Men, Women, and Gods Part 17

"The success of Islam was great. Not one hundred years after the death of the prophet, it had converted half the then known world, and its green flag waved from China to Spain. Christianity gave way before it, and has never regained some of the ground then lost, while at this day we see Islam making marked progress in Africa and elsewhere. Travelers tell us that the gain is great when a tribe casts away its idols and embraces Islam. Filth and drunkenness flee away, and the state of the people is bettered in a high degree."

"Muslims have not treated Christ as we have treated Mohammed, for the devout among them never utter his name without adding the touching words, 'on whom be peace.'"

"Mohammed counseled men to live a good life, and to strive after the mercy of G.o.d by fasting, charity, and prayer, which he called 'the key of paradise.'"

"He abolished the frightful practice of killing female children, and made the family tie more respected."

He said: "_A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he has done in this world to his fellow-men_. When he dies, people will ask, What property has he left behind him? But the angels will ask, What good deeds has he sent before him?" [Which is a doctrine wholesome and just, so for as it applies to this world, and inculcates the right sort of morals.]

"Mohammed commanded his followers to make no image of any living thing, to show mercy to the weak and orphaned, and kindness to brutes; to abstain from gambling, and the use of strong drink.

"The great truth which he strove to make real to them was that G.o.d is one, that, as the Koran says, 'they surely are infidels who say that G.o.d is the third of three, for there is no G.o.d but one G.o.d.'"

He was the great original Unitarian.

"I should add that the wars of Islam did not leave waste and ruin in their path, but that the Arabs, when they came to Europe, alone held aloft the light of learning, and in the once famous schools of Spain, taught 'philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and the golden art of song.'"

We cannot speak so well of the "holy wars" of Christianity.

In speaking of the men who wrote our Bible, Clodd says: "Nor is it easy to find in what they have said truths which, in one form or another, have not been stated by the writers of some of the sacred books into which we have dipped."

I have quoted more fully than had been my intention simply to show the egotistic ignorance of the Christian's claim to possess a religion or a Bible which differs, in any material regard, from several others which are older, and to indicate that moral ideas, precepts, and practices are the property of no special people, but are the inevitable result of continued life itself, and the evolution of civilizations however different in outward form and expression. They are the necessary results of human companions.h.i.+p and necessities, and not the fruits of any religion or the "revelation" from on high to any people. As William Kingdon Clifford, F. R. S., in his work on the "Scientific Basis of Morals," very justly says:

"There is more than one moral sense, and what I feel to be right another man may feel to be wrong.

"In just the same way our question about the best conscience will resolve itself into a question about the purpose or function of the conscience--why we have got it, and what it is good for.

"Now to my mind the simplest and clearest and most profound philosophy that was ever written upon this subject is to be found in the 2d and 3d chapters of Mr. Darwin's 'Descent of Man.' In these chapters it appears that just as most physical characteristics of organisms have been evolved and preserved because they were useful to the individual in the struggle for existence against other individuals and other species, so this particular feeling has been evolved and preserved because it is useful to the tribe or community in the struggle for existence against other tribes, and against the environment as a whole. The function of conscience is the preservation of the tribe as a tribe. And we shall rightly train our consciences if we learn to approve these actions which tend to the advantage of the community.

"The virtue of purity, for example, attains in this way a fairly exact definition: purity in a man is that course of conduct which makes him to be a good husband and father, in a woman that which makes her to be a good wife and mother, or which helps other people so to prepare and keep themselves. It is easy to see how many false ideas and pernicious precepts are swept away by even so simple a definition as that."

In urging the necessity of a more substantial basis of morals than one built upon a theory of arbitrary dictation, he says: "The wors.h.i.+p of a deity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to any portion of the community is a wrong thing, however great may be the threats and promises by which it is commended. And still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, the diversion of the allegiance of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most insidious and fatal of social diseases.... If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. _But I cannot help doing this great wrong toward Man, that I make myself credulous_. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.

"The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me.

Men speak the truth to one another when each reveres the truth in his own mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend revere the truth in my mind when I myself am careless about it, when I believe things because I want to believe them, and because they are comforting and pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, 'Peace,' to me, when there is no peace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have made my neighbors ready to deceive. The credulous man is father to the liar....

"We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to; and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. But a greater and wider evil arises when the _credulous character_ is maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent....

"The fact that believers have found joy and peace in believing gives us the right to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and pleasant to the soul; but it does not give us the right to say that it is true....

"And the question which our conscience is always asking about that which we are tempted to believe is not, 'Is it comfortable and pleasant?' but, 'Is it true?'"

The sooner moral actions and the necessity of clean, helpful, and charitable living are put upon a basis more solid and permanent than theology the better will it be for civilization; and if this chapter shall, by its light style, attract the attention of those who are too busy, or are disinclined for any reason whatsoever, to collect from more profound works the facts here given, I shall be satisfied with the result, because I shall have done something toward the triumph of fact over fiction.

We cannot repeat too often nor emphasize too strongly this one simple fact, that we need all our energy and time to make _this_ world fit to live in; to make _homes_ where mothers are happy and children are glad--homes where fathers hasten when their work is done, and are welcomed with a shout of joy.

The toilers who wend up the hillside, The toilers below in the mill Alike are the victims of priestcraft, They "do but the _Master's_ will."

The _Master's_ will! ah the cunning, The bitterly cruel device, To wring from the lowly and burdened Submission at any price!

Submission to tyrants in Russia-- Submission to tyrants in Rome; The throne and the altar have ever Combined to despoil the home,

But the home is the heaven to live for, And Love is the G.o.d sublime Who paints in tints of glory, Upon the wings of Time

This legend, grand and simple, And true as eternal Right-- "No Justice e'er came from Jury, Whose verdict was based on might!"

As high above earth as is heaven; As high as the stars above The Church, the chapel, the altar; Is the home whose G.o.d is Love.

APPENDIX

Appendix A.

1. "For a species increases or decreases in numbers, widens or contracts its habitat, migrates or remains stationary, _continues an old mode of life or falls into a new one_, under the combined influence of its intrinsic nature _and the environing_ actions, inorganic and organic.

"Beginning with the extrinsic factors, we see that from the outset several kinds of them are variously operative. They need but barely ennumerating. We have climate, hot, cold, or temperate, moist or dry, constant or variable. We have surface, much or little of which is available, and the available part of which is fertile in greater or less degree; and we have configuration of surface, as uniform or multiform.... _On these sets of conditions, inorganic and organic, characterizing the environment, primarily depends the possibility of social evolution_."--Spencer, "Principles of Sociology," vol. 1, p. 10.

2. "These considerations clearly prove that of the _two primary causes of civilization, the fertility of the soil_ is the one which in the ancient world exercised most influence. But in European civilization, _the other great cause_, that is to say, _climate_, has been the most powerful.

"Owing to circ.u.mstances which I shall presently state, the only progress which is really effective depends, not upon the bounty of nature, but upon the _energy of man_. Therefore it is, that the civilization of Europe, which, in its earliest stage, was governed by _climate_, has shown a capacity of development unknown to those civilizations which were originated by _soil_."--Buckle, "History of Civilization," vol. 1, p. 36--37.*

* I wish to state here that I had never read the above from Buckle, nor had I seen anywhere a statement so like my own, at the time mine was written. I read this for the first time while reading the proofs of this chapter. So much for what may appear plagiarism.--H. H. Q,

Appendix B.

1. "Napoleon himself was indifferent to Christianity, but he saw that the clergy were friends of despotism."--Buckle.

2. "Thus it is that a careful survey of history will prove that the Reformation made the most progress not in those countries where the people were most enlightened, but in those countries where, from political causes, the clergy were least able to withstand the people."--Buckle.

3. "Christian civilization in the twentieth century of its existence, degrades its women to labor fit only for beasts of the field; harnessing them with dogs to do the most menial labors; it drags them below even this, holding their womanhood up to sale, _putting both Church and State sanction_ upon their moral death; which, in some places, as in the city of Berlin, so far recognizes the sale of women's bodies for the vilest purposes _as part of the Christian religion, that license for this life is refused until they have partaken of the Sacrament_; and demands of the '10,000 licensed women of the town' of the city of Hamburg, certificates showing that they regularly attend church and also partake of the sacrament."--Gage.

Even a lower depth than this is reached in England, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, and nearly every country of Europe, says the same writer, "a system of morality which declares 'the necessity' of woman's degradation, and annually sends tens of thousands down to a death from which society grants no resurrection."--Gage.