THE OLD SECULARISM 9 



0/ Martyrs have any really moral effect, nor even has it 

 been able to kindle much, if any, enthusiasm ; even al- 

 lowing for what the actual witness of a martyr's death 

 might have had and undoubtedly did have upon others 

 during times of persecution. 



It is interesting to read the expedients to which 

 writers are put for motives. Mr. Mallock thus writes : 

 " In all the annals of intellectual self-deception it would 

 be hard to find anything to outdo or even to approach 

 the fantastic absurdities of Mr. Spencer in search of a 

 religion. He invites each man to consider and to rever- 

 ence himself as one of the ' myriad causes through which 

 the Unknown Cause works '....' It is not for nothing that 

 the Unknowable has implanted in man certain impulses.' 

 Surely (says Mr. Mallock) here is anthropomorphism 

 with a vengeance ! . . . What idea could be more incon- 

 sistent with the whole teaching of Monism ? " ^ Huxley 

 said that " Obedience to the moral law is producible only 

 by the prevalence of the idea of Duty. . . . And the 

 motive is to be found," says Prof. Huxley, " in the beauty 

 of conduct which is ' to devote oneself to the service of 

 humanity,' 'to pity and help all men to the best of one's 

 ability, to be strong and patient, to be ethically pure and 

 noble,' and 'to push our devotion to others to the ex- 

 tremity of self-sacrifice'. Religion, in fact, is nothing 

 more than ' that reverence and love for the ethical ideal, 

 and the desire to realise that ideal in life, which every 

 man ought to feel '. ' That he ought to feel it is surely 

 indisputable ; and Agnosticism has no more to do with 

 the matter than it has with music or painting'."^ 



But the " man in the street " will not be satisfied with 

 this. He wants a permanent, efficient motive power and 



^Religion as a Credible Doctrine, pp. 265, 266. 

 - Mallock, op. cit., p. 256. 



