LECTURES AND ESS A YS 



I cannot, therefore, as so many desire, 

 look upon Faraday's religious belief as 

 the exclusive source of qualities shared 

 so conspicuously by one uninfluenced by 

 that belief. To a deeper virtue belonging 

 to human nature in its purer forms I am 

 disposed to refer the excellence of both. 



Superstition may be defined as con- 

 structive religion, which has grown incon- 

 gruous with intelligence. We may admit, 

 with Fichte, "that superstition has un- 

 questionably constrained its subjects to 

 abandon many pernicious practices and 

 to adopt many useful ones "; the real loss 

 accompanying its decay at the present 

 day has been thus clearly stated by the 

 same philosopher : " In so far as these 

 lamentations do not proceed from the 

 priests themselves whose grief at the 

 loss of their dominion over the human 

 mind we can well understand but from 

 the politicians, the whole matter resolves 

 itself into this, that government has 

 thereby become more difficult and expen- 

 sive. The judge was spared the exercise 

 of his own sagacity and penetration 

 when, by threats of relentless damnation, 

 he could compel the accused to make 

 confession. The evil spirit formerly per- 

 formed without reward services for which 

 in later times judges and policemen have 

 to be paid." 



No man ever felt the need of a high 

 and ennobling religion more thoroughly 

 than this powerful and fervid teacher, 

 who, by the way, did not escape the 

 brand of "atheist." But Fichte asserted 

 emphatically the power and sufficiency 

 of morality in its own sphere. " Let us 

 consider," he says, "the highest which 

 man can possess in the absence of 

 religion I mean pure morality. The 

 moral man obeys the law of duty in his 

 breast absolutely, because it is a law unto 

 him ; and he does whatever reveals itself 

 to him as his duty simply because it is 

 duty. Let not the impudent assertion 

 be repeated that such an obedience, 

 without regard to consequences, and 

 without desire for consequences, is in 

 itself impossible and opposed to human 

 nature." So much for Fichte. Faraday 



was equally distinct. " I have no inten- 

 tion," he says, " of substituting anything 

 for religion, but I wish to take that part 

 of human nature which is independent 

 of it. Morality, philosophy, commerce, 

 the various institutions and habits of 

 society, are independent of religion and 

 may exist without it." These were the 

 words of his youth, but they expressed 

 his latest convictions. I would add that 

 the muse of Tennyson never reached a 

 higher strain than when it embodied the 

 sentiment of duty in JEnone : 



"And, because right is right, to follow right 

 Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence." 



Not in the way assumed by our dog- 

 matic teachers has the morality of human 

 nature been built up. The power which 

 has moulded us thus far has worked 

 with stern tools upon a very rigid stuff. 

 What it has done cannot be so readily 

 undone ; and it has endowed us with 

 moral constitutions which take pleasure 

 in the noble, the beautiful, and the true, 

 just as surely as it has endowed us with 

 sentient organisms, which find aloes 

 bitter and sugar sweet. That power did 

 not work with delusions, nor will it stay 

 its hand when such are removed. Facts, 

 rather than dogmas, have been its 

 ministers hunger and thirst, heat and 

 cold, pleasure and pain, fervour, sym- 

 pathyj aspiration, shame, pride, love, 

 hate, terror, awe such were the forces 

 whose interaction and adjustment through- 

 out an immeasurable past wove the triplex 

 web of man's physical, intellectual, and 

 moral nature, and such are the forces 

 that will be effectual to the end. 



You may retort that even on my own 

 showing " the power which makes for 

 righteousness " has dealt in delusions ; 

 for it cannot be denied that the beliefs 

 of religion, including the dogmas of 

 theology and the freedom of the will, 

 have had some effect in moulding the 

 moral world. Granted ; but I do not 

 think that this goes to the root of the 

 matter. Are you quite sure that those 

 beliefs and dogmas are primary, and not 

 derived ? that they are not the products, 



