Dec. 1, 1885.] 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



61 



consequent conformity to the resnlting customs and rules. 

 For, before an assembly of men can liecome organised the 

 men must be lield together, and kept ever in presence cf 

 the conditions to which they have become adapted : and 

 that they may be thus held the coercive influence of 

 their traditional beliefs must be strong." 



Among the original oflices of the pritstood military 

 functions were conspicuous. Among the ancient Germans 

 " the maintenr.nce of discipline in the field as in the 

 council was left in great measure to the priests." Later 

 the functions discharged in connection with war became 

 more exclusively " of the kind called religions." The 

 Samoan priest prayed for his own people and cursed the 

 enemy. In Xew Caledonii " the priests go to battle, but 

 sit in the distance, fasting r.nd praying for victory."' The 

 priesthood among the Comanches, Schoolcraft tells us, 

 " apper.r to exercise no influence in their general govern- 

 ment, but, on war being declared, they exert their 

 influence with the Deitj-." As an example of this kind 

 of priestly action in relation to war, may be cited the 

 following prayer directed by the chief priest of the 

 modern English to be used at the commencement of a 

 war in which we attacked an alien race striving to 

 throw off an intolerable tyrann}-, — "Oh chief God of our 

 people " — I have soniehow got the prayer wrong, it begins 

 " O Almighty God, whose power no creature is able to 

 resist, keep we beseech Thee our soldiers and sailors who 

 have now gone forth to war, that they, being crowned 

 with thy defence, may be preserved evermore from all 

 perils, to glorify Thee, who art the only giver of all 

 victory," &c., ic. '■ The military duties of priests .imong 

 ourselves have" indeed " dwindled down to the consecra- 

 tion of flags, the utterances by army-chaplains of injunc- 

 tions of forgiveness to men who are going to execute 

 vengeance, joined with occasional prayers to the God of 

 love to bless aggressions provoked or unprovoked." 



It must be conceded however that while pagan priests 

 have superstitiously sought for some sign of divine 

 approval before jiraying for God to assist the fighting 

 men of his tribe, the Christian priest has with calm 

 superiority taken that approval for granted. There was 

 something especially impressive in this confidence when 

 God was invited to bless our efforts in attacking a people 

 who fought against one of the foulest tyrannies the world 

 has known. 



Social development tends to restrict the civil as well 

 as the military functions of a priesthood. In advanced 

 societies we find that so far from taking a leading part in 

 civil affairs, priests are almost excluded from them. In 

 this country for example, many of the functions once 

 exercised by ecclesiastics have now passed from their 

 hands ; and there are some who are so intolerant as abso- 

 lutely to doubt whether even the magistracy should be 

 open to clergymen, and to question the wisdom of some 

 of the decisions by which clerical magistrates have 

 astounded lawyers. 



Passing over the special question of Church and State 

 considered in the list number of Knowledge we note 

 that Nonconformity, as rejiresenting freedom of thought 

 and including what is specially called Free Thought, is a 

 development only found in advanced societies. " The 

 multiplication of sects,"' as Spencer well observes, " with 

 which England is reproached by foreign observers, is — 

 philosophically considered — one of her superior tiTjitS : 

 fur the rise of every sect, implving a reassertion of the 

 right of private judgment, is a coll;iter.il result of the 

 nature which makes free institutions possible."' " Xon- 

 eonformity increasing as industrialism has developed, 

 now cliaracterises in the greatest degree those nations 



which are most characterised by the development of the 

 industrial type — America and England." 



The moral influence of priesthoods has in every age 

 been subject to the needs of those rulers or ruling 

 orders of which priests have been either the guides or 

 the servants or both. They have always inculcated 

 obedience to the powers that be, so long as these powers 

 havetrusted properly in priestly influences, and havesufii- 

 ciently supported priestly powers. Moral shortcomings 

 may be forgiven — alike in people and in priests — so 

 long as " subordination is manifested with sufiicient 

 emphasis." 



Of the future of ecclesiasticism, it is sufiicient to 

 remark that, as the idea of propitiation is lost, or as men 

 learn to regard it more clearlj' as an idea essentially 

 degrading to themselves and insulting towards the 

 unknown Power working in and through all things, all 

 observances implying this savage (or at its best 

 essentially weak) thought will disappear ; "yet it does 

 not follow that observr.nces wiU lapse which tend to keep 

 alive a consciousness of the relation in which we stand 

 to the. Unknown Cr.use, and tending to give expression 

 to the sentiment accompanying that consciousness. There 

 will remain a need for qualifying that too mat eripj r,nd 

 prosaic form of life which tends to result from absorption 

 in daily work ; r.nd there will ever be a sphere for those 

 who are able to impress their hearers with a due sense of 

 the mystery in which the origin and meaning of the 

 universe are shrouded." 



DR. W. B, CARPENTER. 



W^^^^^^ HE sudden death of Dr. W. B. Carpenter, 

 under cii-cum stances of a most painful 

 character, is one of the saddest events 

 science has had to chronicle for many 

 years. Science has also sustained a serious 

 loss. It is true that Dr. Carpenter had 

 accomplished fully the original scientific 

 re>i,ar< h wliich has made his name illustrious. It may 

 even bethel advancing years and failing strength might 

 shortly have obliged him to seek rest from the work cf 

 scientific teaching — especially by lectures — which to the 

 last he did so well. But it is almost impossible to over- 

 estimate the value of such teaching, addressed to the 

 general public, by men .such as he — veterans from the 

 campaigns of science, recognised leaders in their own 

 line, and known to be thoroughly competent to esti- 

 timate the full value of the work being done by those 

 who have more recently entered the field. If Dr. 

 Carpenter did not actually teach the more advanced 

 lessons of later writers, if he did not insist upon 

 results to which these later labours tend, he did not 

 reject either those lessons or their results. He had his 

 reasons, and in our judgment they were sound ones, for 

 caution in the exposition of views which startle and even 

 offend the minds of the unscientific — for whom during 

 his later years he chiefly laboured. As he wrote to the 

 Xewcastle Sunday Lecture Society (whose president he 

 was) only harm is likely to be done by dwelling on the 

 changes of opinion which advancing knowledge requires, 

 — the steady teaching of the truths disclosed as scien- 

 tific inquiry proceeds is all that is really required to 

 cause error to die a natural death. Another thought 

 presented in that letter indicates the tenor of Dr. 

 Carpenter's labours iu later life. The lecturer's main 

 object, he said, should be to set his hearei-s thinking,— 



