To make this clear by farther explanation: In the first place, there stand opposite to each other in Society the opulent and cultivated Citizen-class, and the Privileged Classes. Among the former, it is Bad Manners, either, on the one hand, to set too high a value on the distinctions of. the latter, and, going beyond those ordinary conventional forms of respect which every reasonable man concedes, to put on a slavish, submissive, and cringing behaviour to- wards the Privileged Classes; or, on the other hand, enviously to grudge them the distinctions which they enjoy, to indulge in bitterness of expression towards them, and to represent these distinctions in false and hateful colours, either from real antipathy, or from want of mature reflection. These forms of Bad Manners on the one part, naturally produce other forms of Bad Manners on the other; either by the Privileged Classes not spurning the unseemly homage with fitting indig- nation, but satisfying themselves with holding in little coe LECTURE XV. * esteem those who by their own conduct invite contempt; or by strictly repulsing every approaeh of the other Class, and carefully shutting themselves up from such contact in a system of narrow exelusiveness.
How shall these two estranged Classes of the same State now peacefully reunite and liarmonize in one and the same system of Good Manners? The most advantageous means of attaining that end would be, that they should be bound together by Knowledge; and indeed that the Citizen-class should first find themselves in possession of this Knowledge, and that the communieation of it should proceed from them. Were it at first to be an aequisition: of the Privileged Classes, it might be feared that they would seek to retain exclusive possession of it, and so appropriate, in addition to the aeeidental distinctions of fortune, the far more important superiority of true worth. Of the Citizen, educated by the light of true Knowledge, it may be expected that he will rightly understand and appreciate the real meaning and value of these dis- tinetions of the Privileged Classes,—perehance as we have set these forth in our preeeding lecture,—and just upon. that aceount will be as far from over-estimating as from grudging them. The Educated Man of the Privileged Classes, would aequire a new, peculiar, and personal value, which would powerfully dispose him to open his eyes to the light which true Knowledge throws upon his fortuitous and hereditary Privileges. To both, the distinetions which exist between them in matters of small moment would readily disappear before their Equality in those higher. Privileges upon whieh they set supreme value.
Both Classes, now united by this tie, still stand opposed in society to the great mass of the People who are engaged in mechanical and manual labour, and who on that aeeount are almost universally without that perfect in- struction of which they stand in need. ‘This large Class feels the oppression of its daily toil; it sees that the PUBLIC MORALITY OF THE PRESENT AGE. 253 Higher Classes in their copious and comfortable enjoy- ment of life do not participate in its mechanical labours: ——but how these have also their labours and toils in other spheres, how they are useful and necessary for the general welfare, and even indispensable for the People themselves; and in particular, what important advantages are secured to the community by its own labour;—all this it does not know, and cannot comprehend. Under these circum- stances it cannot be but that Bad Manners should become a second nature to the Lower Classes, prompting them to regard the Higher Classes as oppressors who live upon their toil, and to look upon every proposition which comes to them from that quarter as an attempt to gain some new advantage overthem. There is no other way by which these Lower Classes may be assisted, or their Bad Manners im- proved, except by their attaining a living conviction that they are not made subservient to the arbitrary will of an individual, but to the Community as a Whole; and even this only in so far as that Whole needs their services; and that all their Fellow-Citizens, without exception, to whatever Class they belong, stand in the same position: —but, in order that they may arrive at this conviction, it is necessary that this should actually be the case; for it is in vain to indulge the hope of deceiving the Lower Classes in matters which affect their interests. Hence either Equality of Rights must be actually introduced; or else the Privileged Classes must constantly, publicly, and before the eyes of all men, act as if this Equality were introduced. This condition of things must be brought distinctly under the notice of the Lower Classes, and be made evident to them by their Teachers, who are the mediators between them and the Higher Classes, and who ought to be well acquainted with their language and ways of thinking;—in one word, the People ought to receive instruction, and indeed fundamental, solid, and convincing instruction, not in Religion only, but also regarding the State, its purposes and its laws.
254 LECTURE XV.
To make my views clear by a distinct example: The great proprietor must be able thus to speak to his depend- ants, or to enable their Teachers thus to speak for him, and that with truth, calling to witness the daily testimony of their own eyes:—‘ Although I possess as much as hundreds or perhaps thousands of you do together, yet I cannot, on that account, either eat, drink, or sleep, for a hundred or a thousand. The undertakings in which you see me daily engage; the experiments on a great scale with new methods of husbandry; the introduction, from distant lands, of new and nobler races of animals, new plants, new seeds; the study of their proper treat- ment which, being hitherto unknown, has now to be patiently sought out;—these demand great immediate outlay, and the means of defraying the loss consequent upon possible failure. You cannot afford to do this, and hence it is not required of you: but that wherein J am successful you may learn from me, and imitate; what proves unsuccessful you may avoid, for I have already encountered the risk for you. From my herds there will gradually extend to yours those nobler races of ani- mals already domesticated with me; from my fields there will be propagated to yours those more profitable fruits already inured to the climate, with the art of their cul- tivation already acquired and tested at my expense. It is true that my granaries are plentifully filled with stores of every kind; but to whom among you who stood in need of aid have they ever been closed?—who among you all has ever been in difficulty and I have not succoured him? What you do not require shall, at the first signal given by the State, flow forth freely to any province of our Father- land that may feel the iron hand of want. Grudge me not the gold which I receive;—it shall be so expended as I have hitherto expended, before your eyes, all that ever I had; there shall not be, with my will, a single farthing of it applied without some gain to the cause of Human Culture.
PUBLIC MORALITY OF THE PRESENT AGE. 255 Moreover, if the State shall require my money for the pay of its armies or the support of its provinces; or the divi- sion of my goods for the maintenance of a larger popula- tion; I shall be ready at all times to deliver them up into its hands. I promise you, you shall not see me shrink from my duty. Should the State not require this sacri- fice at my hands, and should I leave my possessions to my children; then I have educated them so that they shall use these possessions as I have used them, and shall teach their successors to act as I have acted, even to the end of time’ Such is public and universal Good Manners. How far such Manners have attained dominion in our own Age, in those countries where the State and its Citizens have at- tained the highest point of Culture, in comparison with earlier Ages; in what respects the Age is yet defective, and how our Race must next proceed forward to higher attainments;-—this I leave to the judgment of those among you who have opportunities of making observations upon this matter, and I do 80 the more readily that I myself have not possessed such opportunities, particularly as regards the relation of the Cultivated Classes to the People, for a long series of years,—and in certain countries have never possessed them at all. I had nothing more to do than to set forth in general the principles upon which such a judg- ment ought to proceed. Briefly to recount these once more:—Herein consists the true vocation and worth of Man,—that he, with all he is, has, and can do, should de- vote himself to the service of the Race;—and since, and in so far as, the State determines the form and mode of the service which this Race does actually need, that he should devote himself to the service of the State. In what mode, chosen by himself, or assigned to him by the State, each man may do this, is of little moment, but only that he do it: and each one is to be honoured not accor- ding to the mode in which he performs this service, but 256 LECTURE XV.
256 LECTURE XV.
according to the extent to which he performs it in the mode assigned to him. Even he who may not have per- formed it at all, or may have performed it most imper- fectly, is yet to be respected at least as one who ought to perform it, who can perform it, and who perhaps one day will perform it; and he is to be treated according to this view. So also no one can lay claim to the honour and respect of others upon any other ground than this, and no pretension can justly be made to any value or influence with others, save only in this respect. Thus would the influence of the distinction of Classes in Society upon the conduct of those Classes towards each other be wholly ex- tinguished, and all the Citizens of the State, and at last the whole Human Race, be united in equal and recipro- cal esteem, and in a mode of conduct founded upon this esteem; because such conduct would spring from a com- mon source in which all partake in the same manner and in the same degree, ( 287 ) LECTURE XVI.
PUBLIC RELIGION OF THE PRESENT AGE.
ACCORDING to the plan which we laid down in an early part of these lectures, we have to-day to set forth the principles whereon this question may be answered:—‘At what point of development does the Present Age stand with reference to Public and General Religion?’
We have already, for a considerable time, regarded the True Religion, or Christianity,which two expressions we avowedly hold to be synonymous,—as the peculiar and ultimate ground of all the phenomena by which our Age is characterized; and, in this view, the whole character of the Age is nothing else than this its ascertained standing- point in respect of Religion, The question which we have proposed has therefore either been already answered by all which we have previously said; or if it has not been so answered, and still demands a special solution, then we must here use the word Religion in a sense different from that in which we have hitherto employed it, The latter is the case:—Hitherto we have regarded the True Religion as the concealed principle of phenomena; to-day we have to speak of it, not in this sense, but as itself an independent and substantial existence. Hitherto having represented it as the principle of phenomena, we have, on that very account, also represented it as an unka 258 LECTURE XVI.
conscious principle, and in this connexion we have called by the name of Religion, not that which men put forth in public professions, but that which has become their very inmost Life,—the root and spring of all their speech and action. To-day we have to consider this Religion as it reveals itself in clear consciousness; for the independent existence of Religion is no outward matter, and reveals itself in no outward manner, but is an inward conscious- ness, and indeed a wholly self-sufficing and self-compre- hending consciousness, In this sense the word Religion is also employed in the common judgment which the Age passes upon itself with reference to its religious condition,—in the well-known and almost universal lamentations over the decay of Religion, especially among the people. It might well be imagined that the mere existence of such lamentations was itself a refutation of the complaint,—for do not the complainers, in the very act of lamentation, manifest their respect and love for Religion?—were it not that their complaints are accompanied by certain suspicious assumptions, from which it appears to follow that it is not their own Irreligion which they deplore, and that it is not for themselves, but for others, and especially for the people, that they desire a revival of Religion: behind which desire there may per- haps lurk some interested purpose. Be this as it may, let us examine these complaints, and with this examina- tion carry forward our own inquiry.
Without anticipating the results of your own obser- vation, we may lay it down as certain, that whatever necessarily follows in regard to Public Religion from the principles of the Age will unquestionably be found truly represented and manifest in the phenomena of the time. Now, we have shown in passing, in our previous lecture, that the principles from which the Public Religion of an Age proceeds, are to be found in the Scientific, and particularly in the Philosophical character of the pre- PUBLIC RELIGION OF THE PRESENT AGE. 259 ceding Age. In the schools of Philosophy and Science, the popular teacher, the popular author, and the public opinion of the cultivated classes, are formed, and through these channels the influences of the schools spread them- selves abroad, by teaching and example, among the People. The Philosophico-scientific character of the Third Age has been already set forth at the commencement of these lectures;—this, namely,—to accept nothing as really existing or obligatory but that which it can understand and clearly comprehend,—in which the Age is right; and further,—to connect therewith mere empirical and sensuous Haperience as its sole measure of the Comprehensible,—in which the Age is wrong. It is quite clear, that by means of the pre- valence of these principles everything mysterious and incomprehensible must be banished from Religion; and —since the fear of God, as well as the means of propiti- ating him, are founded on the Incomprehensibility and Unsearchableness of the Divine Counsels, and we can therefore be made acquainted with these means only by direct Revelation,—that everything awful in Religion, as well as blind faith and unquestioning obedience in its concerns, inust wholly disappear. An Age, therefore, which is formed upon those principles, and thoroughly pene- trated by them, will no longer be moved by the fear of God, nor employ any ostensible and pretentious means of propitiating him.
But is this fear of God, and these efforts to propitiate him by means of mysterious devices,—are these Religion and Christianity? By no means:—-they are Super- stitions, remnants of.Heathenism which have mixed themselves up with Christianity, and have not yet been wholly thrust out from it;—and these remnants are wholly destroyed by the Philosophy of the Age wherever it has free play. Along with them True Christianity itself is, not indeed destroyed,—for except in individuals it has never yet attained a public and recognised exis- 260 LECTURE XVI.
tence,—but the Age is thereby rendered incapable of comprehending True Christianity or of introducing it into the world.
Does any one lament this downfall of Superstition as the decay of Religion?—then he violates the true useof language, and laments over that in which he ought to rejoice, and which is indeed a brilliant proof of the advancement of our Age. On what account, then, are these lamentations made? Since the thing which has fallen has nothing in itself to recommend it, it must be only the outward conse- quences of its fall that are deplored. In so far as these lamentations do not proceed from the priests themselves,— (in this connexion we may call them priests without fear of misapprehension),—whose grief at the loss of their dominion over the minds of men we can well understand,— but from the politicians, then they may be resolved into this, that Government has thereby become more difficult and expensive. The fear of the Gods was an excellent resource for an imperfect Government; it was a convenient thing to watch the doings of the subjects through the eyes of the Divinity, where the Government either could not or would not exercise this surveillance itself; the Judge was spared the exercise of his own sagacity and penetration, when, by threats of relentless damnation, he could induce the accused to communicate to him willingly the information he desired to possess; and the Evil Spirit performed, without reward, the services for which, at later times, Judges and Police had to be paid.
To declare frankly what we clearly perceive to be true, let us here say that, even if the maintenance of such a method of facilitating Government were allowable, which it is not, yet this increase of the burden of Government is no evil, but a precious good in which Humanity at large must sooner or later become partaker.. Government itself is an Art founded on the laws of Reason, which ought not to be prosecuted at random, but must, on the contrary, PUBLIC RELIGION OF THE PRESENT AGE, 261 be rightly and fundamentally studied;—but to this fun- damental study we are only impelled by necessity, and only at a time when Government can no longer be carried on by superficiality.
Thus the philosophical and scientific sense of the Age overthrows Superstition when it is thoroughly recognised and understood; but cannot as yet establish True Reli- gion in its place in distinct Consciousness. Hence in such an Age, there is no longer to be found any clear and distinct conception of a Super-sensual world, either true or false.
Suppose then that such is actually the case,—that these inferences are confirmed by observation, which here again I leave to yourselves to follow out,—would it necessarily fol- low, because the Super-sensual is nowhere clearly compre- hended, that the indistinct feeling of the Infinite, and the struggling and striving after its attainment no longer exist; in one word, that with Religion itself, the sense of Religion, or Religious Feeling, has likewise disappeared? By no means. It may be laid down as an incontestable principle, that where even Virtue and Good Manners still prevail,—philanthropy, the charities of social life, sympathy, benevolence, domestic order, the faithful and self-saenficing attachment of husband and wife, parents and children,—there Religion still exists whether re- cognised or not; and there the capacity still exists for its attaining a full and conscious being. Such a people can indeed no longer entertain those Superstitions whose empire has passed away; but let the attempt be made to awaken in them clear and true Ideas of Religion, and it will soon be seen that they will be moved by these as by nothing else. And has not this, in fact, occasionally occurred in Modern ‘Times?—and has it not been remarked upon such occasions that men of all Classes, who seemed to be dead to every other spiritual influence, have been attracted and aroused by this? Very far, therefore, from 262 LECTURE XVI.
joining in the lamentations over the decay of Religion in our Age, I hold this rather to be the character of the Age, —that it would be more ready than any other to receive and appreciate True Religion when presented to it. The empty and ineffectual babble of Free-thinking has had time enough to utter itself in all possible ways;—it has uttered itself and we have listened to it;—and on this side there is nothing new and nothing better to be said than what has been said already. Weare weary of it; we feel its empti- ness and its perfect nothingness with reference to that Feel- ing of the Eternal which can never be wholly uprooted from our souls, This Feeling remains, and urgently demands its rightful exercise. A more manly Philosophy has since then attempted to silence this Feeling by asserting the claims of another,—that of Absolute Morality,—under the name of the Categorical Imperative. Many power- ful minds have accepted this principle, and rested satisfied with it: but this can endure only for a time, for pre- cisely on account of a kindred feeling being cultivated does that which is unsatisfied feel more strongly the want of its satisfaction. Let Truth at last present itself to such a mind;—then, just because it has been inactive, and has already passed through so many errors, will it the more keenly discern and the more cordially accept the Truth which is now offered to its view. That such Truth will one day present itself to the public mind we may securely predict; for it is already prepared in the secret workshops of Philosophy although still in the obscurity of formula,— and already exists in the primitive records of Christianity although as yet not understood. How, and by what means it shall be introduced into the world we must leave to Time, looking forward with quiet confidence, and not ex- pecting to see the harvest ready for the reaper while as yet the seed is but being sown, Wherein, then, does this True Religion consist? Perhaps I shall be able to describe it most clearly if I show what it PUBLIC RELIGION OF THE PRESENT AGEL. 263 accomplishes, and if I do this by declaring what it does not accomplish. All previous outward forms of Christianity have had the effect of bringing Mankind, and in particular Nations and States, thus far:—that they have done many things which they would otherwise have left undone, and have left undone many things which otherwise they would have done; and in particular Superstition has constrained its subjects to abandon many pernicious, and to adopt many useful, practices. In one word: these outward forms of Christianity lie at the bottom of many phenomena and events which would otherwise never have occurred. It is not so with inward True Religion; it does not come forth into the world of outward Appearance, and impels man to no outward act which he would not otherwise have done. But it completes his own internal being, makes him wholly at one with himself, and intelligible to himself, thoroughly Free and Blessed:—in one word, it perfects his dignity.
Let us consider the highest which man can possess in the absence of Religion; I mean, Pure Morality. He obeys the Law of Duty in his breast, absolutely because it is a Law unto him; and he does whatever reveals itself as his Duty, absolutely because itis Duty. But does he therein understand himself?—does he know what this Duty, to which at every moment he consecrates his whole existence, really is in itself and what is its ultimate aim? So little does he know this, that he declares loudly it ought to be so absolutely because it ought; and makes this very impos- sibility of comprehending and understanding the Law,— this absolute abstraction from the meaning of the Law, and the consequences of the deed,—a characteristic mark of genuine obedience. In the first place, let not the im- pudent assertion be here repeated, that such an obedience without regard to consequences, and without desire for consequences, is in itself impossible and opposed to Human Nature. What does the mere sensuous Egoist, 264 LECTURE XVI.
264 LECTURE XVI.
who is himself but a half man, what does he know of the power of Human Nature? That it is possible can be known only by its actual accomplishment in ourselves; and before its possibility is recognised in this way, and man has elevated himself in his own person to Pure Morality, he can have no entrance whatever into the domain of True Religion; for Religion also annexes no visible consequences to individual acts of Duty.—So much for the refutation of that portion of error which arises from the calumnious slander of Pure Morality.
Again, he who faithfully obeys the Law of Duty, as such, does not understand the ultimate aim of this Law. It is clear,—since he, notwithstanding this ignorance, maintains an unvarying and unconditional obedience; since, further, the Law of Duty, although not understood, speaks forth constantly and invariably within him,— that this want of comprehension causes no difference in his actions;—but it is another question whether such a want of comprehension is consistent with his dignity as a rational being. He does not indeed any longer follow the concealed law of the Universe nor the blind im- pulses of Nature, but a conception —and in doing so he acts, thus far, a nobler part. But this conception itself is not clear to him, and, with reference to it, he. himself is blind; his obedience therefore remains but a blind obedience;—he is led on by a nobler instinct indeed, but still with bandaged eyes. But if this posi- tion be inconsistent with the dignity of Reason, as it unquestionably is, and if there lie in Reason itself a power and therefore an impulse to penetrate to the meaning of the Law of Duty, then will this impulse be a source of constant disturbance and dissatisfaction to him, and if he still continue to hold by blind obedience, he will have no other course than to harden himself against this secret desire. However perfect may be his conduct,— that is, his outward and apparent existence,—there is still PUBLIC RELIGION OF THE PRESENT AGE. 265 at the root of his inward being, discord, obscurity, and bondage, and therefore a want of absolute dignity. Such is tle position even of the purely Moral Man, when regard- ed by the light of Religion. How displeasing, then, as seen by this light, must be the condition of him who has not even attained to True Morality, but as yet only follows the impulses of Nature. He too is guided by the Eternal Law of the Universe; but to him it neither speaks in his own language nor honours him with speech at all, but leads him on with dumb compulsivn as it does the plant or the animal; employs him like an un- reasoning thing, without consulting his own Will in aught, and in a region where mere mechanism is the only moving power.
Religion discloses to Man the significance of the one Eternal Law which, as the Law of Duty, guides the free and noble, and, as the Law of Nature, governs ignoble instruments. The Religious Man comprehends this Law, and feels it living within himself, as the Law of the Eternal development of the One Life. How eacli indi- vidual moment of our Earthly Life is comprehended in that Eternal development of the one original Divine Life ‘he cannot indeed understand, because the Infinite has no Jimit and therefore can never be embraced by him; but that every one of these moments does absolutely lie contained within this development of the One Life he can directly perceive and clearly recognise. What was the Law of Duty to the Moral Man, is to him the inward movement of the One Life directly revealed as Life; what is the Law of Nature to others is to him the unfolding of the outward and apparently dead sub- stratum of that One Life.
This one clearly recognised Life now becomes thoroughly established in the Religious Man, reposing upon itself, suffi- cient for itself, and blessed in itself;—dwelling there with unspeakable Love; with inconceivable rapture bathing his la 266 LECTURE XVI whole being in the original fountain of all Life, and flow- ing forth with him, and inseparable from him,in one eternal stream. What the Moral Man calls Duty and Law,—what is this to him? The most spiritual bloom of Life,—his element in which alone he can breathe. He wills and can do nothing else than this;—all else is to him misery and death. ‘To him the commanding “ Thou shalt” comes too late; before it can command he has already resolved, and cannot resolve otherwise. As all external Law vanishes before Morality, so before Religion the internal Law also disappears; the Lawgiver in our breast is silent, for Will, Desire, Love, and Blessedness, have already superseded the Law. The Moral Man often finds it difficult to perform his Duty; the sacrifice of his deepest desires and his most cherished feelings is demanded of him. He performs it notwithstanding:-—it must be done; he subdues his feel- ings, and stifles his agony. The question, Wherefore is there need of this suffering, and whence arises this struggle between the desires which have been implanted in him and the commands of a Law from which he cannot escape?—this question he dares not permit him- self to entertain; he must offer himself up with mute and blind obedience, for only under the condition of such obedience is the offering genuine. For the Religious Man this question has been once and for ever solved. That which thus strives against our Will, and which is so unwilling to die, is imperfect Life; which, even be- cause it is Life, struggles for continued existence, but must cease to be as soon as its place is occupied by a higher and nobler Life. ‘Those desires which I must sacrifice, thinks the Religious Man, ‘are not my desires; they are desires which are directed against me and my higher existence; they are my foes which cannot be de- stroyed too soon, The pain which they cause is not my pain, but the pain of a nature which has conspired against me; it is not the agonies of death, but the pangs of a PUBLIC RELIGION OF THE PRESENT AGE. 267 new birth which will be glorious beyond all my ex- pectations,’ It would be unworthy of our picture of Religion were we still specially to repeat and insist that to it there is no longer anything displeasing and deformed in the world, but that all things there, without exception, are to it a source of the purest Blesseduess. Whatever ex- ists, as it exists and because it exists, labours in the service of the Eternal Life, and in the system of this development so it must be. To desire, wish, or love anything otherwise than as it is, would be either to desire no Life at all, or else to desire Life in a less perfect manifestation.