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(1) the unconscious vanity of its founders,

(2) a belief in the happiness which it procures to its believers, and

(3) the substantial advantages which society derives from it.

This would really, so far as I can judge, leave the question of the origin of religion in the mind of its founders unsolved; but this, we are told, is of little consequence, for the mere fancy of any single individual would have answered the purpose. Besides, it is asserted (p. 276) that all historical religions presuppose older religions, and are reformations rather than original intellectual creations, while the first conception of religious thought required no more than a high degree of personal energy to induce people to believe what was irrational, and to do in their primitive sacrifices what was absurd. Here, again, however, the question why any single individual should have invented what was so utterly irrational, remains unanswered.

Professor Gruppe's formal definition of religion I must give in his own words :

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We call religious belief a belief in a state or in a being which, properly speaking, lies outside the sphere of human striving and attainment, but can be brought into this sphere in a particular way, namely, by means of sacrificial ceremonies, prayers, penances and self-denial. It might seem possible that on the strength of such a belief an individual should simply for his own benefit invent means by which such a possibility could be realised. But in history the religious belief always meets us as a doctrine, professing to be able to produce the union with those beings,

and the attainment of that state for a large number of men. Such a doctrine we call religion.'

His definition too narrow.

You see that it would be difficult to take a lower view of religion. However, as I remarked before, everybody is at liberty to give his own dogmatic definition of religion. The only question is whether the definition given by Professor Gruppe, and eagerly adopted by those who claim the name of positivist philosophers, comprehends really all that in the history of the world has been comprehended under the name of religion. That there have been, and that possibly there are even now, human beings to whom religion is nothing but disguised selfishness, may be true; but that there have been, and that possibly there are even now, human beings willing and able to surrender their own will to a Divine Will, can hardly be doubted even by Professor Gruppe. His definition of religion is therefore at all events too narrow, and it might possibly be found to apply to religion, not in its original, but in its most depraved state; not as conceived by the founders of religion and by those who were found willing to become martyrs to their convictions, but as adopted by those who under the cloak of religion were bent on gratifying the lowest passions of human nature. On this point Professor Gruppe is not quite explicit, and we must wait for the appearance of his next volumes, before we can believe that the impression left on our mind by his first volume is really quite correct.

So far as he has gone at present, his argument seems to be this, that religion is something so irra

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tional, not to say, so absurd, that it could have been invented once and once only in the whole history of mankind. He denies altogether that religion is a general characteristic of man, and that there is any excuse for it either in human nature or in its surroundings. Once, or possibly twice only, he maintains, did such a paradox as religion enter into the heart of man. All similarities therefore which have been discovered between religions are ascribed by Professor Gruppe to an historical transmission, which began probably not much earlier than the seventh century B. C. We are not told as yet where and when this monstrous birth took place, but everything seems to point to Phoenicia, or possibly to India (1. c., p. 499). We are given to understand in several places that the Nile has borrowed from the Ganges, not the Ganges from the Nile (pp. 499, 502, 507). The greater antiquity of the Egyptian literature is questioned again and again, and in Babylon also no trustworthy dates are admitted before the seventh century (p. 345). That missionaries could have travelled to Greece, Italy, and Central Europe from the South is said to be proved by discoveries of articles dropped on their journeys by early commercial caravans. That Eastern Asia, China, and Japan could have been reached by early missionaries from India, is said to be proved by the success of Buddhist missionaries at a later time; and that from Eastern Asia the transit to America was not altogether impossible is now admitted, we are told, by the most competent authorities. Again, we are reminded that the Mohammedan religion found its way in later times from Eastern Asia to Australia, on one side, and to

Madagascar and Africa on the other, so that there really was no physical impediment that could have prevented the spread of the earliest religion in the same directions. Even Northern Asia, we are told, was in later times touched by Persian influences, and might therefore have been reached by the emissaries of those who had made the first discovery of religion. At all events, no difficulties in the historical spreading of this religion, when once discovered, could compare, according to Professor Gruppe, with the difficulty of accounting for the discovery of something so opposed to all the laws of thought as religion. One man, he thinks, in the whole history of the world, may have committed that logical suicide (p. 277), possibly two, if America could not have been reached from China, but certainly no more.

This is Professor Gruppe's theory, which sounds almost incredible in the nineteenth century after Christ, but which is put forward and defended with so much earnestness and so much learning that it requires and deserves a careful answer. When philosophers had proved, or imagined they had proved, that religion in some form or other was inevitable, and inseparable from human nature, to be told that religion would never have arisen but for the chance discovery of one single individual-and he a foolis startling. When archaeologists had proved, or imagined they had proved, that the images of Egyptian deities went back to 4000 B.C. and that some of the statues of Babylon could not be much more modern 1, to be told that in Babylon everything before the seventh century is nothing but constructive

1 Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 33.

chronology, and that in Egypt all dates before 1000 B. C. are uncertain, was enough to rouse considerable indignation. Still one cannot help respecting the opinions of a man, who, besides being a classical scholar, has made himself master of Hebrew, and has not shrunk from studying Sanskrit, Zend, Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform Inscriptions, before he ventured on his dangerous voyage of discovery. In spite of all drawbacks, I can strongly recommend his book as containing most useful information. I myself feel most grateful for it, for I am convinced that if my own system can resist so powerful and well delivered an attack as Professor Gruppe's, it need fear no serious danger in future.

There is another advantage to be derived from the study of Professor Gruppe's work. If other writers tell us the best that can be said of religion, he tells us the worst. Most writers who are honest enough to point out the weak points of religion, and who do not shut their eyes to the infinite mischief that has been wrought in its name, always plead for its purification and reformation, not for its total abolition. They see the rubbish, but they also see the grains of gold even in the most degraded forms of religion. Not so Professor Gruppe. Looking on all religion as an outrage on human reason, he hopes that the time. may come when religion will have clean vanished from the earth, and when the world will have become so perfect that no more perfect world could be imagined or desired. It is well that we should see ourselves as we are seen by others, and no one certainly has enabled us to do that better than Professor Gruppe.

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