THE GHOST OF RELIGION. 443. 



might in the course of evolution become an anachronism. But if re- 

 ligion there is still to be, it can not be found in this No-man's-land and 

 Know-nothing creed. Better bury religion at once than let its ghost 

 walk uneasy in our dreams. 



The true lesson is that we must hark back, and leave the realm of 

 Cause. The accident of religion has been mistaken for the essence 

 of religion. The essence of religion is not to answer a question, but 

 to govern and unite men and societies by giving them common beliefs 

 and duties. Theologies tried to do this, and long did it, by resting 

 on certain answers to certain questions. The progress of thought 

 has upset one answer after another, and now the final verdict of phi- 

 losophy is that all the answers are unmeaning, and that no rational 

 answer can be given. It follows then that questions and answers, 

 both but the accident of religion, must both be given up. A base of 

 belief and duty must be looked for elsewhere, and when this has been 

 found, then again religion will succeed in governing and uniting men. 

 Where is this base to be found ? Since the realm of Cause has failed 

 to give us foothold, we must fall back upon the realm of Law — social, 

 moral, and mental law, and not merely physical. Religion consists, 

 not in answering certain questions, but in making men of a certain 

 quality. And the law, moral, mental, social, is pre-eminently the field 

 wherein men may be governed and united. Hence to the religion of 

 Cause there succeeds the religion of Law. But the religion of Law 

 or Science is Positivism. 



It is no part of my purpose to criticise Mr. Spencer's memorable 

 essay, except so far as it is necessary to show that that which is a 

 sound philosophical conclusion is not religion, simply by reason that 

 it relates to the subject-matter of theology. But a few words may be 

 suffered as to the historical evolution of religion. To many persons 

 it will sound rather whimsical, and possibly almost a sneer, to trace 

 the germs of religion to the ghost-theory. Our friends of the Psychi- 

 cal Research will prick up their ears, and expect to be taken au grand 

 serieux. But the conception is a thoroughly solid one, and of most 

 suggestive kind. Beyond all doubt, the hypothesis of quasi-human 

 immaterial spirits working within and behind familiar phenomena did 

 take its rise from the idea of the other self which the imagination con- 

 tinually presents to the early reflections of man. And, beyond all 

 doubt, the phenomena of dreams, and the gradual construction of a 

 theory of ghosts, is a very impressive and vivid form of the notion of 

 the other self. It would, I think, be wrong to assert that it is the only 

 form of the notion, and one can hardly suppose that Mr. Spencer would 

 limit himself to that. But, in any case, the construction of a coherent 

 theory of ghosts is a typical instance of a belief in a quasi-human 

 spirit-world. Glorify and amplify this idea, and apply it to the whole 

 of Nature, and we get a god- world, a multitude of superli^j&aii '^ii^i^ 

 spirits. , ti ' - ■>' tljH^ ^ ' W 





