THE ETHICS OF RELIGION. 



343 



in early times, for many reasons ; but not so very 

 much more rapid as to constitute an entirely dif- 

 ferent state of things. And it does seem to me 

 in like manner that a wider and more rational 

 view of history will recognize more and more of 

 the permanent and less and less of the change- 

 able element in human nature. No doubt our 

 ancestors of a thousand generations back were 

 very different beings from ourselves ; perhaps 

 fifty thousand generations back they were not 

 men at all. But the historic period is hardly to 

 be stretched beyond two hundred generations; 

 and it seems unreasonable to expect that in such 

 a tiny page of our biography we can trace with 

 clearness the growth and progress of a long life. 

 Compare Egypt in the time of King Menes, say 

 six thousand years ago, with Spain in this pres- 

 ent century, before Englishmen made any rail- 

 ways there : I suppose the main difference is that 

 the Egyptians washed themselves. It seems more 

 analogous to what we find in other fields of in- 

 quiry, to suppose that there are certain great 

 broad principles of human life which have been 

 true all along ; that certain conditions have always 

 been favorable to the health of society, and cer- 

 tain other conditions always hurtful. 



Now, although I have many times asked for 

 it, from those who said that somewhere and at 

 some time mankind had derived benefits from a 

 priesthood laying claim to a magical character 

 and powers, I have never been able to get any 

 evidence for this statement. Nobody will give 

 me a date, and a latitude and longitude, tliat I 

 may examine into the matter. " In the middle 

 ages the priests and monks were the sole depos- 

 itaries of learning." Quite so ; a man burns 

 your house to the ground, builds a wretched 

 hovel on the ruins, and then takes credit for 

 whatever shelter there is about the place. In 

 the middle ages nearly all learned men were 

 obliged to become priests and monks. " Then, 

 again, the bishops have sometimes acted as trib- 

 unes of the people to protect them against the 

 tyranny of kings." No doubt when pope and 

 Caesar fall out honest men may come by their 

 own. If two men rob you in a dark lane, and 

 then quarrel over the plunder, so that you get a 

 chance to escape with your life, you will of course 

 be very grateful to each of them for having pre- 

 vented the other from killing you ; but you would 

 be much more grateful to a policeman who locked 

 them both up. Two powers have sought to enslave 

 the people, and have quarreled with each other ; 

 certainly we are very much obliged to them for 

 quarreling, but a condition of still greater happi- 



ness and security would be the non-existence of 

 both. 



I can find no evidence that seriously militates 

 against the rule that the priest is at all times and 

 in all places the enemy of all men — Sacerdos 

 semper, ubigue, et omnibus inimicus. I do not 

 deny that the priest is very often a most earnest 

 and conscientious man, doing the very best that 

 he knows of as well as he can do it. Lord Am- 

 berley is quite right in saying that the blame 

 rests more with the laity than with the priest- 

 hood : that it has insisted on magic and mysteries, 

 and has forced the priesthood to produce them. 

 But, then, how dreadful is the system that puts 

 good men to such uses ! 



And, although it is true that in its origin a 

 priesthood is the effect of an evil already exist- 

 ing, a symptom of social disease, rather than a 

 cause of it, yet, once being created and made 

 powerful, it tends in many ways to prolong and 

 increase the disease which gave it birth. One of 

 these ways is so marked and of such practical 

 importance that we are bound to consider it 

 here ; I mean the education of children. If 

 there is one lesson which history forces upon us 

 in every page, it is this : Keep your children away 

 from the priest, or he will make them the enemies 

 of mankind. It is not the Catholic clergy and 

 those like them who are alone to be dreaded in 

 this matter ; even the representatives of appar- 

 ently harmless religions may do incalculable mis- 

 chief if they get education into their hands. To 

 the early Mohammedans the mosque was the one 

 public building in every place where public busi- 

 ness could be transacted ; and so it was naturally 

 the place of primary education, which they held 

 to be a matter of supreme importance. By-and- 

 by, as the clergy grew up, the mosque was grad- 

 ually usurped by them, and primary education 

 fell into their hands. Then ensued a " revival 

 of religion ; " religion became a fanaticism ; 

 books were burned and universities were closed ; 

 the empire rotted away in East and West, until it 

 was conquered by Turkish savages in Asia and 

 by Christian savages in Spain. 



The labors of students of the early history of 

 institutions — notably Sir Henry Maine and M. 

 Laveleye — have disclosed to us an element of so- 

 ciety which appears to have existed in all times 

 and places, and which is the basis of our own 

 social structure. The village community, or 

 commune, or township, found in tribes of the 

 most varied race and time, has so modified itself 

 as to get adapted in one place or another to 

 all the different conditions of human existence. 



