THE SKEPTICISM OF BELIEVERS. 



5G1 



tues of the heathen as splendid vices ; another, as 

 proofs of the universality of the divine influence. 

 One argues that all natural impulses are good, 

 because Nature is God's work ; his opponent re- 

 plies that all Nature is under a curse, and man's 

 heart corrupt at the core. One makes it the foun- 

 dation of his system that God rules the happiness 

 of man here ; another peremptorily declares all 

 happiness here to be an illusion. One holds as- 

 ceticism to be sheer folly; another holds that it 

 is the only road to heaven. The antinomian 

 thinks that, as God has once for all elected or re- 

 jected him, his actions are of no importance ; the 

 sacerdotalist thinks that by accumulating meri- 

 torious observances he can establish an inde- 

 feasible claim upon his creator. One thinks it 

 blasphemy against God's omnipotence to claim 

 any share in the work of salvation ; another calls 

 it an insult to God's justice to suppose that salva- 

 tion will not be conceded to good works. One 

 sees in God's mercy an assurance that all men 

 will be ultimately happy ; another infers from 

 God's righteousness that the vast majority will 

 be sentenced to endless torture. 



While there is a general agreement as to a 

 certain moral code, there is room for the most 

 contradictory doctrines as to the mode of ascer- 

 taining that code — the creed which it contem- 

 plates, the sanctions by which it is to be enforced, 

 and the nature of the agents subject to it. The 

 theologian alone possesses a sound basis for 

 morality ; but which theologian ? On the show- 

 ing of any one, his opponent builds directly im- 

 moral doctrine on the very same bases ; and a 

 theory which serves equally to confirm vice or 

 virtue has surely one of the marks of skepticism. 

 But how should it be otherwise when one man's 

 God is another man's devil ? When, indeed, the 

 devil is simply a deposed deity, or the product 

 of a process of " differentiation " dating from a 

 period at which there was no difference ? Mr. 

 Kingsley's special merit, says one of his admirers, 

 was the clearness in which he drew this rather 

 important distinction. His school of theology is 

 fond of declaring that the God of the Calvinists, 

 that is, of a very large section of their fellow- 

 Christians, is in fact the devil, or at least pos- 

 sessed of diabolic attributes. If devil-worship 

 and God-worship are so intricately blended, the 

 resulting system of morality is not likely to be 

 very coherent. It may be too much to say that 

 the scientific morality gives a simple and cohe- 

 rent answer to all the doubts which infest the- 

 ology. It would set aside some disputes as mean- 

 ingless,, while others will still continue to be se- 



36 



riously debated. But by excluding the arbitrary 

 data resulting from the heterogeneous elements 

 blended under the common name of theology, by 

 settling the method and by limiting inquiry to 

 questions capable of verification by experience, 

 it at least brings the controversy within the pos- 

 sibility of final solution. The ultimate root of 

 the theological contradictions is that they involve 

 reference to the region of the arbitrary, where no 

 test from experience can be applied ; and the 

 most opposite theories are equally plausible. 



The theologian contends that his doctrines 

 alnne, however much they may have been per- 

 verted, can lay down an elevated code or provide 

 sufficient sanctions. The first assertion usually 

 takes the form of a denunciation of "material- 

 ism." I cannot here touch upon the metaphysi- 

 cal side of that perplexed controversy, nor repeat 

 in feebler language the reasons which have been 

 set forth by more competent thinkers for feeling 

 tolerably at my ease in presence of this terrible 

 but very indefinite bugbear. We are considering 

 the moral problem ; and the theological conten- 

 tion is virtually that, if the old bonds are dis- 

 solved, the race will discover the whole duty of 

 man to consist in eating, drinking, and securing 

 the maximum of sensual pleasure. Virtue will 

 be discovered to be a sham, or, as Mandeville put 

 it, the offspring begotten by flattery on pride. We 

 shall accept as the highest good what Mr. Carlyle 

 somewhere defines as. an unlimited possibility of 

 pigswash. Nobody, it seems, can deny the reali- 

 ty of the senses, or doubt that sensual indulgence 

 is pleasant within certain limits. But the more 

 ethereal essences, self-sacrificing heroism, devo- 

 tion to ideal aims, the love which finds in itself 

 its own surpassing reward, will turn out to be 

 mere phantasms and fine phrases. They will 

 vanish from this mad chaos of a world, and so- 

 ciety become a blind scramble for the greatest 

 share of the enjoyments appreciable by the lower 

 animals. If man has been developed out of a 

 monkey, he must still be a monkey. What is in 

 the full-grown animal must have been in the 

 germ. The monkey is a prurient lump of fleshly 

 appetites. Man is the same being, phis the facul- 

 ty of lying. If the lies are seen through, he will 

 be the same being without disguise, and may 

 gratify his passions without useless periphrasis. 



One question naturally occurs. Are the doc- 

 trines imputed to the unbeliever true ? If so, the 

 sooner we admit it the better. Every saint and 

 hero in the world is a humbug. He is a brute 

 like the rest of us, a Yahoo trying to throw dust 

 in our eyes. Morality is a clumsy system of rules, 



