day 

 be found ; that we shall have to surrender nei- 

 ther religion nor science, neither demonstration 

 on the one hand, nor dogma, worship, and disci- 

 pline, on the other ; that we shall end by accept- 

 ing a purely human base for our morality, and 

 withal come to see our morality transfigured into 

 a true religion. 



It is the purport of the first of the arguments 

 before us to establish : that morality has a basis 

 of its own quite independent of all theology 

 whatever ; but that, since morality must be deeply 

 affected by any theology, the morality will be 

 undermined if based on a theology which is not 

 true. We must all agree, I think, to that. 



The second argument insists that, if the re- 

 ligious foundations and sanctions of morality be 

 given up, human life runs the risk of sinking 

 into depravity, since morality without religion is 

 insufficient for general civilization. For my part, 

 I entirely assent to that. 



The third argument rejoins, that theology 



cannot supply a base for morals that have lost 

 their own ; but that morals, though they have 

 their own base, and are second to nothing, are 

 not adequate to direct human life until they be 

 transfused into that sense of resignation, adora- 

 tion, and communion with an overruling Provi- 

 dence, which is the true mark of religion. I 

 assent entirely to that. 



We, who follow the teaching of Comte, humbly 

 look forward to an ultimate solution of all such 

 difficulties by the force of one common principle. 

 That we acknowledge a religion, of which the 

 creed shall be science ; of which the faith, hopei 

 charity, shall be real, not transcendental — earth- 

 ly, not heavenly ; a religion, in a word, which is 

 entirely human in its evidences, in its purposes, 

 in its sanctions and appeals. Write the word 

 " religion " where we find the word " theology ; " 

 write the word " human " where we find the word 

 " Christian," or the words " theist," " Mussul- 

 man," or " Buddhist," and these discussions grow 

 practical and easily reconciled ; the aspirations 

 and sanctions of religion burst open to us anew 

 in greater intensity, without calling on us to 

 surrender one claim of reality and humanity; 

 the realm of faith and adoration becomes again 

 conterminous with life, without disturbing — nay, 

 while sanctifying — the invincible resolve of mod- 

 ern men to live in this world, for this world, with 

 their fellow-men. 



And this brings us to the source of all diffi- 

 culties about the relations of morality and re- 

 ligion. We place our morality — we are compelled 

 by the conditions of all our positive knowledge 

 to place it — in a strictly human world. But it is 

 the mark of every theology (the name of theol- 

 ogy assumes it) to place our religion in a non- 

 human world. And thus our human system of 

 morals may possibly be distorted — it cannot be 

 supported — by a non-human religion. But, on 

 the other hand, it is dwarfed and atrophied for 

 want of being duly expanded into a truly human 

 religion. Our morality, with its human realities, 

 our theology, with its non-human hypotheses, 

 will not amalgamate. Their methods are in con- 

 flict. In their base, in their logic, in their awn, 

 they are heterogeneous. They do not lie in pari 

 materid. Give us a religion as truly human, as 

 really scientific, as is our moral system, and all 

 is harmony. Our morals, based as they must be 

 on our knowledge of life and of society, are then 

 ordered and inspired by a religion which belongs, 

 just as truly as our moral science does, to the 

 world of science and of man. And then religion will 

 be no longer that quicksand of possibility which 



